Well as all the others still seem to be in bed, someone better say something and I will start with OOF certainly isn't about to close. If you don't like what is in there, no one is forcing you to visit that section. I will also add, and this isn't directed at anyone in particular, it's a statement of fact based on 'rinse and repeat' over many years, the folks that moan most about OOF are also the ones that post in there most frequently. It is a section that is there to help relieve the more serious stuff elsewhere on the forum and generally speaking, a higher level of humour and fun is allowed as we assume everyone is a grown up and can take a certain amount of micky taking.
So on to Steve - yes I could go on for quite some time about how this situation has developed in the first place but I will try and limit it to a few sentences, it certainly wasn't a one way street, Steve's rather extreme opinions [and resolution ideas thereof] on certain subjects were always going to leave him open to a lot of heated replies and I don't think for one minute he is or was stupid enough not to think that might happen. You do not walk into a large discussion area anywhere in life and announce that a whole section of society should be shot in the face/banned from our streets forever/locked up and key thrown away without getting a high level of reaction, and that is exactly what he got. Yes, as staff we let it slide initially in the hope he might realise himself that perhaps he was creating his own problems with such extreme views that were unlikely to be agreed with by a vast majority of the forum community. Once the new threads kept coming and that wasn't happening, action was taken, behind the scenes, as is so often the case on TP.
So, since then, we have taken action on the forum, threads have been merged, posts have been deleted, or staff have stepped in and asked people to be a little less reactionary. However, we are not going to delete every post that is in jest, nor even every post that isn't, because sometimes it pays to leave them there when a moderator has commented so that everyone can see why the comment was made and where the lines in the sand are. We will continue to do that.
Nor can we read every single post in every thread Steve starts either, we have lives & jobs too AND and entire forum to moderate in the free time we get to be here, as well as the stuff we are organising on an ongoing basis for members of this community to enjoy, the competitions, etc. So, if you see something just report it. It will be dealt with. Maybe not in the next 2 minutes, sometimes not even in the next two hours, but it will be done and if it's not, you can be sure it was discussed and considered ok to be left. Oh, did some mods join in or like some of the posts? Yes, because we are members first, moderators 2nd, we are only human and subject to exactly the same humours or annoyances as everyone else. Or are we meant to not join in at all other than to referee the next internet argument.
So, to summarise. Find something else to do, click away, stop poking the wasps nest and it might just stop buzzing.
