Group Coerced Censorship

Question. Why does everything have to remain civil? I'm not trying to be an ass, but I think sometimes people just want to fight it out. It's just a message board, and the thread was in the parking lot. Why not let them go at it?

Because I don't feel like wasting our bandwidth on idiots and it doesn't make for an inviting environment for potential new members.

If people want to duke it out on the internet they can do it by email or IM, just don't waste my time with your stupidity basically.

I don't want to try to speak for Matty, but I think he might be saying that
Falwell used religion and his 'moral authority' to hide his messages of hate.
The guy said that homosexuals and feminists were, at least partially, responsible for 9/11. He said that the Antichrist was "obviously a Jewish male." And he pushed for racial segregation during the Civil Rights Movement.
These are just a few examples of what he did in life that lead me to believe he wasn't as great of a Christan as he wanted to be.

That doesn't sound like a very moral person to me.

I really have not paid much attention to him, over the years, but I have to say OUCH to that. It does not sound to moral to me either.
I KNEW Howard Stern was the anti-christ!

Because I don't feel like wasting our bandwidth on idiots and it doesn't make for an inviting environment for potential new members.

If people want to duke it out on the internet they can do it by email or IM, just don't waste my time with your stupidity basically.

You could create a "No holds barred" forum as a test site?
But it IS your site

Don't you think that when you start preemptively closing threads that can get you into trouble?

I think it's rare that we close down threads quickly. Generally, the only threads we'll put the clamps on quickly are duplicate threads or spam.

In this case I think it was a good call. Of course it's always a judgement call, but generally speaking I don't think we make a habit of closing threads down quickly.

You could create a "No holds barred" forum as a test site?
But it IS your site

Again, why should we waste our server on idiots who want to have flame wars?? This is a forum for discussion, not flame wars.

Let's just remember that Parking Lot doesn't mean the forum rules don't apply. The same rules apply throughout the site.

That thread was going nowhere except to argue about if you can say something uncalled for towards a person who has passed away. Personally, I don't give a crap about Falwell's death but in no way was it worth server space to argue whether or not he should or shouldn't be bashed, IMO.

Again, why should we waste our server on idiots who want to have flame wars?? This is a forum for discussion, not flame wars.
Just a thought

Let's just remember that Parking Lot doesn't mean the forum rules don't apply. The same rules apply throughout the site.

I get that. But where were the forum rules broken in that thread? I just read through it and at no time did anybody call another site member a name. SBF and Daseal expressed strong opinions but were both very respectful of one another.

The last thing you could call that thread was a "flame war."

A discussion was shut down in anticipation of a flame war, which tells me the mods thought the membership was incapable of handling themselves maturely.

I get that you want to grow the site membership, but if you're going to stifle discussions you might want to be mindful of maintaining your baseline membership. After shutting down one thread, I think everyone will get over it. But I don't think that should become a theme, or you could find the existnig membership thinning out.

I get that. But where were the forum rules broken in that thread? I just read through it and at no time did anybody call another site member a name. SBF and Daseal expressed strong opinions but were both very respectful of one another.

From this post http://www.thewarpath.net/310500-post21.html and talking about it being "off to the side in the parking lot" I thought maybe you and others didn't get that