Visiting the Neighbours

From time to time family can get on one’s nerves and you just need a change of pace. Somewhere to go that, with luck, proves to you that things at home are not all that bad; that or at least, your own family is not all that dysfunctional after all.

I believe the same is true with forums. After a while one starts to read posts and think, “Oh, grow up for God’s sake”, “Stop wasting my time” or “You have to be kidding me!”
We all have our “buttons”, people and posts that irritate the only healthy nerve one has left. You know the types, those you consider post too many subjects at the level of an adolescent school boy or those pompous types who insist on referring to themselves with the word “one” rather than “I”. Now you would think that last example would give one pause to reflect, but it didn’t.

The catalyst for this blog was not anything here on the GMIC, as you might think would be obvious, but rather from visits to some of our neighbouring forums. It should be said right off that this is not a critique of other military based forums or any particular forum but rather a collection of observations over the years. I (you see I can use that to refer to myself after all) have several interests besides military history, some of which includes geology and paleontology, antiques, archeology and science in general, as well as woodworking and gardening. With all of these interests you would think I spend a lot of time on the internet but not so. For the most part my internet time is spent here on the GMIC, with occasional forays into other territories from time to time. My dear wife spends time on yarn and knitting, as well as quilting and genealogy forums. Talk about boring! Seriously, over the years we have read a lot of rude posts and odd reactions from the forum administrators.

All forums have their rules, some more extensive than others; the one thing that they all have in common is the requirement to be civil and the, at times, subtle warning that you can be banned if you cross the line too many times. These are all very reasonable to be sure.

Here’s some of the posts and administration reactions, somewhat paraphrased, but still in the spirit of the exchange.

My first example:

A member posted a reply pointing out, rather bluntly but still in a civil manner, that the author of the initial post was wrong.
Administration replied that the originator of the post was a personal friend and a long –time member and that any further “attacks” would result in the respondent’s dismissal (banning).

I guess that Administrator should have posted a list of her friends along with the rules so that no one ever questioned them and therefore could avoid being banned.

Another case involving several members went as follows:

Member number one posted that the author of the initial post was wrong and that he should check his facts before making a post. It happened to be a comment about research that member one had published but the posting member was not aware of this.

Administration banned member one with no explanation.

Member two asked for the reason for administration’s banning of member one.

Administration banned member two.

Member three posted a comment that it seemed a little harsh to ban member two just because he had asked for the reasons behind the banning of member one.

Member three...yep, banned.

I was thinking about applying for membership but I figured that would result in me being banned!

On yet another forum:

A member had asked why a suggestion for improving the forum had gone unanswered even though this member had asked it several times on the forum and once in a PM to the Administrator.

The Administrator finally answered with a warning that if this member continued to harass the membership they could face disciplinary action. I found this strange as the suggestion was a simple enough one that was only directed to the Administrator yet the reply regarded the harassment of the whole membership.

Talk about confusing. Looks like the best advice here is to ask only once to avoid harassing the membership and being threatened with banishment. Maybe the membership consisted of only the Administrator?

In this last example I will need to be very vague because this exchange was so offensive that I can’t give detailed descriptions without the possibility on insulting the reader. One of the strict policies here and on many forums is the avoidance of the topics of politics and or religion. Of course on any military history forum the discussion of the politics of the past is not only unavoidable but perhaps desirable in order to understand the events that took place.

Member one posted a vase with some inscription on it with a translation and a general comment about the culture of the area from which it came.

Member two commented that this was not the exact translation as this was his native tongue and that the comment regarding their culture was far from accurate.

Member one countered that he knew what he was talking about and that member two, let me put it this way, ate the meat of, wore the skins of and cavorted with swine. This was no doubt an attack on the fellows religious views and as you can imagine was met with an unbelievable personal attack, albeit provoked, by member two on member one.

This went on for several posts until both parties seemed exhausted and stopped posting. As I read this I kept wondering where the administrator was and why he or she was not putting a stop to this. It generated a mix of emotions in me from disbelief to anger. In the end I started to think that perhaps the administrator shared the views of member one. I didn’t check but perhaps member one and the administrator were one and the same.

That was enough for me to decide that I would avoid this forum in the future as not only was the administration out of line by doing nothing, but also I did not want to be associated with that forum in any way.

I’m sure we could all add to this list and I would have posted the topic on the regular forum but it would have been too hard, as you can see, to stay away from breaking our own rules by just relating these horror stories. So now I am (oh how I wanted to say “So now one is”) back from visiting the neighbours and I have only one more thing to say.

“It’s so good to be back home again.”

Regards

Brian