Hi guys, CJ checking in with a comment. I've seen some of the posts lately about moderator censorship, and I've also seen the reasons why the issue gets raised-- the messages by those who like to foster anger and meanness to feed their own lack of self-respect. I too dislike the concept of censorship, because frequently inbetween the immature rantings there are valuable comments made by those who are making a contribution.
So my suggestion is that, as a group, we simply ignore the rude posters. We know who they are, and we can all recognize the hyperbolic emotional language that indicates those kinds of posts. So when we see one of those posts, let's all simply ignore it; no response of any kind-- just dead silence, as if the post didn't exist. And this would apply especially when the post attacks someone emotionally with the intention of eliciting an angry response; we just keep quiet--even the person being attacked--and let the post evaporate.
And when we come to know someone who frequently makes those kind of posts, we also ignore that person's "legitimate" posts. Then maybe after awhile those people will either go away, or learn to participate in our community here with some sense of respect and reverence.
That way we retain control over the direction of our discussions, and the ugly messages by the occasional wanker who shows up here will amount only to surface noise, without having the power to divert our attention from what we care about.
This approach has worked well on a couple of unmoderated musician's sites that I also frequent, where negative postings are even more common, and can be much nastier.
~cj
www.chrisjordan.com
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