Cal Haines
Diamond
- Joined
- Sep 19, 2002
- Location
- Tucson, AZ
I would like input from the members of the forum about what you want from your moderator.
As most of you know, we had a bit of a flame war erupt last weekend, f-bombs were dropped, and I locked the thread until I could react to it in some fashion. One member has (at least stated) that he was leaving the forum as a result of my locking the thread. The question is, what should I do in that situation?
What I can do is:
Personally, I don't think that profanity or flame wars adds to a discussion and may well cause people to stop visiting the forum. My instinct in this instance is to lock the thread long enough for people to cool down, edit the thread to clean up the harsh language, then unlock it (if appropriate). But I recognize that an overbearing moderator can be a serious problem as well and I don't want to be that sort of moderator. What say you?
Please respond to this thread or by e-mail/PM if you have any suggestions or concerns regarding this issue.
Cal
As most of you know, we had a bit of a flame war erupt last weekend, f-bombs were dropped, and I locked the thread until I could react to it in some fashion. One member has (at least stated) that he was leaving the forum as a result of my locking the thread. The question is, what should I do in that situation?
What I can do is:
- Nothing
- Send a PM (Personal Message) to the party(s) involved
- Post something to the thread, asking for more civil discourse
- Edit the thread to remove the offending language
- Lock the thread
- Delete the thread
Personally, I don't think that profanity or flame wars adds to a discussion and may well cause people to stop visiting the forum. My instinct in this instance is to lock the thread long enough for people to cool down, edit the thread to clean up the harsh language, then unlock it (if appropriate). But I recognize that an overbearing moderator can be a serious problem as well and I don't want to be that sort of moderator. What say you?
Please respond to this thread or by e-mail/PM if you have any suggestions or concerns regarding this issue.
Cal