It can be a challenge.
The practice I've followed for decades is "Pretend the person you're talking to is standing in front of you, and they're 6" taller, 50lbs heavier, and inclined to rebut strongly phrased arguments with a straight right to the jaw. Then ask yourself if you
really want to phrase your stinging rebuttal in exactly those terms?"
I used to moderate ten message areas back when when you participated in forums like this by calling a BBS over a modem. BBSes aggregated into networks, who passed message traffic around, and I found myself a moderator on the second largest at the time. Part of my task was to maintain order and prevent flame wars, and the best way to do that was present an example by my own behavior of how one behaved in the message areas.
It worked fairly well. My areas largely ran themselves, my participants were likely to pounce on offensive behavior with "We don't
do that here!" before I even saw it, and if I did have lay down the law, I could usually find a way to present it as an informational message to all reminding them of network rules without singling out individuals. I did try to be scrupulously fair, and if a conflict arose, I was careful to let both sides have a say before stepping in with a virtual bucket of cold water. That way, they could back off without losing face or feeling discriminated against. I was also helped by the fact that my network required people to post under their real names, so you couldn't hide behind an alias.
There was a channel users could use to complain to network management if they felt a moderator was unfair to them, but I never got a complaint. I did get some "We're in good hands" private compliments.
It was fun, but it was a lot of work, and looking back, I'm not sure how I managed it.
MobileRead is a place where habits acquired years ago come in handy. It's a lovely community, and I very seldom have to actually wear my moderator hat, but I have a good notion of what to do if I have to. A good bit of that is simply having patience and not stepping in too quickly. I expect disagreements to occur, and consider some level of conflict healthy. I also expect those participating to be adults and behave like it. If people don't know how to behave in public and hold their tongue, I can and will hold it for them, but thus far, I haven't had to.
It's made a little easier by the fact that little really upsets me. I don't have a lot of emotional capital invested various religious, philosophical, or political positions, and won't squawk with outrage if I'm disagreed with.
But I've gotten karma for a few posts where all I could say was "Thank you, but if I'd responded as they
deserved, we'd call the paramedics because they were crispy around the edges..."
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Dennis