I'd rather hear you "talking" about your orchids than being constantly complaining about others oppinions and principles.
Why don't you do that?
I'm sure if you do it you'll find yourself a lot of new friends around here.:)

Your First Amendment rights are superseded by the property rights of others. If you don't agree, come on my property saying something I don't want you to say. The police I call to remove you may not stop you from saying what you have to say, but you will be saying it as they drag you away. I don't know what you've posted, but I know that I've been in some heated debates here, and I don't pull any punches. But I don't throw my verbal punches at the person, I throw them at the idea I take exception to. And I can say that this is the only online forum I've ever been a member of where I haven't been officially sanctioned. This forum is the most tolerant of less than polite speech I've ever been on.

---------- Post added at 11:46 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:18 AM ----------

I strongly disagree that living a society necessitates giving up rights or freedoms. Rights are innate, and not granted nor taken away merely by virtue of the company one chooses to keep. Society implies government, and government either respects or does not respect our innate rights and freedoms. But when going on to someone else's private property it is quite often the case that you do give up rights in order to have the property owner's permission to be there.

Members, I try hard to steer toward the positive but, I want to make this point: bad attention is better than no attention. Every post we make, every response, is attention directed towards the OP. This is exactly what he craves. To him it's a form of power. My suggestion is that we quit responding to their nonsense and let the fire go out.

Subrosa. What I said was not an opinion. It is a foundational maxim of political science so I am sure I was not clear

The easiest example is this. In the time of cavemen it was beneficial to work together however it required adherence to an order. The simplest of terms no murder no stealing. If you don’t adhere you are killed or exiled. You still have the ABILITY to do those things, you have just given up the RIGHT to do so.

Rights are not innate, they are the agreed upon constructs of a given group.

I am not talking at all about inherent freedom of thought and am not suggesting if it is right or wrong in the moral sense but everyone has “given up” many of the rights they would have on their own for the benefits of the society.
These are what law are. They are what we have determined we don’t want in our society and so we outlaw that behavior.

The right to kill. The right to steal. I do not have these rights

Brian --- the poll says 'should orchidboard be censoring people's opinions?'.

Unless there is a word limit on that question, then that question - as it is right now - isn't concise.

It all depends on what that opinion is, and maybe how it is conveyed or carried across in general.

For example, is the opinion intended to agitate or aggravate, offend/insult, or even lead people astray in an undesirable way? If so, and after some hints from moderators are not taken in, then there is always some consequences to come out of that.

Normally, the users have their choice to do things. But with certain choices come certain consequences.

Owners and moderators are allowed to run THEIR forum as they see fit. You can make your own and run it how you please, but you can't complain about someone elses' when they allow you to join and view for free. Personally, if I don't like a website, I go find another.

seems this post got more responses than any orchid related post on this forum which just enforces my view :rofl:

I was obviously upset at the time about the hypocrisy on this site.
You can post negative reviews about any trader on here, you can post negative reviews about online shops - in order to keep things transparent and not biased

but you cannot post negative stuff about OB. That is all I said.

I haven't read all the comments on here, most just enforce my view that tolerance is at a low here.

I have found a few much better forums with grow info on most species there are and not so much endless chit chat.

Chit chat is great, making friends is great - but that is not what I have come onto OB for.

I - and most others come to OB to learn how to grow orchids better.

There are far better forums for that but this is still the most found and biggest database of orchids out there and I would argue that most beginner orchid growers find OB first.

So why, why, why is OB turning so many orchid enthusiasts into ripping their hair out, shouting at their computer, making posts like these and getting frustrated with one another when we are all supposed to have one united reason to be here - our love for orchids.

I and far too many good growers I have seen banned over the years on OB only want to find out what is best for our orchids. These growers seem to clash too much with people on here that are more interested in chit chat and don't care about learning new stuff.

There should be more tolerance! Too many times it feels like a private club of the usual handful of members and guests are treated like unwelcome tourists.

That is all I wanted to point out but I will leave you one last thing to ponder about.
I have seen every single moderator insult a member on this board. Like you say ghuylar it's their forum they can do what they want.

It happens, to suggest that nobody has ever in their life considered strangling someone would imply they are not human and to me to be a good mod, you need to be human and understand if someone gets antagonised most likely they will lose their temper, especially on an online forum where there are little consequences.
Mods should care more about this forum and understand why an argument has happened.

Too many times I just see the person losing his temper get banned but the person that caused the argument just carries on to go do it all over again a few months later.

If you want to find the perfect example look at post #27 and #28 on this thread Catasetum schmidtianum

:waving
:haveagreatday:

In that case, just listen and learn from us. Ask us sensible questions (and behave in a diplomatic way) ---- and don't teach beginners things that are clearly unsound/unsatisfactory/unsafe (for orchids).

Let us teach you. That is - let us teach you how to grow orchids better (if you're having trouble that is).

If you haven't read them, how would you know?

So you don't want to be part of an online community like this one and have found others that meet your needs. I get it, and that's absolutely fine. Go there and be happy. I can tell you for certain that the several other forums that frequent wouldn't tolerate your behavior either.

Your responses belie that. It's more like "I come here to make my statements and curse and belittle those who disagree."

First, I must ask for your proof that "so many" are "ripping their hair out, shouting at their computer, making posts like these and getting frustrated with one another".

It seems to me you simply want more tolerance of your bad attitude.

I have been a member of this community and several others a long time, dating back to the mid-1980's and the CompuServe Gardening Forum, where a handful of us formed an orchid-focused group. In my opinion, this one is actually one of the more tolerant ones, with fewer folks banned and fewer enfractions given.

Obviously not Again, you are assigning your own extreme reactions to others without knowledge of the facts and have, in my opinion, completely misunderstood Ghuylar's comment. Let's look at this from two sides, with related, hypothetical scenarios:

Case 1: A stranger comes into your bookstore and he starts belittling and cursing at you because of the way you have decorated, keep it clean, or the types of books you specialize in. Would you find that acceptable? I seriously doubt it. You'd probably toss them out the door quickly.

Case 2, from that stranger's point-of-view: {to himself} Cool. This looks like a nice bookstore. I'll investigate.
Where in the world did he get that furniture?!?! Doesn't he ever dust? And who in the world gives a crap about 16th century farming techniques and would dedicate a store to that? {out loud}"Hi, Brian. This is quite a shop!" Then, having decided it's not to his liking, he says "Have a nice day", chooses to leave and does not return.

Most people would handle themselves like the "stranger" in case 2, rather than returning over and over to repeat case 1.