Ian, I think you hit the nail on the head, prett much square on! My feeling from the beginning of this (going back even a bit farther than the 11 days, but that's of no consequence) was that a tiny bit of communication could have made a huge difference. The posters started out asking for that, in genereal pretty politely, the longer it didn't happen, the more angry things got. Then, once things got out of hand, people that I like, and repsect, started fighting with each other, and that hurt. It was like there was a bunch of pent up anger, and it all got released at once. In the end, maybe that's a good thing. I never realized how much of it there was. Maybe now all of us can be more aware, and try to address things before they blow up.
So, where should we go? It seems to me that the root of the communication issue was a lack of real communication from the moderator(s) to the posters, even after things started to go sideways. I think part of the issue may have been impatience on the part of the posters, but there was definetly a condescending attitude in the responses that did come back. I'm not saying it was intended, but there was really no missing it. I agree, I am happy to have sg continue (not that I get a vote!). I hope that she has learned from this as much as the rest of us. I think there must be a warning before a banning, except in extreme cases (and I don't think anything that happened here would qualify, from what I saw). Snakesonaplayne would qualify, in general I don't think it's hard to tell the difference. If in doubt, warn. I think that removing posts should only be done when the basic rules have been violated. Again, they are pretty clear. If there is a trend that the mods would like to quell, a warning, on or off the board, would probably work better than deletion, anyway. So, from what I saw, those issues were the root of the problem, and they can only be solved by a commitment by the "management" to improve it's communication to the posters. I think there are signs that this is happening, starting this weekend. Hopefully things won't go backwards as they cool down.
As far as having a poster rub you the wrong way, I think that we should all respect the person that started the thread (or the person a thread was started for). We should allow them to ask any particular poster to either say things differently, or to not post on their thread. We should respect that request. In general, I think the person that makes such a request risks missing out on something useful, but I think that is their perrogative.
As far as fixing the damage between posters, I guess that's a very personal thing. I'd like to think that the posters that have disagreements with each other could either go off board, and work things out, or just agree to disagree, while still respecting each other. I think that's usually what happens, recent events sort of exacerbated everything. We all need to respect each other. We need to remember that even when we disagree, the fact that we are here means that we probably have more in common than we might realize.
How do we prevent it? Hopefully more, and more respectful communication in both directions would go a long way. There are always going to be people feeling raw, so there is always the chance of conflict, I think that all of us need to be aware. When it happens, there are some of us that know usually "know", and like the conflicting posters. We might want to consider it our responsibility to the community to step in, off or on board, as a peacemaker, and try to get us back on the same page again.
I hope this makes sense, I don't have time to reread it much, and clean it up, so I am posting it now, rather than never!
