Political sigs in Subsim forums

[Onkel Neal]

I'm getting a lot of heat over political sigs. Without getting knee-deep in the whole free speech/where-the-line-is debate, let me make some suggestions.

The first goal of the Subsim forums is to foster a civil community, where people enjoy each other's company, help each other, and basically act as if they will see each other in the pub a few hours later. So if you want to show your love for your homeland, sports team, or political cause, fine, but don't attack others.

If you have a political sig and you think it may be close to the line, do not "show signature" in non-GT forums. A lot of people never come to the General Topics forum, and when they see you posting with some inflammatory political sig, they will be offended. If they object and report your post, you could have your sig rights turned off. Don't bother appealing, neither the moderators nor I have the time or interest in negotiating on a one-to-one basis with you on this. I had one cat with a sig that was way too wrong; I PMed him and politely asked him to change it. He put a big non-historical swastika in its place. I don't have time for that crap. Bottom line: there are 186 million other forums where you can tell people what idiots they are, this ain't one of them.

Finally, if you see a sig that offends you, weigh how much it bothers you by the number of times you see it against going to the trouble of reporting it. As you can imagine, we cannot please everyone and if your Bad Sig report is not acted upon, don't take it personally.

Neal