It's very sad that the forum is closing, it's clearly a place a lot of time and effort has gone into. I don't think any one group is "responsible". What is clear is that there are bad apples in every group of users. The bigger the group the more easier it is for the bad apple to hide.
I personally would attempt to salvage the place via strict changes, i.e everyone must be linked to a real ID, a strict one strike and banned policy, political or religious talk of any nature is forbidden, with similar one strike bans in force. A bit like the freemasons! If someone is harassing the site admins, there are clear steps to deal with that even legally if required.
And we could all really get rid of the self righteousness. It existed in the old place, it exists in this place, and actually exists in the industry itself. Lets be real people, nobody is that moral so stop pretending. Even today it's happening in the Talk TV thread. If you don't agree with someone, that's fine, you don't have to print out your morals in a look at me fasion.
An acceptance in all groups of users that you have bad apples, I think on many occasions people overlook others trying to provoke because they share the same opinion, this was a mistake and the same user(s) are still posting in a similar way. You had some treads where such people went into massive political rants or had digs at things purely based on politics. They knew what they were doing, as did others like the one who cannot be named. They are cut from the same cloth. If this place is really closing, I am sorry to see it go as I was the last place, but in some ways it is a mark of our times, civil discussion cannot exist while anonymity does. Every forum of this type is doomed to fail unless it executes strict rules as above second paragraph.
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I personally would attempt to salvage the place via strict changes, i.e everyone must be linked to a real ID, a strict one strike and banned policy, political or religious talk of any nature is forbidden, with similar one strike bans in force. A bit like the freemasons! If someone is harassing the site admins, there are clear steps to deal with that even legally if required.
And we could all really get rid of the self righteousness. It existed in the old place, it exists in this place, and actually exists in the industry itself. Lets be real people, nobody is that moral so stop pretending. Even today it's happening in the Talk TV thread. If you don't agree with someone, that's fine, you don't have to print out your morals in a look at me fasion.
An acceptance in all groups of users that you have bad apples, I think on many occasions people overlook others trying to provoke because they share the same opinion, this was a mistake and the same user(s) are still posting in a similar way. You had some treads where such people went into massive political rants or had digs at things purely based on politics. They knew what they were doing, as did others like the one who cannot be named. They are cut from the same cloth. If this place is really closing, I am sorry to see it go as I was the last place, but in some ways it is a mark of our times, civil discussion cannot exist while anonymity does. Every forum of this type is doomed to fail unless it executes strict rules as above second paragraph.
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