I'm curious about something. Larry wrote that he stated "no political posts" when he opened that forum. Stated this to whom? There were political posts there almost from day #1. Does he have any rules posted someplace? I couldn't find any. If I'd been aware about such a rule, I obviously would have never posted anything political, so if you are aware of some, please guide me there. I'd like to know how I managed to miss the "political" rule for about 6 months of posting?
Furthermore, the threads on his forum deteriorated into personal attacks for no good reason whatsoever, and this naturally led to the forum becoming little more than an adult "romper room." I went away for awhile, came back, and my first reaction was that Larry's forum had turned into the "stupidity channel." I've seen this happen in many places, and many times over the years since I started on the Internet.
Lastly, I suspect the main reason for the shutdown was "money" followed by a temper tantrum of losing a few bucks from complainers. I'm pretty darn sure that Larry would like to see his BBS become self-supporting. And it really doesn't take much money to accomplish that either. Domain names, web hosting, etc, are pretty darn cheap - and the software he's using is practically free. A simple BBS, such as Larry's, takes up *very* little webspace. The real cost is in the time it takes to maintain the BBS, and that's not a place one should cut corners as he is now probably realizing the hard way. Greybeard is smart. He's got moderaters to help him watch over things, and this frees up ALOT more time for him.
More lastly, Larry was remiss in tending to his BBS. He had months of opportunity to "warn" folks that, in his view, things were getting out of hand -- the same thing Greybeard occassionally does. I think people would have behaved more had they been "reminded" of his BBS rules at least once. This is obviously a "tantrum" in that his actions would indicate he's more interested in having his way, than in retaining an active BBS where people DO get along, but hey, this is his first shot at it, it's HIS BBS, and he can do whatever he darn well pleases with it - even if that includes cutting off his nose despite his face. From my perspective, he didn't have to go that far to obtain the desired results. His words, "I'm pissed." indicate an emotional reaction, rather than a "thought out" response to a problem. Frankly, nobody is going to care if he's pissed, doing headstands, or whatever, BUT they might care if they became aware that their little hobby was going to be altered if they didn't shape up a bit. In any case, locking his most productive forum will prove to be a poor strategic move in the long haul.
I used to be a BBS sysop BEFORE the advent of the Internet, and I can tell you one thing, I made my share of mistakes! It's a learned skill to help people from all points of view, and walks of life to get along with eachother without excercising total control over everything. I preferred to deal with folks on an individual basis, and even at that, I wasn't always successful. It will always be true that the BEST forums are ones in which people can freely express whatever they have to say. Unfortunately, there ARE money considerations as well as legal considerations. A big reality is that in a "moderated" situation, the sysop (or admin) is actually taking MORE legal responsibility for what is said and done on his/her BBS, and lawsuits DO happen as I had indicated once on Larry's forum.
Anyway, who cares at this point? It's just the Internet anyway! :lol:
