mivox - 8:35 pm on Jun 24, 2004 (gmt 0)

Interesting. Being a southerner, I'd think Marcia and RogerD were suggesting "simple courtesy"

Come now, you don't have to be southern to appreciate courtesy... ;)

One of my standard stickymails back when I moderated FOO went something like this:

nickname-

Just wanted to let you know that I had to edit your post in X thread. While your post wasn't really outrageous, and I don't think you were trying to start trouble, I'm sure you'll understand that other, less mature, members could easily read your post the wrong way and take it as "bait" to start a big argument about (choose one: sex/politics/religion/etc.)...

We really try to avoid ever discussing sex, politics, religion and any other cultural "hot button" topics in the forums here, because no matter how mature and intelligent the first posts on the subject may be, someone else will ALWAYS drag the thread into the gutter as soon as any of those subjects are mentioned.

Thanks for understanding!

-mivox

More often than not, I got an apology and a "thank you" for the edit. Two key points: "I'm not saying you did anything bad, but someone else will take it the wrong way," and "Thanks for understanding!" You've avoided putting them on the defensive by not pointing a finger directly at them, and you've given them credit for understanding before they get a chance to argue. And by doing it through private messaging, you've saved them the embarassment of a public rebuke.

This approach also worked well with link dropping: "I'm not saying you were trying to self-promote, but unfortunately even genuinely helpful links will be taken as a sign that link dropping is welcome... Then the self-promoters will come out of the woodwork, and the moderators simply won't be able to keep up editing enough to keep the forums readable. Sad but true."

But then when the polite method doesn't work, sometimes all there is left to say is, "Knock it off... you know perfectly well what I'm talking about, and if you don't stop, your account will be deleted." Which works a lot better after you've bent over backwards to be polite first.