25F... I've been contemplating posting something similar for a few months now – but I’ve held myself back because of the number of times people have raised the point that places like pprune don’t need to explain themselves, or even have clear rules for participants. But, like you I’ve become more confused of late as to the criteria moderators use for deciding to remove posts.
Clearly any site like pprune can set its rules as it sees fit, but that’s entirely different than not making it clear what those rules are, or what criteria are being used for moderation. As you suggest, it would be quite simple to have a process wherein moderators simply need to click a box and the poster gets a standard email or message explaining why an action was taken.
In my case, I have had several recent posts removed thought I don’t believe I wrote anything rude, or inflammatory, or otherwise not conducive to reasonable dialogue. If I knew why I was censored I would certainly use that knowledge before posting again, but, as you suggest, if we don’t know why a post was removed, how can we comply?
The most recent post removed (yesterday) was simply pointing out (on the “Russia, Ukraine, and possible unpleasantries” thread) that another poster had misunderstood a previous post about referring to Ukraine as “The” Ukraine. Poof – post gone, even though others referred to the fact that my clarification helped them understand that referring to Ukraine as “The” Ukraine is offensive to Ukrainians.
I’m an aviation professional who has worked in this wonderful, challenging, rewarding, field for more than 50 years, in more than 30 countries, and I thoroughly enjoy pprune much of the time. But sadly, I think the moderation, and the rules around that, need to be clearer and more consistent.