I've never had such a lively forum, so I'm unclear about procedure. If the thread is locked, I guess, what, the discussion stops and some remnant of it is picked up later and hopefully stays on target? Does that work?
I have no idea why there's so much emotion here. Is the hatred derived from a fear of loss? Not just not being able to play this game, but of all the past problems people have had with things like this over their gaming lifetime. And some of the secondary anger might derive from irritation at not being able to read a clean thread on something without sifting through superfluous spiteful crap or being personally insulted. These seem like valid concerns. I don't have very much experience with banning, but it seems tricky. If people exchange insults that encompass very large classes of people, I can't really pick and choose who gets tossed. If instead, people ignore insults to the best of their ability, the insults will either continue one-sided or they will cease. If they continue one-sided, it's much easier for me to act, although the abilities of this board are possibly quite modest.
In any case, we can try a lock. I apologize if that's inappropriate, I'm new at this. The thread certainly seems more sour than any other on the board. If there's some element of the discussion anybody found interesting, they can try again.
[ August 31, 2006: Message edited by: Toady One ]