This topic has gone pear shaped and starting to become depressive.

[Closed]

Sigh ... I know I signed off .. but one more time..

I would give all that I have to speak to those same family members of my own. My beloved grandmothers are both gone 2. My daughter Brandy died before she reached her first birthday. 3. I am fighting cancer for the second time m'self...having already lost every female member of my family to the ravages of that disease...but because of my faith, I have not shed a single tear over the situation or lost my own quirky sense of humor. 4. My father, a decorated WW2 medic, died years ago; my step-dad, also a Navy vet, died last year of Alzheimer's.

We have common ground, you and I.

Sarcastic remarks like 'holier-than-thou,' whining and moaning' and 'overly sensitive' are childish and uncalled for; moreover, they have no bearing on this subject. If the remarks were off-the-cuff, they would not have continued for several posts. It went beyond humor after the first post.

Those of us that Believe _did_not_ start this discussion in a software forum, and although we stand by your right to your own beliefs, or lack thereof, we do not have to stand by while someone bashes our own set of beliefs, whatever they may be. As I originally pointed out, this simply was not the place for what should have been a private discussion between y'all. Agreed?

Wolven .. I AM sorry to hear of your Mom's battle with cancer. I hope she has your sense of humor, because humor is the best weapon in that fight.

I am also sorry to learn of the loss of your father in the course of military service. As a Navy veteran, I mourn the sacrifice he made for freedom's sake; as the descendant of generations of veterans, it is my wish that no further generations suffer what we have experienced.

We have common ground, despite our philosophical differences. I would like to go forward from this point on good terms.

Moderator, kind sir, would you delete the discussions pertaining to religion so we can end this?

Now, once again...AX2USN signing off on this subject. It's over.

To add to that, Bobby...

[Quote Whitmar57]
Ask yourself..."Would I say what it is I am about to post to my Grandmother? My 3 year old Daughter or Son? My Mother or Father?" [/Quote]

To be completely honest with you - I would give all that I have to speak for a moment with any of them,..but I am left to say it mostly to their memory.

1. My grandmother passed away a few years ago.
2. My daughter (only child) did not have the opportunity to reach her third birthday - Not even her first.
3. My mother is seriously ill with cancer at this moment.
4. My father died in the armed services in the early 90's.

Were I overly sensitive, I feel that I would have greater cause to complain here than those who are worried over an off-the-cuff remark about the Pope. After all, I do/did know MY family far better than you know OUR 'God'.

I did not appreciate that comment, as it raised several sad memories for me. The difference being, I am not going to complain about it.

Now the fun has been laid to rest, I suggest the whining and moaning also join it and you all get the topic back on track.

...away into the sunset.

OMG. I just noticed people are still hung up on the religion thing.

I was the person who originally mentioned "no religious wars" - and it was immediately mistaken to actually mean something about religion.

That was not at all what I meant.

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/forums/topic/698?replies=60#post-3871

A religious war (in the context of forums) also means when you get two or more camps who lay seige to each other and argue their sides point of view - and the argument goes on forever. If you want an example make a pro Microsoft comment in a Mac or Linux forum, stand back and wait for the pack of wolves start to circle.

Suitable topics are Windows vs Linux, xbox vs playstation, (in Australia) Holden vs Ford. The main requirement is nobody should listen to any arguments, just present you own arguments repeatedly and insist you are right, everyone else is wrong, because you are right.

Perhaps there are more similarities to actual religions than I first thought.

Actual posts pushing or bashing religions will be deleted and the poster instructed to find a more appropriate forum for such topics. Don't give me religion - "We is Software".

Whitmar57 .. thank you for the kind words. By the way, I liked your comment about asking ones self: 'would I say this to... ... '

Nicely phrased, that.

glass house? YIKES! ...my hair is a mess! my makeup ... auuugh...I'm not ready for company!
~~~~scrambling like mad to get presentable~~~~

Whew...now, where was I? Oh yes ..
Wolven, we love your half-bubble-off-plumb sense of humor! Please do not take my assessment as a personally disparaging comment ... it refers to a single incident, not your entire participation here.

Wolven and Lee: Some folks just take their faith too seriously to stand by while others make denigrating comments about people, places and things associated with said faith. It is not a joke to us, it is an insult; and despite your protestations, I think you are both mature enough to realize that, without taking offense.

Perhaps the forum rules should include the reminder: the things you can do are not always the things you should do.

As for that painted donkey, Wolven.. you're braver than I! If I am going to ride off into the sunset, I want a big, strong Missourah mule for transport. Anything else would be like going to sea in a rowboat ...more fun and adventure than I need at this age. ~grin~

AX2USN signing off on this subject...'nuff said.

To the 'holier than thou' among us.

Having offered a prayer, lit a candle, made a donation, and been welcomed into Russian and Greek Orthodox, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Roman Catholic and general Christian houses of worship, in greater than 40 countries around this world of ours, with the inclusion of having been blessed by the Pope, I feel completely unqualified to submit comment. I will leave that to those who wish to be seen as more righteous and politically correct than the rest of us.

So I will take my sense of fun and adventure, desire for the ridiculous,..retain my right to opinion and freedom of speech, mount my painted donkey 'Pepe', and ride slowly, westward, into the setting sun,..whispering something like, "Judge ye not, for thou shall be judged".

A fond farewell, and good luck to all - Enjoy what you have,..while you still have it,...especially your glass houses.

So interesting to note that those who rarely enter these forums in an effort to help others, at the first opportunity, can so quickly judge those they know little to nothing of.

May the divine universal spirit be with you.
Peace and love to all...

Wolven.

The rules need fine tuning and this thread I suppose and some remarks will show that certain rules need to stay and some need to go.

However I don't think having a sticky of rules is correct they must be added to TOA (terms of agreement) when people sign up a username, they accept or decline.

If they accept they join if they decline then hit back button and never come again is sarcastic but fair.

So when Bubby has finally listed what is fair he can send them to top-of-the shop admin and they can be added to sign up.

With a slight addition, that if you're already a member before rules came in then emails will be sent to members prior to rules being sent for you to agree to.

O.K. to digress, I have a lot of jobs to phone up for, so will not be around for a bit, hope you all have fun and behave ha ha.

Thank You Bobby!!

In all the "discussion" on what the rules should be a few

REGULAR members, who were apparently trying to show their

support for said rules, DID SO WHILE also making offensive/

off color remarks referencing religion, the Pope and

disrespecting the ten commandments.

It's ironic! And a bit silly really to say in one breath

that you agree that rules and guidelines are needed and then

in the next make a slam about the Pope.... all in the same

post! Wow!

So I guess this proves it! It's even more obvious than

before "GOogle" started his SPAM marathon that we certainly

need to not only adhere to whatever rules the mods and admin

lay down, but that we make sure and READ the rules carefully

so as to not OFFEND people inadvertently or otherwise.

And when all else fails and there is no guideline for your

situation to be found??? Ask yourself..."Would I say what

it is I am about to post to my Grandmother? My 3 year old

Daughter or Son? My Mother or Father?" If the answer is no

to any of those questions...

Then I guess you just ran smack dab into what's referred to

as "common sense" ... why don't we all act like adults and

use a bit of that too ;-)

C'mon guys!

I hate to intrude on what should be a private conversation, but I object to the comments about religion posted here. This is not the proper forum for theistic or philosophical discourse.

I would be happy to participate, elsewhere, in any discussion on religion (a philosophy) or faith (a relationship). In the meantime, please consider the other users on the site; remarks of this nature are offensive not only to Christians but also to Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs, Taoists, primal-indigenous-diasporic, Jewish, Hindu, 12 Step'ers and myriad other GAOTD participants who consider faith in a Higher Power an integral part of their life.

To add my few comments on the subject (rather than recent posts) I would make the following observations:

1) In my limited experience, rules of conduct for a forum are most useful for those who want to behave properly but aren't sure of the etiquette involved. For old hands on the internet this may be second nature, but for newcomers all things seem strange and new, and guidance is very helpful.
2) Those who want to cause trouble will not be put off by a set of rules.

Without wanting to push the comparison too far, the guest in a house wants to fit in, be part of the family. The burglar doesn't care what damage they do.

3) Having a set of rules (or guidelines) means that when a post has to be edited or even deleted, the reason can be given with reference to which rule has been violated.
4) The more prescriptive the rules, the more people are inclined to think that anything not explicitly stated is acceptable.
5) In daily life in the real world, different people from different backgrounds and experiences have different ways of expressing themselves and what is normal for one might be considered unacceptable by another. A bit of compromise might be needed in mode of expression, some having to temper how they say things and others having to not get easily offended. This would have to work with comment 3 above, as someone in all innocence might say something deemed unacceptable and wonder why it was edited.
6) In spite of 5 above, I think there should still be 'proceed with caution' areas, if not 'no go' areas.

On the whole I think some rules are useful, but then they should apply to the comments section for each giveaway as well as this forum - perhaps people wishing to comment on the giveaways should be directed to a page where the rules are displayed, or a link to them should be prominently displayed by the comment box.

Thanks BuBBy - Now I remember...Then Moses took the commandments to the 12 apostles, who were gathered around a campfire playing tubas and French horns, and eating baked beans.

[Note to self; Get some sleep].

"Yes I did. And the conclusion is?"

Why you spamming the forums? Are you that person they banned from here about a week ago or so?

Just before the train completely derails - I must point out you have it all wrong. Monty Python never did a twenty commandments sketch - it was Mel Brooks who did Moses and the 15 commandments, in History of the World.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CB1ruv1n8U

The closest Monty Python came to it was probably the Sermon on the Mount in Life of Brian.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiDmMBIyfsU

GOogle,

My true sense of humor has far more sarcasm attached to it, whaahaahaa. You won't see it here though, because,.'Ya gotta fits where ya sits',..and that is what I tried to tell you, above.

Bringing Newton's Third Law into play here (Action <> Reaction) will only keep your train rolling until it finds that brick wall you are building for yourself further down the line...Unless someone else is already building one a lot closer than you expect.
...Get my drift?

Anywhoo,..you leave, you lose. Stick around and don't push the pendulum too far. I'm sure that evil, twisted mind of yours has better things to offer.
--------------------------------------------------

Any chance we can get this train back on track, now?
Driver?...DRIVER!!?....D-R-I-V-E-R !!!!!??

I come to cause trouble - That's not true.
I don't feel home here - That's true.
I should try yahoo fight room - thanks but no thanks.

I also have some advice for you - but I won't bother.

"Some rules to be written about" - That's what I was trying to do, but obviously you don't like either what I have to say or my sense of humor. So I'll leave you now alone to carry on undisturbed. May you have your magna carta ready and signed before winter. May GAOTD bloom and prosper thanks to your truly unselfish devotion.

Wolven, I do dig your sense of humor btw. The pope googling for god is a majorly hilarious concept. Great!

I can picture the Pope sitting at his computer. By accident, his fat fingers Google up GOTD instead of GOD - If I were you guys, I'd be over the hills and far, far away.

@ GOogle: On Monty Python, YHO is correct,..but I can't disagree with Lee's last comment. Have you hijacked this thread because it is too difficult to add positive, 'on-topic' comment here?

There WILL be a set of forum guidelines. Neither yourself, nor any other member can change that. Best we can hope for is to participate in the creation of those rules, which to me, appears a fair compromise.

If you are unhappy with that, or feel your comments/posts have been censored/removed, then you should fill out a complaint and send it to Admin., rather than continue the discussion here.

Failing that, if you don't wish to take part, then you have the option to take off,..as do we all.

You come to cause trouble.

GAOTD is obviously not the kind of place you feel at home, try yahoo fight rooms, then you can argue and spam all you wish.

<quote>You spammed the same rhetoric over-and-over again </quote>

Yes I did. And the conclusion is?

Did I say I removed them, I have access to seeing whats been removed.

Some posts I remove some I don't others do that, there are a few moderators that you don't know about and a few admin you don't know about, reason you don't know they exist is because they have never posted.

You spammed the same rhetoric over-and-over again.

About my opinion of religion: If you didn't see from my previous posts that I'm as atheist as atheists come I don't think you've read them. I just accused the whole religion phenomena as being responsible for hundreds of millions of deaths and you think I'm religious? Common man, religion is the biggest scam ever! I do believe that every person has the ability to see right from wrong and if God ever existed his master plan sure did not include religion.

I don't know where you get all this from Lee, but now at last I know it was you who was removing my posts from that thread, without so much as one word of explanation.
The thread started by someone accusing GAOTD of earning their money by planting Trojans and worms and whatnot in the downloaded software. In fact, I replied that that accusation was ridiculous and that I was of the opinion that the income was from Google syndication scrips which were inbedded in GAOTD web pages. I Thought it was an admin removing my post and I placed it again and again hoping for some reaction. The fact is also that those scripts are still there.

What I'm saying in this thread here is that you didn't need 100 rules to remove my posts then and you don't need them now. I wish you've explained yourself then, I would have not carried on pasting them posts, that's for sure. But my wish is not your command ;-)

GOogle did you forget all the spamming you did?

You were at it all afternoon, making allegations of fraud, hacks, scripts, virii, trojans, malware etc.

Now I see what you wrote as wrong.

Allegations which you have no facts about is wrong.

You can awlays find a nice little religion site to schmooze about religion if you wish; I don't do religion myself, it's all a fairytale with alledged incidents to control the masses.

Thank you Lee,
I never had a doubt you know right from wrong. It seems to me that it is you who's doubting other people's ability, by getting into this whole precise rules business.

@ Wolven: There's much more than just joking in Monty Python's point of view IMHO.

According to the Monty Python bible, God actually gave Moses two stone tablets. Ten commandments on each, twenty in total. Had Moses not been such a 'butterfingers', we would not be over-governed by rules and regulations.

Shame on you Moses,..shame, shame, shame.

You use the word G-d loosely.

I am not religous, however I still know right from wrong.

I understand what you are getting at, seems a shame you had to write it to get your point across.

When God created human beings he gave us the power to distinguish between right and wrong. God must have thought that was good enough but some people said: That would not do, give us some RULES. So God gave us 10 simple rules, the Ten Commandments. Were we happy with that? No way. So then came some smart people and said: We will give you a complete set of rules which will tell you how to live your lives. They called themselves priests and their rules was Religion.

Problem was that other smart people started to run their own religions, and soon mankind had different religions and rivals groups within the religions, each of them saying that their rules are right and the other's are wrong.

Of course, this is how mankind has been saved from terrible over population. Life on earth would have been impossible if it wasn't for the hundreds of millions of people who were killed in the name of different religions protecting their particular sets of rules. MUCH better than the anarchy that would have prevailed if people simply went by their own conscience.

Hey, you were reading as I was writing!! [EDIT]..$%#&@!!..[EDIT]

Thanks for the reply.

Private messages feature now only works if you want to PM site admins. This change was required to stop the non-moderated abusive language in private messages.

Alex

It must have been something I had for dinner...
Thanks Lee - Thanks Alex - Zip it, Michelle...lol!

Dear MOD Squad...
Now that we have this feature available, wasn't there some concern that radicals may send KeyGens, Cracks or Serials in PM's?

Question - Will PM's be monitored (meaning they are not private), or have you decided to 'chance' it?

...Just wondering.