To continue briefly this off thread detour, my favorate Churchill exchange (at a sit down dinner with lady seated beside him):
C. "My God you are ugly!"
L. "And you Sir are drunk."
C. "Yes, but in the morning I will be sober."
Probably never happen, but if not too bad.
Not necessarily a detour.
Think about it.
If it were Sciforums;
Churchill would have been slapped with a warning at his first sally, the lady would likely have reported rather than retorted, and Churchill would have been banned for a few days after his final rejoinder... and may not ever have had the opportunity to make it.
You see, it is, albeit humorous to some of us, merely three simple insults, and therefore outside sciforums rules.
Imagine, if you will, how long one might have had to sit in Parliament, and what one might have had to endure, prior to his quoted exchange between Gladstone and Disraeli taking place (all speculation as to whether or not it did, or between who, aside).
This is what Tiassa fails to appreciate - banter of this calibre can only exist in an unfettered environment. He claims to want insults to be at least witty and clever, but doesn't seem to understand that you can not legislate toward that goal.
Would I agree with the assessment that such banter is far superior to the usual? Of course. Without reservation.
Where he and I differ (at least, in this respect) is in that I do not believe a more restricted environment is going to produce it. Quite the contrary - the majority of your more "interesting" characters will up and leave rather than mining hours for gold... or be forced to, if their form of humour doesn't sit well with the moderation.
Galt, btw, is quite right - he was persecuted in that regard and his use of Obama's middle name should have attracted no more attention than "Dubya" ever did, Tiassa's "hairspltting" justification of the mod's actions aside. Regardless of Bush's campaign precedent, I very much doubt he would have liked to be called "Dubya" in quite the manner Tiassa or his cohorts used the appellation. I can not recall a single instance in which a poster was ever reprimanded for using "Dubya" in a derogatory sense... and have no doubt it often was. By Tiassa himself, if memory serves.
It all comes down to perspective, doesn't it?
You see - the mods appear to have fastened to the notion that eliminating certain words or insults, or to ensure everything is so politically correct as to not offend anyone at all is somehow going to "clean up" the overall quality of posts. I doubt that very much. The intention is to eliminate those members who only post in such a manner and to clear up the overall "quality" of posting.
But you aren't going to rid sciforums of the unintelligent by moderating their words.
The root cause of the current deterioration of sciforums is constant banality, boredom and those members to whom a "discussion" is merely a chance to grandstand once more on topics already done to death.
You won't eliminate the bigotry of those like SAM with this action. You will probably lose those like Baron Max through boredom or eventual banning.
The bigoted hypocrites will remain, because they post in such a manner as to disguise themselves to all but the observant. The interesting who may offer a counterpoint to this often do so in such a manner as to offend; on some occasions out of pure frustration - and on others, due to a sense of humour which is not deemed appropriate.
And yet, at the end of the day, which has more value? That decision appears to have been made.
Lucy's points regarding "good faith" are quite valid. In the end, all I can see happening is that those who offer little in the way of "intelligence" but are generally well liked are going to remain; and those who offer something outside the mundane will be forced, by one means or another, to leave in search of something else. It will all come down, in the end, to those who are in moderation - and the letter of the law, rather than the spirit in which it was conceived.
