Yes, if there is nothing else to the post other than to criticize the poster, it will be considered a personal attack and eventually removed. Clearly people will complain about any approach I take, so for now my approach is to make it clear what will be removed before doing so.
I'm happy to go back to the original approach of just removing things though if the warning is making you upset.
PPD and IGNORE2 have been sniping at each other for years.
But its just little comments. Nothing offensive.
And from what I understand, those two guys know each other (they have met).
It seems that you believe there is a negative impact on the board in just letting discussions go where they may. I'm guessing that you think it discourages others from posting. You could be right, but is there evidence of that? These threads are informal discussions, not formal presentations - they are going to meander and some participants will get agitated.
Other than the guy who is obsessed with crude fantasies about the NU football locker room, there hasn't been a lot of repetitively offensive material here. So it feels to me that you are unnecessarily beating your head against the wall, with a few exceptions.
For the merely embarrassing stuff, people can delete their own messages or edit them - if they feel the need or somebody calls them on it.
On the other hand, maybe I just have no understanding of your agenda / goal.