Well, there will always be people that step on other peoples toes. So when this happens, I believe its the job of the admins or moderators to ask posters not to insult each other. Moderation doesn't necessarily mean that a thread should be closed or people banned, but just the idea that someone is there to mediate, is usually good enough.

Contradictory opinions are still opinions that need to be respected. As long as people state their reasons and remain respectful of the other persons opinion then it can be good, because it shows potential forum members that they will be respected even if other people don't share their views.

The whole point of a forum is for people of opposing views to discuss them. Otherwise why bother to post a view? You do so to see who will agree and who will disagree with you, and to gain knowledge of other viewpoints.

Spoken like a true moderator. I think most people think that way, but you do get the occasional rant or rave when people want to blow off steam. I think thats part the whole forum experience as well though.

Damn, I've been rumbled headcase.. am I allowed to say d a m n on here? any word with a s s such as ***ume is censored which makes me giggle quite a lot.

Sometimes people will want to just have a rant, and we've found on ours that a dedicated 'rants' section (which we call 'Robins soapbox' after a member who did it a lot and has sadly p***ed away) where people are allowed to have a mad ranting session about anything that they are mad about, with slightly different rules to the rest of the forum, has proved very popular and keeps the nastyness off the other areas.

good grief the word p a s s ed is censored... taking propriety just a teeny weeny bit too far aren't we chaps?

I think contradicting and disagreeing with an opinion can be accomplished without attacking on a personal level. Presenting an orderly, but opposite, opinion is what gets a forum going, IMHO!

It is good to disagree or contradict with others opinion but there should be a simple way to explain your point rather than totally saying that others point is not of any value. It is easy to put up my point in a simple terms rather than contradict.

I think that's a great idea. You've completely isolated rants into one specific forum. You can also move rant threads that are posted in other forums, into your rant forum.

LOL, I just noticed that too. I can tell that the webmasters here have been thinking ahead, or they were hit by some foul mouthed posters in the past...