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
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