[decadence]

S&S: No offence to you... But I care about it a bit either way. John's intervention & comments have perhaps called cashmoney's motives into question but the first post in the thread, justamom's comments and a whole bunch of others have struck a chord. This thread, though various names have been mentioned in it isn't about any one, two or three people; examples are used just to give a frame of reference to make thing clear. So even if a question marks hangs over the intentions of this thread’s creation then hopefully we can still make something useful out of it.

1) I see FAR too many posts these days with some sort of disclaimer in them "this isn't a flame post/don’t take this the wrong way" type message attached. We all know a flame post subtle or otherwise. Even I've found myself typing dumb disclaimers. I'm thinking what am I doing?! There's too much walking on eggshells going on here. It's either not a flamey thing hence no need for a disclaimer (!!!!) or it is - in which case the Send button should not be clicked . The disclaimer thing might have its place but not to such frequency. It’s been picked up on by others too, here and in the glo forums - NPHC or otherwise. I just think it’s a shame people think they have to do that with a perfectly harmless post just in the hope of not being attacked.

2) And I've seen far too many replies which start out or contain "I don't really care about this topic..." in which case ok start one close to your heart! Though the large part of gc stuff interests me I don’t have an interest in some specific items discussed sometimes - inevitably - but I don’t wander into the thread to announce how I don’t really care about it!
Thread drift, where the item being discussed changes over time, happens; on mailing lists or whatever else. I mean, if say the movie Gattaca was being discussed, then genetics would come into conversation, then the moral issues concerning them, then religion ... sooner or later comes a point when the original topic is lost. Now, when that happens organically it might be one thing but people jumping on threads they have no interest in to wreck it is another. Starting up a new thread is allowed too.

4) Jumping on points where it seems to be more like a sport to do so and less in the interests of furthering debate or reaching goals. It isn’t consigned to any one forum, any part of GreekChat. I’ve seen on the NPHC forums links to threads posted with a message "Flame away people!! <smiley>". I’m not saying stupidity should be ignored or knocked on the head or that suddenly no-one has a right to reply, just that going into discussions and making comments until the thread becomes impossible to have any further constructive debate in seems to be happening a fair bit. Not consigned to any one forum!

5) Possible motives for it's originally being brought up aside, the hierarchy (one rule for the aristocracy ) has some truth in it OR at least merits comment. The point that something posted by one person is one thing but when that same sorta thing is posted by someone else it’s "Oh that's just ole Dillon. Bless his heart he's a card" (I dunno if we have Dillons here I was just trying to be non-specific to any one person). And I am aware 'knowing' some people allows us to understand nothing was meant and the remark was misinterpreted I’m talking more about “difficult” posts which are just that, ‘cept posted by one of the people who’re somehow allowed to do so. I've in more than one post attempted to justify why I'm here (God only knows why I bothered doing that) so moving on from the fact I am here why do I care? Well in response to the taking it too seriously crew, no GreekChat isn't my life, non-participation on my or the next person's part will not mean Armageddon, I do little to solve world hunger with my posts - but for one reason or another ALL legitimate users find GreekChat useful so it'd be a shame for things to deteriorate to the point it's not quite such a good place to be. I find it a useful, enriching resource.
This whole debate has come up before:

Originally posted by: FuzzieAlum elsewhere: There are people here I disagree with and who disagree with me, but I don't think that we want to have each other banned just for that.
But if someone comes in just to p*** people off, and manages to destroy threads by getting them really off track (when "how does sorority rush works" becomes "u all is ugly except my sorority"), I think they ought to be banned. Yes, we have the option not to read his/her posts, or even not to take them seriously. But the more garbage posts this site gets clogged up with, the less likely I am, at least, to read them. It's like a listserv where people always post spam. Eventually, legitimate people take their conversations elsewhere. You have to make some effort to make your neighborhood nice, or people move out.