This always seems most pronounced when there is major disagreement, and it is a tribute to the community that we have managed to go through Two or three major 'Discussions' without the site fragmenting.

If you are an editor you have to accept that some of your decisions will be taken badly, and accept that as long as you are acting consistently and fairly you will have to step back and take a deep breath when someone is calling you all sorts.

I don't think that the non-editorial tag will help, because even when you specifically say its not editorial, people will assume it is, or at least assume it is made in discussion with other editors. Whenever I have ended up in a vaguely editorial role I've always made it clear that if people want to think that im acting as part of a conspiracy, the only reply they will get from me  is laughter. Taking it personally only causes you stress that really dosent help you after all.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

There is a problem with managerial moderation getting confused with personal comments and positions.

That's partly the nature of the animal, but a more flexible approach might be less likely to be provocative, perhaps.

If the EU can make Vaclav Klaus president then anything is possible. ;)

It seems to me to be fundamentally unfair that voluntary front pagers can't have as much fun as anyone else here and be frivolous as the humour takes them.  (Otherwise we might start have real difficulties persuading people to take on the onerous task in the first place).

However there does appear to be a view within the community that some front pagers occasionally let the side down, are quicker to to post negative or pejorative comments than many ordinary members, and that when editors do this, it reflects badly on the community as a whole.  Whether it is valid to expect a higher standard of behaviour from frontpagers depends on how ET decides to define the role as a whole.  It does seem to me, however, that at least some members expect a higher (or at least an equivalent) standard of behaviour  from front pagers and feel they aren't always getting it.

However it seems to me that front pagers are quite a varied bunch, with many disparate talents, and that just because one is a brilliant intellectual doesn't automatically mean that they are particularly skilled at emotional empathy or encouraging someone with lesser linguistic skills.  I'm not sure why Sven posted his diary, but perhaps he was intimating that social intercourse here (and much more so elsewhere) can sometimes take the form of an egotistical bear fight where the purpose is to destroy the weaker opponents arguments and that even Grizzlies have evolved mechanisms for mitigating the harm such fights/arguments can create.

Certainly I am aware of instances where members felt intimated when a number of perceived heavyweights started to take their perhaps tentative arguments apart and felt they had no alternatives other than fight or flight - put up some kind of argument, or admit humiliating defeat.  It seems to me most damaging disputes occur when one party feels humiliated in some way.  Perhaps they were objectively wrong in some sense, but to admit that publicly would be to risk humiliating scorn or sarcasm.  Perhaps those fears were ill-founded.  I have certainly sometimes made hasty or ill-considered comments and found myself having to row back when called on them.  If your ego is tied in with your intellect, this can be a difficult process!

So to answer your question, a [This is not an editorial comment] tag might be useful if cumbersome.  The question of whether front pagers should be held to some (difficult to define) higher standard is perhaps one that front pagers themselves might like to discuss if they haven't already done so.  My suspicion is that it would be impossible to define such a standard clearly.  Perhaps just a sense that a degree of prominence on the site also means that other members are more likely to feel intimidated and that understatement and emotional empathy might be useful tools at times.  

Often front pagers have gotten into trouble when they were just trying to help some other member under pressure - and ended up in the firing line themselves.  Sometimes you just can't win, at other times you may feel, on subsequent cool review, that your intervention might have been more skilful.  Nearly always you get into trouble if you impute motives or make personalised observations to which someone takes offence.  There is sometimes almost no rowing back from this.  You may feel that some people are only waiting to be insulted so they can vent their righteous spleen.

That is why third party conflict resolution processes which depersonalise the process can be so valuable.  However I have never seen them attempted over the internet, so I just don't know what the success rate would be.  A lot depends on whether people actually want to resolve the problem.  Without that basic goodwill, no process can succeed.  But it seems to me that goodwill is one quality that is not lacking on ET.

notes from no w here

I agree with your statement (that many here have echoed) about differences being good, positive and a learning opportunity, and share your concerns of what can happen when those difference turn sour for some reason - some of which I have tried to analyse above.  

Conflict is endemic in all organisations - the more dynamic the organisation, often the more virile the conflict.  However there are methods and processes for channelling that conflict in more creative and less damaging ways, and that is the discussion I am attempting to foster.  

This isn't intended as a critique of frontpagers  - I would never criticise people doing a job I am not prepared to do my self.  What I did do - for context - was relay some of the criticisms I have read and heard, and which appear to lie behind some of the animus displayed earlier.  

I don't have a view on whether they are justified or not, because I wasn't party to many of the discussions and don't know a lot of the context.  I would merely note that the animus appears to be there, is real, and thus, in an ideal world, is a reality we should try to deal with in a positive and constructive way (off-line) between the parties concerned.

Some have expressed the view that their enjoyment of and participation on the site has been effected by these unresolved tensions.  That alone should be a signal that we should try to act.  But ultimately its your call.

notes from no w here

It shouldn't be cause for wonderment if you acknowledge that our divides on different issues aren't along the same fronts. Everyone joined afer fiding some overlap with some of the existing users; and just two steps are enough for a new member to join with completely different views from yours.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}