The Mod and Admin team have had some very rewarding PM's and we're grateful

[jim]

g8ina is a plonker

[jim]

see, you just have to be creative

*for avoidance of doubt, I don't actually think he's a plonker. I was illustrating a point.

**please don't ban me

***i'm very very sorry

[wazzickle]

Did you report the admin using the button provided?

I did not, I should have done

[wazzickle]

he means me.

not you! saracen called Theresa May the 'b-word' which is somehow the only word I find problematic, over and above all the 4 letter words, I can't even bring myself to say it in the context of dogs.

The now-discredited (was a bit of a hero to me previously ) Louis CK has a highly, highly NSFW clip regarding the b-word or the n-word. Watch at your peril. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dF1NUposXVQ

[Ttaskmaster]

Sadly a virtual office, so it would be a virtual fine and a virtual take-away!

Keep a tally of fines. At the end of the month, Zak then buys a JustEat/Deliveroo order for each office member and has it sent to their home address.

Yes, I've implemented this before. I'm no stranger to remote working!!

[peterb]

I did not, I should have done

Not aimed at you in particular - just that you raise a good point.

It does take two to start a spat, and if the 'offended' party uses the 'report post' button and then walks away it gives us a chance to intervene early.

Speaking purely for myself, if I am involved in a heated discussion where someone oversteps the mark (could be me and someone else or just two other people, I prefer to step away and hand over the moderation to someone else, rather than deal with it myself (or if I do, I try to make it clear that I have switched roles from "a member posting a comment", to "a moderator making a moderation comment").

With regard to swearing, different people have different perceptions of various words, and a lot depends on the context in which they are used.

In speech, the impact depends on non-verbal clues: for example if I'm with a friend and in response to something I've said he replies with a smile "don't be a t**t" - I wouldn't find that offensive. On the other hand if he shoves his face towards mine and changes the tone of his voice, it becomes aggressive and has a different meaning altogether. That nuance is largely lost in the written word.

And (imnsho) speech is transient - the written word is not, and 'swear' words seem worse - and therefore a distraction from the rest of the text.

And given different people's different perception of the offensiveness of words, I tend towards a lower tolerance than perhaps other people might - and usually the removal of the word (used as an adjective) makes little difference to the sense of a sentence, or a more appropriate word can be substituted.

(And substitute words like 'plonker' could be used aggressively - so I don't want to see any er... 'plonkers' using that word to push the boundaries )

One other point - when one has been active on the boards for a while, it is possible to form a 'pen picture' of someone's personality based on their posts, and some people tend to be more er ... 'volatile' than others.