Greg

Cut the thought police crap out. I'm not censoring anyones ability to post in these forums. I am however, trying to enforce the rules and guidelines of this forum. If for some reason you do not agree with my moderating style or you feel you cannot abide by the rules and guidelines, then you're free to leave. There are plenty of other forums who would be more than happy to accept your off-topic discussions and your wild, baseless accusations. Useful or not, they contravene the rules and guidelines of the forum and are not acceptable.

If I allow this off-topic thread, then where do I draw the line in the future? What if someone wants to discuss the digestive habits of their cat? Would that be acceptable? No it wouldn't be acceptable and that is why we have the firm rule that only political topics will be discussed in this forum. These forums don't operate (and are not considered successful) based on the amount of people who use them. The success of these forums is measured by the quality of the discussions. If at any point these discussions cease to be intelligent, thoughtful and respectful, I will shut the forum down. If you want to discuss issues related to Microsoft, cats, etc, there are plenty of other forums available on the internet. If however, you want to discuss politics in a highly focused and accessible forum then you've come to the right place. Greg Admin

No we don't. We need forum participants who read and follow the rules and guidelines of this forum and to give some serious thought about where and how they are posting threads. If everyone takes responsiblity for their own actions in this forum, everything will run smoothly. I've already explained in detail about having volunteer moderators is a bad idea and I am not going to bend on this issue. If some of you cannot handle the responsiblity of posting threads in the proper category then you will be asked to leave this forum. The same goes for those of you who do not treat other forum participants with respect and dignity. Your idea is being considered.

Lately some veteran posters in this forum have been starting threads and responding to posts without considering the importance of following the rules and guidelines of this forum. I'm not going to go into detail about who committed and what the infractions where, but I want everyone to clearly understand that this forum is not your personal website. Mapleleafweb operates these forums in the hopes that they will promote intelligent, honest and responsible discussion. We do NOT operate these forums so that a few of you can discuss off-topic babble. For this point forward, I will be deleting, without warning, all off-topic posts/threads. Greg Admin

This thread is a complete waste of my time and Maple Leaf Web's valuable and expensive bandwidth. MS, perhaps you'd better spend some more time reviewing the rules and guidelines of this forum. They clearly state that, Is that too hard to understand? Greg Admin

Another brilliant off-topic thread by MS. Perhaps you still haven't read the rules and guidelines for this forum? What does this thread have to do with Politics? Nothing - therefore it will be deleted. If you want to discuss computers and other off-topic things, please do it elsewhere. This forum is for discussing politics only. Greg Admin

maplesyrup and August1991, lets cool the off-topic chat and insults in this thread.

Come on guys, this isn't rocket science. The statement, has nothing to do with the topic at hand (political speech in the church) and is more disruptive than useful. If you read the rules and guidelines of this forum, you'll see it clearly states, I find it puzzling that you're having such a hard time dealing with this straightforward concept, but perhaps before "going foward" you should read over the rules and guidelines again and take what it says to heart.

If this is a joke, or some way to make a point out of maplesyrup's suspension, then you're playing with fire. This type of post is an obvious troll and I will not allow it to disrupt the flow of discussion in this thread. Keep the discussion respectful and intelligent ... Greg Admin

Another off-topic troll by maplesyrup, After many warning, MS will now be taking a week suspension to review his posting behaviour. Lets avoid posting inflammatory statements like these and remember that we all have a responsibility to keep the discussions at a decent and respectable level.

BigDookie6 is going to be taking a break from the forums due to his inability to discuss topics, like homosexuality, with respect and decency. Greg Admin

I don't mean to interject, but in defence of the province I and Maple Leaf Web call home, Alberta is not the white, redneck, racist province that some of these posters would have you believe. Simplistic comments like these are not helpful, It is really too bad that someone who is thinking about immigrating to Canada must be confronted with such ignorant and juvenile province bashing. Nowhere in easychair's original post did s/he ask for your opinions on which province/city/region is the best - so lets cut the petty behaviour out. Also, I won't tolerate these types of generalizations, mistruths and insults about Alberta or any other province/city/region. If you can't debate with facts and respect, then I suggest you find some other forum to participate in. Greg Admin

Cut the sarcastic and demeaning language out in this thread. You've all made excellent points, there is no need to taint them with childish behaviour. Greg Admin

This is just a preliminarily announcement that the forum on Maple Leaf Web will be down as we move the website to a new server. The exact date of the outage has not been selected, but rest assure, everyone will be notified a couple of days in advance. The outage could last as long as a day, but it is more likely to be only a few hours. I hope this does not inconvenience anyone too much, but the outage cannot be avoided. Thanks Greg Admin

Criticism noted. Perhaps the feedback mechanism isn't well suited to the evaluating the forum. So I am going to remove it from the forum section of the site. Thanks for everyone's input, Cheers, Greg Admin

The Dialog box, which you see on the bottom right hand side of your screen, is simply a feedback mechanism installed to give us an idea of what people think of the site. I recently installed it so that I could gauge what sections of the site need improvement. It certainly is not going to a permantant fixture on the site and will be taken down in 2 weeks. I am curious however - do you find it that annoying? Is this something that you can live with for a couple of weeks in order to allow us to build a better site? Cheers, Greg Admin ps this is something that is embedded in the HTML rather than on your computer. So no, there is no virus on your computer. Or atleast, no virus that we put there

Lets cut the "Morons" and "bastards" comments out. It's called libel and it is illegal in these forums. Remember, Rob Anders and the Alberta Alliance could easy sue you for libel for such comments. If you've got a problem with someone or something, lets hear a reasoned argument, rather than childish name calling. Greg Admin

Allowing volunteer moderators is not a bad idea, but one that isn't likely to happen here at Maple Leaf Web. The reason I want to avoid volunteer moderators is because a moderator should not be directly involved in any of the discussions on these forums. If I did allow some of the "veteran posters" to perform some administrative tasks around here, they might inadvertently project some bias onto the discussions. I've always tried very hard to keep this forum non-partisan and by allowing volunteers to control certain aspects of this forum, I would be exposing this forum to undue pressures. I am not saying that some of you couldn't avoid the temptation of partisanship and raise above the level of dirty politics - I am sure some of you could - but that I am unwilling to experiment at all with this concept. However idealisttotheend, you do have a good point about threads going off topic. That's an issue that must be addressed if we are to keep the quality of this forum discussions high. I think the best way to tackle this issue is to follow this simple rule: It's everyone's responsibility to keep the quality of the forums discussions at a high level. Therefore, if you see someone going off topic or interrupting a thread, politely ask that person to start a new thread and invite others to join him or her in the new thread. If the person continues to post off-topic posts, then report the post to me and completely ignore anything the off-topic poster posts. I will then deal with the situation appropriately. Personally, I think that we can all monitor and moderate the discussions (through the method described above) without having any special privileges. That way we can leave those tough decisions to me - besides, that's why they pay me the big bucks Cheers, Greg Admin 2)

Sorry folks, carry these types of conversations over PM/email or somewhere else. This is clearly off-topic and isn't allowed in these forums [the thread will be deleted in 12 hours] Greg Admin

August1991, I can see your point, about moving "Canadian / American Relations" to the International Politics section. What does everyone else think? Cheers, Greg Admin

Lets remember to search the forums and make sure another thread does not already exist before posting a new topic. Here is the appropriate thread

Cut the "Moron" and the "Prick" comments out. You wouldn't want your mothers to see you talking like that. Remember, Greg Admin

Hello all, In response to the calls for provincial politicsl section I have reorganized the forums. Basically this is the structure you will see, Canadian Politics Section * Federal Politics * Provincial Politics * Canadian / American Relations * Moral & Religious Issues International Politics * United States * The Rest of the World News and Help * Announcements * Support and Questions I would like to hear some feedback on this move. Do you like it? Is it too compartmentalized? Are the section headings clear enough? Remember, nothing is permanant, and I can change it back if we find that this setup isn't working. Cheers, Greg Admin

For those interested, we have a great article on the charter and it includes some discussion about section 33, 20 Years with the Charter Make sure to take a look,

The Terrible Sweal, Hawk, take this ridiculous argument out of these forums. Use the PM feature if you want to discuss the nature and definition of spam. For the record, ??? is not spam. Spam is unsolicited e-mail/post often of a commercial nature. However, the post, "???", is not the proper way to post. The forum rules state,