Nephilim wrote: "They post on these accounts because that way they don't have to put up with the BS"

In other words, they are trying to skirt around the problems within their community by using anonymous accounts. These are problems within the UK community, period. It's not an "Ax" thing. Ax just exposes whatever problems are there. Anonymous accounts exacerbate the problems rather than fix the problems.

A word about the moderation...

I would ban Dave Jackson if he said something inappropriate on Ax. Richard Smith has some advertising on Ax right now, but I would also suspend his account in a heartbeat if he said something incredibly inappropriate. When it comes to keeping the forum inline, I don't care who the user is. If I feel like they crossed a line, I act appropriately. I've done this a number of times and don't get credit for it because you guys don't always see it.

When I say there is a slight bias, that just means that I generally value the input of fight professionals and people with real profiles more than I value input from anonymous posters. I don't give a rat's ass if the anonymous poster is actually a respected member of the community. The fact that they are using an anonymous account removes most the respect I would have had for them. I do believe it is cowardly thing and I do believe that it hurts the community simply because they don't like it when they get a negative reaction to their posts. boo-hoo. Let me hand them a tissue. That's how I feel about it.

I'm not talking about users who don't have a profile filled out, but they aren't hiding their identity. I'm talking specifically about people trying to hide their identity, even going as far as changing how they write.

The over sensitivity is not exclusive to fighters or fight professionals. A lot of people feel like they have the right to say whatever they want about a fighter, but when someone responds in disagreement, it must be a clique or they're getting ganged up on, or it's somehow not fair.

Let's pretend we are all physically standing in a big room and we're talking about Muay Thai. Someone stands up and says "Liam Harrison never fights any quality Thai opponents because he would get squashed". How would you imagine people in the room would react? I imagine a large amount of them would respond in disagreement with a very bitter tone to their voice. There would probably be some curse words involved. Is that ganging up? Or is that naturally the effect of people disagreeing with the rudely stated criticism about a popular fighter? It would be pretty stupid to expect everyone in the room to reply with a courteous, "I don't agree, but I respect and appreciate your opinion".

Sometimes, fighters get out of line when they post something. They are human, and not all of them are nice people with a cool head. When they get out of line, I have no problem moderating them. The problem is (and has always been) that there are 200-300 new messages on Ax every single day. I cannot read them all. Neither can Dave Jackson. That is why I added the "report post" option on Ax. A LOT of people get away with inappropriate posts all the time because of the number of daily posts on Ax. I think people seem to notice more when a fighter or promoter is speaking inappropriately. Some also hold fighters up to a ridiculous standard where if they say one curse word then they are considered "attacking" someone for their opinion.

I suppose a lot of things can be considered "abuse". Anonymous posters feel no sense of responsibility whatsoever. Why would I value them?