Computer programmers (or so I hope in my naivete) deal in logical, efficient thought. Does this thread strike anyone as serving any purpose? It's a non technical discussion about banning non technical discussions. What a waste of time and thought! The slippery slope exists in all things. A speed limit sign is there because it serves the greater good - that being that Homer Simpson types don't go 300 miles an hour and mow down school children and old women.

>I figured he would be after his most recent comments
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>I still say it's a slippery slope for the site to take though - even Merrian-Webster gives the following as one defination of Religon:
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>": an interest, a belief, or an activity that is very important to a person or group"
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>That could apply to nearly anykind of group that people are passionate about, and someone here could label them as a religious group.
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>I know the word "Bible" is a religious term. There are probably hundreds of books that use the term Bible such as "Linux Programming Bible." I would assume that many are offended by this, so at some point this could be taken to the extreme that no one can ever reference a book or site here that uses the word "Bible." I know this all sounds kind of taking it as far as it can go, but a loss of free speach usually ends up going in directions that people don't expect at first. Kind of like societies or groups that are involved in book burnings, etc.
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>>The majority has spoken. Rick has been banned.
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>>>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.
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>>>>>>>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.
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>>>>>>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.
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>>>>>Just make sure you don't throw out the baby with the bath water...
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>>>>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.