Well said, HF.
I was appalled at seeing so much use of the term "stealing" by adults towards a youngster in this thread, while no single adult here will deny that the entire business-world based on the so glorified 'free market system' involves "stealing" in a million different ways every day.
What about proportion ?

Moreover, if this is what we are supposed to see now as 'an educative action' towards a young person, consciously (i.e. not by accident) staged to 'get a point across', I honestly think that Ryans parents still do a better job at educating him.
Who the hell are we to think we can take over that task ?
Where does anyoneone of Ryans 'correctors' here remember his own youth, or even see the same enthusiasm that has grabbed him for the world of computers, as inspires all the rest of us here ?
And even if it was for the safety of this Forum, does that justify expressions like "I am ashamed to admit that you are a fellow Canadian....", "abhorrent conduct" or "You make a good case study for why corporal punishment should be returned to the classroom..." ???
What about reponsibility ?

If this should pass for an instructive and educative action towards a youngster I think this Forum has some introspection to do.
Other threads have discussed at length the vocabulary and ways of expression by the visitors here (e.g. in UD reports),
I for one find this thread a shamefull example of how I would NOT like this Forum to become known to outsiders.
This is not about saving the Forum, this is about its conviviality that has so often been praised in the past.

And why is it, that a moderator seems to have 'immunity' when it comes to keeping up or jeopardizing this widely known conviviality,
and even a collective verbal attack and threat on one youngster is condoned as 'for the sake of the Forum' ?
What started as a valid argument of forum-policy, has degraded into a mob-fight against one person, even after that person asked specifically to stop it, admitting 'having gone too far'. That such an unequal and therefore coward action is condoned as 'instructive', is what I truely find "abhorrent conduct".
Have we become so intellectual and self-righteous that it freezes our hearts ?

Shame on us, I say with HF and Bob G , and I include myself for being a regular and therefore co-responsible for the image that we thus project to the Internet.
All the above is as "OT" as most of this thread.
On the subject: piracy is as old as the world, as has been candice the privilege of the young. What do WE learn from them ?


Maurice.