Freedom of speech

[Mike Trader]

Fred, I am not sure why you have locked the thread:
"I want to learn a Basic dialect (the whole picture)"
viewtopic.php?f=17&t=40027

AS far as I can see it does not violate the rules you have enumerated:

Off Topic Rules:
No flame wars
No religious posts
No sexual or offensive posts
Thanks and have fun !

What is it about a simple discussion of the problems with another vendor that warrents the locking of the thread? Why can't you just let people have their say and when they are done it will die a natural death. Freedom of speach is a concept that nations go to war over. It is possibly the biggest issue that underpinns the democratic freedom we all enjoy in the west, yet in a forum we are to be denied this? Why?

Mr Zale loves to pontificate endlessly about powerbasic forum being his "private property". Is that the argument you are going to use too? If it is, I might remind you that the cost of a compiler is negligable when compared to the community support that is available for it. Developers are a prickly lot at the best of times and will have controversial views about almost everything. Are you going to close threads on each one that is not to your liking?

If the thread was truly boring, it would have just died. It didn't. By closing it, you are denying me and others the chance to respond (politely and respectfully as always), eliminating free speech with a single click, and forcing your defnintion of "boring" down the throats of everyone here.

I would like to siggest that this might not be the smartest move for your product, and is a conspicously obvious hallmark of a heavy handed moderator that has not yet matured enough to be able to tolerate dissention, criticism and diverse opinions.

This is a slippery slope that leads to the dictatorship that exists on the powerbasic forums. In my opinion, it makes little sense to create a brilliant product like purebasic only to undermine it with this behavior. When you offer your products for sae and invite consumers to stop by, you are now a host to a visitor. Visitors like hotel guests, must be seduced if you want them to come back. Enforcing appropriate rules, as you enumerated above, is like saying don't break the furniture or steal the towels, but you can't stop people expressing themselves unless you want guests that only think like you. That is a luxury of wealthy, not a commercial forum. Please reopen that thread.

[LuCiFeR[SD]]

Mike, there is a real simple answer here... this is the PureBasic forums. This is not a discuss your problems with other Vendors forum.

It is not your right nor Freds responsibility to give you a podium to stand on, so you can insult a rival product or it's management.

If Fred has decided to lock a thread, thats it... accept it. The forum moderators and administration are obviously bored/annoyed with the subject matter. Get over it and move on.

I know I am bored about reading about it! And I suspect that I am not the only one...

[srod]

These forums are provided free of charge and the mods have every right to lock or even delete any thread that they wish regardless of the content or the subject matter. It happens very rarely, but when it does you just have to accept it. It has nothing to do with democracy or freedom of speech. For that, get a box and go take a walk down Hyde park.

Maybe it is me, but a rant about another programming language (and/or their authors) simply doesn't belong in these forums.

[rsts]

Mike, there is a real simple answer here... this is the PureBasic forums. This is not a discuss your problems with other Vendors forum.

It is not your right nor Freds responsibility to give you a podium to stand on, so you can insult a rival product or it's management.

If Fred has decided to lock a thread, thats it... accept it. The forum moderators and administration are obviously bored/annoyed with the subject matter. Get over it and move on.

I know I am bored about reading about it! And I suspect that I am not the only one...

+1 - been there too many times already. No sense beating a dead horse. (And all too often they do turn into flame wars. Fred was being precautionary

Might be a good idea to lock this one to.

cheers

[dhouston]

One feature of the recent phpBB upgrade is that adding someone to your Foes List hides their messages so you don't have to see screeds like this if you don't want to.
However, it would be nice if Mr. Trader would leave us be and just continue to pollute the Usenet groups http://groups.google.com/group/alt.lang ... sic/topics and http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lan ... sic/topics as, it appears, he has been doing.

[Fred]

I think all is said. Your topics are actually flamewar, ranting about another programming langage have not its place here. If you are not pleased with it, just find another forum with real free speech and leave us alone, thanks.