Posting "IBTL"

Posting of "IBTL" or image macros of it will result in a suspension, no exceptions. The reason for this is as follows: We get a lot of newbies who post questions, many of which are dumb/could very easily be answered by searching on Google. Sadly some of the older inhabitants of the forum have lost their tolerance for such questions (having seen them so many times) and would post aggressive responses/flames. Such threads quickly deteriorate into chaos and the original poster (upset at having their stupidity pointed out to them) would likely depart never to return. To prevent this, mods would often lock a thread at the first signs of flaming. Once locking became common forum members would look for posts that they thought fitted the above description and instead of answering the question or posting a flame they would simply post IBTL - In Before The Lock (meaning "I managed to post before the mods could lock the thread"). This was just as destructive as posting flames because threads were reduced to a dumb question and a bunch of replies that were just IBTL. [Edited by - Obscure on August 9, 2005 5:34:36 AM]