By and large, WxForum is a pretty well self-governed community. Every now and then, however, little brush fires crop up and we moderators and admins hear about them from members.
I was a moderator on the old VWS forum, and a VWS/Davis mod here until Saratoga Ken asked me to come on as as admin. For those of you that don't know, I was also the founder of the regional weather networks, starting with the Southwestern Weather Network. In Internet weather time, I've been around since dirt, maybe before.
Every so often, one WxForum member or another manages to ruffle the feathers of some of the other members. By and large, these feather-ruffles tend to die out with no Admin intervention. Rarely, though, complaints accumulate and we have to do something.
One thing about the Internet and these forums is that they are international in membership. We all get to interact with people from other countries, cultures, and time zones that we would otherwise never have the chance to. However, sometimes, I think we forget that, and judge a post or member solely on the prism of our own experience.
After hearing complaints from several members over the last few weeks, and doing my own investigations, I suspect that the complaints I'm hearing now are due in large part to some sort of a cultural difference. Regional accents, facial clues, body language, and differences in word use do not come across in textual Internet communications.
I know that I had my own prejudices when I read a few posts, and then, realized that they were misapprehended, because I was basing my judgments on my local TIME of of the members posting, rather than his or her local time ZONE of posting, which changed the entire flavor of the post.
So, I'm asking that every member of WxForum be a little more tolerant of others. We're all a group of fairly well like-minded weather enthusiasts. Let's just all get along.