Hi everyone,
Just to let you know about a small change that I just implemented, which I hope will help to avoid conflicts.
As mentioned here, the Report button has proven to be a very useful tool for 1) Quickly removing offensive posts, and 2) Helping me to understand which users are frequently breaking the BLF Rules. So none of that is changing, and the Report button should still be used as described in the previously mentioned thread.
The third purpose of the Report button was to let users know which of their posts were flagged as rule violations so that they could edit or delete them and avoid making those same mistakes in the future. However, what happened more often than not was that users tended to get really irritated by the thought of somebody marking their post as a violation when they considered it to be perfectly appropriate. This frequently lead to indignant outbursts in threads, accusations of Report button abuse, and even lead some users to openly flaunt their high level of hits on the “meter” and challenge others to mark their posts. This sort of reaction obviously completely violates several of the most import BLF Rules, and I realized that the reported posts meter and list of flagged posts were not serving their intended purpose. So, they are no longer visible to users. However, please keep in mind that the standard for all users remains unchanged — that is to say, friendly, non-argumentative, clean posts that contribute to a fun atmosphere here. Furthermore, as the administrator I can and do still frequently check to see which users’ posts are getting flagged, and with how much frequency, and I will continue to strictly enforce the BLF Rules. So please carefully read over the aforementioned thread again about how and when the Report button should be used.
I would also like to clear up a common misconception. I frequently see posts and PMs from indignant users that are convinced that their posts were incorrectly flagged, and thus they attribute it to abuse of the Report button. However, I can say that in almost every case, I have found the posts in question to indeed be in violation of one or more BLF Rules, and that abuse of the Report button is very rare. As mentioned in the other post about the Report button, the most common rule violation is responding to rude posts. So please remember that even if you are not rude, responding to a rude post and/or a possible troll is a BLF Rule violation, and will only egg him/her on and help achieve his/her objective of causing disruption. Please simply flag rude posts with the Report button and move on, and drop the subject completely if you or another user is starting to get hot under the collar.
Thanks as always to the vast majority of BLF users that help contribute to a friendly and fun atmosphere here on BLF! It’s much appreciated.