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Originally Posted by Skybird
After watching it in several threads over one day, I cannot really understand what all the fuss about Flamingboat'S original posting that called up mod's attention is about, because there have been much more serious and offending incidents with far more vitriol and aggression - that were accepted to just pass by unmoderated, but shouldn't have. This lack of moderation is one of the main reasons why my personal ignore list is so full today, and it all is names who turned into personal verbal aggression. I miss both constancy, and at times unbiased balancing of standards that decide wether somebody gets warned and called back, or not.
And no, I am not calling it personal offense if somebody disagrees with me. The callibre I speak of is being accused of regretting you cannot send people into the gas chambre if they disagree with you, as happened some weeks ago - a comment that I really took with anger and will not forgive nor forget: compared to comments like that, Flamingboat's deed is almost harmless. And there happenes much more at times that although being worse than Flaminboat, raises no moderation at all.
One can disagree in things, and one can be clear about one'S opinion, and defend it, without turning unpolite, bullying others, and using offending and overly aggressive language that tries to hurt on the personal level and give others a bad name as a substitute for giving argument. One must not mistake an abstract discussion with an insult aimed at the personal level. I know that that can be done, because I experience that time and again in PM and emails, and talks about both relgion and politics - even with people who disagree with me, and nevertheless it almost always is a civil and frendly conversation. Some people in forums nevertheless seem to think if the other cannot grab them and confront them directly over their bad behavior, this is card blanche to misbehave and turning rude and use what they consider to be tough and male language (where in fact it is just expression of their intellectual helplesness).
As long as moderation does not show more consistency in this regard, I still recommend to ban all discussions in the GT forum that are about religion, and in principle: politics as well. Even climate has proven to be a potentially inflamatory issue, and others could be imagined. Since then a ban of one thing seem to lead to more bans of others, maybe it is better to have more constant moderating, and leave it to announcements that certain themes are discouraged.
The advise to simply leave bullies alone and not reacting to them, means nothing else than to leave the board to them and see it degenerating. We have a saying in german, " the more clever man gives way/der Klügere gibt nach". But the simple truth is that by that rule the stupid rule the world. It would be a shame to see this forum going down that way.
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