Just an idea or two:
There are forums where 1st amendment still applies almost completely as here, but personal attacks on fellow members - outside of a place like the FZ - are not alllowed at all.
For instance, if you are in the gardening forum and writing something about, I don't know, Azealeas, and someone comes in and writes "you got no idea how to water Azealias, you fucknut" - that kind of posting, although it is not necessarily off topic, would be bannable, because it's a direct attack.
But that makes for a lot more work for mods, who are supposed to moderate here lightly.
The other idea, one that would be worth considering, would be that of thread bans.
There are forums where, instead of being banned from the forum for an infraction, people are first thread banned for content that didn't meet the rules' standards, content that they contributed on that specific thread. Those sites usually have a list at the top of the thread with something like
"the following members have been thread banned: kumquat437, Idontknowandidontcare, Obotzsuck, changey90610 and Remorseisgood. Please do not respond to their postings".
Those forums have a policy something like, if you get three tb's within a certain time-frame, yer gone. Kind of like a three-strikes policy.
I'm not saying that USMB should do this. I am saying that it exists and appears to function pretty well.
Let's go back to the personal attacks issue, which is probably what bothers Gracie the most, and I can understand that. In the real world, you can insult people in the open, but don't be surprised if they slug you for it. You can walk into a bar and, without provocation, call someone a "cocksucker", but if he stands up and decks you and you land in the hospital, then it's yer own damned fault. But here in Etherland, scurrying around under the cloak of anonymity, people rarely feel the actual pain for their words (or actions) that they would feel in the real world. Whether that's good, bad or indifferent, I will leave up to you all, but the phenonemon exists, to be sure.
For the admin and mods: maybe thinking about a thread-ban mode with the next software upgrade might not be such a bad thing to consider. It could, I imagine, actually save mods some unneccessary work. I am not saying it has to be. I am saying that it exists and appears to be effective.
Have you any idea how many LoL Cats that can attract?!?
