Any Subject

This has been put into "General Chat" for a purpose.

Should this topic be used for any subject as well as photography?
If it isn't, is it denying us our rights as listed in the "Human Rights Act" which states we have the freedom of speech?

I believe we should have this forum to talk about any subject we wish.

Strictly speaking freedom of speech doesn't apply to private web forums. You're free to set up your own to talk about whatever you like, but you can't demand that operators of an existing forum allow you to talk about, say, 18th century rivets or Lego astronauts to pick a couple of topics from the air.

Freedom of speech is supposed to cover allowing you or I to say what we please without fear of repression. It is naturally tempered by the requirement not to be gratuitously offensive - the difference between attacking the ideas/policies of an individual and making personal attacks. Saying that you consider Nikon to be overpriced or poorly designed is fine, calling Nikon users idiots isn't (however much you may be tempted!)

There are plenty of non photography threads (Another pointless thread comes to mind :wink.

Provided you obey the terms of use of the forum (read in particular clauses 6, 12 and 19) then there shouldn't be a problem.

Topics such as religion and politics are best avoided as they inevitably end up offending someone.

The General Chat area is pretty flexible, providing you avoid talking about politics, religion or anything else deemed offensive.

But I'm curious as to why you started this discussion. Are you feeling repressed???

This forum is provided as a resource for Pentax Users, with a particular mission to help people to improve their photography. The general section is not a free-for-all and is intended for items of interest to Pentax Users that don't easily fit in elsewhere. It is still photography based, which is a breath of frsh air in the sense that we don't have totrawl through lots of irrelevant stuff to get to the purpose of the site.

Some leeway exists, but politics and religion are generally off limits as they always lead to friction and arguments. Likewise, we don't discuss Canon, Nikon and other marque matters exceptas it pertains to Pentax.

This is a specialised forum and if we have to ask if our Human Rights are being violated, then Ithink we're maybe not looking at it in the right spirit. It's all common sense really.

You are just trivialising the HRA by citing it in this way. If you were trapped inside Pentax User and had no other outlet, I might have more sympathy but...

Freedom of Expression is freedom to speak your opinions without being prevented from doing so by the government., not the people who run Pentax User

You can always come to my forum at Smeggy's

http://www.smeggys.co.uk

There you can talk about anything you so desire

I had a cursory look at Smeggy's place. To be honest apart from your good self, I found the denizens a bit scary in an EDLish way!

The other Pentax forum has an off topic section which is excellent. Many discussions had with birthers, zionists, jehovas witnesses etc. Somehow it doesn't destroy the good natured thrust of the forum and people are grown up enough to put their differences of opinion aside. The real arguments and hurt feelings are in the photography related sections!

I thing the key to the success over there is you can turn off the visibility of the political/religious discussion threads. Sensitive souls can therefore opt out entirely.

Ahhh there's only one ( and a half ) EDL racist, who surfaced some obvnoxious views in a couple of multiculturalism threads. And those threads are only recent.

There's a LOT MORE to smeggy's than that. It's like your local friendly pub. No cliques and we have a good laugh as well as some serious discussions.

At smeggy's the vast majority of debates are good natured even we have a diverse set of views.

I'd hate anyone to think that Smeggy's was some EDL forum. Crikey. Totally opposite of my views. However I do like to encourage a wide range of views as long as no hatred is spewed.

So don't be put off by pentaxophile's unfortunate cursory look. The front page has a list of current threads on the right and as you can see a whole diverse range of stuff.




....

OK, that's enough of the adverts....we know where you are.

I have enough problems keeping up with this forum

I spend a lot of time here:

http://www.spideridentification.org/forums/

But it MUST have 8 legs or it's not allowed

Now that one might be worth joining

Just the one advert of course.

And a fair response to Pentaxophile's 'cursory look'