This has obviously been more than the usual trolling but I haven't seen any of it. Maybe it's been on part of the forum that I don't generally access. I would be interested to see more but don't want to give the perpetrator more publicity. Could somebody PM a link to one of the threads?
It's a shame Jac19 behaved the way she did - but her lashing out could not be met with the same kind of patience and forgiveness here as I did with my daughter.
That will always be a problem with forums. I'd suggest we are all guilty to some extent ( I know I am) of forming an opinion or making assumptions based on our own predjucies and standards of somebodys character, personality, health status, nationality etc etc.. based purely on the written word & an anonymous username. In almost all cases our assumptions are very wide of the mark.
Somebody sent me a link to the posts by the person in question. Some people may not like to hear it, but all the abuse was certainly not one way. As an example, ridiculing somebody for misidentifying a plant. On the on GW Facebook group people were always making what appeared to be blind guesses at a plant. Sometimes so far from the reality that you wondered if they were actually looking at the same picture. I never saw comments on there along the lines of "Are you totally stupid? It can't possibly be that" and I'm sure any such comments would have been removed and whoever posted it blocked from posting.
From the threads I have read the whole thing descended into what I would call playground name calling and achieved nothing.
I'm not saying that mistakes shouldn't be pointed out but there are better ways to do so than to drop to the perceived level of the supposed offender.
Somebody sent me a link to the posts by the person in question. Some people may not like to hear it, but all the abuse was certainly not one way. As an example, ridiculing somebody for misidentifying a plant. On the on GW Facebook group people were always making what appeared to be blind guesses at a plant. Sometimes so far from the reality that you wondered if they were actually looking at the same picture. I never saw comments on there along the lines of "Are you totally stupid? It can't possibly be that" and I'm sure any such comments would have been removed and whoever posted it blocked from posting.
From the threads I have read the whole thing descended into what I would call playground name calling and achieved nothing.
I'm not saying that mistakes shouldn't be pointed out but there are better ways to do so than to drop to the perceived level of the supposed offender.
Bear in mind that if you are new to the threads in question, you are not seeing the group of posts that had already been removed by moderation before the current round of removals, so are not aware of the level of provocation that had already taken place and how much restraint had already been exercised by those targeted.
The problem with trolling is one of the old frog-boiling experiment. If it is permitted at a low level, it will escalate without too much awareness of what is going on until it has reached a very high level. Frequent visitors to the site may well feel things are not well, but it often takes an outsider such as OP here to visit and see things as they really are, by which time it is too late to retain that person as a member of the site, and too late to reign in the troll without drastic action.
You can also make the analogy with guiding children's behaviour. If the low level stuff is allowed to continue without check, the child, not unreasonably, thinks this is ok. Because of the way human nature is, the child will continue to push the boundaries on and on, until the behaviour has reached such a pitch that the parent (or teacher - I am one, or was) snaps and issues a drastic punishment. Unsurprisingly, the child is outraged, having had no warning that this was coming and can see no wrong in its behaviour. It does no service to a child, or a troll, to allow bad behaviour to continue unchecked, because there will always be someone who lashes out and often inflicts a more severe punishment out of the blue, when stepping in sooner, at a much lower level, would have averted the crisis altogether.
This is just my two cents, but it's based on 30+ years of teaching and parenting, and five years as a moderator on another forum. It's a plea for more frequent, lower level moderation to prevent the reputation-damaging and deeply upsetting crisis we have seen here over the last two weeks.
@KT53 you will not have seen the majority of the posts, because they were removed. They were very abusive and this led to some of us, I think you are probably referring to me, losing our cool with the poster.
How can you lie there and think of England When you don't even know who's in the team
Considering the last word on the thread title was Goodbye, this does seem to be going on a bit. Those who were subject to vitriolic posts had every right to complain - indeed, if they and others hadn't done so, we'd still be seeing the posts. It's been dealt with - at least for now so little point in bringing it to the fore again and reminding those who suffered. I realise I've just done that by posting now but the person in question is no longer posting - maybe they will return ( as others do ) but shall we just wait and see
Posts
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I'd suggest we are all guilty to some extent ( I know I am) of forming an opinion or making assumptions based on our own predjucies and standards of somebodys character, personality, health status, nationality etc etc.. based purely on the written word & an anonymous username. In almost all cases our assumptions are very wide of the mark.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
The problem with trolling is one of the old frog-boiling experiment. If it is permitted at a low level, it will escalate without too much awareness of what is going on until it has reached a very high level. Frequent visitors to the site may well feel things are not well, but it often takes an outsider such as OP here to visit and see things as they really are, by which time it is too late to retain that person as a member of the site, and too late to reign in the troll without drastic action.
You can also make the analogy with guiding children's behaviour. If the low level stuff is allowed to continue without check, the child, not unreasonably, thinks this is ok. Because of the way human nature is, the child will continue to push the boundaries on and on, until the behaviour has reached such a pitch that the parent (or teacher - I am one, or was) snaps and issues a drastic punishment. Unsurprisingly, the child is outraged, having had no warning that this was coming and can see no wrong in its behaviour. It does no service to a child, or a troll, to allow bad behaviour to continue unchecked, because there will always be someone who lashes out and often inflicts a more severe punishment out of the blue, when stepping in sooner, at a much lower level, would have averted the crisis altogether.
This is just my two cents, but it's based on 30+ years of teaching and parenting, and five years as a moderator on another forum. It's a plea for more frequent, lower level moderation to prevent the reputation-damaging and deeply upsetting crisis we have seen here over the last two weeks.
you will not have seen the majority of the posts, because they were removed.
They were very abusive and this led to some of us, I think you are probably referring
to me, losing our cool with the poster.
When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Those who were subject to vitriolic posts had every right to complain - indeed, if they and others hadn't done so, we'd still be seeing the posts.
It's been dealt with - at least for now so little point in bringing it to the fore again and reminding those who suffered.
I realise I've just done that by posting now but the person in question is no longer posting - maybe they will return ( as others do ) but shall we just wait and see