Forum Civility

I am sure many of you can relate to the following situation:

You post something in the forums in search of an answer to a chess question such as a certain opening, the best move in a position, strategy advice, etc. Over the course of comments, two or more users will get into a "flame" war which may very well go on for many pages. By the time the smoke has settled, the topic has degraded far from its intended purpose, and the original poster gets no good answer.

Anybody who has reported someone for a personal attack or inappropriate behavior has most likey gotten a form letter response advising you to block user.

My suggestion is as follows: give the original poster more control over his or her forum topic. For example, allow the OP to "hide" comments that they deem to be off topic, inflammatory, etc. Another user, who may want to read hidden comments, may do so simply by clicking "unhide" or similar button.

There are problems with this, of course, as the OP may hide comments that are valid but differ from the OP opinion but it is certainly better then the current state of things.

Good Suggestion, but it may be difficult to implement without ajax.

Horrible suggestion. I prefer to think for myself.

That's correct, it is a flawed solution. Think of the threads started by cheater_1/teacher_1. Would you want him to have the power to delete posts that refute his nonsense and expose his ignorance?

Better would be forum bans on consistent spammers and flamers. Most of the problem you describe stems from the posts of fewer than a dozen posters (and one recently left).

 That's true. I guess I forgot about the troublemakers being the OP.

 This has nothing to do with "think(ing) for (your)self" but rather an observer of a forum not having to filter through 5 pages of flames to find an answer to original questions.

Although if it is true, I always appreciate someone who can think for themselves here in the U.S. as this is more rare then it should be.

Some OPs will filter out the flames. Some OPs will decide that dissenting opinions are flames and filter them out too. Unless I know what type the OP is, I will have to unfilter everything to think for myself.

To me, paging through flames is like driving through traffic: it's just one of those things you sometimes have to deal with.

 I guess there are more problems then solutions with my idea. My main problem is that I am assuming the OP to be perfectly logical and objective and this simply is not the case with most humans.

Most especially, it is not the case with many of us that have a strong virtual presence, but often no presence at all in communities of flesh and bone.

Are you kidding?  I only started getting into reading the forums because I love reading nonsense and then the responses given to the nonsense.  It's better than tv entertainment.

LOL welcome to the life of nonsense posting in forums haha 

stats..man- " Over the course of comments, two or more users will get into a "flame" war which may very well go on for many pages. By the time the smoke has settled, the topic has degraded far from its intended purpose, and the original poster gets no good answer." is what you wrote and the stupid thing is that is excatly what you were doing in babs's farewell letter thread.

 Please see my response to this in that forum. But thanks for your input.

stats_man, philosophically this post is nowhere. You are dealling with humans. Answer or not to an original post, no matter the question, the flame war is a result of human communication and emotion. To suppress it is an individual choice to the site user and there are many other options such as reoppening another post. To try and control human response and communication on a web site is futile and frustrating. If you did have the power to suppress, you would not likely have the patience to apply it. I understand your frustration and some times more than share in it. However, I find  that when I am ignorant of the original post question or want to debate it, I go to the OP's site.

This response is not a flame and certainly provides no answer, but your OP does not call for one.

Best of luck to you and us all.

 Boy. You guys are really slow. Read my response to this in THAT topic.

Thanks for your input however.

 very good response bsman.

Considering these forums are #2 on the lamest forums of any chess site, Gameknot being #1 I wouldn't worry about it. These forums do not have any semblence of flaming, no Fire Marshall Bill here, more snooze inducing then 40 sleeping pills. Infantile dialog is the order of the day. I have tried to bring a bit of freshness or originality here only to have it die on the vine. But if you are lazy and stupid you can have more forum threads started here then legs on a millipede ;-( Erik should follow Mike at GK and hide these worthless forums here !!

Pray tell. Where are the forums better?

RHP had the best a few years ago, but theirs have become a disaster. They have also suffered a meltdown in their efforts to weed out the cheats.

GK stopped being a good site when alternatives became available, circa 2002.

Chess.com remains a newbie in the world of turn-based chess, but it has the clearest and most functional interface; the best live option (but still short of the server giants--Playchess and ICC); the highest number of strong, honest, titled players that are accessible and active; and arguably the best forums.

But, what do I know? I've been playing on these sites a mere seven years, and I've only been active on a dozen sites, while briefly trying half a dozen more.

???? What sir are you talking about? I thought this was about forums? RHP has the best forums bar none of any chess site however you might hate them! Here all you get are lazy players who start a thread to get someone else to do the work for them. These forums are insane. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Help me, I don't know, what move, what should I do, ad infinitum! The only remotely interesting forum is Odd Man Out or the Chess Photo forum.

Ooooh, what's Odd Man Out?