This is just it though, you're judging people by your own standards and behaviour patterns, you, I and most members on here know what's acceptable and what's not. A lot of people that could come onto the forum, have no desire to conform to what is acceptable and get a greater kick on how far they can push and get. There's people on here form all parts of the world with really only music and the English language to connect them. Apart from that they could be anybody which is both good and bad, the bad is that they have different behaviour patterns and different ways of expressing themselves, especially in a more difficult situations and this can sometimes lead to the problems that have been expressed in this post.

Yeah I feel ya, I'm sure things in the lounge have been up and down. But I've been lurking and posting long enough to realize that the lounge is the most dramatic aspect of MB, and I find it such a shame. I wish I could log on anticipating a very heated debate about music...not politics or gender issues. Since I starting posting 9 months ago, that's all that seems to happen around here. If people like the lounge that's great. I'm just saying that there are 2938390483209 versions of the "lounge" all over the internet, but only one MB. Why not capitalize on its unique characteristics instead of get dragged down by its weaknesses?

There used to be a better balance.
Like people take EVERYTHING so seriously today!

A couple of years ago there were STILL lounge posts. There were STILL posts about banned members and deleted posts and all that bull****. but you know what? it was taken with a grain of salt! People laughed **** off and moved on.

Someone said something about my music taste being sooo immature and stuff a couple of years, but did I whine about it? Did I go to the mods? NO YOU GET OVER IT AND MOVE ON. If I had created a thread, it would have been talked about for .2 seconds. No one would bring it up again. It would be over.

Now someone causes a little drama and it's never forgotten. I think everything is the same but the way people handle things is different. That's what I think the problem is.

Why is everything so serious all of the time now? Like people have their opinions **** gets off topic, bs happens, why is it SO serious?

Yes to all of this. I completely agree. Like I mentioned earlier in this thread I think it would be great if we all made a commitment to avoiding hot button lounge threads in favor of contributing to the music discussion.

I guess I'm not altogether sure what you mean, Arya. I think I'm too out of the loop to even know who/what you're referring to. :) It seems to me that the lounge is just a hotbed for weirdness that is rarely music related. Whether or not certain people spark or fuel that is rather beyond me. I would agree with you that there's no reason to be so serious! If people get easily offended, could it be because the topics people are generating are too sensitive?

I guess I mean that nothing has changed except for how situations are being treated.

Yeah, but the moderation patterns haven't changed in years (Unless you count boobs going psycho). There used to be no problem with this. The way people are (As you put it, with only music and the english language to connect them) hasn't changed, the modding hasn't changed - what *has* changed to cause our current problem?

I think the answer is - longer term members started pushing their limits, and a variety of internal groups formed that changed the forum dynamic. The new members are being given the same short leash they always have been, so changing the way things are modded won't help.

I'm not honestly sure what would help, but what I am sure of is that it has to come from all of us as members, (including the mod team, they're members too), since just imposing rules isn't getting to the core of the issue - if we got incredibly in depth with new moderation rules and stuff, we'd triple the mod teams workload, and maybe we'd be able to treat the symptoms of the deeper problem - but we wouldn't be attacking the problem at the source, and that's no good.

That's not to say the mod team can't try and encourage this their own way, and maybe impose a couple new guidelines to help out, but they should be gentle guidelines aimed at levelling things out so we can focus on and fix the bigger issues. A drastic change isn't needed here - after all, what we want out of this isn't "change the way the forum works" or "Change who the members are" - we're just asking that new members (and old members) get to see a happier, less dramatic picture of the same thing we've always been.

I can commit to that. Since I first arrived, I've had the sense that if I didn't respond to lounge posts or participate in the popular threads I wouldn't fit in or might not get noticed. Somehow, though, it's important to remember that this is a music forum, where neither your post in the member pic thread nor your time spent on tinychat or whatever the f should really matter. Maybe that's what everyone means by cliqueyness. I'm not sure, I've tried to stay out of it so far. But yeah.

I remember when the idea for the political forum in the lounge was raised, I was totally against the idea because I'd seen the kind of sh*tstorms that came with them at other places.

I've seen a few forums with a much older demographic than this one totally ban political discussions because of all the resulting fall out that came from them. If mature adults can't handle those types of discussions I'm hardly surprised they affect this forum so much.

Criticising someones favourite band is one thing, but when you start criticising peoples lifestyles, political leanings & start labelling people without actually directly insulting them it's difficult for us mods to know where to draw the line.

I totally agree with all of this. On every forum I've ever been a part of that had a political forum, it's been the source of most of the biggest problems.