I'm new here, but not to Linux nor Life.

I joined these fora in the hope that I could both give and recieve help of a technical nature (I think I'm going to have some answers, or questions on screen blanking with all-in-one IBM NetVistas) but as a newbie I thought I'd check out the social side first...

You have some good going discussions here, with much interesting input.

...but.

There is IM(not entirely)HO far too much censorship masquerading as "moderation" going on.

I realise that this is a privately run forum, whose management is entirely in the hands of its owner.

I apreciate that the ubuntu philosophy, with which this forum associates itself, is inclusive and opposed to attacks on individuals or groups.

...however, closing threads because they have introduced uncomfortadle ideas does not promote truth, honesty or the ubuntu principle.

Some arbitrary facts:

Less than one angel dances on the average pinhead.

The land which is now Israel was not empty in 1947.

Poland has not always been in the same place.

St. Cyril built a custom alphabet for the Russian language.

Ubuntu should be a force of enlightenment, spreading both knowledge and the tools to expand it where previously there was only darkness. It cannot do this if robust discussion is stifled merely for failing to give way to points of view which are either popular(ly "correct") or maintained in direct contradiction to evidence.

If someone is espousing what you regard as errant tosh it is far, far better to tell them so honestly than to shut up or say "yeah, whatever" lest a moderator stomp on a good-going conversation.

Censorship is almost always worse than that which it censors, and even when unused it can have a most unhealthy chilling effect on those who self censor in fear.