Originally Posted by Apos
Personally, I've never quite understood the sense in moderators (on any boards) getting all worried about stopping controversial threads. It's not like people arguing on the internet causes any actual physical damage to anything at all. It's just some words stored on a server.
And yet on virtually every board I've been on, moderators are all like "oh no: a fight has broken out on the INTERNET, we must DO SOMETHING!!!!"
I totally respect the right of board owners to set their own boundaries and rules: they are paying for the space and bandwidth after all! I just have never really seen the harm. Some people might read a thread and get turned off to the site in general, but that's such a minuscule amount, and probably more than compensated by drawing in people that like debate.
Most moderators are also looking out for young people too. You wouldn't want your kids getting on SWF and viewing the continual bashing of others and language that is offensive even to a well versed adult. I banned nano-reef from hhouse PCs becuse the mods allowed it and I didn't think it appropriate for children interested in keeping closed reef systems to have to view it without any warning.
As adults we can tune out a thread with inapropriate behavior, but children are less likely to to so becuase of their curious natures. I personally think SWF mods do a good job of keeping the name-calling and such out, hope they continue to do so so yougsters (and adults that choose not to partake in this type of behaviour) can have a place to learn about reef-keeping.
Nothing wrong with controversial subjects, just need to stay adult about it.
