The Forum User Problem and Taking it On

Recently I've been reading around on osdev.org, and have been unhappy with what I've seen. It would appear that a wave of people are joining the forum, and in some way or another turning the forum against them. I'm not going to name any specific usernames, though...

I'm sick of these people posting to a thread with no knowledge of the subject to pick apart the original topic, and point out what's wrong with it - even after a moderator or a more experienced member has posted with assistance. Further, I find it frustrating when a user is told an answer and replies along the lines of "laziness" or something like that and yet continue to complain about their issue.

In fact, in a recent discussion assisting lukem_95 with his PCI Numeration code, he posted a "Smart Question" (which increased my respect for him/her) in which he explained the problem he was having well, provided his problem code, and showed evidence of attempting to figure out what went wrong himself. An answer was given, all seemed well, until another member decided he didn't like the question.

Here starts a flame war that continues on and on, and includes a statement "I don't think there are any real programmers here" (paraphrased) - an extremely inappropriate statement considering we have a university lecturer (slash doctorate) as a moderator (Combuster) and several industry programmers (ie, JamesM, omin0us, et al).

So what can we do to tackle this problem, when threats of a ban, comments about a member's behaviour, and generally going against the community doesn't stop anything?

I believe there are several ways to solve the problem:

• User suspensions: suspension for a week (or longer/shorter depending on severity of issue) that gives the member time to think over what he/she did and lets any flamewars cool down
• Thread locking: a feature of most forum systems that I believe isn't used enough. Locking a thread stops both parties from continuing the fight
• Personal messaging: let the two concerned parties continue with the discussion in a personal message chain. I know that PHPBB2 forums support multi-user personal message sending, so this is not difficult. A problem with this approach is a lack of moderation.
• User bans: ban users who break the rules.

I dislike the last option, because it's final and harsh, but it is definitely justified after several warnings.

Forums are online communities - let's try to get along with each other - and think twice before hitting that "Post" button.