JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum Notice: Possible Board Upgrade

I stopped reading your straw man argument when you put it into a college setting. Why? Obvious. In college, free speech would mean the students are welcome to argue any point or position in their written work to be graded by the professor. Most colleges are lectures, papers and tests, and only questions on the material at hand are permitted. So unless a political opinion fit that criteria (i.e. a question about the lecture itself or how an assignment is being graded etc.) then it would not be appropriate.

This is an open forum with a "general" board. We have never stopped people from discussing what is going on, but as you can see now, we also keep in mind that we want music topics in most areas, so if people can't control themselves, we gave them a post. And it wasn't just for a left wing or right wing or no wing argument, it was for all political discussion. We have certainly not treated one opinion more harshly than another. The fact the the two loudest voices were from extreme opposite views certainly made it easy for everyone else to fall in the middle somewhere. But when it encroached on music topics, we reigned it in and gave them a spot to say whatever they want. I don't read it unless someone contacts me with a reason to do so, as you well know from ample experience doing just that.

I notice that John doesn't seem to piss anyone off or receive attacks on his posts including music. So why do you suppose some single you out? You have much the same views as him, so it isn't political. You both post music. It appears to be something else. Perhaps you should figure that out. Could it be they honestly do not like your music? Did you ever consider it? You do post it publicly knowing people are encourage to comment. By the way, the only reason I have any idea of your age is because you like to bring it up. But most of the regulars here are post 60. That is what happens when you run a board this long. We have members who have been with us since 1985! Even those in their early 20s back then are now in their 60s! It has been 15 years since we hit 125K members (my year off due to stroke saw us never pass that number, then email stopped working then more and more issues all the way up to Covid when our events stopped and all our chapters closed. We are just now seeing live events start up again, but the world has changed. This message board is simply a museum of what it was like in the 90s and early 2000s when artists for the first time ever could easily release their own music, build their own fanbases and make a nice living making music outside the label plantations. 25% of our membership has died as our group usually started with people in their late 20s or older and this message board was usually people in their 40s and up. 27 years later and sadly many have died (or moved along to Facebook, where I have found 7K of them and interact daily) including almost all those most loved, minus John. He is the last man standing which universally has been liked by all, including those who disagree with him. You could learn a lot from him. Many of those with (D) by their names were able to keep the peace without it ever blowing up on anyone. They spent day and night here and made sure to head problems off at the pass. Rarely did anything become a serious problem. I wish we still had regular users with that time and desire for peaceful resolution, but if the most busy users of the site aren't going to do it, then I have to fly swatter it when it is brought up.

Brian