The moderation here is getting better. Recently there was a *highly* inappropriate post on the "General" board (didn't anyone else see that one?? Nothing whatever to do with LD or anything else on this site, and likely to offend a large proportion of the community) -- I reported it to the moderators and it was removed pretty quickly. They also remove posts recommending violence and criminal activity and containing very inappropriate language, when these things are brought to their attention. If a post is offensive on the basis of community standards, *not* just your personal opinions, send a pm to LDOnline and they will take care of it.
Unfortunately, different people have different ideas of moderation. If Richard is the person I think he is -- my apologies if I have the wrong Richard here -- he is very much in favour of controlling the discussion to have everyone agree with him, but when someone ( i.e. me and some others) believes something different, it is perfectly OK for him to insult me every which way, as he did. That isn't moderation, it's mind control and dogma. Sites run on these lines will have a lot of self-praise and support of their own programs and be very nicey-nice, but have very little dependable or scientifically-proven fact, and a lot of myth and often dead wrong and disproven theories -- always a problem in education circles. (How do you think the worst excesses of "whole-language" keep going? Nobody is allowed to disagree with the dogma, and it's not nice and not supportive to say anything negative ever . . .)
Free speech means listening to some opinions you think are ridiculous or dead wrong and putting up with some people you don't care to spend time with. Too bad. You have to put up with them so that they will have to put up with you.
Scholarly discussion means arguing the correctness or incorrectness of arguments on their factual merits and never ever on the basis of personal likes or dislikes. You make yourself listen to the other person's arguments and you try to change your mind (difficult but necessary) when you see facts that contradict your opinions. You try to change their minds with facts and demonstrations, never with either manipulation or personal attacks.
This is a website devoted to improving education and helping learners. Both free speech and high standards of academic discussion are the only way we will get any advances.
So, what to do when someone breaks the rules? The original question involved an insulting and offensive personal email. Well, the response of showing up the sender publicly as irresponsible and mean-spirited seems appropriate to me! I try not to escalate conflicts by doing worse than the original, but you can't just be a doormat and invite them in either. I suggest letting things cool overnight or even for a week before sending off a reply. Same for bad posts -- you can disagree with them politely on the basis of facts, but when they descend into name-calling and trashing the board with mass hurtful posts you have to take action, get things banned if they are clearly out of line, and show the trolls up for the poor-spirited losers they are otherwise.
