Aren't the Admins supposed to be the mature ones?
First off, I'm not saying all Admins here are immature, but that there is at least one who is. I think it fair to at least call it to the attention of the other admins.
Where I was brought up, people could always discuss things in a civilized manner, even if people were totally opposed to each other (I'm talking about at school... not at home). If I disagreed with Person X, I let him know and explained my reasoning for opposing him. He usually reciprocated. I have never gotten to the degree of shouting at someone in an argument (outside of the home). Mainly, because it is excessively inappropriate in public places to shout. Additionally, shouting can detract from your own argument, it clouds your thoughts and brings too much emotion into the issue. Lastly shouters lack basic grammar which often results in hard to read sentences, a significant bar to communication. Shouting pretty much bars any chance of civilized debate.
The same goes for the internet. Shouting generally is done by those people that don't know what shouting means ("how do I get my letters out of caps... and why is this little green light on on my keyboard") or the people who are too immature to deal with an issue they feel passionately about in a intelligent fashion. Such people often fall into the same category as people who are sometimes referred to as AOLers (LIEK TAHT SIET TAHT HAS A TRANSLA2R WHICH TRANSLAETS SIMPL3 TAXT IN2 CORUPTED AOLAR SPECH).
Because of this and other quality control issues (the main being trolls... which I'll get to in a moment), internet sites have evolved a system of Admins and Moderators to control this. The Admins or Moderators tend to be more mature people who deal with content that is inappropriate. In addition to having the power of controlling conversations, they also have the responsibility to set an example for other users. Though usually they succeed at this, occasionally Admins will loose their cool.
Everyone knows what trolling is. My take on it is essentially that it is a comment that does not add anything intelligent to the discussion. Trolls can use shouting, but often they won't, because people that shout are usually disregarded.
In my most recent blog article, Draginol said this:
Let me help you out:
THEY CUT THE HEAD OFF OF AN INNOCENT PERSON ON TELEVISION SLOWLY WHILE HE SCREAMED THE ENTIRE TIME, HELD UP THE HEAD TO THE CAMERA AND THEN DUMPED THE BODY BY THE ROAD.
As I read down the page, the first thing I thought was "Oh, this was the guy that engineered the entire site, which is an example of his intelligence. I'm sure he will have something very intelligent to say on my response to Senator McCain's comments."
Then, I read what he actually said, and was sorely disappointed. For one, he shouted, which was inappropriate. His didn't use basic english grammar, and his comment added absolutely nothing to the discussion. And he's an admin. This comment is a perfect example of what should be gotten rid of on moderated boards. Even if his comment did have anything intelligent to say, it would have been too obscured by the shouting. He may have felt emotional about the issue, (as obviously he did), but this is not the way to express it. He could have said something like "I am greatly offended by your blog. Please pause to evaluate what action you are claiming isn't barbaric. How can you not call an action like cutting someone's head off, in addition to filming it, barbaric. Moreover, they gleefully held up his head to the camera and then dumped his body by the site of road. You exhibit an extreme lack of compassion." I wouldn't have had an issue. But instead, he typed before he thought, acted purely on emotion, and did not add anything valuable to the discussion.
Brad, it's your responsibility to serve as an example for other bloggers. I hope I can find a blog site whose creator can deal with their emotions appropriately