What do we need on here?
What do we need on here?
Key Riced All My Tea - are you serious?
Maybe I can help lay it out for all, since it's obvious some didn't get the memo.
1. We need not speak ill of the dead.
We don't do that here. The body's still warm, and some here sound like friggin' vultures on carrion.
2. We honor the title and charter of the forum, namely, Armed
Polite Society.
3. We maintain civil discourse. If one can't say anything nice, how about one says nothing at all?
I don't know if there's a full moon approaching, estrogen levels are high, the recession took away one's supply of happy pills, whatever, but when I log in to the forum and the two subforums with the most activity are the staff lounge and thread Dumping Grounds, it sends a definite signal.
Here's the deal - we've already canned one long-time forum member today because he couldn't grok the whole polite discourse concept after several repeated warnings. Others are on a very short list, and that was before this thread. If we can't maintain some sense of decorum here at APS, then we're no better than Democratic Underground or ARFCOM, and have no business being online. I'd prefer not to ban folks, and I'd prefer not to have to remind others that foot-in-mouth disease can indeed be terminal to their user accounts.
The staff here at APS is trying keep a certain level of quality in the place. That's pretty hard to do when one sees stuff like what was regurgitated in the Michael Jackson thread. The guy died, and some folks here don't like him. I get it, thank you very much.
However, there's no value added in throwing the whole alleged pedophilia angle into the discussion, and posturing about how his demise made you happy. That would be akin to my saying, "I have absolutely no intention of attending TaurusOwner's funeral, because I hate standing in line with others just to piss on the grave of an (alleged) wombat felcher!"
Sure, I get instant gratification for getting that off my chest, but that's about it. There's no value added to the thread, and now we've thrown in stuff that discredits TaurusOwner's good name, and adds additional insight, desired or otherwise, into both his character and mine. Not a lot of respect shown for the dead there on a very public forum that prides itself on polite discourse, nicht wahr? TaurusOwner may have a talent that overshadows anybody else here at APS, but if I throw in the spectre of his Habitrail vice in an effort to shoot him down, what have I become?
I grew up listening to the Jackson Five and Michael Jackson, and I agree he was a talented performer. He was eccentric, but that's sometimes synonymous with the genre. I liked Freddie Mercury and Queen a lot, and to say he was eccentric would probably be an understatement. I think Elton John is a musical genius, and nobody disputes his eccentricities. I'm not waiting for Elton to die just so I can be a faceless person hopping on an internet forum to say, "Good riddance!"
Requiescat In Pacem, Michael.
Disclaimer: No wombats were harmed in the composition of this posting.
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