>>>>Has anyone actually complained about the content of the chatter section (or does anyone want to). Or was this just a unilateral decision on Michel's part ?
>>>
>>>I would bet there were some complaints in the thread were Walter got banned or at least temporary banned.
>>
>>I wasn't even aware that he was out, until I noticed today that any of his messages show his name in the light grey color (instead of dark black), and you can't link to his messages (at least not directly).
>>
>>A few months ago, Walter openly made some very ugly comments. I know they were said in anger, but I told him to cut it out - that I viewed him as a valuable member in the SQL area and I didn't want to see him get kicked.
>
>Personally the whole thing about chatter and bans I found it... I do not know... let's say I do not understand it. Banning people because they write about religion, banning people... sorry let me re-phrase, banning some people for "ugly comments" (and never explaining why there is such difference) while they do not ban other people for uglier comments (IMPOV), now getting rid of a whole section because it seems we are not mature enough to read other's opinions (however insulting they are), it is just not me. If I feel insulted by anyone, or strongly feel against someone's point of view, be it religious or political or whatever) I either reply or ignore, I do not feel the need to complain to management and I certainly do not feel the need for anyone to be banned
>
>Now, if the bans are for impersonation, threats or using knowledge acquired in this website to interfere in other user's personal life, then I'll agree with them

As a person I fully concur. If our playground is used as a testbed and/or selling point of a company, our hen house might be ... distracting ;-)
Also over here Gov tries to make site owners partially responsible for the stuff posted - at least if not showing efforts to clean and sometimes take down posts .-((
Clearly not a good way to earn money if you have to throw manpower at the problem

What I don't understand is that there was no way to apply biz intelligence to the chatter section threads to get some automatic dampening,
but perhaps that is the stuff Michel is alluding to for which he has no time/manpower/budget.

Personal belief is that with some automatic shaping of chatter threads based on # of posts, # of participants, distribution of # per person and perhaps stretches of dialogue you could get very early warning flags. Coupled with some limit of personal posts per thread based on new posts by others in last 48H this might re-introduce DRY attitude in chatter again. Used to be more that way - and I found it better when people thought more before posting - lately it seemed many were just blurting out current peeves. Chatter is no source code, but mostly rephrasing previous posts with some added links was not that great.

In pre-Obama times chatter was great: but I don't think even Kevin would try to blame Obama for that one ;-)
Those of us with mirror screens do not have to get up to look at part of the problem

But as the other post said - case closed. We will see if only bathwater is thrown out or babies with it ;-)