[CraigD6er]

Temporary or permanent banning is a hard call for the mods to make. As gamers we tend to rightly be passionate about our interests; this seems particularly so for more niche games such as these where forums and active/semi-active players are far fewer in number than for the more popular games (D&D/Pathfinder, Traveller etc). We are passionate because we care, and because we are a small community without the massive resources and supplements of other games. Without such passion, would Twilight 2000 have made it as far as V4? Would The Morrow Project have been so recently updated? Would this forum even still be running? Passion is fine, even necessary, in this hobby as much as anything else but there is always a fine line that once crossed can lead to offence. The best thing is always to draft your post/response and reread it, several times if necessary, before actually posting it here or anywhere else on line. Don’t type ‘live’ on a forum unless you are very sure of what you are doing. Step back and think about whether your passion may be someone else’s offence. If there is any doubt that your post might cause offence, review, rewrite, even just plain don’t do it. In that way hopefully many of the more volatile comments may be filtered out before seeing the light of day. It is very difficult to properly judge mood from texts or emails compared with face to face speech. What may be said with an amused tone or expression in real life does not convey the same in printed form. Should we ostracize someone for defending their views of the game? No, absolutely not. Should we ban, at least temporarily, someone for getting too personal in their comments? Yes, certainly, because there is no need or excuse for it. However the problem is just what is the definition of too personal? We all take comments differently; for one it may be light hearted for another it may be insulting. So we need to be more careful with our posts and also maybe a little more thoughtful before we start responding. As Raellus has posted it behoves us all to keep it civil and constructive. If you can’t do that, then should anyone else be subject to the abuse just because you can’t be civil? No. Should we permanently ban people for continual infractions? Probably after a certain time it may become obvious that temporary bans aren’t working, but maybe there should be incremental bans first? First offence is 1 week, second is 1 month, third is 6 months etc. Is the alternative for the mods to see each post before it goes live? Is that the sort of option that has to be considered? I wouldn’t want that and I’m very sure the mods don’t want it. We are all I hope adult enough to know that there have to be some rules, some effort to control what is said and done and some standards that are expected of us to continue to be part of this community. They are quite clearly laid out on the forum. Let’s hope we can abide by those rules without forcing the mods to use the nuclear option on anyone.
(did I read this before posting? Yes. Will I find something I'd change if I'd read it again before posting? Almost certainly, because it's hard to get it exactly right!)