question for moderators

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recently got called on the carpet for attacking. i have a question about that.

as a child i was seriously bullied...when i was old enough to fight back, i did. lived in a housing project so there were some serious, mean hombres. lot of abuse of kids and animals taking place. trying to defend the stray dog or younger kid cost me some blood, lots of lumps and more than one tooth. i felt like i had to do something to stop these miniature gangsters. having a.s. and not knowing it just added to the problems.

been trying to help animals for a long time now. more blood to the cause.

flash forward to wrong planet. one member writes about strangling dogs. thinks it's funny. not to me. so i respond, in what i consider a reasonable manner, to no avail. so i tell him what i really think. call him sick,creepy etc. and let him know he is my enemy.

when responding to someone who's in a really bad way, i try to commiserate by telling my sad..s story of childhood abuse. one member writes to say how funny he thinks that is. so being the silly person i am....i try to convince him that child abuse is not funny in any way and does lifelong harm. so he's even more abusive in his response. so i tell him how he's a miserable slime and let him know he's my enemy.

another guy is simply a bully. same scenario. you suck and you're my enemy is my response to him.

maybe you haven't noticed but there are some pretty vulnerable people writing in some of the forums. some members seem to take pleasure in giving them a hard time. no one appointed me sheriff but i'm going to say something about it when i see it.

so, my dilemma. i like writing on wp. great therapy. but i'm not going back to when i was a little kid and had to take the abuse and bullying. so the next time someone promotes animal abuse or makes fun of child abuse or is just a bully, i'm going to let them know what i think.

if doing that is going to get me kicked off wp, maybe you should just go ahead and do it now. i really hope that is not the case, but that's up to you guys, not me.

The "choice" is yours. If you stick by the rules of WP fine. If you continue to make personal attacks and insults against members you will be banned. The rules of WP are very clear on this issue.

The following is an excerpt from the WrongPlanet Rules:


In other words you can disagree with member's comments as much as you like but you must stop making direct insults such as calling specific members "creeps" or stating that (named members) "make your skin crawl". Those are personal attacks and not acceptable under the rules of WP.

I will also add that your insults were not made in defence anyway. You made those comments in a WP forum in which those other members hadn't even been posting! Thus your comments couldn't even be construed by anyone as retaliation. They were a pure attack.

If anyone makes any personal attacks against you contact a mod. Appropriate action will be taken. Starting flame wars and attacking other members is not acceptable by anyone.

So danand louie was responding to a dead thread? If so, I wonder why the people who were posting pictures of animal abuse to mock someone weren't dealt with then.

The thread was not dead. It was very much alive and in the Random discussion forum. It was used as a platform to launch an unprovoked attack on other members.



I am completely unaware of any animal abuse images. If someone points out such images to the mods then action will be taken. Can you provide links to the thread in question? We don't have time to read every post on WP. In fact only a small fraction are read by moderators. Most moderator actions are based around posts that are reported to us either privately in PM or in the moderator attention thread.

Just because someone may seem to get away with breaking rules on WP doesn't mean they have got away with it or that other members can do whatever they like either. That way leads to chaos. The rules exist for a purpose and by posting on WP members accept to be bound by those rules. If someone sees posts that are in breach of the site rules they should contact a moderator and not start a personal vendetta against the poster or post personal attacks against them.

I'll just add one more point in general. This isn't aimed at anyone in particular. This is my own advice. Take it or leave it.

If anyone is attacked (in a personal way contrary to the rules of WP) then it is in their own interests to report the attack so hostilities can be nipped in the bud before they escalate. There are two good reasons for reporting such attacks:

1. It tells the aggressor that their actions are unacceptable and if necessary sanctions will be taken.

2. It protects the victim and possibly other members from further attacks.

The worst thing the victim can do is say nothing to the moderators and then subsequently start making hateful comments themselves because it can make them look like the aggressor! I'll put this another way - the first time a members name is brought to the attention of the moderators it is "better" if they are the victim of a personal attack rather than the perpetrator of an attack. Moderators aren't going to read though weeks or months worth of threads trying to work out the history of who started what and who said what to whom. Moderators will act directly based on the posts brought to their attention.

point taken.

I used to get in fights with members here when they insult me or offend me or pick on me for no reason or when they just piss me off even if they weren't talking to me but I just didn't like how they were treating other members or what they were doing on the forum. Instead of going to the mods and complaining, I rather fought with them but the problem is I would hate to complain to the mods about something someone said that was just their opinion than personal attack or insult. I mean is telling someone to get professional help about their fetish an attack? I don't think so. It's just their ignorant opinion and there are no rules here against ignorant opinions. So nothing I can do about that part really if someone says it to me. It's not against the rules is why.

Man just imagine if alex had a rule here against ignorant opinions, everyone would be getting banned or warned because we all have something about ourselves that is ignorant. So I can't imagine such rule.

I also think it's stupid to complain to the mods about a post someone made when that user was talking about their experience. I mean just because you were offended by it or insulted doesn't mean the thread should be removed or the user should be punished.

I think Tallyman did a great job speaking for how things should be handled.

Also, FYI, just to prevent any confusion, I'm not posting as a moderator, since I resigned.

But ... you know, there are better ways to deal with people than "calling them out." Sometimes we feel we just have to, and I've done it myself, but I can't say it has ever achieved the desired result of accomplishing change in the other person or the situation. It makes you feel stronger, and it makes you feel you stuck up for yourself, but it doesn't "fix" anything, in my experience. If you can figure out how to influence them, however, it's different: you might actually change something. In order to have that influence, you have to work hard first to understand where that other person is coming from, and actually acquire real empathy for it. Once you've gotten that perspective, you can walk towards common ground. I know it's really really difficult; there are far too many times I've ended driving the wedge further instead of achieving mutual understanding, but when you can get to the mutual understanding, it is an amazing thing.

Wrong Planet is not some rough and tumble neighborhood where you have to attack to survive. We actually have rules, and they actually get enforced, albeit imperfectly. When you walk into this neighborhood, you have to set aside the street smarts and realize this isn't the time or the place for it. Those street smarts are great to have; even on the internet there are places you'll need them; but the whole goal here is to NOT need them.

... and that is that, and that is always the bottom line.

An attack of *any* kind is *always* unacceptable ... period.

... and congrats to you, TallyMan! I did not know you had accepted the dubiously-pleasurable honor of moderating!