Adding a new rule.

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[Snoskred]

The forum administrators did not add "no rudeness" to the forum rules initially as it was not felt that it would be necessary. This example has shown us that unfortunately it is necessary. We have now added a new rule -

Forum members must treat fellow members, moderators and administrators with respect and politeness. We embrace the spirit of civil disagreement. We agree to agree and to disagree - as strongly as need be - without crossing the boundaries into personal attack, rudeness or disrespect for each other.

I am hopeful everyone can understand the reasons we have had to take these steps. Civil discourse requires a civil space in which everyone feels safe to discuss things freely, without being bullied or spoken to in a disrespectful manner.

If you see any posts which concern you, we encourage all members to report the post. You can follow this how to - report a post.

[Snoskred]

Just for the info of all, here is a bit more info on why we have added this rule.

We have had to make the difficult decision to place a member of the forum (cur-mud-geon) into the penalty box for an as yet undecided period of time, as this member has a consistent record of being discourteous to forum moderators, administrators and forum members on more than 3 separate occasions. It is sort of like a "time out", if that makes any sense.

The moderators have been in regular contact via Private Message with this particular member in an attempt to communicate to them that we felt some of their posts were not acceptable, but the member has chosen to ignore our warnings and continue to behave in a manner which is impolite, bullying and belittling in the guise of argumentative debate.

We are not censoring cur-mud-geon - we are simply asking cur-mud-geon to treat other forum members, moderators and administrators politely and with respect. There is no need to speak to people as people have been spoken to in this thread. It is inappropriate and goes against everything the mudflats stands for. We are hopeful that within a few days we will be able to return  cur-mud-geon to the status of a normal forum member.

If cur-mud-geon is unable to act appropriately when we allow him to return as a normal member, we will have to ban them permanently. We do not wish to do that, but if we are forced to do it, we will do it.