I think all users, moderators included, should try to use respectful and conciliatory language, particularly if those they are speaking with adopts that approach. I don't really agree with how certain moderators have posted in recent months, particularly as they should be setting an example of good behavior.
It could be a second language issue, in which case I am more understanding, but we should be at least self aware of how we may be perceived.
What is defined as conciliatory is entirely dependent on what one views as "reasonable" -- aka what the overton window for making reasonable speculation, projections, and claims are.
Speaking as a member of this forum that started as a lurker in the mid 2000s before making an account in 2008, the reason I joined this forum was entirely because at the time (and into the 2010s) the forum had a relatively strict effort to contain its overton window in terms of holding back the abject enthusiasm of members/individual new to PLA watching, or holding back the fanboyism of longer standing members who have no ability to perceive reasonable from unreasonable, as well as slapping down members who display consistently illogical arguments.
That discipline is what has kept SDF relevant over the years, even as the forum has grown and as new developments has emerged -- it is the active war against "overselling" and "fantastical predictions" and "overenthusiasm" and other similar "clickbait"-esque coded attitudes, that makes SDF still a semi-useful resource, rather than becoming a laughing stock of nationalists and chauvinists.
The above is me writing as a member rather than a moderator.
But in the past I've also written similar sentiments in moderator blue or red, and I've made no secret of how it would benefit SDF and thus the entire enterprise of English language PLA watching overall, if people strove to be less emotional and more stoic.
