Quote:
Originally Posted by mraynrand
All this is completely at your discretion but before you lower the boom, may I suggest updating the forum rules so we know specifically what you want to avoid (and where you want to avoid it). I can easily ignore the back and forth sniping between a couple of people, especially when it is limited, and especially if it is FYI and RR forums. If you eliminate any back and forth sniping, you'll effectively reduce the population here about 80%. Do you have a specific cutoff in mind - such as no personal comments or no personal comments outside certain threads? No 'excessive' sniping? It's a tough line to walk. Anyone can see that the back and forth here is poisonous, but there are other levels of back and forth that tend to come close. I've engaged in some of that myself on FYI/RR, so I guess you could start by banning Mrayn....# !UrrK#$%#%%#! HELP....Help....help...
Look, back and forth "sniping" is one thing, but how much of that is OK? Reduce the population by 80%? Well, that assumes no one leaves because of stuff like that. Impossible to know that. If 80% leave because of "no sniping", then we aren't talking about the packers are we? If I were to ban "sniping" and "personal attacks" and you leave, but, two others who just lurk or left because they got attacked or don't like sniping start participating, then what is the difference? I'd like EVERYONE to feel welcome. Pollyannish? You bet. But why not?
I can write rules. But my experience in writing them is that then we set the least acceptable "baseline". Next, a bunch of creative people with nothing else to do, figure out how close they can get to the "stated rule" without breaking it. Not the intent of the rule, that's for sure. Then we get into a judgment area of "how close is too close". Not really different from where we are now, is it?
People know what they have to do to "get along" in forums. I'd like to try that first. Might not work, but we'll see. Got a nice PM from someone today. Gives me cause to hope.
Some people just don't like each other. Rules aren't going to fix that.