Am I right or am I wrong?

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I agree - except that I thought this forum was international rather. No bearing on the free speech bit, just my conception.
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Well said.

Free speech is pretty meaningless unless we are willing to listen. We don't have to agree, but we certainly must respect each other. I don't like some of the personal attacks that have been taking place all over these forums. Granting someone the right to speak, and turning them into a target because of what they say, is the same as not granting them the right to speak in the first place.

The diversity is what makes these forums rich. Kick back, relax, and enjoy it.

n2s
 
Uncle Bill,
You are right on!!! I'm with you all the way!!! In the 10 years I've known you you have always done the right thing without question!!! If anybody doubts that you can just....well I better not say!!!;)
 
Chris, you came to me first as a boy and have grown into a man who means more to me than you might know. A special thanks to you.
 
Uncle Bill I dont like forums in general. But you have made a very special place here where so many of different views can gather and yet feel accepted. Dont change a thing.
 
The object is to get to the top of the mountain.

The problem depends on which side you are climbing. What's the right way to go about it depends on that.

Bill thinks it's a free speech issue.

Yvsa thinks it's standing up for your brothers.

Rusty thinks it's a matter of locking up a Ted Bundy before he kills again.

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Bill emailed me and listened to my advise. I told him to do what he could live with. He chose free speech.

Yvsa went for **** after **** took after me in one thread, among other things.

I felt obligated as co-moderator to let Bill make the judgement call. I also needed three days to stop sputtering. ( I also feel the Ted Bundys of the world have a right to free speech right up until they strap him into the chair and fry him regular or extra crispy. )

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Bill and I talked over an hour and a half Friday. He knows my feelings and I understand his and Yvsa's.

I've learned a lot from Bill and Yvsa and I think they've learned some from me ( darned if I know what ).

Ya makes yer choices and then pay the piPer.
 
Policy may differ among people, one can do mistakes. But Uncle Bill's, and Rusy's posts show how they are seriously dedicated to moderate the forum along the policy, and that's enough to make me gladly respect it.
 
I can only agree with your postings, Uncle Bill, and since this is about Free Speech, may be we should all (me included) remember that by staying open and courteous to others' ideas, no matter how much we disagree with them, we have nothing but good things to learn from each other.

N2, One more time you just hit the nail on the head! I could not agree more!
 
Bill,

You can't be all things to all people. There was an Aesop's fable about a boy and his father bringing a donkey to the market.

I agree with Yvsa, and have similar concerns regarding a different poster.

Sometimes the silence can be deafening.
 
Am I missing something? I seemed to have hicupped and passed over the angst that has arisen in the forum. Perhaps I am too naive and don't read between the lines. Don't we all give and take here?

I guess somebody needs to clue me into what the problem is.
 
From where I sit I think I'm right and I'll stick by my guns until somebody convinces me I'm sitting in the wrong place.

When I defend free speech I defend everybody, including brothers and myself. When I don't I betray everybody, including brothers and myself.

We are not going to agree on everything and it would be a poorer and very dull world if we did. But what we can do is extend some common courtesy to those who do not share our own views.

I know that living thru the last years of the Great Depression and rememering WWII have affected how I think and have lived my life. My life in the US Navy and the Peace Corps affected me. We are products of our life experiences.

Those who fought in the trenches of WWI are going to view life differently than me.

Those who never fought will view life differently.

The rich will have a different view of life than the poor.

Remember the words of the great French philosopher, Voltaire, and let's get on with the show. But remember common courtesy also.
 
Oh please. Get off your high horse, Bill. You are NOT Thomas Jefferson. You are a moderator on a private forum. You frame this thread as if anyone that disagrees with you is a lessor person.

When someone makes inflammatory remarks for no good reason, you are supposed to shut them down, which you don't do. All in the "pretense" of being noble. Bull. I've seen other bulletin boards/forums degrade into filth and eventually die all because the moderators didn't do their jobs.

You want to let people who add nothing of value insult people like Yvsa for no good reason, then I'm gone also. Yvsa doesn't need to take it, and neither does anyone else. Enjoy your new trolls/friends/whatever. I feel sorry for the good folks left behind, but eventually they will be compelled to leave unless you clean up your act.

But get off of this high and mighty crap. Many of us have been around the block a few times ourselves, and we certainly know better.
 
Thanks for the input. I value your opinion but as Munk stated "where do you draw the line?"

If this forum and HI both fold because of things I hold true and dear to my heart then I'm going to get that retirement I've been wanting.

Stay tuned.
 
I am not American, and I don't feel alien in this forum. Most of the truth here is universal. The rest is on knives and only a selected few love and understand the way of the steel:D

Teo
 
Originally posted by Rusty

Bill thinks it's a free speech issue.

Yvsa thinks it's standing up for your brothers.

Rusty thinks it's a matter of locking up a Ted Bundy before he kills again.

==============================================

Bill emailed me and listened to my advise. I told him to do what he could live with. He chose free speech.

Yvsa went for **** after **** took after me in one thread, among other things.

Ya makes yer choices and then pay the piPer.
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Rusty please don't presume you know what I think. It goes much beyond what you have written.

As for free speech in here don't make me laugh. If that were true then the thread, "Khuks drwan in anger." would not have been deleted no matter the pretense is was deleted under.
Things aren't always what they seem to be and neither are some people.

If I feel the need to speak on this forum then I will. No one has to speak for me. I'm seeing the same patterns played out here over and over again in this forum and have finally made my decision as to what is true and what is not.

I still say and always will that the founders of these forums made a way to dispose of trolls and it is used, sometimes often when the same people keep coming back under different aliases.
If the moderator here chooses to think that the issue is free speech then so be it.

So please excuse me, I will go away again until the time is right.
 
Bill has created a virtual space here on Bladeforums that many of us find very attractive, for various reasons. It is a privately owned board, and Bill is here with the consent and approval of the owner. I don’t figure I have any free speech rights here, any more than I do in the living room of a friend.

This “cantina” is a space of Bill’s creation. I don’t feel it appropriate for me to demand changes in the way he chooses to run it, any more than I would demand an honored and respected elder to change the conversational topics in his living room. Bill has done us a courtesy by explaining his point of view, but it was not necessary. It would have been sufficient for him to say “Because that’s the way I do things.” Even better would have been, “Because I’m a crotchety old bastard. Any questions?” I guess Bill opened the can of worms by asking what we thought of his position.

Anyone who thinks they can do it better is welcome to try. There is plenty of space on the web to create a forum. If things get too uncomfortable or unpleasant for me on a web forum I figure I can always leave.
 
Thanks for more input.

I do the best I can with what I've got. I've made mistakes and will make more. I'd guess that I have deleted maybe 10 threads out of 80,000, most of them racial slurs. What stays and what goes is a judgment call on my part and my judgment is not perfect and neither am I. If I consider something nonsense that can lead to problems I may get rid of it. If somebody is voicing an opinon which takes a shot at me, us, or what we believe in I feel obligated to leave it up and give everybody a chance to respond. It looks to me like most forumites are capable of taking care of themselves and really don't need me to do it for them. All judgments on my part.

If anybody is looking for perfection I'm sorry to say I don't think you're going to find it in me.

All are welcome and any are free to go and this is as it should be.
 
I don't expect Uncle Bill to be perfect as I damn sure am not myself.

However, that doesn't change the basic argument here one bit IMO. The issue as I see it is this: will the forum degrade into a flame prone political discussion forum or be the place it once was? IIRC, it used to be about khukuris and things related. And was kept in check when it strayed. Now its a free for all where all topics (or at least MOST) are free game. Is that okay for the forum--not my place to say. Is it the kind of place where I like to hang out--not lately.

If I consider something nonsense that can lead to problems I may get rid of it. If somebody is voicing an opinon which takes a shot at me, us, or what we believe in I feel obligated to leave it up and give everybody a chance to respond.
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What do you consider a "problem"? I'm not being facetious, I really don't know what you mean by that.

Saying that this is all about a pure form of "free speech" is not really on the up and up. Like Yvsa said, if that were the case NO threads would have been deleted or moved to other forums. Why is it ok to delete a thread in which a racial slur is used and not okay to delete one where a Troll insults and dishonors the fallen in the WTC atrocity?!? Well, it just isn't IMO. The difference as Uncle Bill stated above is a moderators judgement call, and it is his decision. But that doesn't mean that those of us who have called this place home for so long don't have a right to feel slighted when we look to the moderator to maintain the status quo of a place we've come to love, and then all of a sudden the rules have been changed.

It looks to me like most forumites are capable of taking care of themselves and really don't need me to do it for them
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I find this quite insulting BTW, but it is quite informative and I appreciate your honesty for coming out and saying it. Perhaps I'm reading too much into this comment, I don't know.

This has been a very upsetting and confusing issue for me. I have gone back and forth in my thinking on this issue time and again. I was unable to see things for what they are for awhile because of how much this forum has meant to me in the past.

I wasn't going to post again on this topic but it seems to be brought up over and over again, and I felt like I needed to say what needed to be said.

If things get too uncomfortable or unpleasant for me on a web forum I figure I can always leave
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I guess that IS the bottom line isn't it?:(
 
Bill,
What Howard Wallace wrote. You're the bartender and the bouncer, you make the guidelines, rules, whatever you choose to call them.

That said, IMO you are right on track about the free speech issue.

And THAT said, if it were me, I WOULD ban someone if necessary - but only for knocking over the stools in the cantina. In spite of the events of the last few weeks, that hasn't happened yet, IMO.

But, I would have locked one or two threads early on, which isn't the same thing as banning someone, just a suspension of argument until civility returns.

Just my opinion. As I said, it's your bar.
 
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