I'm not all that familiar with the guidelines here, truth be told. I suppose I try to go with common sense really. I have had my attention drawn to several things in my time here, however, most notably about not talking about administration issues / decisions on the boards and not 'debating' especially with respect to politics and religion.

I don't really grasp how things work here...

I will say that I've noticed a general pattern of this, however:

Person A starts a thread where they are saying how they feel or similar.
Person B responds in some kind of frustration at A
Person C responds in some kind of frustration at A
This culminates...
In Person's A thread being locked.
And often times... In a final post (before the locking of the thread) which assigns blame to A.

If there was intervention with respect to comments to the effect that B was being unsupportive then this might prevent the thread from escalating. I guess my concern with this general pattern is that it is possible for one or two people to take offence to a thread (to willfully misread a thread even) then send off a couple 'report this post''s to the mods then for the thread to be locked or deleted (thus reinforcing / validating their behaviour).

That is a concern I have.

I appreciate that the moderators are human and that humans make mistakes. I'm saying this because it is a *general pattern* I have noted, however. People aren't ideally / perfectly reflective either and sometimes it can help to get a relatively objective take... Or not... Take what you will...

> if you openly violate one of our community guidelines, it's inevitable that the post will be acted upon.

I'm not at all sure that it is... I've seen a lot of attacks towards persons left and one post singled out all of a sudden when the posts that wound them up initially are simply ignored.

> If you don't agree with the community guidelines, I'd have to ask what about a specific guideline you disagree with to be able to respond to specific points.

Is this an invitation?

> each and every one of the people who volunteers to help out around here takes the responsibility very seriously.

yes. i don't mean for this to undermine that people here are doing the best they can and that it is a hard job to do. i don't mean to undermine that at all. but then... one can hold that in ones mind... dwell on it... and at the very same time... reflect on ways to improve

;-)