The proper response would be to point out it's an INTERNATIONAL BBS, run by an American company based in America. Then point out that who owns it and where it originates has NOTHING to do with the current intelligent debate to which he has just failed to contribute.
Free speechifying at it's BEST!
Dropzone.com is based in South Africa, yet has French and other sub-forums.
The reason is simple: Americanos vastly outnumber any other nation when it comes to post whoring. Thus, in every thread there'll be American-created tangents that detract from the original topic. One side of things is heavily weighted and there's a huge loss due to "noise-to-good-stuff" ratio.
So, knowing this, Sangiro (the Head Honcho at dz.com) created additional forums. There's not as much traffic on 'em, and since most Americans don't speak say French of German very well, they don't contribute that much.
I can tell you: it gets freaking annoying to read about who has been nig noggering with who, what the best (US) dz is and who you met for the evening party when 99% of that stuff isn't related to you. The Talkback (similar to the HTC O'Club forum) is just a very large orgy in American ethocentricity. The rest are about skydiving, and even here the US style/morals/methods are considered the norm and what something must be based on - which is BS, since in Denmark, our clubs run DZs and in the US, it's all pretty much commercial.
And it's not a matter of ignoring things.There's an aspect I call "cultural dominance" - that is, the dominant culture sets the mood, the norms, what is accepted and so forth. The dominant culture on a message board can supress any argument by volume alone.
You beginning to see a pattern here?
The pattern is: regionalized information is
good from time to time. Some things (boogies, talk about DZs, local law) suffer greatly nder cultural dominance. Others (such as the Incidents forum, where incidents leading to injury and/or death are discussed) are much more universal.
The O'Club is one area where we could use some differentiation.
I DON'T GIVE A **** ABOUT THE AMERICAN ELECTION.
I'm free to not read any posts about it. I'm also free to stay away from the board. Which I have done, out of being so frustrated. But, the purpose of the board is to hang around, chat a bit, and show some Golly-geened respect towards each other.
It's not about rights, not much about free speech. It's about treating others with some good old fashioned respect. And knowigng and accepting that the world doesn't revolve around your own little sh|tty country.
I, out of respect for American, Guatemalans etc don't discuss every little disgustingly unimportant aspect of Danish political life. Big things sure, but I GOT the message re: US politics: Kerry is an arse and Bush is a big liar. I ain't telling you why Fogh Rasmussen is much cooler than that commie son-of-a-beeatch Lykketoft.
The respect thing: remember that there are other nationalities on the board and that ethnocentric posts drive up the noise-to-signal ratio. If I invited you over to my house for dinner, I wouldn't spend all evenig talking about me me me me me me and me. I sure could - it's within my rights. You have the right to leave. But it's not about that, but rather showing some (u)common courtesy and respect towards your fellow man.
