First off, if I come across a thread that really bugs me, I most usually just move on and read something else.

If the thread is grossly inappropriate, and in all my days on XMarks I"ve only seen one, I might contact the moderators to ask about ditching it. By this I mean something with inappropriate pictures, rude, direct, unmistakeable sexual language, stuff like that. Otherwise, I don't bother the moderators.


In all other cases, what I do, and I only have done this three times in three years, is message the person who started the thread, or the person who wrote the post, and ask THEM about it. I feel that the person who starts a thread on this board, or any online board, has some sort of responsibility for it even when it goes very much off into tangents. If it truly gets hijacked into places that nobody could have imagined it would go, well that's different, of course. Generally speaking,though,when I start a thread, I kind of think of it as "My" thread, and I keep an eye on it for a while. I don't watch it forever, of course, but for a day or two I try to keep on top of it. I also watch for interaction in my mailroom about it, and try to gauge responses and attitudes in part, in my mailroom.

I really wish others here would do the same.

I hear from sources which don't need to be revealed, that a number of people were quite upset and msg'd the moderators about a post/thread that was up on the board, yesterday. However, in my mailroom I had precisely one discussion about that thread. That discussion centered around what his response would be,and his personal experiences with bullying and violence, and his response to them. Nobody, not ONE person commented to me directly about being disturbed by that post/thread.

If I come across something here that truly bothers me, the FIRST place I go with it, is to the person. I don't necessarily expect to hear agreement from the other person, but if I get a respectful and reasonable response, well, that's as far as it goes. It's only when I get an unreasonable or abusive response that I take it to the Moderators. I am not so worried or scared, nor am I so mistrusting of the members heret hat I can't come to anyone here in their PM's and be honest with them.

That has never happened, in the three years I've been at X-Marks.

I think of it in a similar fashion to what I do if one of my neighbors have a noisy party that goes on too late. I go to THEM first and ask them to quiet it down...turn off the music...maybe it's time to call it a night? I remind them that they live in a residential neighborhood and while they certainly have a right to have some fun, I have a right to get some sleep at 1:00 AM, too. It's only when I get a belligerent response to this, or the party is totally out of hand with too many people at it and is no longer controllable by the people at whose house it's held at, , that I call the local "moderators"....otherwise known as the Police.

I would wish and hope that if others have an issue with what I have written here at X-Marks, that YOU would come to ME first, before going to the moderators. I might be a lot more reasonable than you think, and there's only one way to find out.