Everyone is victim of passion overtaking rationale and temper every now and then, and often people respond to challenge it as seen by the responses above. As Saito pointed out...
[...]
Although I also have to say as a former mod myself - if you have to apologize to the mods ahead of time, you probably should rethink things.
Along with Niara's counter arguments and other replies toning things down, with Blackfeiffer's clarification of their stance and opinions, there's no need for moderation. It's when people can't come back down from their temper, or move on, where moderation becomes necessary. Most of their post history is fine. We don't punish people for one mishap.
Repeated behavior and continuing to derail topics on the other hand, will result in action.
So if person A says insulting things about people of a certain group, but that group's people are forgiving and patient and tone things down in their replies, then mods don't do anything? It's not even about punishment. It's about pointing out to person A that his behaviour is out of line.
I reported his post, and minutes later, a mod complimented that very post by saying that it's informative.
In other words, when a post crosses the line, we can't hit back, but should report it instead.
But when it gets reported, mods compliment it.
So we can't hit back, but when we report it, the mods take his side.
And about derailing topics; even moderators have gone on long tangents in threads. This is a real question that applies to this community.
