SleepyEyes21 wrote:Would you be so kind as to post instructions for all of us on how to post a link to this thread when suggesting it to other members? Thank you!
Save this link somewhere and insert it in a post where you see that maybe the ugliness has got out of hand.
I am not saying just because someone disagrees with someone...what I am talking about is when there's name calling and stuff like that and all they are doing is name calling and poking or whatever. When all educational material is absent from the comments and it's obvious there is a fight going on.
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SleepyEyes21 wrote:can you clarify some things for me please? I thought you stated in an earlier post that 'two wrongs don't make a right?' Are you saying you believe it is okay to poke back if someone pokes you enough? How much is enough for you, and what if that amount is not enough or is way too much for someone else? Then what should they do?
Not for me to say...see above...are there multiple posts with nothing but poking and name calling and no educational material offered.???
If you call me troll...an idiot..or otherwise say something blatantly nasty... if I return in kind does that make it right or okay for either of us to act like children? We would both be wrong to do that....that's where 2 wrongs don't make a right come from.
As for how much poking is too much...dunno..when more time is spent attacking the messenger and not the message or god forbid the entire message gets tossed out the door....when there's multiple pokes going on and it's obvious the thread has got hijacked. One poke doesn't do it...one get lost if people ignore it...but when you have a 1/3 of the posts in a thread have nothing to do with original question...it's gone too far.
SleepyEyes21 wrote:Also, are you trying to say you believe you are not 'as guilty' of the same problem because 'you usually do one well-thought out return poke and then you are done'? How is such a thing measured and who is the designated measurer of that?
Nope..never said I wasn't guilty of being a dick....I admit it freely..I can be a real big dick if I get really pissed off..and yes I often get one little dig in but I don't come back and repeat the same dig 6 or 7 times every time I get called a dick by the person I was digging. I usually try to get my one dig in and try to avoid name calling if at all possible and certainly I don't call them what I am probably thinking in and I am done then usually that person goes on the Foe list and I never read anything they ever write in response....I will usually try to apologize to the OP in the thread for my bad behavior in advance.
Who is the measurer....you are.. you are the adult. If this is lost on you I can't explain it.
SleepyEyes21 wrote:
Thank you for making my posts in another thread the example of what you are referring to as far as threads that should be moved to this one. I think my posts that you refer to are excellent examples that show other forum members how to respond to bullies in the forum in a more mature manner, and not stoop to their level of harassment, cursing, and other vile/ vicious/ negative behaviors.
You needed 2 posts to point out that there was a flame war that I am pretty sure most of us recognized and you think that none of us know how to deal with them and need to be told how to respond..not once but twice??
And nowhere a mention about the problem the OP had?
I didn't blast your posts...I only mentioned that they were part of the several others that had no educational material in it and when I say educational material I mean educational in relation to the original question or problem presented at the beginning of the thread.
My apologies for not making it clear what I am referring to when I say educational material..
I will repeat again...this thread is for when the "discussions" change from being civil to not civil...when things get rude and there's repeated bantering back and forth and name calling and direct personal insults.
We all know when disagreements turn ugly...it's no big secret and isn't rocket science. We all know when the line gets crossed from a slight poke to a full fist up the side of the head.
For when a newbie comes to their thread and can't find the answer to their question or problem because there's so much shit slinging and that includes the posts pointing out the shit slinging. Maybe I am different but I can usually spot the bullies and shit slinging without it being pointed out to me.
It's our way of showing the person who is lost in the flame war that not everyone acts like that here.
I just went back and again read your two posts in the thread in question.
I saw you pointing out some people you feel are well known bullies. You mention one of them has zero moral character (can you explain how you come to know that about him)....he may be an ass often but I don't have clue about his moral character..
I didn't see anything on how to deal with the people you named as bullies or forum bullies in general and you weren't responding to the OP in the thread..you were responding to a couple of participants in the flame war ugliness...
Apparently taking side of one and poking at the other which is fine...I don't care who you side with.
I saw nothing about how to deal with forum bullies at all.
I did see where you mentioned that there are more good people here than bullies.
To be clear...your type of response in that thread isn't something that I would give you a link to this thread over.
Now I don't know about someone else...you might catch them on a bad day or something.
You stated your opinion and you are certainly entitled to it and other than calling some people bullies you weren't particularly nasty to them or anything like that. A little poke at PR about the mirror but that's it.
I really didn't have a problem with what you said...but it is included in the number of posts that isn't particularly helpful to the OP in that thread in terms of education or thoughts or discussion as to his original problem.
That's okay too...most of the threads here never stay totally on topic anyway.
I haven't decided how I will word things when I see a thread totally going down the tubes...I won't do or say anything until things get really bad ...and I think most of us know when that happens and it isn't with the first couple of pokes unless profanity is used.
I am going to try to compose something along the lines of
"My apologies to the OP in the thread for the direction it has taken especially if you haven't received all the help you need. This sort of behavior the majority of the forum members don't find acceptable and for that reason I am asking the participants to take their fighting somewhere else and if you can't find a place....insert my link to this thread."
Nicely asking the participants to take the fight elsewhere and let the OP know that this sort of behavior is frowned upon so that they don't think we are all nothing but bar room brawlers.
I am NOT going to call the participants names of any sort ...like bully, troll, dickhead..nothing like that.
When we do that we become part of the problem and not the solution.
I guarantee you that anyone reading the thread already knows that so and so is being a dick. No need for me to point it out again and I don't want to have any more poking going on because I am wanting it to stop and for me to call someone a name (even though I am thinking it) then I am doing the very thing I want to stop and for me that defeats my purpose.
You can handle it anyway you wish but I would hope that you will find a way to convey displeasure with how someone is acting without stooping to name calling. Trust me...we already know what they are and there's no need to poke them again just because you can.
Now sometimes you are going to run into someone whose just really going to be a problem...we've had a few in the past but none since you have been here that I can think of.
And I know that some people think PR is a huge problem but we have had some who make PR look like a saint.
I think the guy with the font fetish may be a new really big problem. Remains to be seen but I don't have a good feeling about that one. I have already been a dick where he is concerned..I admit it freely but I don't think you will find anyone but his alter ego who disagrees with me.
So no..I am not perfect...never said I was. Never will be...but I care about the overall image of this forum and the members and I would respectfully hope that we can self moderate and keep the ugliness to a minimum so that it isn't out there so much that all the newbies see is the ugliness.
That's my main concern...how newbies see this forum and when I have people send me a private message asking for help and apologizing for sending a PM because they were afraid to post on the forum...our image here sucks. All they see is the ugly and don't see the good people we have here.
We are going to have the bullies...it's part of forum life but we don't have to become a bully ourselves as a way of dealing with them. We have to find some other way or this forum will die a slow and painful death because we run off newbies...and the only people left will be the old timers like me who have learned to survive the ugly or the bullies who relish in being the cause of the ugly.