Well said! This list has never been a platform for free speech TO a
mainframe audience, only relatively-free speech ON TOPICS directly
relevant to IBM mainframers. I say relatively-free, because someone
who persistently argues for a point after being directed to an
authoritative source that demonstrates his point is wrong also risks
being ostracized.
At least one poster (GC 10/3, 14:49) should have been suspended
immediately for his childish, baseless and off-topic insults.
JC Ewing
On 10/4/24 00:16, Brian Westerman wrote:
Just my own observation, and my comment is something I normally would not offer, but maybe the
forum needs a zero tolerance policy for political, racial, social, and sexual content. This isn't
"X" or Meta. I am all for people joking around and sometimes going kind of off topic,
but "off topic" doesn't need to be into areas that are offensive to anyone on either side
of a political, social, racial or sexual issue. They simply have no use on this particular type of
forum.
It should not take the moderator getting involved to stop a thread, any member
should be able to ask it to stop without coming under criticism for being
anti-anything if they point out that something is or seems to be off-topic.
Simply stating that it's not allowed to be a discussion, shouldn't be
considered that the person pointing it out is anti-something|anything. They
could even be wrong, but it should be enough to at least stop and think about
whether it's off topic and explain yourself or the subject without having to
resort to flaming the person.
This forum, in case anyone may have forgotten, is IBM-MAIN, there are lots of other
forums to discus the other "stuff", and they are well suited and actually quite
a bit better suited for those other types of discussions.
I think the time warnings and trying a reasonable approach has long past.
Most people understand or should understand, the difference between what IBM-MAIN's
purpose is and what is off-topic from that purpose. A simple warning from anyone that
something is, or might be off topic should be adequate to make the party's stop and think
about it, without assuming the person pointing it out is anti-"them".
If it's pointed out, and the topic is not related to IBM-MAIN's purpose, and
the people don't stop the thread voluntarily, all those involved should
probably be sanctioned, and kicked off the forum for at least some period of
time.
In the case of the current thread in question, whether someone is, or is not, for, or
against, a political, social or racial "side" is not even relevant to the
question of whether or not it's off topic.
The problem with getting off topic int he first place is that even reasonable
people can get lost in the woods when it's allowed to progress to the point
where nothing discussed contributes to any IBM related technical knowledge,
questions or thoughts.
That said, we are supposed to be here to discuss IBM operating system and
programming problems and solutions and discuss ways to do things. While
personal preferences sometimes and even oftentimes come into play, they rarely
(approaching never, ever) need to devolve into political or social, or racial
or sexual issues.
I'm not normally a Kumbaya kind of guy. but com-on people, isn't this just
another example of taking things out of the realm of IBM-MAIN's purpose and
into places that we aren't really supposed to, and never should, (as a group)
enter???
Brian
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Joel C Ewing
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