Reply #429: In nearly every other situation I'd agree with you.

[last1standing]

Unfortunately, it's not that simple here. What occurs, and I'm sure you've seen it, is about half a dozen or so posters drop into a thread they don't like and start spewing personal insults at the poster. If the poster responds, fantastic for them, but if he doesn't they just start posting to each other the same insults and smears they wanted to throw at the OP. Then 'someone' alerts the thread and a friendly moderator locks it while doing nothing about those who created the flamewar to begin with.

To make it worse, they have groups where they are allowed to rally the troops and discuss ways of shutting down the conversation. I'm hoping that alerting will now help with this but it has not in the past. In fact, some tell me they've been warned for alerting which I find incredible.