pkt77242
IPA Man
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I appreciate that it seems a little far fetched, but the cursing (and instances of cursing by getting around the filters) was both far easier to moderate and far less frequent when the filter was last put into place. While there was a reasonable and perfectly expected number of gripes about having the filter in place, content and participation did not seem to at all suffer because of the filter. In contrast, even taking into account the off-season slump in discussion, at least some moderators and certain high-quality posters have commented on how a lack of respect/civility/decorum/level-of-conversation has disrupted threads and lead those same posters to take some time off of not just contributing to but even reading the boards.
In an ideal situation, I would have a bigger staff of moderators who are able to catch every post and make perfect ad hoc decisions on what is an is not gratuitous or excessive. We've tried that since dropping the filter a few months ago and it simply hasn't worked and, trivial or pedantic as it may seem to some, we've watch a few high-quality posters leave because of it.
To answer you, gk, my goal is to maintain the same level of respect and thoughtful discourse that was the cornerstone of bringing this board out of the the post-Svoboda vacuum to where it is today. I am convinced that the primary reason we are thriving today is because we tend to be a bunch of well-informed, thoughtful, welcoming guys. The trend since we've taken the filter offline, from my estimation, has been to move a little away from that (evidenced by the departure of certain long-time members) and until we find a more complete/balanced way to keep things at that level we're looking for, the filter is probably going to stay there.
If possible I liked the idea that was brought up earlier of not allowing curse words anywhere except the Lounge. Having said that I couldn't imagine having the Rumored Violations thread without some cursing (especially those first couple of hours).
As to the bolded, you earlier mentioned that this isn't a democracy and their has been many valued members weighing in for keeping the cursing (and who are willing to go on the record as being in favor of the cursing) but you seem to be using these few members who left because of the cursing (while not even naming them) as the reason for re-instituting the ban. While not exactly the same, I find the reasoning to be slightly odd. The best way for me to state why I think it is odd is to look at it the opposite way, if a few high value posters were going to leave if you didn't allow cursing, would you change your mind? If not then why are you changing it now?
I do appreciate the fact that you engage us about the rules and are willing to listen to us (in fact I would say that this is one of the things that I enjoy most about this board, not just in this conversation but also in past ones that I have had with Mods here in particular Whiskey and Beau).
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