The CriticalDance.com Rules, Policies, and Disclaimers contain the following text:<P><I>"You agree, through your use of this service, that you will not use this<BR>BB to post any material which is knowingly false and/or defamatory,<BR>inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane,<BR>sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or<BR>otherwise violative of any law."</I><P>There have been several recent messages in the "Issues" forum which have been inarguably in violation of that agreement.<P>The CriticalDance.com staff, after devoting a great deal of time and discussion to this issue and after repeated efforts -- both public and private -- to resolve the situation, have temporarily suspended this member's posting privileges.<P>This is the first time a member has ever been suspended from CriticalDance.com, (In the distant past, a particular screen name was suspended, because that name had certain administrative privileges; that user was invited to continue participating under a different name, and did so) and it's not a step we have taken lightly; a great deal -- some would say, an inordinate amount -- of staff time and discussion has been devoted to this issue.<P>We hope that all involved, including the member in question, will soon resume discourse that, while occasionally passionate, is always respectful.<P>The Administrators and Moderators<p>[This message has been edited by Moderators (edited May 09, 2002).]

A clarification: The suspension is <B>not</B> due to differences of opinion. In fact, as stated on our whoweare page:<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>We are particularly keen to encourage wide ranging debate on dance and dance issues in an atmosphere where people can present their views courteously and sometimes with good humour. Dissent from the views of the moderators will always be welcome.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>The suspension is the result of several counts of violation of the following agreement:<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>You agree, through your use of this service, that you will not use this BB to post any material which is knowingly false and/or <B>defamatory</B>, inaccurate, <B>abusive</B>, vulgar, <B>hateful</B>, <B>harassing</B>, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, <B>invasive of a person's privacy</B>, or otherwise <B>violative of any law</B>.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>The above agreement was violated knowingly by the member in question even after warnings and approaches were made. The CriticalDance staff had to delete at least one post that violated two members' privacy rights. The member in question threatened to repeat the violation on a third individual even after a warning was issued.<P>Be assured that the CriticalDance staff do not take suspensions lightly. We usually give the offending member several chances (which we did in this case).<P>Be assured also however that we take action as necessary to protect our members from abusive behavior by errant members.<p>[This message has been edited by Moderators (edited May 10, 2002).]

I've put some thought recently into the issue of appropriate discourse, and here's one very small guideline I've come up with:<P>When responding to someone else's post in the same thread, one is sometimes tempted to quote the original post to which one is responding, point by point, and write a response to each mini-point of the original. Point-by-point quoting is not in and of itself offensive. However, it can lead to a combative atmosphere.<P>In general, it's probably more polite to respond to a post without quoting it, implicitely assuming the reader has already read the previous post in the thread.<P>I have been guilty of this in the past, but will think twice before doing it again in the future.<BR>

Well, it's situational. If your reply is directly, or even closely, under the message to which you're referring, then quoting may well be superfluous.<P>If your reply is three or 4 messages down, or even on another page, quoting may be the only thing that allows other readers to follow what the heck you're talking about.<p>[This message has been edited by salzberg (edited May 11, 2002).]

Back to the subject at hand:<P>Suspending a user's posting privileges, for however short an amount of time, is not something we do lightly; in all the time we've been online -- thousands of messages and hundreds of threads, many of which have been quite...heated -- this is the first time we've felt we had to do so.<P>This was only after at least 5 private messages and 3 public posts reminding the user of our policies re: courtesy; all of these were either ignored or answered in a confrontational manner. Only after these efforts failed was the user notified that his/her posting privileges were being suspended for two weeks.<P>Far from censoring ideas, our goal on CriticalDance.com is to provide a forum in which users can feel comfortable in posting their views and opinions on matters terpsichorean without the fear that by doing so they will be exposing themselves to <I>ad hominem</I> attack. This will continue to be our goal.<P>The user in question is welcome to rejoin us after a cooling off period and I sincerely hope s/he will.<p>[This message has been edited by salzberg (edited May 11, 2002).]