<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Punki:
The key to understanding my post was clearly stated here:
I personally believe that closing down any thread that may be high-jacked by those among us who believe it necessary to post their least pleasant feelings about everyone who is not on their "best friend" list, is the most cumbersome, offputting and least desirable way to approach moderation.
How much more effective and enabling it would be to simply request that the offending poster edit his/her post (or have it edited by the moderator if they refuse) and allow valuable threads to continue.
This closing/moving of threads as a moderation method is, to the best of my knowledge, an original effort and certainly one that was worth considering. Now that it has proven that it causes more harm than good, is there some reason why we can make an effort to implement the fine guideline that Blonde Bomber suggested, which have been tried and proven on thousands of bulletin boards throughout cyberspace?
Again, could we please get past the doc tree and talk about the what are the rules forest, which is the real issue under discussion?
[This message has been edited by Punki (edited 04-20-2002).]</font>
I agree wholeheartedly. The solution is not to keep on closing threads, but to take some decisive action against those who hijack such threads and against those who start the flame wars. And, as suggested by Punki, the action could be asking the poster to edit their post themselves (and have the moderator edit the thread if the original poster refuses to do so).
[This message has been edited by PG (edited 04-21-2002).]