As a new member to the mod team I can speak to my own view on some of the recent posts around age. I am 37 so not a GenZ or Boomer but a good old fashioned millennial. Like the middle children we are, we get it from both sides of the age gap
, but as a rule when I see generalizations I take them with a grain of salt.
Take for example the idea that "Boomers don't like the razzle dazzle of marketing and just want old school, hard nosed football". I don't find that notion offensive, I think it is simplistic and likely provably false, but not in violation of the rules of this site. If people want to make a generalization in their post about a group of people to draw a larger point, well this is a message board and people have posted less informed takes than that.
We have recently been discussing (based off of reports) the idea of age being a protected class, and how to respond to "digs" at one's age on the boards. It is an interesting question. In general, for me personally, I subscribe to a fairly laissez-faire approach to moderation. The idea of moderating, for me, is to be an unbiased (as far as any person can be) arbiter of the rules of the site. When posts are flagged, we review them and comment internally to each other on the merits of the complaint. I do believe in moderation of moderating and appreciate not all agree with my approach. Luckily we have a balance of views, opinions and personalities as a group so hopefully we are matching the tenor of our community at large. I have seen some age related posts which seemed to be thinly veiled knocks on other posters which violate our policy on personal attacks so those get removed. When I first joined, in my welcome message there was a blurb that said the following:
"
Friendly Community
GT Swarm was started with the goal of becoming the best site where die-hard Georgia Tech fans can visit to find the latest GT recruiting information as well as discuss the latest GT Athletics news in a friendly environment. As such, we currently only have one rule:
no personal attacks on any GT athlete (current, former, or future), GTAA staff, or any other members of this community. Please remember to keep discussions civil and help us keep the community clean by clicking on the "Report" link under any post that you think violates this rule."
That has been the north star I use when evaluating reported posts. We don't remove every message that ever offends, but if a message reads in a way that looks as though it is intentionally a shot across the bow of a user, staff or the players for no reason other than being plain old mean, it gets the removal vote from me. As always, I appreciate anyone responding back to this post or via DMs to talk through reports or warnings - I am happy to discuss my viewpoint further.
