IF enough of us complain......

What a great idea. I had forgotten about IGNORE on here. On another board I frequent I have had to use it more mainly because of vulgarity.

As a teacher in a program where students do a lot of group work, teamwork, and the like, I developed what I jokingly refer to as the Zen approach to dialogue and feedback (giving feedback is a required element of our program. Peer to peer feedback). ANYWAY... when I introduce it I always ask students to stop and count to ten before they respond to another student. And during that ten seconds to consider why you are responding:

I ask them to consider, "am I responding:

1. because *I* need to say it? Because it would make ME feel better to say it?

or

2. because the person would benefit from hearing it. It will improve their work, and their interaction with the group. Or it will contribute to the group's sense of community...something like that. "

If the answer is 1. because I need to say it... I ask them to consider it a second time before the make their comment.

I try to use the same approach here... seems to work (most of the time anyway)...
I'll wait a day or so, then put a couple of folks on ignore til my bloodpressure goes down... :(

I agree with you completely, but something else that bothers me is the profanity. This is a "family" board, and I don't know how many people want to log on and see the nasty names that are being called--that's why I notified Karen about the last thread that got out of hand--every other response was profanity or insults to someone. PM's, AOL, ICQ, telephone--these are all great ways to have a conversation--with one other person--not on a message board that so many people read.

I hope the thread doesn't get deleted, because the pictures are adorable. But I think all of the bickering should stop. I have only started using the ignore feature, but it works wonders.


Maybe it could be made so a post couldn't be posted with only an icon?? At least it would cut down on the rolled eyes posts??!!

I do the same as Richard. For the New Addition thread I just kept scrolling down past all the bickering to see if there was anything further to read. And I must admit that I take amusement in following some of twist and turns a thread can take. I shake my head at those people who can take a thread about traffic cones and find something in it that they take personal and then turn it into WWIII.

I used to be like that when I was younger, but then I grew up!!

I was just talking to my daughter about the problem with profanity on the boards. She said she used to belong to a pregnancy board when she was expecting. They had special software on there that converted profanity into simply ****. Cool, huh? I bet those people left when they saw that their hostile words wouldn't show. :p

Complaining should be done privately, not publicly.

Some did. Thank you.

If EVER you have a problem with a user's posts or statements, PM me - that's why we exists as moderators - to moderate!

Quote:

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Originally posted by Karen
If EVER you have a problem with a user's posts or statements, PM me - that's why we exists as moderators - to moderate!

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Aren't you glad for that job? lol ;) As usual, you are the voice of reason!

I feel lucky in a way. :) When I joined PT, I lurked for a few days before I joined and what I saw was appealing. The posts were fun, informative and helpful. The members seemed very friendly and caring towards each other and I didn’t hesitate to start posting myself, to tell about Fister and ask advise.

Unfortunately, some of these members seem to have left. A few that comes to mind are C.C.’s mom, Sirocco, Gio, Purley, Pepper636 – I’m sure there are more.

Seeing threads like the above mentioned when you look for the first time, I wonder how a newcomer would react. He/she may not want to join at all. :(

Let’s try to keep the good spirit here and stop the bickering!

I have heard from Gio occasionally. She has had a lot of problems with older relatives and her job is nuts. She does miss everyone.

I am not a chat person by nature, and I ignorantly presumed that most of these Internet forums were full of self centered immature people just venting off. I wasn’t particularly thrilled when Randi started spending quite a lot of time on Pet Talk either, but after a while it dawned on my aged brain that here was a relevant, positive site, and I got hooked too. That was over a year and a half ago. A really mature, nice site where people could meet and talk about their common interest, their pets. I started to post fairly regularly.
But, as I mentioned in a post a while back, from my point of view Pet Talk just doesn’t seem to be what it used to be. Perhaps, like any other forum, it’s just reflecting the insecurity and lack of common respect that is becoming more and more widespread nowadays.

Everybody was so proud when the membership started to increase dramatically, but I for one didn’t think it was necessarily a good thing at all, and I’m not trying to be elitist. We really must be careful, and not equate quantity with quality. The larger a “family” becomes, the more different types of person we have to deal with. Just as in the “real world”, this can lead to increased tension and misunderstanding. The world is going “global”, but I sometimes wonder if we really do understand the long term implications of this.

I don’t care one iota how old people are, or their gender or their race or their religion, and have never had any problem communicating with anybody, from Haitian washerwoman to nuclear physicist. I do prefer to have some information though (age especially), as it definitely cuts down on the number of misunderstandings that can arise from simple ignorance of the person you are communicating with.
I find chatting on the Internet a new and slightly unfamiliar form of communication due to the above, and I don’t think we are aware of the ramifications of this new communication form yet. But then again, I can easily understand that I can be regarded as old-fashioned in this respect. That’s fair enough, I’m too old to loose sleep worrying about other peoples view of me, but can still respect their viewpoint.

One thing is certain, we may be sitting in our own private parlour, but we are in a public place when on Pet Talk and we must behave reasonably and politely, just as we would in any other public gathering. One problem is that here we can’t use winks and nudges to “tone down” our views, and they can easily be misinterpreted.

So to all the kids and others wasting our time on personal intrigue etc. - PM or email all your hostility, grudges and bitterness, then all the other Pet Talkers don’t have to get bored and irritated by it. Please stop all this pointless bitching and quarreling and just enjoy the forum.

Let’s all start by trying to show a bit more respect for our fellow Pet Talkers and especially for Karen & Paul, who have invested so much time and energy into it!

john

I have gone back and read the comments on that entry. I didn't find it particularly funny so when I saw what it was about, I just left. All of us have different ideas of what is funny and what isn't. If you don't like a particular entry, then just leave. That's what I did and it's a lot less stressful, as well.

I find it mildly annoying also ... not enough to bother with the ignore feature as that is extra effort, but enough to skim past the annoying posts! I think that no one should let it ruin their enjoyment of this forum!!

Since I joined PT a year and half ago, I have gotten much more selective in the threads I read. Part of this is time, part of it is to aviod the bickering. The threads I read, I often read the orignal post, skim through responses, picking out some to read ignoring others, and looking for updates from the original author. I admit I miss things that way, and I may duplicate a response, but, at the same time, a lot of what I miss is the bickering and nastiness.

I'm going to add to Jonza's statement...

Quote:

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I don’t care one iota how old people are, or their gender or their race or their religion

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Not only does this not matter, but I don't care if I agree with your opinion, IF ( and of course there is always an exception), but IF you are able to maturly state your opinion, explain your resoning behind it, and accept the fact that mine is different.

I'm not even sure if that applies to the original point of this thread...what maybe fits better is, if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all. If you think a thread is pointless, move on! Simple as that.

I have made some good friends on PT and had the pleasure of meeting many, many wonderful members. I hope to meet more.

At the same time, there is too much going on my my life to get involved in all the "attention grabbers" the "drama" and the flat our lies. I'm not saying if you have a bad day, don't share...please do. We all need an outlet.

Does my rambling have a point? Who knows :D

Think before you post, keep the arguements in private and respect each other...Keep Pet Talk friendly :)

I hope you are not talking about me either.:( I know that I have had a few arguments, and even though I did argue, I still think it is stupid that I did that. I am sorry if I made anyone feel like that, and next time when I am mad, I will wait until I am not mad before I post. *pets doggies and Nelly* Thank you for making this thread gini.

Whew! An argument that I wasn't involved in! ;)

What is the "ignore feature" that you all are talking about? I've never heard of this, is it a real board feature? Or are you just saying to ignore nasty people ... i.e., not read their posts?

It's a real feature. Go to your profile and you should be able to find it.