I have never frozen a thread. I have participated in off-line discussions about this, but once I read your rationale, I quickly backed off and agreed with your points. I also agree with Jim that Chatter is the water coolor for UT. You also advocate treating people as adults [until they prove otherwise] as do I. We should police ourselves and come down only on those who deserve it. I strongly disagree with acting on potential.

>IMO, the UT has taken a giant leap backward here...
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>The big question is where does one draw the line. The rules up here are vague and inconsistiently applied. Mark M, a sysop, was part of that exchange. According to the rules, there are not supposed to be political messages. And yet, a sysop, one who is charged with enforcing the rules, posts a political message. Personally, I don't care. However, it is important to note the knife cuts both ways. In the past, Mark M. has been one who is quick to freeze threads. Now, you have one sysop freezing a thread that another sysop was a participant. What a quandry this presents.... It quickly becomes a mess.
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>The chatter section is just that, the water cooler... If you don't like the content of a message, ignore it. If you don't feel it is appropriate, ignore it. Just don't interfere with my rights to evaluate the merits of a post for myself.
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>>>Its meant for chatter thats related to VFP, NOT to dicuss the horrible acts that one person might commit against another. JMO
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>>Mike,
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>>I disagree with your statement. Chatter, at least to me, has always meant the place where we can chatter about anything we like. It is the "water cooler" for those of us who work alone most of the time. Current events is a perfectly acceptable subject for chatter, unless the conversation gets out of hand.
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>>With your definition we should also freeze all of the jokes and the funny song lyrics and just about everything else that gets in here. For me, that would be a major loss.
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>>We have sections for technical discussions and then we have chatter. You can even shut chatter off if you like so you don't have to see the "off topic" threads.