Flaming, or How to behave decently

***azalea*** · 01-31-2003, 10:16 PM

It really isn't my nature to flame; I'm very sweet and mild-mannered

. When I was a "regular" member, there were a few times when I felt "ganged up on" over an opinion of mine with which others disagreed, and since I'm very much a "flight" person I generally just stopped responding. Or really, it was often a matter of people spouting a negative opinion about something that describes me, and it's hard to defend yourself against someone else's opinion (in effect, they are entitled to have that opinion, but it hurts because they're basically saying they dislike you because the thing they've just said they hate is part of who you are) I even stopped doing as much posting in GM because I felt like debates always ended up going in circles, and people just started posting idiotic stuff that killed the logic of the debate.
Now that I'm a mod, I see how hard it is to know when to step in. You want to allow freedom of expression, and passion is part of good arguing, but then you want to make sure everyone stays kind, even if they are vehemently disagreeing about something. It's pretty arbitrary, and sometimes depends on my mood. Many of you probably saw my post up in the movies forum where I gave a little lecture about being nice. I feel like a few jabs here and there are inevitable, but when it goes on and on, something needs to be said. And sometimes people just need a little reminder, because I think group mentality takes over and the one side sees it as harmless fun, when the other side and objective observers can see it's getting too heavy. You can sometimes tell by the tone of the posts when it's getting to the point where a "check" is in order. Usually things cool down on their own, though.
I can only hope that I can be even-handed, and not heavy-handed when it comes to moderating.

(edit: punctuation error

)

01-31-2003, 10:16 PM	#21
*azalea* Long lost mooter Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Florida Posts: 3,342	It really isn't my nature to flame; I'm very sweet and mild-mannered . When I was a "regular" member, there were a few times when I felt "ganged up on" over an opinion of mine with which others disagreed, and since I'm very much a "flight" person I generally just stopped responding. Or really, it was often a matter of people spouting a negative opinion about something that describes me, and it's hard to defend yourself against someone else's opinion (in effect, they are entitled to have that opinion, but it hurts because they're basically saying they dislike you because the thing they've just said they hate is part of who you are) I even stopped doing as much posting in GM because I felt like debates always ended up going in circles, and people just started posting idiotic stuff that killed the logic of the debate. Now that I'm a mod, I see how hard it is to know when to step in. You want to allow freedom of expression, and passion is part of good arguing, but then you want to make sure everyone stays kind, even if they are vehemently disagreeing about something. It's pretty arbitrary, and sometimes depends on my mood. Many of you probably saw my post up in the movies forum where I gave a little lecture about being nice. I feel like a few jabs here and there are inevitable, but when it goes on and on, something needs to be said. And sometimes people just need a little reminder, because I think group mentality takes over and the one side sees it as harmless fun, when the other side and objective observers can see it's getting too heavy. You can sometimes tell by the tone of the posts when it's getting to the point where a "check" is in order. Usually things cool down on their own, though. I can only hope that I can be even-handed, and not heavy-handed when it comes to moderating. (edit: punctuation error )