doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
Some good points, but OTOH, again, forum threads aren’t IRL in person conversations.I think you are fighting against basic human nature here. There are tons and tons of people here who can have a nice conversation and even a well thought out debate and not take things personally. Then there are some posters who, it seems to me, clearly have no idea the difference between an opinion and a fact and are incredibly difficult to even have a basic interaction with because it becomes so difficult to communicate. People you want to punch are just part of being on the internet (and the reason I literally NEVER touch the multiplayer content in any videogames).
Oftentimes threads will morph and change into a different topic than that which was originally stated. I think this mirrors exactly how a normal IRL conversation goes. It twists and turns and ends up in a different place than it started. If you allow OPs to close threads (because they are bored, or mad, or for whatever reason) you allow them to shut down a conversation between two or more others that may just be getting started.
But I do also see, in @lowkey13's defense that it would be nice to have a space to link to where you can work on a project (Building a Warlord for 5e for example) and not have to put up with 35 posts saying "But why?" and "Warlords are stupid." and "Just use a bard" every single time you try to start one.
However, about in person conversations. At a gathering, if someone won’t drop something, you absolutely can tell them to drop it or leave the conversation, and all it takes to enforce it (unless they are a very awkward maladjusted jerk), is for a couple other people in the discussion to agree.
That isn’t possible on a forum, thus moderation. But, moderation doesn’t always work.
at the very least, we should have the capability to put threads on Ignore, so they don’t show up on our feed, and easily delete all of our posts in a thread.