I have taken the unusual step of removing general access to two topics from the General Discussion Forum; no posts have been deleted, but at this point they are available to moderators and administrators only. Both topics included the names of avatars who are not citizens of CDS, nor members of this Forum. The topics will remain unavailable until the moderators can review them for further action. Warnings have also been issued to some participants in those topics; any reopening of these topics and any further inclusion of avatars who are not citizens of CDS or members of this Forum may result in sanctions as per the guidelines:
Article 5: VIOLATIONS AND SANCTIONS
5.1: In case of a violation of the above mentioned guidelines, a moderator may choose to issue a warning to the violator in question. In cases of extreme violation a moderator may choose to impose a temporary ban from posting without warning.
5.2: More than two warnings may result in a temporary suspension from posting to the forum or in cases presenting severe circumstances of repeated, malicious breaches of the guidelines despite previous warnings, a moderator may issue a permanent ban of the violator from posting to the forum.
Tonight I had the unpleasant task of discussions with avatars, who are not citizens or members of these Forums, about why their names, actions and reputation have become part of a topic on the CDS Forums. That is a conversation that should never be necessary.
All members of these Forums are adults, who have agreed to abide by a set of Forum Guidelines but some seem unable or unwilling to do so.
I suggest that ALL Forum members go back to the Guidelines and review them with YOUR recent posts in mind. If you have been rehashing old battles, if you have been hijacking topics, if you have been claiming your personal viewpoint to be fact without providing objective proof, if you have been posting with no content other than to 'support a side' without contributing any actual content - then YOU are part of why the general tone and quality of these Forums is currently so negative.