OMNI has been pretty quiet and mild-mannered recently. At least in the threads I've seen.
(So I do wonder what this is about.)

This seemed to co-incide with Guava's complaint thread given some prominence in Randy's
personal forum, and the closing of one long thread. Did this have an effect, or was there
something else in play, I don't know.

Or maybe this issue revolves around something else completely...


Doppy:
"A couple people can't manage to control themselves."


Well, there are the people who show obvious disrespect for the forum and its participants,
and who make personal attacks, and then there are those who can't avoid responding to these
attacks, if only to defend themselves, or their position.

And quite often, people confuse criticism of their argument as criticism of themselves, or,
alternatively, confuse attacking someone's position with attacking the person.

There is a fine line here, but sometimes when there is an extreme and obvious case of overstepping
this line, it should be dealt with, otherwise this behavior is condoned and encouraged.

This should include profanity and other demeaning comments applied to the person or their
position. It is fine to argue forcefully, but profanity is no substitute for logic or thought.
I'm not trying to ban profanity, but to heap obvious disrespect on someone or their position,
just to make them feel bad, is a despicable tactic.

While it is OK for a poster to be ignorant or pompous, and for a discussion to be at cross-purposes,
there are things in the TOS that should be enforced. As it has been mentioned, one person
can trigger many others to respond in various ways, and spoil the whole environment.

Is there an equal burden on the attacker or instigator, as there is on the person being
attacked? I don't think so.

While it is sometimes useful to not respond, or to respond in a civil manner, in order to
preserve a sense of decorum, it should not become a requirement in the TOS, equal to the
existing requirement to not instigate attacks.


Doppy:
"Now we're back in the days of grade school where if one person messes up, we all lose our recess.


I don't agree that, if there is a quarrel, then both parties get punished equally. (The
only advantage to this method of dispensing justice is that it is easy.) If the idea is
to only prevent quarrels, but allow agressive taunts, then OK. But I believe it is more
important to stop the sources of trouble first.

And, I agree, to punish everybody is not the way to go.

That being said, nobody has the right to demand, or the right to have, an OMNI forum. It is
purely up to whoever wants to provide (or not provide) such a Forum.

Maybe a time-out for everyone would cool off any emotional thoughts and actions, while the
people in charge reorganize the forum. And it would give some of the rest of us 'a life' for
a while.

I just hope that others don't go on an immersion course in bad habits on lesser boards
in the meantime...
.
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