justTripn wrote:Guys, it has become increasingly difficult to monitor this board. People are leaving because of the conflicts. We are a very diverse group geographically and culturally and in terms of past experiences. PLEASE behave respectfully towards others or we will have no forum at all.
I know the discussion has gone on from this first post but I would like to address this. I haven't been around enough to know exactly what this is about, yet I am familiar with this phenomenon. It's not something specific to this board, but I quickly became aware of it the first time I stuck my nose in here after being silent on TrekBBS and HoT for years; the tendency to take the "my way or the highway" attitude. The smaller the community the harder it gets to "hide" from posters you don't agree with and have a tendency to end up in a conflict with and they stand out more. It's easier to leave when you're sure you will bump in to that individual every time you start reading a thread.
In my case it's been more my disease than anything else that has kept me from hanging around here. Plus, I lived through the 'shipper wars on TrekBBS and that was nasty. After a while I just wanted to grab a baseball bat and start swinging at the worst offenders on both sides shouting "It's just a bloody telly show, so get a grip!". In my case what happened was that I just stopped feeding the monster. Knowing when to just stop and not get too involved is an art, but having gone through that chaos taught me to not get drawn in.
Having said that, I definitely think everyone needs to think about how they put things. I'm personally not a fan of the open comments feature on written material. I have seen stories that have been dealing with difficult issues and what tend to happen is that some really hate what they read and spew it all over the place. It's not constructive. In fact it's plain rude. Don't like it? Take it to e-mail or PM and discuss your issues with the story. Or simply quit reading. There's always that option one click away. Just put yourself on the receiving end for a moment before hitting that submit button, and much will be won.
For the moderators on the board, if you are seeing issues with posters, just deal with it right away and talk to them. Don't let it drag on like I've seen on other boards. People need to know when they're out of line even if they haven't broken any rules per se. One or two posters can be enough to slow traffic considerably. It might seem presumptuous to say something like this, but I have as I have mentioned been around on plenty of boards for a while. I have never wanted to become a moderator because I know it's not easy, so you guys have my admiration for sticking it out. This was just a word of advice after watching events unfold over the years.