Let me say a few things here...

1. When we think an issue "involves the entire membership" or "the entire site," that's never the case. We have over 13,600 members here and I can assure you that no matter what the issue is, it never involves any significant portion of those people. Yes, it may involve a number of "regular" long-term members, but to suggest it's a site-threatening issue is to lose perspective of any interpersonal conflict here.

2. When we ask a member to keep things to PM, and then they directly disobey our request and post a very indirect response in a thread which is clear to everyone that it is directed at the member they are not supposed to be communicating with, that will not be tolerated. Yes, everyone who comes here is dealing with an issue in their lives that they need help with, and therefore they may not be in the best of places to be able to always react appropriately. We give plenty allowances for such things. But there's no excuse when we ask an adult member here to stop doing something and they keep doing it. That's just a blatant disregard and disrespect of the other members, the moderators, and me, KD, and LMo. I will not tolerate such disrespect to continue here. No excuses. You will be held responsible for your behavior here (and members have always been helld responsible).

3. While I would love to have the resources to have people professionally intervene and offer conflict resolution services to every member who needs it, that just isn't possible today. I hope it is someday, but at present, we just can't do that. We expect adults to handle matters on their own, or, if they can't (which is 100%, completely OKAY with us!), to use the ignore features on the forums. When a person fails to do either, it suggests to us that something else, more manipulative, is going on, and we react accordingly.

So, please, if you have a personal conflict with another member, keep it to PM and if need be, ask for moderator or admin intervention. But at the end of the day, if you ask for such intervention, you must also abide by our decisions.

Thanks,
DocJohn