Carl, thank you for the thoughtful reply. I have always found your posts to be even handed and well written.
I do not believe in any way that the initial romance thread poster was a troll. We get these exact questions ALL the time in the RomanceClass Q&A inbox. This is a common concern of teenage males. It might be that they post less often in a public forum because they do not want to talk about these things publicly. We get hundreds of questions of this nature in the private email stream.
That forum members thought he was a troll because he talked about his sexuality concerns is distressing to me. I actively encourage our Romance readers to use the forums in order to reduce the huge flood of questions my team currently has to deal with privately. If we redirect people here, and they are then not taken seriously or abused, that concerns me greatly. No member should ever be treated with disrespect. I am grateful that you answered him sincerely.
In terms of the 4 or 5 members who asked for their accounts to be deleted, I do not believe I ever said "they wanted to "foul" other members." What I did say is that they made very direspectful posts to and about other members, and that I asked them to refrain from doing that. I do stand by that statement, and by my request. If you are saying that acting disrespectful towards a member is "fouling" them then yes, I would agree. Maybe it is simply the word choice I am confused by.
"Talking it out might well have allowed the matter to resolve" - yes I spent several solid days listening to some of these members, hearing their issues, clarifying what I wanted. I did this both privately and on the boards. Those members were the ones who made the choice to stop talking and to leave. While I wish they had not, I respect their choice about where to have an account and when to remove that account. I never would have replied to them "No, I refuse to let you leave, I will not delete your account as you have requested." I just can't see how that would be a respectful action to take.
