[Villages Kahuna]

Yeah, I'll admit that when I had what I thought was a light-hearted post to an already too long thread "zapped" with absolutely no explanation, I was tweaked. Had there been some sort of explanation from whomever decided to pull the plug on my post I might have understood better. But whoever did it exercised all the power that goes along with their position as "Talk Host".

The people who moderate this board own it. They created it, they manage it, they sell the advertising on it, presumably they profit from it, and they can run it as they please. I have absolutely no complaint about any of that.

But as a participant, I have certain responsibilities as well as some authorities. I feel I must create postings that further the objectives of the forum(s) in good taste, sometimes in a light-hearted or entertaining way, but always thoughtfully and in good taste. But I also have some authority. I have the choice to participate or not participate whenever and for whatever reason I so choose. I can come and go as I so desire. In the instance of a few weeks ago, I decided to exercise my authority by giving TOTV "a rest". Was I irritated by the heavy-handed removal of one of my postings with no explanation? I sure was. I was most irritated by the fact that the person who made the decision didn't feel it necessary to exercise the courtesy to tell me what had been done and why. But I didn't differ with the authority exercised by whichever of the Talk Hosts who chose to pull the plug. I still don't.

I've had a lot of fun posting on TOTV. I know that many of you have had that much enjoyment or more. I'm hopeful that those of us that live in The Villages have provided useful and informative responses to questions from those who haven't moved here yet--even though many of the questions are often repetitive. (Maybe TOTV needs a forum on how to use the "search" feature of the website.) And I hope that in some forums, like the Political forum, some issues have been raised that cause people to pause and think about things in between the constant activities we're all involved in around here.

But for the moment at least, I think I'm still going to continue to give TOTV a rest. I haven't even logged on in over a month. I wouldn't have known about this thread if Villages07 hadn't sent me a personal message. Will I check in to see what's going on in the future? Yeah, I probably will. I'll do that mostly because so many of you posted in this thread and asked that I join in again. I'll probably even create some postings in the future. I'll be a lot less inclined to type a bunch of mindless stuff and hit the "Post" button. But if there's a question or issue that I think I might be able to contribute to--sure, I'll take the time to put some thoughts together.

Thanks an awful lot for creating this thread, taking the time to add your thoughts to it, and letting me know that it existed. I'm truly touched. Talk to you all later.