I should probably keep my two cents out of this but here goes. The rules on the For Sale forum are arbitrarily enforced depending on who is posting. For example, I was admonished for not posting a price but others have not been when doing so. Now I have no hurt feelings over it. It is just an example.
There was another issue where a member was run off for his political comments. My view was that members should be able to say what they want and leave it at that rather than getting in a debate about free speech. (Dean did make a compelling point as to why political comment should be restricted I admit).
This is the problem when a forum is over regulated. First, someone gets to decide if a rule is broken and then decide whether it should be enforced. I believe it is all done in good faith but still leads to arbitrary enforcement. Second, some members can't wait to complain about something so they all go read the rule book every time they read a post in order to determine whether it is time to complain. If we'd just get rid of all the unessential rules, we'd have less problems. People should be able to say what they want and others should be able to respond or ignore them. I know other forums with less regulation sometimes get out of hand but who here has the right to judge the comments of another? Sometimes it is difficult to judge from a comment whether or not it was intended in good faith. That's the problem with emails, texts, posts, etc- you can't judge someones demeanor.
Now these comments have nothing to do with Bill or Old Geezer. Of course, I do not know them personally but I have always enjoyed there post and both don't seem to be anything
other than gentlemen. I have no problem with Old Geezer pointing out a comment he thinks breaks the rules and I have no problem with Bill's comments or his response. We are all better off suffering the inconvenience of too much comment than too little, IMHO. For example, what if someone posted a gun for sale and another member had personal knowledge that the post contained false or misleading info? Should that member remain silent and let another member get hoodwinked all because of our rules? Should knowledgeable members not help with their good faith advice uninformed folks like me rules the advice could be construed as a disparagement? If so, what is the point of a
forum?
If we're going to have rules, I say enforce them strictly every time (and I'm not taking the position any rule was broken in that post). But I think we'd be better off letting people say
what they want and take it for what it's worth. We could spend more time talking about guns, ie our purpose, rather than talking about rule breaking.
I'm sure someone here completely disagrees with my comments but I welcome theirs.
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