Originally Posted by
pdlamb
I can only remember two serious, personal threats I've received in some 20 years online. You forgot to mention the second, when you threatened to punch me in the face after my initial post to that thread. So am I bitter, or was I so shocked by that disproportionate response that I think prospective users need to be warned ahead of time?
Yup, you're right, your snipe about "
if it entertains you more to take umbrage, go right ahead" did provoke a comment from me that went "
Wow, it's weird how comments on the internet can make you feel like punching someone in the face". But that wasn't a personal threat or remotely real, come on. It was me trying to express how your post made me FEEL. I even worded it that way. I don't think any reasonable person would interpret my remark to mean that I was literally going to travel hundreds or thousands of miles across country just to punch someone in the face. That said, I am sorry if you felt personally threatened, though. I do agree that comment was in poor taste and I'm not very proud of it. If I made you feel personally threatened then I do apologise for that.
From my perspective, too, I remember at least one valued participant being asked to leave every summer. If this rate has slowed to several years between ocurrences, that may be an improvement or there may be fewer, and more careful, forum participants. For my part, I prefer the moderation on this and similar (some of which are commercial) forums.
Well to be honest I don't keep a little list by my monitor of all the people I've thrown off the site due to their obnoxious behavior. But your characterization of every one of them being "valued participants" is a bit much. If a person is being thrown off the site, then it's because they are acting out in some way, behaving badly, being obnoxious, persistently sarcastic, caustic, etc. And, generally, it isn't just one occasion, it's a pattern of behavior over time.
I'm not perfect, but I do try to run the site as best I can, in good faith. There are thousands of people who use the site without incident, it's perhaps inevitable just by simple statistics that there will be a few who have the sort of personality that tends to rub me the wrong way, and occasionally one of them gets booted off. But I do try to learn each time it happens, and think about how I could handle it better next time. That said, I will not tolerate people who I feel are going to become a thorn in my side. I have spent most of the last 15 years developing and running crazyguyonabike single handedly, for free, day in, day out, year after year. I try my best to be even handed, but at the same time I won't tolerate BS. One of the upsides of having the site be run by a real person is that it's much more personal - if you have a problem, then you can write to me and often get a response (and a fix) within minutes. And, rather than some faceless corporation and anonymous moderators who you have no idea who the heck they are, you have a real person with a real name (not just some anonymous handle) to appeal to. I can be reasoned with, if you're up for that. I have had many disputes with people where we reached an understanding and it turned out just fine. But some people have trouble backing down, and that can end badly. It's not a perfect system, I never claimed it was, but it's what I've built, and a lot of people seem to like it and get on just fine with me at the helm. Yeah some get booted, with a cast of thousands it's inevitable over time, but it's also definitely the exception, not the rule.
Neil