Darby
Epochal Historian
Folks,
If you haven't already discovered it, Raul has had to step in and take control of the "I Know What happens in 2012" thread. He deleted an offending post and locked the thread. I don't know if he's also banned anyone. For those of you who have been around here for a couple of years you should be very surprised by this. Raul rarely posts and he even more rarely takes administrative action on a thread. But when he does he generally means business.
The discourse on that thread got completely out of control. Having a good debate is what this and like forums are all about. Getting far too personal is not the purpose of a BBS. A couple of days before Raul stepped in I did post a mild caveat suggesting that we return to the original topic of the thread and time travel. I now suspect that I was a bit too subtle.
It might surprise people to know this but you do not have a right to free speech on a BBS. You are granted the privilege of free speech by the owner of the site. The First Amendment plays no part in this. The Bill of Rights is a compact between the People and their government - it is not a compact between posters and the owner of an Internet site. The thread apparently butted up against Raul's tollerance threshold, i.e. the limit of the privilege of unfettered free speech.
Assuming that all of the players still enjoy the privilege of membership here let's call a cease fire. No more screaming in ALL CAPS, no more name calling and no more posting of people's addresses, phone numbers or other information that at the time seems like a great come back but which can otherwise get someone hurt. We can see each other's IP's but there's really not much that can be derived from them. Interesting information but mostly harmless. But home address', business address', home or business phone numbers, spouses names, children's names, schools that they attend, etc. are strictly off-limits. Period. I guarantee you that there's not a soul here who would want to post my personal information on a public site...or read the information and show up at my front door. The last time that I received a PM with a death threat against my wife was a bad call on the troll's part. A very bad call. It won't happen again, at least not by that particular person.
We've had our bouts of flaming in the past. We got through it all but not before we thereafter had to deal with the jr. high and high school trolls who follow on.
Please - Cease Fire. Have fun, post your ideas, do your best to support your positions but don't get so hysterical that you toss common sense out the window.
Thanks
PS: You've probably seem CigMan and me, for example, get into it once in a while. At one time you probably also saw Peter Novak and me get into it. That's true and I admit it.
But you should also notice that we usually zing one another by firing a couple of shots across each other's bow and then disengage. What we don't do is go on for 30-40 pages of screaming at each other. CigMan, especially, has a pretty good and keen sense of humor about it all. We get into it but, like the IP's - it's mostly harmless.
If you haven't already discovered it, Raul has had to step in and take control of the "I Know What happens in 2012" thread. He deleted an offending post and locked the thread. I don't know if he's also banned anyone. For those of you who have been around here for a couple of years you should be very surprised by this. Raul rarely posts and he even more rarely takes administrative action on a thread. But when he does he generally means business.
The discourse on that thread got completely out of control. Having a good debate is what this and like forums are all about. Getting far too personal is not the purpose of a BBS. A couple of days before Raul stepped in I did post a mild caveat suggesting that we return to the original topic of the thread and time travel. I now suspect that I was a bit too subtle.
It might surprise people to know this but you do not have a right to free speech on a BBS. You are granted the privilege of free speech by the owner of the site. The First Amendment plays no part in this. The Bill of Rights is a compact between the People and their government - it is not a compact between posters and the owner of an Internet site. The thread apparently butted up against Raul's tollerance threshold, i.e. the limit of the privilege of unfettered free speech.
Assuming that all of the players still enjoy the privilege of membership here let's call a cease fire. No more screaming in ALL CAPS, no more name calling and no more posting of people's addresses, phone numbers or other information that at the time seems like a great come back but which can otherwise get someone hurt. We can see each other's IP's but there's really not much that can be derived from them. Interesting information but mostly harmless. But home address', business address', home or business phone numbers, spouses names, children's names, schools that they attend, etc. are strictly off-limits. Period. I guarantee you that there's not a soul here who would want to post my personal information on a public site...or read the information and show up at my front door. The last time that I received a PM with a death threat against my wife was a bad call on the troll's part. A very bad call. It won't happen again, at least not by that particular person.
We've had our bouts of flaming in the past. We got through it all but not before we thereafter had to deal with the jr. high and high school trolls who follow on.
Please - Cease Fire. Have fun, post your ideas, do your best to support your positions but don't get so hysterical that you toss common sense out the window.
Thanks
PS: You've probably seem CigMan and me, for example, get into it once in a while. At one time you probably also saw Peter Novak and me get into it. That's true and I admit it.
But you should also notice that we usually zing one another by firing a couple of shots across each other's bow and then disengage. What we don't do is go on for 30-40 pages of screaming at each other. CigMan, especially, has a pretty good and keen sense of humor about it all. We get into it but, like the IP's - it's mostly harmless.
