I think this thread has run its course. A few quick comments and then I'm going to close the thread:
1) First, thanks to all the members for making BYC the absolute best place in the world (online and off) for chicken lovers like us!
2) Thanks to the staff members who are simply regular members like you with a super long (8+ years in some cases) of proven track record of love of this community and super helpfulness to everyone!
3) Yes, we have some rules that people without experience running this site / community for almost 10 years may not understand. These rules have been refined based on the combined experience of over 50 years running this site and community. Are the rules perfect? Probably not... but they are pretty darn close!
4) To reiterate what Chel said above: Staff tries to keep what happens between them and other members private. That is out of respect for the members and for the community.
Please keep in mind that there are OFTEN lots of things that have happened in the past, and lots of emails and PMs transmitted before actions like a member's banning takes place. We don't just ban members on a whim, especially ones that are here because they love the community and want to help.
5)
Regarding Grocery Stores: Yes, you can shop at any grocery store you want, but I doubt Safeway will let you go inside their store (which was started by a fired disgruntled employee) and begin posting notes on the walls of Safeway's store saying, "Come visit the other grocery store down the street" which has copied the format, colors, etc. Safeway also won't be too keen on letting people come into their store to go up to customers individually to say, "Hey, come visit this other store!"
Bottom line, will Safeway force you to stop going to the other store? Nope... but they will continue to do all they can to ensure their store has is the best store and will not encourage people to leave their store to shop elsewhere.
Dang I love analogies... thanks for the idea!
ps. One of the other rules relates to discussing what happens in other forums. This is a perfect example of what we usually wouldn't allow posted, but we're going to leave it here as an example. If anyone has specific questions or need more detail they should contact a Staff member via PM and not on the forum.
Thanks everyone for making BYC the best Chicken site on the internet! We've got members posting 2,000 new posts EVERY DAY (that's almost 2 posts of every minute of every day!) and we've got 22 new friends signing up every day... look for them and welcome them to BYC as you were once welcomed!
