A friendly reminder

One of the simplest and most important of the forum rules is the following:

Quote :

Keep all commentary CIVIL and be courteous at all times.

For the most part, recently, that has been respected. But in one recent thread, it was not.

Refraining from snide remarks or outright insults is not a mere request. It is an obligation. Calling someone "stupid" is never acceptable. Nor is goading, sniping and making pseudo-clever remarks to demean another poster. Those incapable of abiding by this very simple rule will soon find they're not welcome to post here. And before anyone brings it up, "they started" or "they were asking for it" or "I couldn't just let that go without reacting" are not acceptable excuses. There is no acceptable excuse. If you feel like being rude or unpleasant and breaking the rules, just close your browser and take a break to cool down. All it takes is a little willpower and sense of perspective. If you believe someone is behaving in an unacceptable way, refer the issue to the mods, rather than insult that person.

One last thing:

In that thread, I saw someone ask: "I watched this whole trainwreck from the moment it started, but where were the mods?". Two comments: I do my best to read every new post in every thread every day, so that I can react quickly when there's a situation, and for the most part I've been able to do that. Now and then, the fact that I also have other things to do with my life gets in the way, and a situation which spirals out of control very rapidly, within the span of a day or two, may slip past me. The same goes for the other mods.

We do our best to be alert, but this brings me to my second point: When people do witness such a situation, and there doesn't appear to be a mod immediately responding, send us a private message! Alert us; let us know! Don't just sit back and then say "I watched it all happen". The responsible thing to do in such cases is to help defuse the situation befoe it spirals, by bringing in the mods.