[burkbuilds]

Just my two cents worth here. If someone comes on a thread and starts insulting someone personally, especially if they are using offensive language and belittling someone I think that is a good place for administrators to step in and stop it, however, I think the administrators need to show a higher standard of expression than the people they are addressing, not using comments like "why don't you just shut the ______ up". To me that seems more out of line than anything Easy said in his post to Danny's question. When I read Easy's post to Danny, I thought he was being very "tongue in cheek" and kinda "teasing" Danny with his comments about "not being a nice boy" anymore. From the way Danny responded, he seemed to take it that way too, and I don't think anything Easy said was offensive. Sometimes it's very difficult to know what someone's "tone" is in a written post unless they just go "off the wall" with vulgar insults or something. If the fact that someone disagree's with you is offensive to you then I think that you need to get over it, that's life, people will disagree with you and that shouldn't be taken as an insult. I like to do mods to my bike too, but I'm not "offended" if Easy doesn't agree with me about what I want to do, I actually appreciate hearing an opposing opinion, sometimes it might help me re-evaluate what I'm thinking about doing and if I decide not to listen to his advice it didn't really hurt me to hear it. I think that any of us who've been around this forum for any length of time are aware of Easy's position on modifications, and that' probably true about a lot of us on different issues, some people express very strong opinions about a lot of things that I don't always agree with, but I fully support their right to disagree with me, isn't that one of the things that makes our country, and this site, so great? I like that people express different views about stuff, who wants to only read positive comments about every subject, surely there have got to be subjects that have more valid points of view than just one. I mean come on Dupo, you obviously like to do and promote doing mods and you obviously don't seem to hold a lot of respect for anyone's ride that isn't as powerful as your Shadow and that's okay, that's you and I like hearing what you have to say even though I don't always agree with you! If you think Easy's comments aren't valid, then jump in and say what you finally did say which is that they've made a lot of difference in your bike and that is backed up by a lot of others who have made those types of mods, not just telling Easy that he shouldn't comment. I like hearing Easy's comments too even though I don't always agree with him, it's that variety that makes this such a good site!
I guess what I'm saying is, unless someone is using offensive/vulgar language or starting some type of a "fight" on here, I think you should let them post, if you want to express a different opinion on whatever topic they are talking about I'd love to read it, but please don't tell people that they should just shut up and not post or you are going to pull their posting privileges because you don't agree with what they are saying. Secondly, if you feel it necessary to reprimand somebody, I'd recommend that you start with a private message to them first and see if they might retract or modify or clarify their original post before you make a public "bash" on them, a lot of times giving people a chance to privately re-evaluate what they have written might result in a situation where tensions are lessened instead of escalated in the forum. Lastly, I'd like to say that this is my favorite bike forum and one of the reason's I like it is the variety of opinions expressed here and that includes Easy Rider's posts. Yeah, he's a little rough around the edges sometimes, but I've also noticed that when somebody is having a problem with their bike not working properly he's usually one of the first to jump in and try to help them find a solution even if it takes a lot of back and forth. Not very many people are that generous with their time and experience to help out someone they don't know and that tells me a lot about the type of person he is way beyond his sometimes "grouchy" persona. I hope he stays, I think he's much more of an asset to this site than a liability and I hope you guys can come to a reasonable understanding with him, if you can't then I think it's a loss to the site and all of the members on here.

John Burk
burkbuilds