Having read the TOL Commandments, I fail to see under what authority that "patrick jane" can presume to establish his own private thread whereby summarily excluding any and all dissenting opinion.
Having been a member since 2007, I was always under the impression that the forums in Theology Online were established to encourage a robust discussion concerning a variety of topics - within the established guidelines!
"Patrick jane" has already created his private thread in Politics, "Donald J. Trump - Amazing First Year," whose access he manipulates by repeatedly opening and closing - thus ensuring that he is the one and only individual allowed to express an opinion!
I realize that Theology Online is a private enterprise, but given that it is also open to public participation, I fail to see as to what purpose is being served by dispensing with the 1st Amendment and allowing certain individual OPs to assert that their threads constitute their private domains!
Does TOL really want to establish the precedent of allowing individual OPs the power to decide which members and what opinions may or may not be expressed in their threads?
To condone this course of action would fundamentally undermine the purpose of TOL, allow a growing number of threads to be controlled by cliques and transfer the authority to regulate TOL from the moderators to individual OPs.