It is true, he broke the rules by posting his last message as he did.


>I would express that a big differently. A majority liked the idea of banning religious posts. On that basis Michel implemented new rules. Rick practically begged to be banned by going out of his way to violate those new rules.
>
>Like Mel, I regret the loss of his technical expertise. I was on Rick's side for quite a while, only suggesting that he take his religious polemics to a more appropriate site. And I am no fan of the rights of the minority being trampled by the wishes of the majority. That way lies mob rule. In this case, given Rick's messianic insistence on proselytizing, there was only one way this could have ended.
>
>I hope he returns. With a different attitude. (I also wish there were more days in June).
>
>>The majority has spoken. Rick has been banned.
>>
>>
>>>Yep, and if Rick is banned we lose a person who actually has some pretty impressive technical abilities here. No offense to anyone else, but how many others here have his knowledge about C/C++ and I have found that very informative.
>>>
>>>>>>>It happens that I love baseball and discuss it here sometimes, usually with Tamar. If I were to work baseball into a million posts then that would be objectionable, too.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Then you would be asked to move it to sports category. You would agree and comply, of course. And we could then choose to read your sports posts or not as we like. Or, on the other-hand, we could just get irritated with your opinions about sport and ban all sports posts from the UT ... because, after all, this is a technical forum, not your personal sports, political, and music forum.
>>>>>
>>>>>Just make sure you don't throw out the baby with the bath water...
>>>>
>>>>I agree with this principle. However, the dropping of this category was obviously done on the behest of one or more members who found it objectionable. However, the posts were (1) confined to a specific category which one can choose to read or not, and (2) the forum system allows one to filter out a members posts entirely. But it seems these two options were not sufficient and could not prevent us from reading these posts, responding to them, and taking offense with them. Apparently, we needed to totally shut the offender up, once and for all, because I am not capable of not-reading something and do not know how the twit filter works.