[Jack_]

Originally Posted by Niamh.

It's been discussed before but it's always decided that it wouldn't be a good idea and would end up spilling all over the forum or involving people who don't want to be involved or used as a place just to get away with insulting people

Then all you do is have a strict zero tolerance policy in every area of the forum other than the private area. If any kind of argument breaks out on the main board after the issue has been resolved in the said section, they're just banned for a week or something. The idea would be that if a debate turns into an argument in a thread, then it's stopped and sent to the private area where it can continue for as long as needs be. The PM idea is perfectly reasonable but when there's still rules governing that it doesn't solve anything either?

If you let people have an area to really go to town and sort out their differences, I think in the end people would laugh it off and it would end up solving a lot of problems. Sweepings things under the carpet and not allowing issues to be resolved, no matter whether that takes a slanging match or not, just festers more problems than it solves because people still have issues with each other and aren't allowed to go at it to sort them out

If nothing else I think it should be trialled for a couple of weeks, this idea has been suggested so many times that it may as well at least be given a go to see who is right or wrong about whether it'll work or not