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No question - who is trying to minimize it? Wait, don't answer that. We've covered enough ground. But your point is valid

 

Wait - carry on is MY LINE!!

 

It's a community of different personalities. There are some strong personalities on here. Some people who rub others wrong (but who the next person loves). Why is this so difficult? If you can't get along with people you don't agree with, or don't like, or who post things that you think are wrong, or who you think slighted you somehow, you're the one with the problem. There are some people who have come and gone from here (and others who toggle between a gazillion user names) who really seem to struggle with this. They seem to need to create drama around this place.

Some of the people who are complaining the most are the ones who get complained about the most. And they have no clue that not everyone sees the board the same way they do. There is no consensus on here about who are the good people, who are the bad, who is widely respected and who is a troll. One person's stalwart on here is another person's troll.

From a moderating perspective, X complains about Y. Y complains about X. Or Z complains about them both. And then people get pissed off when we don't jump into their drama and "take their side." When all we usually see are two people who could really benefit from stepping away and getting a little perspective. We try to handle things that way. But inevitably it means the moderators play favorites or they don't manage the place correctly (as if we are supposed to manage who participates on here and what they post). Then there are the others who complain when we do handle something. We're heavy-handed or we are censoring the place.

I'm not complaining about that. I like being one of the moderators on here. But I wish that when we did something, people would accept it (even if they don't agree) and move on. By being a PITA about it and dragging it on and on and creating endless drama on threads about every perceived slight, you are usually creating a silly problem out of something that was relatively minor for 99 percent of the people on here.

Some peoples' expectations of the moderating crew boggle me--with regard to "the board used to be a better place when so and so was on here and so and so drove him or her away." We're not here to screen people, decide who is respected, who is a troll, who is a bad person or who is great or who has the most journalism cred. There is no consensus about that kind of thing, anyhow. This isn't the Metropolitan Club. We don't screen membership or ask for resumes on the way in.

Choose to be on here. ... or don't. The more the merrier. It DOES make the site a better place. But if it's that hard for you, it may not be a good thing for you.