Yep, and for not good reasons either, imo.
Any time a post is edited or deleted, it's because it violated a rule.
Pretty much sums it up right here. PMing them back is just useless and a waste of your time. A lot of them feel that they're always 100% right about everything. They'll tell you to report it by using the link at the bottom, but nothing will happen. At the end of the day, your post was already deleted.
I can tell you from personal experience that that's simply not the case. As a moderator, I had some instances of moderation I did overturned when a member complained and the moderation was reviewed by the admins, with the input of my fellow mods. As an admin, I'm involved in dealing with complaints about moderation, and have been on the other side as well. I haven't ever seen any indication of a mod or admin speaking as if they are infallible.
There's a good atmosphere in these discussions; even when my moderation was overturned, I experienced it as a learning situation, not as the admins scolding me for 'getting it wrong'. Moderation is sometimes very difficult, so we try to err on the side of caution, and spend a LOT of time discussing across time zones.
When you use the Contact Us form (the link you're talking about), the contact is read. Every single contact is read, and if it's a complaint, it's discussed. Unless the message is total spam or clearly not meant to be serious, the contact is answered.
I guess whether or not you feel it's worth your time, depends on whether or not you get the answer you want.
The only thing is that many of them feel infallible and whenever you try to bring something up, you pretty much get blocked out from giving your opinion.
Sending a PM is useless because they refuse to believe that they might have mesed up.
Clicking "report a problem" isn't going to reverse the problem
Creating a public thread gets deleted (surprised that this one has not been, tbh)
Just my opinion. Don't get offended. I understand that the mods/admins are doing what they think is best for the overall community. Just think that the system is a tad flawed though.
Opinions are welcome, but they have to be expressed in the right forums and within the rules. As arn points out, it's fine to start a thread about appropriateness of news items in Site and Forum Feedback, but not in a news thread (because it's off-topic there).
Reporting a problem will ensure that the problem is dealt with - - IF there actually was a problem. If you report something and you don't feel anything was done, just ask us (via the Contact Form). We won't be able to give you details about moderation we did to another member, but we will be able to explain exactly why nothing was done if we decided not to moderate what you reported. You'd be surprised at the number of reports where there's actually no rules violation. I wish there were a semi-automated way to give members direct feedback when they report posts, but there isn't.
I think people are confused about what censorship means. When you sign up to be a member here, you agree to a set of rules (which you also agree to read!). Those rules outline very clearly what you can and can't do, and there are extensive FAQs that among other things explain in great detail how moderation is handled, and how you can complain about or question the rules.
tl;dr: Getting moderated because you didn't follow the rules ≠ censorship.