Originally Posted By: dnewton3
Ladies and Gentlemen -
Allow me, as a Mod, to expound here. A few things you need to understand if you are to participate here.
1) follow the rules; they are clearly spelled out
2) understand that
the "rules" are a "minimum" we enforce; there are times when something goes off-course and while not a technical rule violation, it non-the-less violates the spirit of the rules or the intent of family friendly atmosphere
3) when you own your own website, you may set the rules as you see fit, ban those you don't want participating, and so forth
4) the Mods and Admin of this site serve as volunteers to the ownership; we're not compensated
5) the Mods and Admin respect the ownership, and will continue to do as directed
6) we don't troll for bad stuff; it's typically reported to us. If you see something unsavory, report it; don't add to it.
7) we do tolerate a very benign level of some small things; an example would be someone soliciting "thoughts and prayers" needed for a loved one, etc. That is NOT an invitation to have a discussion about religion on the public website, but to have PERSONAL interactions (in your own home, or in Private Messages).
- An appropriate public response to such a request could be "Done as asked" or "You will be in my thoughts this evening", etc.
- An
INappropriate response would include invoking a deity, direct references to religion, etc.
If you don't understand the distinction we make, then refrain from posting!
Why do some threads get locked? Perhaps an obvious violation of the rules. Or an influx of comments in poor taste (such as calling someone a body part, or doing an end-run around the automated word censor, etc). If a thread has 5 pages, and only one post is a violation, we'll just remove the offending post. But when many multiple posts get out of hand, it's easier to just lock (or remove) the offending thread. Many threads start out OK by the OP, and take a bad course after a page or two. To parse it out by cutting it apart would ruin the congruity of the thread. All that said, we do encourage interaction, as long as it's within these guidelines. The GOT (general/off topic) forum is probably the MAIN source of MOST complaints. We've even discussed simply eliminating it. So if you cannot control yourselves, don't sit back and ask "Why'd that happen????" after the fact. I have often joked that the "7 degrees of Kevin Bacon" applies to a BITOG post; each thread is only 7 posts away from being locked!
We have thousands of valued members here; most act civilly. Those that don't are dealt with as needed. If you don't want to be active here, that's fine; you can choose to not log in, or PM a Mod and we'll permanently ban you.
I want to know why blatantly sexist gender designations were used in this post?