IB, Thank You for explaining the situation.
Would it be fair to say that you consider Peter to be a peer of sorts? Since you spoke highly of him, I will take a leap here for the sake of the conversation that the answer is yes. Correct me if I am wrong.
If you can bring forth this understanding, certainly someone of his charm has the self-awareness to realise his humour does not necessarily translate to strangers on a forum. I wasn't the only one disturbed by his comments.
I can appreciate the acerbic wit of John Cleese, but I don't recall him being repetitively graphically violent to this degree and out of context. Even at the BBC in 1974, comments about blow-torching animals and elderly wouldn't have made it past their censors. Why should a forum, as a form of media, be any different in this regard? A certain level of censorship has been with humanity to keep society in balance since the era of cunieform tablets and probably earlier.
I started posting on Bellgab in 2015. That's three years ago. That is when I met Peter and many other of the regular posters to Bellgab. I've PM'd, Skyped and have even spoken on the phone to Peter as well as some other fellow Gabbers. Most posters are down to earth and not "in character" behind the scenes. Believe me, if "Peter" formerly SV on Bellgab were a dangerous character I certainly would not have associated with him.
Everyone has their different posting styles. I'm sorry that you are so easily offended. The internet is a wild and wooly place. There are many people that want their safe spaces everywhere they go and for everyone to be super nice all of the time. That can be good to a certain extent, but it brings a very boring Church lady atmosphere to any forum. It is also a form of censorship. As much as aggressive 4chan type of behavior and posts kill a forum, so does the other extreme. Any extreme is bad.
You mentioned that you've been attacked with a fire torch. I don't know what type of a life you lead, or what type of people you associate with. Or maybe you were in the military. None of my business at any rate. However for you to think that someone on another continent who was threatening such over the top, bordering on the ludicrous behavior towards cat ladies was being serious gives me pause. Like there is a disconnect with reality. If SV always made posts such as these, I would agree that it is too much and too aggressive. But if you took the time to read his other posts, you would see that he is not the loose cannon that you make him out to be.
You brought up John Cleese. He was in Fawlty Towers as well as on Monty Python. Monty Python did a movie called Monty Python and the Holy Grail. At one point in the movie, one of the characters gets both arms, one leg, and finally the entire lower-half of his body cut off with arterial blood flow and all. Were you aware of this? Do you think John Cleese should have been banned from the comedy arena because of such violent behavior? It was an over the top scene that was meant to be funny by being shocking. And it was one small part of Cleese's career.
Any forum that stops being entertaining and becomes a snooze fest is dead in the water and will have 3 regular posters doing all the posting and being an echo chamber to each other. It scares me to think that is what you want for this forum.
