I think people are making all sorts of assumptions. I also think one poster here is getting "the treatment" in a fashion that I never expected in the VFP community.

IMHO there are *lots* of government employees or salary earners participating in protracted threads on topics as diverse as Sopranos episodes, ball games and imperial measurements. ;-) Never have I seen any of them called thieves or lacking in morals.

FWIW I can see that threads can become entirely distracting if they take on a personal aspect, which could become an employment issue if people are on wages or salary. I've seen one fellow spend almost all day and then all night pondering a thread that he perceived as an attack on something he held dear. I've seen another asleep at his desk because he spent all night battling on a php forum. ;-) Many here will remember one thread or other that distracted them more than it ought. I also think it's not easy to avoid dissention if it appears unexpectedly in a thread about Yag. ;-)

So, IMHO Michel should create a folder called "Drifts and Rants". If any of us pollutes a thread, it gets moved to the new folder maybe with a "moved to drifts and rants" placeholder left in the original thread to mark its demise... or maybe not, since if the poster really wants to make their point they can start a new thread with an appropriate title and location. If there *is* no appropriate title or location... then it's in the right place. ;-)

I know that administrators sometimes move stuff to the "Chatter" forum, but actually chatter is different from a personal battle as well- people expect to find stuff about the Detroit tigers, not a slinging match. We'll all know that "drifts and rants" stuff has been ejected from some other forum which means it is possibly best avoided, since anything significant will have been reposted in a new thread.

If this happened, people who want a brawl will know where to go and people who want a brief review of the normal forums are less likely suddenly to find themselves in the midst of a firefight. ;-)