Hi Kathy, I'm very surprised to see reference to someone abusing someone who lost a child. Having experienced the same thing in the past, I can tell you a death in the family can be traumatic, especially when someone loses a person who they expected would outlive them. Generally people respond differently to stress, and some sense of flexibility should be exercised in such situations. Just as bad in my book is someone threatening someone by e-mail. If the person that Kathy e-mailed disagreed with her opinion of his post, he should have taken it up with the owner of Adland; or perhaps if he was braver, he should have aired out his disagreement with her in a forum where the original post and their e-mails could have been displayed for all to see. On the face of it, the idea of moderators for extreme reported cases could be useful, though sometimes the more things are policed (my choice of words) the more hesitant some might be to express truthful opinions, though certainly if the opnions are expressed with a good intent and a minimum of politeness it shouldn't be an obstacle. The suggested idea of a linking box to report abusive behaviour sounds like a good idea also. This would make it easy to report suspected abuses, though hopefully those investigating would try to look at the full context of what happened, so as to avoid something being reported that left out part of the story thus coloring the original context.

Kathy, I didn't have the privilege of knowing the person you mentioned, but I'm appalled that anyone would be cruel enough to harass or abuse someone about a personal tragedy. Nevertheless, I believe there is already a mechanism to moderate one's own forum and/or ban someone from posting to it. Do we really need another layer of oversight because of one appalling incident? Or is the one you brought up part of a trend? I have experienced an unsettling incident myself, though nowhere near as cruel, and not in a forum but in my stats. In an effort to stop the barrage of spam forum invitations, I blocked a few people. In retaliation, one of the blockees gave me a rating of 1, which stood as the only vote until someone else was kind enough to offer a different opinion. I'm now leary of blocking anyone, and as a result my email is filled daily with over 100 messages, 95% of which are advertisements and most of those come from only 5 or so people. I'm aware of at least one other person who experienced the same rating issue and retaliated in kind. I didn't think that was appropriate, either, but I did understand the impulse. Still, I have come to value this community greatly, especially a handful of members who have been kind enough to answer my questions very graciously. I'm sorry your friend left. It would probably be quite healing for her to see an outpouring of support such as this. I hope you will implore her to come back. We shouldn't let bullies control us, and with the support of the majority, we won't. Cheri

Hi there Kathy Hi john xxxxxxx I agree with you both WE do need moderators. i think adlandpro should take away the ability to have our own forums and make just one forum where everyone can post. they should control the forums with moderators. adlandpro should make one for our advertising one for just normal chat amongst ourselves and add more forums for our use as we need them.Obviously if forum owners cant keep their users under control then they dont deserve that type of privalege. (sorry for the spelling). My forums on my website are well moderated and so is my chat. No way would i allow anyone to be abused especially when we are meant to be adults. to make nasty comments about a childs death is making the people who done this as low as they can get. Tawnyuk

Hello Kathy, I will have to agree with Dawn. I think it is time for Adlandpro forums to have fixed topics. The "Ask the Experts" forums are going in the right direction. If there are fixed topics, the amount of abusive types of forums that I have encountered recently will definitely be discouraged. I think we should move on and reconsider the role of the forums in the Adlandpro Community. Other networking sites I have visited do place constraints on the membership in the use of their programs and forums. God Bless you Kathy and best wishes, Christine Gleeson

Hmm, I would like to agree, but the idea of fixed topics strikes me as a move in the wrong direction. I think that the offered solutions of moderation by the originator of a forum (or even thread possibly) and additional volunteer moderators to be contacted in more severe or questionable cases should be suffcient. Fixed topics may get rid of some of the spam in topic threads (though I suspect that some of the people who spam threads will still do it under fixed topics).