"On Topic" Obsession, and overly stringent rules

[Colin]

Earlier this evening, a good friend and I were having a discussion via Yahoo Instant Messenger. In the course of the conversation, we discussed politics, on which we had both agreement and spirited disagreement, social structure, where again we had spirited disagreement, religion, foreign policy, and world history. All in the course of half an hour of so. Neither of us got mad. Neither of us threatened to remove the other from our contact list. It was just a matter of two adults pleasantly discussing and debating the world's problems.

It's quite easy to have a conversation like that between two adults without either getting bent out of shape or pissed off. However whne you try and have a discussion like that with 764 members, the chances of success are slim. You will always have someone that bashes the religion, someone preaching, someone denouncing all religions, and someone trying to recruit. I agree whole heartedly with Hanks rules regarding religion and politics. I have been here since day 3 and have seen many people get their pleats in a knot about political topics (gun control, censorship, etc) and religion too many times. It takes away from the enjoyment of the forum.

Hank, this is your house and you make the rules. But if you want to have lots of guests, you should consider how stringently you enforce them.

Yet somehow I have made my house completely non-smoking as per my rules and I still have guests over all the time. I wouldn't bend this rule in my home, why should Hank bend them in his. People come for the common ground and the company, not to try and bend the rules.

In terms of wandering post content, some people have more posts that relate to anything but the subject matter, so I can see how they would expect their posts to wander. How ever when someone posts a thread asking a specific question and is looking for a little insight, they expect the replys to have to do with the knowledge they are seeking to gain, not about politics, health, religion, or other mundane bits of information. I still see that as padding the post count rather than contributing.