Posted on TrekBBS by DJP691:
You know, it's always interesting to read your posts complaining about having your free speech rights impigned upon by the staff here. Why do your free speech rights trump Christian's property rights?
This is Christian's board and it functions in a marketplace, as sure as any other retail establishment does. Just because it's online doesn't mean that it isn't subject to the same laws of economics that all other market-based entities are.
If people don't like the product that Christian offers, they can and will go elsewhere. I don't know the man from Adam, but it's obvious from what few posts of his that I've read that he wants a board that appeals to the largest mass of Internet bbs consumers that it can, within its particular niche (sci fi and Trek, in this case).
But if he offers a product that makes people uncomfortable, they won't stay here. This board thrives because it strives to offer an enjoyable experience to people, one that meets the majority expectation of what a bbs should be.
I wonder sometimes while reading your posts, would you go to a mall and pick a fight with a Democrat there and have an argument in the middle of the food court? What do you think would happen? The mall management or security would come and "censor" your free speech because it makes the other patrons uncomfortable and they may go shop at some other mall. And you'd comply with their control of your speech in their mall, because of their property rights. You'd either comply voluntarily or you'd comply when the police arrived and arrested you for refusing to leave (i.e. trespassing).
Tell me how what goes on here at this board is any different in basic reality than what I just described in the previous paragraph? And if you think I'm off base with my analogy, please head on down to the closest mall this weekend and start passing out political pamphlets and telling people about your political beliefs loudly enough that everybody around you can hear. Let me know how long it takes for someone in authority to come tell you to knock it off or leave.
The issue isn't about free speech, Number_6. It's about property rights. You know, the other tenet of Western civilization.