German Salazar recently closed his very valuable ShooterJournal.com Forums to new posts. The archives remain up, but there are no new posts since 2/1/2008.
The reason was that it was taking him an increasing amount of time every week to police the threads and insure that his members were not getting into verbal fist fights.
If folks want to keep this Forum going, for God's sake treat other members with respect.
There seems to be a pattern that sets things off. Poster A, who assumes he is WAY smarter/more experienced, will make a snide or sarcastic remark to poster B. This leads to an escalation, with B barking back at A, and A responding with insults. Then, guess what, Poster A emails me complaining that "Help Mr. Moderator, you should ban Poster B!! He called me an over-bearing SOB". I go back to the thread and -- guess what -- it was crystal clear what set off the dispute -- the sarcastic, disparaging, or "clever" insult by Poster A.
I'm convinced now that, in some situations, Poster A is actually looking to get into an online sparing match... baiting other posters into replying.
Folks... we're all too adult for that.
Likewise, I want to say in NO UNCERTAIN TERMS that the mere fact that you THINK you have superior knowledge about a particular topic than another Forum member does NOT give you the right to belittle or insult others.
Just this week I've seen two instances where Poster A unloaded all over other members, scathing them for being inexperienced numbskulls. Well, turns out Poster A's knowledge of the situation was far from perfect too. One thread involved stock bedding. I actually took the time to call Alex Sitman and Tom Meredith, two of the most respected stockers in the country, to see whether Mr. A was correct. Guess what, both said the Mister A's advice was not very sound, and that the practice advocated by other posters,whom Mr. A called "stupid") was the better way.
Let he who is without sin cast the first stone...
I don't want to see Forum members belittling others or being "cute" by using snide or sarcastic language to make other members look foolish. I'd say that, more often than not, those posters who loudly announce they have "superior knowledge", have a lot to learn also....
Keep that in mind -- that we ALL have a lot to learn -- and be courteous.
It also helps to show some humility. Consider this, most sports historians would name John Wooden as the greatest college basketball coach of all time, by a large margin. But if you have ever talked to Coach Wooden,and I have), the first thing you notice is that he doesn't disparage other coaches, call them "fools" or "morons" or "losers". He will render advice but he will never say "this is the only way to do it".
Wooden is actually quick to preface his thoughts by saying "it's a long time since I've coached... so much has changed ... this is only one man's perspective." He doesn't say "SHUT UP you boobs and listen to me because I'm so smart."
But guess what, the man is 97 years old and people are still listening.