[Mrs. Patton]

As our forum grows, with the addition of recent and upcoming games forums, the moderators have even less time to police Community Discussion threads. We have noticed that they have taken a turn for the worse again. There has been an increase in inappropriate threads/posts where folks have been spamming topics, trolling, and grossly ignoring forum rules.

A lot of the active membership on this section of the forum are members who have been around a fair amount of time. When we have members who know better helping to spam up threads, flaming, trolling or who don't bother to report problems in CD until they have spun way out of control, then the moderators and admins start to look at CD as extra work. A lot of extra work.

CD is not a given. First and foremost, this is a games forum. That is the primary focus and that is where the vast majority of the members are posting regularly. With much of our moderators' attention directed to Skyrim, Brink and other newer game boards, your ability to police yourselves and follow forum rules is increasingly important. The report button is there so you can try to assist the moderating team to resolve a problem - that keeps CD running smoothly and keeps it available as an off-topic area for this forum. If the off-topic section continues to require a disproportionate amount of moderator attention, then we will need to evaluate whether or not it's worth keeping open. Closing Community Discussion is a possibility that is being considered. It's NOT the ideal strategy, but we also need to keep these forums as a place where folks can feel comfortable. Thus we would like to appeal to the community for help so this area can continue to be available to our fans. You can help in this endeavor by:

1) Using the report button to report flames, spam, inappropriate content and threads that have reached 200 posts.
2) Using the PM system for personal chat and disagreements.
3) Staying away from inane and meaningless topics, forum games and especially spammy polls
4) Give the forum rules a read. You agreed to them when you registered here, so it can't hurt to freshen up on the rules.

If you work with the moderators and admins to keep Community Discussion running smoothly, then you have a place where everyone can feel welcome!