Hello to everyone, I hope you all are having a great day.  I'm not.  It seems my signature was offending a mod or mods, I don't know how many or who, because I never received any indication that I was being offensive.  I had a signature that had various quotes that I found entertaining as did many other people, I'd even received comments on them.  However, someone saw it fit to delete my entire signature without even telling me who did it, or giving me any notice.  I don't appreciate this at all.  If I had known there was a problem, I would have fixed it immediately, and I think my behavior in the past 3 years shows this.  I am aware that there were various words in the signature that could be construed as offensive, but they were reasonably blocked out so someone who didn't know what they were wouldn't be able to decipher them.  The word f*** could be flip, flap, fart, flan, fear, fair, fuzz, fern, etc., to those who don't know what the word actually means.  Those (relatively few I guess) who do know what it means and are mature enough to use the word appropriately, would probably find a bit of humo(u)r in the quotes I had in my signature.  However, instead of being given a chance to fix the problems with it, someone just deleted my whole signature (good and bad) without any indication it was going to happen.  Don't get me wrong, I respect the mods and what they do in keeping this place nice and tidy and I understand this is a privately owned website and all that, and I am extremely grateful to have met all the people I have met through this website, however, this threw me off a bit.  I just wish that this: "I think it's time to remove the bad language from this signature ....... so it's been removed along with the rest of the signature.", was in a PM, instead in the place of what was one of my favorite signatures.  To me, that's just a bunch a bullslap/snow/slaw/slay/slim/stew/star/...

Mike - on time-out in the corner with a bar of soap in his mouth...

ozzy72 wrote on Oct 24^th, 2007 at 2:24pm:

If I remember correctly, it said:

"I'll never wear a tie, but I like the color green…I think I’m gonna wanna fly the ****in’ F-16.” – Dos Gringos, Jeremiah Weed

and ""Do I want a ride on an airplane? - **** NO! I want to ride IN the airplane!"

and something about thermals and AirVenture.

And just imagine the first asterisk is a secret letter that is before 'G' and after 'E' in the alphabet.  I don't want to make it too easy to figure out; I might get myself banned or beaten.  I've had that signature for six months now, and I didn't receive one complaint about it from anyone, until today.  Had I known it was causing so much trouble, I would have gladly changed it without a peep, but having the entire thing deleted out of the blue is goofy.  It just seems to be a little over the top, but I'm just a lowly member, so I'll "know my role" and stay in my place...

Mike ....... most of the * were not there ....... so in all fairness I think the replacement explained well enough the reason for removing it.

In future remember this is a family forum .... and * replacing the letters does not make swearing, wether in quotes from someone else or not, any more acceptable.

None of my business but I can see both sides of this. I know the mods are busy but surely a quiet PM to Mobius would have solved the problem without upsetting a regular member who I don't recall breaking any forum rules before.

On the other hand I think that you Mike are being a tad naive. I don't know about your part of the world but there won't be many six year-olds around here that don't know exactly what those asterisks mean. Even though it's been deleted the exact wording of your sig can be found by pasting the appropriate words in Google. I think I’m gonna wanna fly the ****in’ F-16
They won't be offended by it either (that's how kids talk these days) but I'm sure that most of their parents & grandparents don't want to see that sort of language on what is a family forum. I can swear like a trooper if the need arises & it doesn't offend me in the slightest. Call me a hypocrite if you like but I've never used that sort of language in front of my wife, daughter, granddaughter or my parents when they were alive.

The point here ....... The language was unacceptable on this site wether * were used or not.

Removal of the offending language was the priority not wether it offends the user of said language to have it removed without notice.

The inconvenience of having to redo a few links should be considered as punishment and as a side note ....... as a member who doesn't usually transgress the rules .... when you do it's more noticeable

So it should ....... a long established member of the community should have known better than to post offensive language. Had this been a newbie there wouldn't have been an issue.

After spending an hour moving threads and deleting linked images from members, who should have known better, I think my replacement text was rather tame ..... and if it makes Mike and anyone else think before posting something dubious then it's done it's job and I make no apology.

Those who are established on these forums should be setting the example not pushing the boundaries. Just because the rules on this site are fairly relaxed and flexible doesn't mean they shouldn't be enforced occasionally.