We've had this problem time and time again with various people over the years and honestly, I believe the best cure was just to ignore them. It worked on probably the single worst person, he who wanted to find a locomotive in a quarry, swore he saw it with his own eye.

If you ignore it, they go away. Eventually.

No matter how well a sandbox is built... no matter how many folks play nicely in it... no matter how diligent the caretakers are... there will always be someone ready throw sand in someone's face.

I gave up on RYPN entirely until Jeff and the mods found a way to make it more civil. I give them the utmost credit.

Valuing any discussion forum begins with understanding that it is a privelge, not a right.

In this case it is solely because of the benevolence of Dave and the mods that we have the privelege at all.

I, for one, thank them and support them.

Rob

As to whether this discussion should be left here or taken offline, I personally found it quite entertaining and not at all off-topic for RyPN. Moderators and all participants -- keep up the good work!

Agreed - but I find there's a lot to be learned when smart people with lots of experience are allowed to disagree, even if the talk becomes hated in the process, as long as real information is passed along in the process. Drawing this line is the challenge....... and it's usually handled very well. OTOH, ignorant people with no experience have no valid opinions worth considering, so the less said by them the better with any level of heat. Not sure how to apply this filter.

Try leading any type of preservation effort, and you'll find it the most difficult job in the world; totally worth it, but terribly difficult. These moderators don't get enough credit, no matter the argument.

Moderating a forum is one of the most thankless jobs there is.

Here's how to tell if you're doing it right. When half the e-mails from whiners say you're not doing enough and the other half say you're being too strict, you know you've reach a fairly good balance. :)

I really hope Jeff and the other moderators stick with it. I for one would back a "quick trigger," guilty until proven innocent, approach to get these posts off of here if it makes your job easier. I have bailed from a number of boards because the moderators won't keep it civil. The nasty posts on here all tend to involve for-profit commercial interests in disputes with either the customers or interested parties, and whose income is a stake. Would it be possible to automatically shift those discussions to "classifieds"? The problem with my idea is grey areas when volunteer groups are doing side work to support their own group, so maybe not a good idea.

Jeff has been doing a lot of the moderation duties of late. I've not really looked at RYPN for at least 2 weeks and very little in the last few months, I've been really tied up with the aging people in my family. I've lost my last remaining grandparent and my last two living aunts in the last week. And if that is not enough, my cousin's 19-year-old son died in a tragic turn of events. On the good side of things my sick father managed to get well enough to make it to his 80th birthday party.

I got en email because of a slew of PMs and found a world of chaos here. I've thought of resigning as well but decided to keep at it. My first moderation of 2017 is to lock this topic and tell everyone to please be nice.

I can't even find the messages that people are upset about. Give me some time to sort through everything. Remember everyone here is a volunteer and we have important things going on in our lives. I still have two celebration of life services on my horizon.

Tom Gears