Forrest Gumpp has a good idea about private messaging. That way, two people like SallyG and antiseptic/austin powerless, could swap their juvenile allegations about each other in private without putting it on public display. Another example is how antiseptic/austin powerless accused a poster called JW of being a CSA employee who was here under false pretenses, and he named the employee. If he was forced to back up his claims in private messaging with Graham, then that type of attempted slander could easily be put in it's place. But it would require Graham's, or a moderator's involvement.

Samsung I question why you posted that?
Graham knows well what we post here as you are aware.
But would he with private messaging?
I have used them in another forum and doubt moderators read them hence the name.
As a combatant in that thread, as a witness to the truth of at least one statement you describe by antiseptic, I think the post is an attempt at having the last word.
I do honestly wonder if we can ever totally take the heat out of some debates.
Yes better to ignore them but some things are said only to provoke.
Private messaging has a use but I do not think without the spotlight of a posted thread insults would be one of them.

You are quite right Belly, about private messaging. There would be absolutely no point in anytwo using PMing for personal attacks. It would only take one party to complain to the moderator(s) of the other forum, and one (or both) might well be banned.

You're also right that unless there is a complaint by one of the two who are party to PMing, moderators on the other forum would not be the slightest bit interested in the conversation. It is not PUBLIC. Only the two parties to it can access the messages and responses, except, when alerted to a problem, the forum moderator(s).

What it may permit is discussion between parties, by mutual consent, of matters that might, if public, be considered borderline with respect to forum rules or legal actionability.

Its main value would lie in allowing a discussion in depth without a word limit on a topic of interest to any two Forum members who do not wish to derail a thread or hijack a discussion. It would only occur if there was mutual interest in the PM.

Private messaging, or even email messaging, from a forum owner or moderator, IS useful. If slander has been committed by a forum member, then in order to protect the site, it would be necessary for the owner to establish whether, or not, slander has in fact been committed. Antiseptic/austin powerless made claims of dishonesty directly against a specific CSA employee, and said that the employee posted here under false pretenses: This site allowed it's publication.

"IF" all the claims are not truthful, then this site may be at risk of legal action. "IF" all the claims are truthful, then it is surely the site's obligation to establish this fact, and thus allow the continuation of the allegations and the history of the allegations. There's only one way for the truth of the matter to be known. The site should contact all the people involved, including the CSA , and it's employee.

Belly, stop trying to play personal politics about this CSA matter: You don't like me...so get over it! Every time this subject is mentioned, on any thread, you immediately chime in, and proceed to defend the person who I clearly think has slandered a CSA employee. Do you believe slander is good? If someone thinks slander has been committed, then that person has every right to bring it to attention.

In my opinion, the CSA employee needs to be contacted by the site.

The Private Messaging option could be enabled or disabled by every individual OLO member.
Members who don't like the idea of PMs won't have to choose that option.

For the people who do want to use PM, there should be an option to block certain people from sending them PMs.

What about a chat window?
I'm not sure if I'd want that myself but the word popped into my head while writing this post.
What do others think? Would you want to use it. I don't have much experience with group chats.
I suppose it can be a lot of fun, but also a total disaster.

Hmm...

Well, to be honest I'm reasonably satisfied with the way things are, save for the quality of posts by some commenters, though the site can hardly be blamed for that.

Gender box seems like a pretty pointless idea to me. The point is the ideas. Of course we don't know about people commenting, that's kind of the idea - this means we have to make arguments based on their merit. Gender, age, religion - the less we know about people, the more we have to treat em equally.

Which leads to my next point, which is that I disagree with PALE's notion that people should ID themselves to make their points more valid.

So what? Just because some partisan kook with nothing to lose identifies himself, his view is more valid than someone who remains anonymous for good reason? Given the nature of some commenters, I think remaining anonymous is the sensible course of action for most people with careers.

I'm pretty opposed to censorship, but I think given that some threads get quite hostile, this shows that a light touch is used. We might not like it, but sometimes censorship is necessary due to legal requirements and issues such as defamation or court proceedings, not to mention privacy.