Re: Leaving the board, sadly.


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Posted by Rick Denney on October 10, 2002 at 11:58:14:

In Reply to: Leaving the board, sadly. posted by Alan Herold on October 10, 2002 at 09:52:27:

In any community, you will find both pairs of enemies and even pairs of friends who occasionally fight. You will also find those who want to use the forum as a righter of wrongs, whatever those wrongs may be. The challenge to the seller you mention did not attack the veracity of the seller, but rather the veracity of the product as represented, which is all well and good. Potential buyers will now ask appropriate questions. There have been cases in the past where it was not handled nearly so well. Even then, one must endure the bits that come close to the line, or you end up with an over-regulated forum that inhibits much that is good. Of course, everyone draws the line in a different place.

I'm sure that Sean does not look at the forum every day, and sometimes he misses things. He is just one man, after all. It would be good if the contributors to this forum would not put Sean in the position of having to do so much, and it would also be good if those who use the forum as their private playground for disruption would find another hobby.

What can we do other than police our own posts? We can ignore those posts that are designed to inflame, because the flames are the objective and if we ignore them we deny the perpetrators of their goal.

As a regular contributor to this forum, I've been occasionally praised for my wordsmithing skills. I cringe when I hear it, because I know that soon I'll go over the line myself and offend a friend. It happens, and has happened recently. I, like everyone else who ventures into the fray of public discussion, depend on the generosity and good will of other forum members. We are all boors at one time or another and need forgiveness.

I'm a member of other forums, including one on the powerful Delphi forum engine. That software allows anonymity and aliases with respect to the membership, but requires logging into the system with a valid and stable email address. This allows abusers to be removed. Even better, it allows members of the forum to consciously ignore the posts of those who are offensive to them, so that they don't have to see them. But it doesn't provide these features for free, and many have left because of the small monthly charges. If Sean ever runs out of what seems to be a vast store of patience, we may have to relocated to something like that, but I hope not.

One thing I know for sure: If the good people of this forum leave because of the few miscreants, all that will be left are the miscreants.

Rick "who thinks navigating troubled waters isn't always easy" Denney


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