An Admin Rant

[Spongebob]

Okay, I think this "discussion" is getting out of hand.

The simple fact is that there are rules in place that people will disagree with (hell, I disagree with some), but you can't please everyone and if we got rid of all the rules that people disagree with, we wouldn't have any.

And then the place would be chaos.  I saw it happen on the old Star Trek.com forums, and it wasn't pretty.  Page after page of nothing but spam


Yes, there are other forums that allow necroposting, and that's fine.  But those are other forums, not this one.

Many of the rules are in place from before most of the current staff were in place.  And we have changed rules, this one included.

So please, even if you disagree with them, abide by the rules.

#1  It was an admin who started this thread.
#2  I haven't seen a single post suggesting someone would flout the rules, only a few who questioned the reason for that particular rule given that it's not common in most forums as some rules are.  So I think describing this discussion as getting out of hand is an exaggeration.
#3  Referencing spam is not relevant, as necroposting isn't necessarily about spam.
#4  The very nature of this thread is anti-discussion, as in, "if you don't like the rules, get lost".  I think that's pretty unfortunate given that this is an atheist forum.  Yes, I understand that atheists can be just a rude and disruptive as anyone, but we are also commonly touting our "open-mindedness".  Well, conversations such as this one don't represent that very well.  I could get authoritarian treatment at any religious forum where the rules are the rules because god made them so.  In an atheist forum, I would expect some degree of intellectual discussion instead of "follow the rules or get out", as if I ever suggested I intended to ignore the rules.
#5  If you wanted to circumvent discussions such as this, admins could add some more explanation in the rules section.  I have not participated in a forum where "necroposting" was prohibited by rule, so this was something new to me and I was asking with honest curiosity, you know since an admin brought up the subject in the first place.

I understand that rules are put in place for a reason and generally they are reasonable and justified.  It just seems odd to me that a thread would be started by and admin to basically bash people who are abusing a rule, but then be unwilling to explain or discuss the reason for that particular rule.  It sort of goes against the nature of atheists to follow rules without understanding why they are there in the first place.