[Kris Verdeyen]

Although it could be said that dwelling on negativity will breed more of the same, I can't help but notice the surprisingly large number of negative posts on CD lately.

Let me first say that I've been posting, lurking, reading, and looking at the pictures on CD for over a year now, and I think it is the best community I've ever seen on the internet. There are frequent spirited discussions, disagreements, and arguments, but rarely does it degrade into childish name calling and accusations. I don't know whether that is due to the narrow appeal of the board, tireless moderating, or just overwhelming maturity on the part of the contributors, but it is commendable, and I've always enjoyed it.

However, in the past two weeks or less, it seems that more people are badmouthing other teams, perpetuating rumors, questioning teams' honesty, and just being nasty.

I'd like to ask a question and offer some advice.

My question: Has this type of surge in negative posts happened before and faded? I'd feel better if the answer were yes.

My Advice: Please read over your posts before hitting that "send" button. Ask yourself a few questions:
Am I being unnesscarily antagonistic?
Do I have something valuable to add to this conversation?
Am I talking about the issue at hand or about the person with whom I'm arguing?
Is there any chance that I'm misunderstanding the post to which I'm responding?
Did I spell everything right? :)

Just by taking a moment to consider what you're posting before you post it, you can help to clear up a lot of the problems that are plaguing the CD boards lately.