who should be banned?

[bwcolor]

Regarding the original question:

Expressing an opinion that pushes up against the current politically correct taboos should not be grounds for expulsion. As adults, we can survive this. As forum members, we can ignore these individuals, or threads.

What I see as grounds for expulsion would be activity that is repeated after the mods have warned that a specific behavior will be grounds for expulsion. Grounds for banishment might include activity that directly and viciously attacks another member, repeated intrusions into multiple posts with comments that are completely off topic and promotion, or advertising a product for personal gain. Again, banishment would be after repeated violations and following warnings and discussion on the part of mods and the violator.

I don't think that a wild free for all works. I avoided DPreview for a long time because many threads devolved into a series of personal attacks.

 

[mdarnton]

There are some posts on previous pages about various peoples' presumed attitude.

On another forum I used to participate in I finally figured out that there were some particular attitudinal poses and quirks of thinking taken by people of various nationalities, to the extent that I would try to guess where a new person was from before looking at his profile. Not having met them off the board, I have never figured out if that was because they were jerks, because that's the way their culture uses language, or what. Some of the national bands of behavior were quite strikingly offensive (one group I'm thinking of seems to have two modes: very polite, and very offensive), and I see the same thing here. Realizing that I don't really know the people behind the comments, I try to ignore it as much as possible and get to the message, not the presentation.

Please realize that the above characterizations are just hobby observations. While I haven't met the specific people on that board, I have met people from those countries, and in person they're pretty much like everyone else, face to face, when one gets ALL of the clues, beyond the small set that the internet offers up.

Anyway, I don't take projected attitudes as seriously as I take the core of the message, though sometimes it's difficult.

 

[back alley]

lots of strange reading and all on my first cup of coffee for the day.
seems like a bit of little girl giggly stuff combined with little boy bullying...

why people are being singled out and made fun of is beyond me...really?
gossip at purelight...like that's news!

you people can be funny.

at any rate...this thread has lost it's appeal and some of it's sanity so i am about to close it...not to censor you but just so i can stop reading it and to give you all the opportunity to go about your own business.
i thank you all for the information, some of it it has been enlightening...