Wow, first off: kudos to all the more-senior members than me who have been so kind to Stigmata. Stig, your posts on this forum have been the equivalent of inroducing yourself to your neighbors and then pissing in their swimming pool. That's just not nice. Repeatedly posting to "boycott" Lynn and the other extremely knowledgeable members of this site is really not in good taste. These guys could probably find better things to do than help noobs like you and me learn how to shave with a straight, but they don't. They help us because they really care about the craft and because they're nice, decent people.

This community actually reminds me more of a barbershop like the movie "Barbershop." It shouldn't be a problem to talk about any hot-button issue in the off topic area, as we're all adults, and hopefully adults can maintain their decorum -- especially while debating, since attacking the other person instead of the other idea is pretty much the same as just acknowledging your loss. That said, despite my strong feelings on the 2nd amendment (and most of the constitution in general), I stayed out of that thread because by the time I read it it was unsalvageable.

My opinion on the actual topic is that that they are moderators, not referees. This isn't debate class, it's a place for adults to come and talk about a hobby / art / religion (depending on how you look at it, I guess): straight razor shaving. Noone here is getting paid a wage, so they have the same rights as anyone else when it comes to using the forums. They should be able to do whatever a normal person does, and if they exhibit favoritism or abuse their powers, they should be reprimanded or returned to the plebes.