There seems to be some manufactured controversy over how people "should" or "be allowed" to post in obituary threads. It seems like way too much bandwidth in the obit thread for the pope is being chewed up by people who feel no one "should be allowed" to say anything negative about the deceased person in any obit threads.

So, for discussion sake, I offer here the dictionary definition of obituary:

Main Entry: obit·u·ary
Pronunciation: &-'bi-ch&-"wer-E, O-, -'bi-ch&-rE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -ar·ies
Etymology: Medieval Latin obituarium, from Latin obitus death
: a notice of a person's death usually with a short biographical account

I also submit to you that there is no Netiquette rule that says any discussion of the recently departed celebrity in chat forums must be sad, mournful, serious, and completely positive.

Why do people think they should be able to control what someone says about the death of celebrity in chat forums? Why do people feel they have a god given right to restrict obituary threads so that they are used by people as nothing except a place to expressing their "mourning" for people they know nothing about because they have never even met them? Or whine around about people not making nice about celebrities they detested when they die?

This is the internet people. You want to "mourn" celebrities, go to church and light a candle. Start a "prayer" or "mourning" thread for them. You control freaks come out of the woodwork when these celebrity obituary threads get posted, and you flame anyone you deem not "reverential" about the deceased. What makes you think you have the right to dictate what gets said about dead celebrities, just because the thread title contains the word "OBIT" at the beginning?

Maybe dropping the choice of the OBIT delimiter would end the rancor about this? Or adding a delimiter for "mourning" or "prayer thread" or something would make the celebrity worshippers happy. I doubt it, of course, because it seems to me they just have to bitch about something.