Can a Mod/Admin please lock this thread, it has or seems to have possibly gone off track a tad and ended up ruining my sole purpose of creating it.
:sad: :sad:
Can a Mod/Admin please lock this thread, it has or seems to have possibly gone off track a tad and ended up ruining my sole purpose of creating it.
:sad: :sad:
I think I understand this issue quite well.
For the purpose of this discussion I will ignore the people who make malicious posts simply to garner attention as they are easily ignored.
The majority of people are not capable of making a "witty" contribution to a discussion online or in life.
The urge to be witty seems to be strong. Unfortunately there is a small minority of folk who believe that it is witty to insult strangers. Sometimes the strangers take offence. Such folk don't do it as often in real life for fear of the strangers reaction but feel less inhibited online.
The result is some folk feeling they are being harassed and others thinking that they should toughen up.
My solution is a compromise. I take the same approach in life as online. When folk insult me in an attempt to be witty I am quite considerate the first time and simply point out that it isn't very funny and they simply don't know me well enough to take such liberties. If they persist I ignore them.
I am of course happy to banter with folk that I know and like.
Try it if the "banter" gets your goat you may find it works for you too.
Ok, I'm gonna put my wading boots on and wade right into this in a more serious modus operendi type manner.
I've been here 5 years (shit i'm saying that a lot lately like I deserve a medal or badge) and enjoyed the Forum from day one.
My first few posts were, to say the least, misguided fumblings having not really understood the way or "flow" of the forum and I either posted rubbish and got shot down, or took offence when people commented and disagreed with my viewpoint as I thought they were being argumentative.
I had a lot to learn.
I had a go at a few people who's humour I didn't quite understand and probably had a few old regulars rolling their eyes in an "omg not another one" type manner.
I stuck in and in doing so learnt there was more to just coming along, banging an opinion on a thread and expecting people to agree with you just because you took the time to post it and biting people's heads off if they didn't.
The forum is a hightened reflection of real life conversation. As Ben_Minx said people are a hightened sense of themselves on here, as unlike in real life they have the comfort and security off a computer screen instead of a face to face situation where their personalities and opinions and therfore comments would probably never be so direct. In the ral world people's sense of humour is rarely quite so blunt and/or controversial and sometimes antagonistic.
This place is like a fantasy social life. An escapist utopia for those that are bored/frustrated or just don't fit in with the "real world". In one way or another we all come here for a reason, and those reasons vary from person to person. Some use it to air opinions they wouldn't speak about socially for one reason or another whether that be a lack of confidence, controvesy of subject, or the worry of being shunned or rebuked by what they say. Some come to let off steam, have a rant, take the piss or even to release some literary pent up writing hobby or passion. Whatever people come here for, the variance and difference of every single person make this place, and give it that special something we just keep coming back for.
In the past 30 hours i've used SH in th last year or so, I'd hazard a bet that 29 have been spent on the forums. I hardly ever go to the adds or any other part of the site., I'm here because of the madness, the bitching, the trolling, the humour, the stupid one's, the funny one's the confrontational one's and the new "i aint got a fucking clue" one's. The correct people's spelling and grammar ones, the I think i'm an author, I'm so fucking important agree with me one's, and the "your plainly just fucking mental" ones (probably my favourite type)!
None of that really matters here as it can all be forgotten about by the time we switch off our monitors. But we get absorbed by it, take it personally sometimes or just generally come on here for a good old whine.
WHY?
Because we are all human. We have emotions, personalities and feelings. Our lives and emotions change from day to day. If we have a good day we might post something positive, perhaps a comment on someone's thread or a thread of our own. We have a bad day and whine about something just to vent our frustrations here that have nothing whatsoever to do with SH, the OP's thread or even the price of fish. It could be the only place we have to vent it?
God knows, all I know is this. We are all humans with a myriad of differences, emotions, opinions, lifestyles and ideas. We come here to the forum with our own agenda, for whatever reason known only truly to ourselves and these ideas are collated in cyberspace on a discussion forum on a swinging website, where we open ourselves up to others ideas, opinions and whims and their individual agendas for being here, and what happens is.......Well the very thing we are all here commenting on in this very thread. Surreal when you really think deeply about it. Or is it just me? See we are all SOOOO different.
Do I think there are bully's on here? Yes cyber bullying is a real and previlent situation these days and I have witnessed it on this site.
Do I think people take things too seriously sometimes and say they are being bullied but actually are just being to sensitive? Yes it happens all the time. I've done it myself in the early daysbefore i understood all this forum stuff and got my head around it.
Do I think there are cliques or a "hierarchy of posters"? Yes of course, this is a social site and some people are more socially appraised or valued than others. In real life there are people who make or have lots of friends and SH is a parody of real life social situations. Some court favour with these people and kiss their ass and agree with their every word, some battle against them or have problems with them because of their "higher social status". Again this is evident in "the real world".
Do I think "trolling" exists? Yes some people go around the forums looking for posts to shoot down or shit on.
Do I think some people have a set agenda on SH? Yes obviously we all have an agenda on here, whether it be to get a shag, or empower ourselves in one way or another (something i strongly believe is the basis behind "trolling") or to make us feel accepted, or popular in a way we aren't in the "real world" or whatever/whyever we are all here. In life their are people who care about people and people who dont give a shit. Genuine people and fraudsters. Good people and bad. We as adults should all have the initiative to realise this about the site.
Do I actually give a shit about all this? No I just fucking love the forum and especially the Cafe for all it's problems/benefits, pluses and minus's and for all the weird, wonderful, crazy, bitchy, lovely, great, completely fucking stupid, and generally odd folk that make this a place i come and spend my time. It's my choice to come here, as it is yours.
People who get scarred off by the trolls maybe don't have "what it takes" to be a regular here or maybe have a misguided sense of themselves or even others using the site. Whatever happens there will always be a forum, there better be or im hitting the "cancel subscription" button and that IS always an option for anyone who doesn't like the site for one reason or another right?
:rotflmao::rotflmao::rotflmao:
:crazy:
