Casualty of flamewar fears

Last night, I was cruising the internet while trying not to cough up a lung (I have been sick all week), and I ran across a great blog idea. I started to write it, and then I stopped.

Why?!

Simply, because I could see how it was going to be taken out of context and used as evidence that I was flaming an aspect of Golden Dawn mythology. Which was not my purpose---I was merely using my Golden Dawn background (which I presume my readers share) to explain something else.

So I deleted a perfectly good post because it was likely to get someone's knickers in a tangle.

One of my long-standing fears about the "we can't afford another flame war" school of policing is that it is going to shut good people up completely. That we are going to end up with just one party talking about Golden Dawn, and the rest of us becoming New Agers simply because we can't talk about anything interesting in Golden Dawn.

It is something that I noticed that happened in the Wiccan community. Ironically, the only people who actually shut up are the people who should not have been censored in the first place---the trolls and the flamers are still as loud as ever.

You can't do book reviews because it shows that you have a bias, therefore you are flaming someone. You can't write about your opinions about Golden Dawn techniques because you are wrong and flaming everyone who has a different understanding of how the system works. You can't advertise your own work because only flamers are interested in making money.

The only option you have if you do not want to be accused of being a flamer and a troll is to simply shut up. Completely shut up. And give up the field to those who have appointed themselves as the internet police.

Yet despite the claims of the internet police, I am not sure that it is helping the community at all.

And heavens knows that it annoys the hell out of me. I should be focused on writing the very best blog posts that I can. Not deleting good posts because they are going to upset someone. More of my mental energy is spent trying to figure out how to not upset people than it is to advance interest in the system I am working. I am getting sick and tired of having to be politically correct.

And I may not be paying much attention to the internet police much longer. Of course, that statement will be read as a declaration of flame war---the question is what side is going to yell at me first.