[LauraMJ]

To All Members:

The report button is NOT a "whiner" button. And it is NOT "taking care of my own issues" to NOT use it. Issues here are FORUM issues. It is the FORUM rules that are or are not being met, they are not "your" rules. So if there are ISSUES of ANY kind, it is an issue for the FORUM to deal with. And it makes OUR job a lot easier if people will simply let us know when there are FORUM issues. If someone feels there is a violation of OUR rules, then let us know. It's as simple as that. If a member does not let us know, then logically that means the person reading it doesn't feel there was a violation and in THAT case, there is no reason to feel that one has to retaliate.

So complaining about moderators not taking appropriate action when you don't feel like taking the appropriate action yourself, will no longer be acceptable.

It's a tool. It's a FORUM tool and just like any tool, it's useless if not used, or used incorrectly. It helps us with knowing when rules are violated. That's all it is. It has nothing to do with anyone's character, debating skills, or ability to defend oneself.

Either let us know when someone is violating the rules, or ignore it entirely and don't complain OR retaliate. We're making this clear so to reduce recurring issues in this forum. We want to make it clear that retaliating in kind in a thread, will result in BOTH PARTIES being considered guilty. One for starting it and one for continuing it. Saying that you've posted in the thread for the personal attacks to stop will NOT be accepted as an excuse NOR will saying that the moderators should have stopped it sooner be taken as an excuse if you have never bothered to report it and make sure we know about it. ALL parties involved will be held equally accountable if we happen to come across this type of situation on our own and ALL will receive a warning and/or a time-out regardless of how it started. We want to make this very clear. If you retaliate and continue to try to deal with a personal attack on your own in the thread without reporting the issue, you will be given a warning and/or a time-out, at the discretion of the administration, for being a part of the problem


Just do not confuse the line between disputing the text of a post and attacking the poster themselves in the reply. If people disagree with what is posted, fine.......find facts that dispute the post in question and post your point of view.

We will review every report and make a decision on a reported post. Occasionally, that may take some time if it is borderline and we need to discuss it. There may be times when we will not agree with you about what constitutes a personal attack and what does not. Keep in mind that if you are involved in the debate and feel strongly about something, it may be you are letting personal feelings color your perception and that we who are not involved may be seeing it a bit more objectively. Any need to dispute a ruling should be done privately. Disputes on rulings posted on the thread WILL be removed.

[pyritechips]

Bumping this one.

[Cookiegal]

This will eventually be sticked but we just want to be sure it's not missed since we all know no one reads the stickies.

[valis]

at the top.