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Bullying is when a person or group Bullying is when a person or group repeatedly tries to harm someone who is weaker. Sometimes it involves direct attacks such as hitting, name calling, teasing or taunting. Sometimes it is indirect, such as spreading rumors or trying to make others reject someone. Forum bullying or cyber bullying has become a widespread issue throughout the Internet. As a former moderator I've encountered it it's various guises many times. As one of the powers that be, it was difficult enough dealing with the usual spammers and trolls, but that was nothing compared to having to deal with already established members with high post counts and years of knowing each other in that forum.
The term 'regulars' has gained notoriety over the years on all kinds of forums. That's where the bullies are easier to spot. To an outsider or a lurker, it can be a bit intimidating submitting a post as a newbie. Not knowing all the ins and outs and who knows who, it can be a bit daunting. The TOS (terms of service) or forum rules usually only serve to favour the regulars and bullies if there is some flaming going on in a particular thread.
To give an example, I posted a complaint on the my3cents consumer site last April regarding issues that I had with my bank, Chase. After lurking on some of the forums on this site I knew which regulars gave out sound advice and which ones were there just to flame new posters. So in response to my post I got four comments, three of these were sanctimonious and opinionated. I posted back somewhat sarcastically with "Thanks for the pontificating, dogmatic, sage, etc. advice!" which resulted in 'full mod status' being put on my user account. This basically meant from then on my posts had to be reviewed by a panel of administrators before being published.
Anyway, being crippled by the powers that be, I could no longer fight back and watched as regulars were only civil to each and downright nasty to newbies. The unwritten rules were that the newcomers had to endure these nasty comments without reprisal. The bullies knew how to get around the censorship and avoided talking with you, or PMing you if you hadn't been 'broken in yet'. I also became aware a certain amount of favouritism displayed by administrators from the start. In any particular heated debate with a regular and a newbie, they would side with the regular and I noticed that they even let these people use various nicknames that surely must breach the guidelines. I can't publish these here for obvious reasons.
Well, I can deal with bullies on forums, trolls and the like a lot easier if I didn't have to worry about the forum administrators protecting them! That's the real issue here. I get tired of myself and others being dismissed as oversensitive or censored when we fight back against these bullies. So much for free speech!
By: xBicceyx
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Im Human and Quite like Adult Forums like Mr poll. i Like Spanking related Forums and discussions for my sins. There are people who actually use the same tools as I do and type the same words to find the forum of my particular taste. they go there purely To discredit destroy rubbish people fantasies. They do not like what they are reading and determined to rubbish it. But whats gets to me is they got there as I have. They have joined obtained a password got the password confirmed, they go through all that just to spoil and Rubbish it. Everyone aware its fantasies except them. why don't they go and find something they like.
The very first day I posted they clubbed together to tell me I was a male troll returnee because I happened unfortunately to have a member name that was similar to someone else's.
I despair of the human race quite honestly. People have lost something and are damaging others and themselves when they taunt, poke, provoke and bully. I used to think the internet had such amazing possibilities but social media has allowed people to show their worst nature anonymously and I think in the next five years or so there will be a massive backlash against social media sites.
the issue here is 'why don't others move aside for me because I'm more important?'
I wish you well.
I was banned because I reported a number of nasty, abusive posts that were directed at me. Even though advice from mods had been to report posts and other posters were already commenting on the ganging up.
After I reported these posts I was banned and told that it was because I had made work for the mods by reporting five posts.
Despite this a thread was started making fun of me. It was closed by a mod after it hit the two page mark...but it wasn't deleted.
I posted over four months and the same few posters would regularly rip posts apart and become personal and abusive. I had a nasty experience with one particular poster who told me I was wrong to defend myself when I was sex**lly abused and went so far as to tell me I had " played the sex**l abuse card" because I had questioned their comments.
You join an online forum thinking you're joining a community where people will discuss ideas, give advice, help , be at the very least civil. But you learn as a new poster that you've walked into a den of power mad bullies whose only desire is to be seen and heard and you realise that online forums can show the nastier side of humanity. People become their lowest selves and there is nothing about them that is civil. The anonimity allows them to bully..Sometimes it's, because they dont want to hear a different view, or an alternative thought to theirs. Sometimes it has nothing to do with what was posted it's just done to provoke and antagonise. The forum I joined had a core clique of about ten posters who controlled this forum. Whatever they said was the only opinion worth having. Dont dare disagree with them because you will find yourself ripped to shreds and the mods will blame you for it. Then you get banned for reporting their bullying.
The amount of ganging up...intimidating behaviour. .name calling...questioning and quizzing...harassment. ..all became too much for me. I mean you just cant defend yourself over and over without it damaging you. So I decided to just leave. It's pretty clear that this forum I am talking about is not a community that wants to listen. It's a community full of people who hate difference. They shout about discrimination but they haze a poster who has a different, quite normal and acceptable viewpoint. This is done even on the most harmless threads.
I doubt I will ever join another online forum. It has been an awful experience. I can see how someone who already has problems could become very depressed at being bullied by other members. It's opened my eyes as to how nasty people can be for no reason to complete strangers.
Just a thought.
The last thing you expect when you join a forum ia to have your personality ripped to bits
It's very damaging.
There are many threads and many ways of looking for them and if a thread doesn't interest you, I would suggest using another approach to finding them. If you look at "most recent comments" then the most popular thread is likely to include the latest comments. If you look for "newest thread", however, that is what you'll get. If you want to suggest defaulting to "newest thread" then why not suggest it to the admin team and I'm happy for any number of filter buttons. Looking at the content of the different threads, however, discussions about Talk Talk are more popular than the Welsh thread in any case but the topic is split into many different threads.
For myself, my comment have often been strident and even outright rude and I'm sure that they have offended but if I wasn't myself offended by what the Welsh Nationalists are forcing on me and others, I wouldn't need to voice it in this forum. I take care to target policies not people (except in as much as I have cited what another poster has said) and have admonished posters who do including those who oppose Welsh Nationalist policies and especially those who suggest violence.
The calls to shut down the thread come from Welsh Nationalists who do not like having their policies exposed and I won't discount, of course, that you are one of them.
They are just trolls and their intent - which one let slip once - is to make that gripe the most “popular” with the most posts. It’s just a game to them and they don’t give a damn if they kill off the site or stop other people from enjoing the WG in a normal way.
They have artificially , by repeating almost the same posts over and over again, bumped up the figures by several thousand posts.
When you post to complain on that thread you are helping them with their aim. It doesn’t matter that you are complaining - you are adding to the total tally of posts.
Please don’t post there. Please ask site admin to change the “Browse” tab so that total posts/most popular are no longer shown. They would soon lose interest if that happened.
If you say the wrong thing, people will react in different ways, that is being human. Read other post for awhile. Absorb them, learn from them. Then come back to posting slowly. A short meaningful post can take hours to compose.
marguerites