Some of you may remember how the steamboats.org message board started: It was a forum for communication and information amongst the then former employees of the DQSC after bancruptcy. The discussion then was decent, friendly, helpful and everyone was interested in getting information about the future and how to get the company back to business.

What happend since then? Today's discussion is aggressive, destructive, partly insulting. Are there really people out there hoping to get their jobs back by calling Bruce Nierenberg a liar? Do you really think DQSC will honor you for being destructive instead of delivering sensemaking, intelligent ideas on how to get the good business back? Do you really think that behaving like Katrina was personally handmade by the management of DQSC will improve the situation? Do you really think discussing all your disappointment right in front of your customers helps to improve your situation?

There are a few reasons why I don't want and even can't support this kind of discussion here any more:

1) I'm legally responsible for everything published on steamboats.org. And I don't have a multi-million-dollar company backing me up in case of legal problems. It is pretty easy to close down the whole website www.steamboats.org - just sue me and I have to close because I couldn't even afford the laywers to defend me.

2) There is a major misunderstanding what "free speech" means - and being a professional journalist, believe me I know what I'm talking about! Free speech mainly means that you're free to express your personal OPINION about what the goverment does (and to some extend what public companies do in the public). But it doesn't cover many other things like insults, wrong (or unproofen) statements of fact, and in general anything about privatly hold companies and privat persons.

3) I believe in fair, decent and civilized interaction between people who know how to behave. Everything can be expressed in appropriate language without insulting others and without ignoring rules. If you don't believe in this kind of ethical values, please go somewhere else.

4) Steamboats.org is a great place, but it's not everything. If you don't like how things work here, feel free not to attend. I'd be sorry to see you leaving, but this is my website and I make the rules here, nobody else. This is a fact and not up for discussion.

Please remember: Steamboats.org is a private website, driven and maintained by Carmen and me in the evenings and on weekends. We do it because we love steamboats, cruising the DQSC and other boats, and because it's a great thing to connect people around the world who have the same interests. We do not earn money with this and it's not our intention anyway. We've got limited time and ressources to do all this and we want to have at least a little bit fun with it, too. Therefore, giving us a hard time by violating the rules you force us to spend a lot of time for maintenance, deleting postings, etc. Do you really think it's fair "awarding" us for our work by giving us a hard time? Do you really think setting up rules, deleting postings, sending out numerous e-mails to remind you of the rules is fun for us?

I've heard this "free speech" thing regarding to our message board again and again now and in the past, usually from people who don't want to accept the rules: May I remind you that being a citizen of a free, democratic country does mean to have rights and duties. Don't only ask for your rights - remember your duties, too, please.

Just some more personal remarks: I don't get! What's happening here? Yes, I understand that you're angry. And yes, it's natural that you're not happy if your company doesn't re-hire you. And yes, of course, I see the very difficult situation many of you are in since Katrina. But that's how life is and nobody can change this, except the lord himself. Especially because not mismanagement caused this problems but an unbelievable natural desaster: Think again whether it's really the DQSC to blame for this. My personal opinion: Mayby you should think about blaming the local and federal government for not being prepared for such a desaster, for not improving the dams at New Orleans, knowing that they are much to weak for hurricanes that could happen to this city at any time ...

My deep apologies to all the great, nice, decent people and friends I've found through this website. I'm so sorry that we even have to discuss things like this here. I hope for your understanding and I hope you do not feel affected by this or now feel limited by what you post on the message board. Please, continue the great parts of the message board - especially the last few weeks had unbelievable valuable and delightful threads. Let's continue this and forget about the unruly, destructive parts.

Now: Let's discuss how to continue with the DQSC issue - I don't want to close this issue on the message board totally. I just want to make sure the discussion is constructive, informative, friendly. any ideas and opinions are welcome. Just post a comment to this weblog posting. I really hope we find a good sopution for it. But to be honest: so far I don't have an appropriate idea for it ...

Until we found a final solution, I'm happy to accept continous postings about DQSC issues from DQSC or ex-DQSC employed or related long-time posters like Jazzou, Toots, Clara, Paul, Capt. Schultz, Miss Alice, Bruce Nierenberg, etc.