I tend to visit a lot of different forums....I have a lot of hobbies.
You notice the same themes among a lot of forum sites.
Some sites get rid of their lounge altogether, it becomes too much overhead and too much of a hassle to moderate. Other sites use the lounge as a waste dump, as described. That keeps the other sections clean to discuss the ideas and topics central to the site.
In essence, the lounge on MOST sites is designed to talk about political topics, news, jokes, off topic, whatever. That way you can keep non sense to a minimum in the threads where you should be talking about small blocks and suspensions and transmissions and such.
It's the lesser of two evils. If you get rid of the lounge, you simply end up having to moderate the rest of the site harder because those kinds of things will pop up.
I think that healthy, contrary, even heated discussion is okay. I think that mindless name calling is obviously not productive or valuable at all.
The beauty of being free is the ability to have and voice your own opinions. Club Cobra obviously isn't obligated to allow us to exercise our "right" here.
You'll find sites with good moderators and bad moderators. Some sites don't allow political or religious discussions at all, (because they often become heated...and usually spill over into the other sections....).
As long as someone isn't totally polluting every thread
or degrading threads to the point of name calling, then it's not going to kill everyone to let it go. A little debate and exchange of ideas is healthy. The world would be a pretty boring place if we all thought exactly the same.
Again, it's not CC's obligation to provide a chat forum, but it's not like it's killing anyone to do so either.
I agree with the ignore function. Then again, I'm mature enough to disagree with someone on one thread and not carry a chip on my shoulder against them in every other thread. Some people are not.