For reference @Sam_Ursu had a post flagged that several people responded to which contained a snarky comment aimed at a specific person. The post was hidden by community flags and Sam was privately asked to edit and change or remove three words which would automatically unhide it again. That’s the normal process.
As y’all know, the Code of Conduct we’ve established requires that all discussion on this forum remains civil. We understand people forget themselves sometimes and get heated, and that’s why there’s a procedure for the community to flag posts that need to be reviewed. Usually we do this review with the member in private. This is for the offending member’s privacy while the situation is hashed out, and to prevent the entire community from piling on them. The Staff of this forum are all experienced moderators and we expect to be able hear people out and that’s best done in a non-public thread.
Our goal is to prevent people from being unkind to others since this is a community that welcomes everyone. If we allow others in the tent who purposefully or mistakenly drive others away, this is a problem that we can correct.
Sometimes when people slip up, this requires that we ask them to edit a post. People say things inadvertently that hurt other people’s feelings and that’s fine - that’s the purpose of moderation so we can coach people that they’re doing it and hopefully they’ll change those behaviors to get along here. If members are resistant to this and become a problem then we will silence or ban them.
Sam knows this. He’s been the subject of previous moderation sessions in the past. He even takes care to spoiler-blur curse words he uses, despite there being no specific restriction on language here, except when it is used to target or bully someone else. (All general language is allowed except for a few very derogatory terms and slurs that nobody really needs to use in friendly conversation which are banned at the system level.)
With certain personalities it often reduces to “This is the way I am and the way I talk, so people should get used to it; I’m a blunt-talking buccaneer/renegade who says what they want!” That’s fine if you are that way in real life and other communities, but if you can’t exist here without making people angry, we certainly can moderate you, silence you temporarily or permanently, or remove you from the forum. Signing up for an account here implies you agree to our Code of Conduct while participating here - and off-site in extreme cases. If you can’t deal with that, there are other communities who will welcome you with that attitude.
