[midori]

Hi everyone,

Lately the moderation team has received many complaints from various members and guests, regarding posts in discussion threads that some find offensive, even though they do not contain what this site defines as "personal attacks." What people seem to find objectionable in such reported posts is a perception that the poster seeks only to berate others, not to engage them in genuine, meaningful discourse about a given issue. Some forums are more prone to this problem than others – it’s a frequent occurrence in the threads pertaining to Other Men/Other Women, for example – but it crops up across the spectrum of discussion topics. We moderators are often at a loss as to how to respond to such complaints, because the problematic posts often do not contain content that has been explicitly prohibited in the LoveShack.org user guidelines. Rather, the complaints regard a poster's style or perceived attitude towards others. LoveShack.org moderators prefer to censor/edit posts as little as possible, as we seek to allow members to express their opinions freely, with minimal interference from us.

The simplest solution is to ignore someone whom you feel isn’t interested in listening to what you or anyone else has to say – even if they direct their comments at you. No one can force you to respond. Reply only to the posts you find to be helpful/meaningful/interesting -- i.e., worth responding to. Posting a reply simply to disparage another member only injects hostility into a thread.

I would also like to suggest, to all members and guests, that you consider whether you are posting in order to explore an issue that you have some questions about, and about which you would like to get insight from other people, or if you are simply posting a manifesto/rant and are actually uninterested in hearing other views. We do have a “Rants” section in the off-topic area, so there is a space for such posts on this site. But if you’ve shared your view on a subject and other posters don’t appear to agree, you must decide if continuing to post in that thread will serve to further the discussion, or if it will merely allow you to have the last word.

I’d like to remind everyone of LoveShack.org’s User Guidelines, which can be found here: http://www.loveshack.org/forums/guidelines/. Of particular salience to this issue is the following:

We expect that all participants will respond to posts in their specific context, not to the person who has posted. While opinions may be formed of various members based on what they have posted in the past, any response to any particular submission should be grounded in what has been posted in that thread. Past disagreements should not be resurrected in new threads. It is important that criticism be directed at what is stated in a post ("I don't like your idea") rather than at the individual making the statement ("I don't like you").

As ever, when you encounter a post or other communication from another member that you feel is inappropriate, please report it to the site administrators. Please do not hesitate to do this – even if the moderators decide that editing or other action is not warranted, we appreciate the heads up. It’s helpful for us to know the problems members perceive.

Thank you for your cooperation.

midori