seems right on to me.

Thesis:
These aren't necessarily consequences, but possibilities.

Brainstorm:
If you say free speech automatically leads to flaming and verbal violence you can't be right, because history proves opposite (I know you said "worst case..."). Take a look at Burma (the monks) VS Denmark (the drawing of Mohammed). People might abuse their right of free speech, but they don't always tend to. There are lots of examples of communities that work without any restrictions like, I believe, RevSoft or other forums. Of course, we don't allow discrimination (you may argue against this) or other illegal behaviour, but I think that people can restict themselves by not discriminating against others, because they expect the same unspoken rules being applied to them, too. Sometimes, flaming etc. is not discriminating (if it's a joke or meant as constructive criticism). Sometimes it is discriminating or appears to be. Sometimes one can't tell. Sometimes people overreact. Sometimes people exaggerate and go over the top (nikky or whoever). You can protect yourself by pushing new laws (rules, restrictions), but then you force people, which is bad (my interpretation). It's like the church: Ten rules force (or rather want) people to be "good". But you're right, people kill  - regardless of those rules. You took opposition to (total) free speech. You try to hide from the bloody part of the knife by breaking it off, instead of washing it. You avoid conflicts by negating them (e.g. banning people). Yet, I would have done the same. People who discriminate are the world's worst case scenario (next to global warming and so on ^^).

Comment:
Sometimes I use too many parentheses .
I didn't want to offend, but have a good conversation.

oh sry totally missed this thread, I didnt paid much attention since the one on UTI seemed to have more discussion. Nice point you have there though. I don't mean to say free speech automatically lead to flaming though, I just meant that some people abuse their rights and some really do it in malicious ways.

Idk but you almost seems to imply on Omnimaga I should allow people to do everything they want, insult others if they want to, spam if they want to, and have no TOS prohibiting anything.

If Omnimaga was changed this way, the general discussion of the forums would no longer have any reason to exist at all. Only the RPG section of the site as well as staff projects would remain. Because the main goal of OMnimaga forums in the first place was to provide the first place where people including new ones could discuss without getting harrassed by other people who enforce their opinion on them such as forcing them to learn assembly and making them feel their BASIC game is worth nothing. I will not name the forum where this happened the most often but on this forum if you defended yourself you were made a lecture about freedom of speech, and they didn't even allowed you to exercise this right. That said no one is going to let me allow this or any other sort of flaming on the site.

Sure thing, arguments will happen, and as you said no one will stop anyone from joining this board for the sole purpose to spam flames everywhere. But IMHO it's still good to have good Term of Services. It is up to everyone to have any or none at all, but personally I prefer to have them. Why? Because there are always internet newbies who join forums all the time. They may not know how to behave properly online so someone may either join a forum and post in every topic he finds interesting, no matter if the topic had no replies since a year or two or not. Some people will think that because this is the internet and we are almost anonymous that they can act like they want toward you and we will not care. However, those people need to be taught that this is not the way they behave online. Same goes for spamming, altough we are more lax on weird posts/double posting on the forums, especially since Calchaven.net/.org is gone. Some people will understand and learn, and they will act nicely and follow the netiquette afterward, and they don't have to be perfect to be respected. Of course there will be others who will not care and disrupt our community either in malicious ways or because in their beliefs that's how they have to act toward others. Well then, we can still get rid of those people or other will scare them away and they will eventually leave. By having TOS I'm not trying to punish everyone. I fail to see how is disallowing flaming on a forum a punishement for the members, it's obvious that regular members will prefer to keep the board friendly and discuss more constructive stuff such as Lost Legends rather than starting topics about how people who practice religion, programm in BASIC, use MTV Music Generator or stuff like this are idiots.

The only thing that changed in Omnimaga policy is that I don't delete innapropriate posts anymore, unless requested to or unless it's a link to a virus, worm, warez, ROM, commercial mp3, p2p site, etc.

I even keep spam, unless it's flooding. I just lock the topic with the reason stated.

Also it is easy for you to tell people to develop a ticker skin and shrug it off, or just to be less sentitive. Someone who is born sensitive will always stay sensitive. He can change, but it will take years, even decades. The only thing that can make a person turn the opposite way is that he goes through loads and loads of bad life events, such as being beaten and all, and then it will make him worse, because he will become anti social and be totally careless toward anyone, which isnt good either. THe other half of people will just turn even more sensitive and reverting the changes will be a chore afterward. The latter is my case I think. There may also be a small portion of people who are afected by some minor, sometimes practically unnoticeable mental issues, such as being bipolar, manic-depressive or similar stuff, and people affected by random constraints that make them have to deal with some stuff that they would rather prefer not have to deal with.

Anyway this is just my opinion. In conclusion I think it's better to have some rules to make things clear, not to punish everyone necessarly and while it may be easy for you to ignore people it is not as easy for everyone else and to change it can be very hard too and you have to understand that.

So yeah I know, I am not normal

*offtopic*
congrats man on the reopenning!

Thank Jc -> he put it back online I just watched