onward Christain soldiers
marching off to war
from the words of Jesus
We shall overcome

WTF haven't the mods locked this thread? Is it because a mod is taking the perceived higher ground against the unwashed masses? Really I think a mod shouldn't inject themselves into any argument any more than a police officer should ticket someone for because they looked like they may break a law.

People run the gamut. Some are idiots. Some are intelligent. Some have common sense. Some can't get a joke or sarcasm if their nose is shoved in it. This is the interwebs. It's also a public forum. Just like a concert or bar you meet all kinds of people and have no control over who is there. Somebody goes over the line they get flicked. That's what rules are for.

Arguing all this morality, especially for a mod to lead the charge on behalf of the downtrodden smacks of crossing the line. Like another poster said, be a mod, or a poster, but not both.

For everyone who feels overly sensitive about crap posted on here I have some advice. HTFU. Don't want to risk being ridiculed, don't post. Don't want people to make assinine comments about your pictures, then apply skin thickener before posting.

It's not women that are the issue here, it's people being overly sensitive and not having the foresight to think about the positives and negatives what they post may bring on them. Don't want to risk it, don't post.

This thread needs to be locked and thrown in the trash.

Umm, the fact that this is your wife's actual fight, if I remember correctly. And the fact that you have twisted any opinion that a woman can instigate negative behavior as an endorsement of negative behavior.

I also have an agenda. We all do.

If you have eyes, ears, a nose, and can feel you also have a bias. We're all humans. Some of us suck more than others.

I have a solution of sorts that I'll be bringing on line very soon, I think, to this issue. I'm going to bring a "Locker Room Forum" on to give a less restrictive outlet for the hot girls on bikes threads and a place for the guys to be guys while still allowing women to come into RC and not have quite the level of testosterone. I've been kicking this idea around for about a year. We're tried everything else, and I don't see another alternative, honestly at this point.

The "Locker Room" won't be a guys only forum, but will be understood to be an area where we men can scratch, burp, fart and guzzle beer and just be guys, and any women coming in will definitely have to understand this atmosphere. The only image restrictions will be no p0rn0graphy or full nudity, or extreme crudity to avoid us being blacklisted. The only other thing is it will be postable for Ti members (IB wanted that restriction), and to facilitate this, if you don't have access now, and try to post a thread, or respond in that forum, you'll get an automatic redirect to the page to purchase Ti for your convenience. Ti has been reduced to $12 a year, or $20 for 2 years, and there is a Ti 1 month trial for $3, but to prevent a recurring charge on that, you'll need to cancel the paypal recurring subscription charge for it, and do another 1 or 2 year subscription to continue. That would then be a recurring charge for the 1 or 2 year, and paypal can process a major credit card for you if you don't have a paypal account.

I'm closing this thread down for a 24 hour cool-down period, as well, to allow everyone to take a breath and think about the solution, at which point, I'll reopen it for discussion of the solution offered. No one was trying to be ironfisted in the thread, there was just an impasse reached between what we, the staff, were trying to accomplish and what some members wanted to avoid.....a change in the forum dynamic to make it a bit less hostile to the women. That's what Pete and the other mods were trying to address, by the way.

Also, in re-reading my post, I feel I need to clarify a point. DrPete and the other mods are and were acting in an appropriate manner. RC has been quite hostile to women, from the perception of the women. I've gotten quite a few PM's myself about this and have been trying to come up with a solution that would be palatable to everyone involved.

Creation and maintenance of a hostile environment is a form of discriminatory behavior, and what Pete and everyone else was attempting to do was confront that behavior. It's never an easy position, nor is it ever a popular one. Moderation of a forum is a very demanding and tough job, and I have no complaints with how my people are handling it. They have to try to balance competing interests inside the forum, and try as best they can to remain impartial. Now, impartial doesn't mean neutral, it means fair, and my staff, all of them; have done yeoman's work in remaining fair.

As I said, though, I'll reopen the thread tomorrow evening and we can look at this after we all get a breath.

The more I think about it, the less I like my own idea. All we'd be doing is shunting the problem to another forum and not addressing it. I need a bit more time before I reopen this topic. I still have a lot of PM's, etc, as well as this thread again to wade through. I'll reopen it as soon as I have more information assimilated and some better ideas.