The HZ has always had limits on freedom of speech. You'll find the ones who are not cut-n-pasting Space.com items on the snore board are mixing it up politically on the other boards. This was true back on MSNBC and its true now. It's a very limited repertoire.

But why?

Here's why.

Small talk was tried out early in the zone's history. It never worked real well. The people that compose the HZ are way too distanced geographically to have much the same temperament or cultural backgrounds. There's also a vast disparate range of personal income. For all intents and purposes there are "classes" to the zone. An upper class, middle class and lower class. Space brings everyone together (i.e. rah-rah space program!), and everyone has a political viewpoint when they are couched under the safe umbrella of "left" or "right" so the classes work together jointly. However, by now you should have realized the zone is quite blase' about other topics and speech.

The various classes when taken out of these umbrellas simply have too little in common. Country folk, city folk, educated and uneducated, rich & poor, white collar & blue collar just don't mix too well without that support shell.

Most financial topics die on the vine, with usual contributions from Tom and TAFKASE. Educational topics or scientific topic to far above the common denominator also die on the vine. Personal chit-chat about the weather and geography gets a few posts, from other posters in the same or a similar region. Music & popular culture get a few posts too, but the Zone was "older" almost ten years ago and is now pretty much geriatric and some of these reminisce posts just get downright depressing as everyone laments their lost youth, lost job, lost health insurance & lost health. I fear those type of posts will only become worse as time passes. And to be honest, while some folks derive comfort from others pain, other folks just go down with it and try to tune it out.

On a bulletin board with such diversity and with a lot of underlying dislike of eachother by many participants such is inevitable. Never understimate the buried hatred of other posters. I once made a post decrying hatred - and what do you think the response was? Well, I found out quickly no one on the zone wants to live without hate and in fact, insinuated I was nutty, "inhuman" for even suggesting such a thing.

You're probably already well on the way to being resented for some reason or another by half the board members as it is. Don't ask why, because there'll be a multitude of reasons "board hog", "too partisan", "not partisan enough", "too egotistical", "too weird", "too boring", "too hard to understand", "too simple", "too smart", "too ______".

Give it a year or two more and you'll have created an "enemies list" worthy of Nixon. Look at the various old-timers here and how well they are liked by the boards after almost ten years of baring their thoughts on the boards- that ought to tell you quite enough!

God help you if you end up like Tom, and fear rocking the boat too much because you are addicted to the place. You'll find that accomodating your posts for others satisfaction, never satisfies anyone and you gyp yourself off at the same time.

Sorry ER, I don't intend to obey any moratorium. I'll post whatever I please, whenever I please and if folks don't like it, don't understand it, or despise it - that's fine by me. If folks don't answer me..wow...like that's a "new" experience. ;-)

You have to post for yourself, your likes, dislikes and interests and even when the thought police can't stand it and 97% of the board cringes - who cares?

You think the board will be more civil without politics - think again. It will just be much slower. Much slower and primarily because of all the aforementioned reasons.

;-)