Here at Netscape, we're constantly trying to improve the experience for all users, from casual visitors to hardcore community members. At the moment we're reevaluating some of the site mail features. While that's going on, we've decided to disable one feature in particular: the "All Mutual Friends" box in the Send a Message interface. Why? For one thing, we've gotten frequent complaints from members about spam. So we're looking for the best balance between social networking tools and potential headaches for the community. In two weeks we'll figure out whether to bring back the "All Mutual Friends" box, disable it permanently, or perhaps modify it. If you have any opinions on the issue or suggestions to make, feel free to message me. Your ideas are always welcome.

As anyone who follows the Politics channel here on Netscape is well aware, our members are extremely passionate, especially when it comes to hot-button issues like Iraq, the war on terror, and President Bush. That passion is fantastic, but sometimes the debate escalates beyond the issues, and otherwise reasonable people resort to personal insults and attacks in their attempt to "win" the debate. When I sat down at my computer this morning, my message box was full of alerts about comments left last night on this post, where a few Netscape members ruined the conversation for the rest of the community with threats, insults, and, most disturbingly, the advocation of violence. I'm going to try to be really clear here: this is not okay. We are not going to tolerate abusive comments. We have taken away the commenting rights of the Netscape members who left the most offensive comments on that post. We have no problem banning users who pollute the community with hate speech.

Unfortunately, this was not an isolated incident. I've spoken with many Netscape users who feel like the name calling is ruining the debate on many posts, and as I've personally been the target of many abusive comments and messages (one day I'm a "liberal Nazi"; the next, I'm apparently "in bed with the Neo-Cons"), I understand these complaints. I don't want to call out specific members or specific incidents; I do want to ask EVERYONE to think about the consequences before entering into a shouting match on a comment thread, or attacking another Netscape user via personal site mail. Netscape isn't a typical news portal -- it's a community, and that community is weakened every time one of these unnecessarily abusive comment brawls breaks out.

Bottom line: Debating and arguing about issues is fine. Abusing your fellow Netscape members via comments or site mail, and/or using the comment threads to spread hate speech, thereby ruining the debate for most of the community? Not okay. It will not be tolerated.

As with any social democracy, anyone who wants to be an active member of the Netscape community must be willing to play nice with others. Here's a guide to a few small things you can do to make the getting-along process easier for everyone:

• If you see a post that clearly doesn't belong on Netscape -- because it's an advertisement or press release; because it's abusive or inflammatory; or because a duplicate of another Netscape story -- please report the story using the red "Report!" button on the post, right under the picture.
• Make sure you report stories for the right reasons. The Anchors get a lot of reports that don't seem to correctly correspond with the post in question, and weeding through these false or mislabeled reports takes up valuable time that we could be spending responding to real reports. When you click the "Report!" button, you should get a pull down menu with a number of options. If you can't access the story linked to by the post, select "Broken Link"; if the post represents the same story as another Netscape post you've seen, select "Duplicate" and, in the box to the right please paste a link to the original story. If the post links to an advertisement, a website that appears to be stealing content, a site with more ads than content, or a site whose main function is to sell products, select "SPAM". These are the three most common kinds of reports; the other three types of reports are a little but trickier, so we'll move on to tip #3...
• Try to leave your personal feelings aside when reporting stories as "Inaccurate". This type of report is designed for stories that are blatantly false or misleading; however, we receive many "Inaccurate" reports, especially regarding stories about politics, from Netscape users who simply do not like or agree with the content. If a post seems to you to be generally offensive, you can report it as "Inflammatory"; and the Netscape team will decide if the content violates our Terms of Use. If the post is not factually inaccurate nor blatantly offensive, but still contradicts your personal beliefs, you can report it as "Lame" -- or, better yet, you can submit your own story showing a different side of the issue.
• You can also report inappropriate comments. If a user is leaving insulting or abusive comments, or is using the comments to post links to a commercial site or to promote a news story or website not relevant to the topic of the post, you can send a report by clicking the "Report!" button on the bottom right side of the comment. Please don't engage in arguments/attacks concerning other commenters within comment threads; those threads exist so we can talk about the stories, and fighting bad behavior with bad behavior makes it impossible for other members of the Netscape community to use the threads as intended.
• Netscape is a social news community, and as such, it's perfectly normal and allowed for one user to message another user about a story they find interesting. However, that doesn't mean that anyone needs to put up with harassment. If you feel like someone who you have accepted as a mutual friend is bombarding your message box with links to their stories, politely ask them to stop. If you have been sending messages to another Netscape user about your stories and they ask you to stop, please honor that request. If you ask a user to refrain from messaging you and they continue to do so, please send a message to an anchor.

For more on basic social bookmarking etiquette, check out this blog post by our Navigator, Neophile. Is there any aspect that you think we've missed? Let us know in the comments.