Sympathy - It Is Creeping Back Here

[spiritofnow]

'Sorry, it is 'variety is the spice of life'.

Spirit x

 

[anthony]

As Tammy stated, you get the idea as you read more here. People are taking this thread off in directions that have already been laid out in this very thread. Key points....

• Sympathy has a time and place, in limited use.
• Not every post or majority of posts a user makes should give or warrant sympathy.... clearly outline your intent as emotion is not passed in text unless you write it into the text.
• Your diary as outlined is the place for you to write what is in your head, NOT for you to put diary entries into thread in general or PTSD chat topics. Chats are for sharing your experience in a topic, not laying down a bleeding heart story that INTENTIONALLY asks for sympathy.
• If you post majority of posts in a "poor me" attitude, method, determination, you are INTENTIONALLY posting to suck sympathy from others....
• You are writing text.... very different from face to face talking. You must be very clear when you write, you must express emotion, you must express venting, you must express that whilst something may sound like sympathy, that that is not what you feel or warrant if the case.
• You must take into account that sympathy can be easily viewed when reading text.... you must think about that when you write on ANY forum or www community / social groups.

I take onboard the points about people being allowed to challenge certain things, however; that has a limited scope. For example, if you think you come here and challenge something you disagree with and are the first person, your highly likely incorrect.

Forum policy and rules have already been challenged to death, already had enough users input into them. Editorial policy and editorial decision IS NOT PERSONAL, it is about enforcing a sense of balance and guidelines into a community of various cultural and country differences. Any person who runs or moderates a popular forum with hundreds plus active users, you will know exactly what problems come with it.

You can message me and challenge something, I listen. Again, likely you are not the first to challenge it and you won't be the last, however; if rejected before it will be rejected over and over for reasons that have already been publicly disclosed and are searchable.

Where I will step in and close a person down, moderate or ban, is when they take that challenge across the forum and cause disruption to the forum overall. Keep a topic, challenge in one thread, ONCE ONLY, or via private means. You DO NOT take a private chat public because you do not agree with a decision.

People need to differentiate between what is acceptable as a challenge procedure vs. just not stopping or accepting a decision in the belief something is to be their way or they leave type scenario. Honestly, I have not heard a new challenge here in a long time... that hasn't already been challenged, reviewed and either implemented or rejected.

If the policies of this forum didn't exist, the forum would be an absolute shit fight of all different cultures and countries trying to dominate, and trust me from over a decade of online community experience, IT DOESN'T WORK.

Running a specific topic forum is very different to running a site like myspace, where you don't care what people do within the bounds of the law. Specific topics are very different and must be kept within a set of boundaries in order to function correctly. Just look at other forums who try and fail.... there are thousands that fail every week around the world because they think they can do it without many rules, or the adminstrators listen to too many members and constantly change in order for popularity, instead of making decisions based on overall community integrity.

If you think its easy, again, I highly encourage people to start their own forum and find out for themselves.... you might just get a horrible shock when members begin challenging the same thing over and over.... it is repetitive for administrators, yet each member often thinks they are the first to raise or challenge a point.

Sympathy is an aspect that DOES NOT help PTSD, it only helps promote a depressive state which is non-beneficial for the healing of PTSD. When you have healed PTSD, go for it.... be sympathetic all you want, but even then you will find that it doesn't help.

Again, all you have to do is post naturally.... but you must be cognisant that your words must engage emotion, because if you don't write specifically online then you leave interpretation for the reader which can go one of many ways.

 

[sunnydaze]

Anthony,
I do understand what you are saying. I do not write clearly as many who have a college education or just have the knack of writing in this forum. I admire how great you give conselling and how wonderful you write. I feel that some of my writings may be interpeted as sympathy but aren't. I want to be helpful to myself and others and hope this is a learning experience and at least make me aware of what I am saying before I send a post.
it is not easy as you stated in running a forum. I would not want the job. One has to set ground rules as you stated or things can get out of hand. I have checked other forums out and they allow alot of swearing which turns me off.
I just get overly concerned on my off days of hoping that I don't cross the line and at the time are unaware of it. You are doing a wonderful job but at times it gets intimadating. I will try my best to respect the rules.
sunnydaze

 

[anthony]

You don't need to be concerned about being put in moderation for doing something wrong, because it doesn't happen that way. You will get warnings, plural, as do the majority. The only people who don't get a warning a straight out spammers, who are just banned and never seen by other members.

You have to go on a rampage across the forum before I will typically jump in and stop it. If you keep your topic in one thread, you will typically never have an issue with me surrounding rules, policies and editorial policy. If you go on a rampage as was clearly demonstrated from Grace and Herc, you will find yourself in moderation because they don't keep their opinions in one place, they spread the one issue across as many threads as possible in an attempt to garnish support, sympathy, what ever the case is, that is just all bad in my book and warrants moderation to keep a member posting correctly and not disrupting all other members.

Members choose which threads they read, but no member wants to be faced with the same issue in every thread they read, otherwise people just stop reading.... and that is when you will cross the editorial mark with me personally.

You do not have to worry about challenging me or the like, or posting.... if you do wrong individually you will know it privately through PM, as I will send a PM a members way outlining any issue. A member will know if they are coming around to being moderated or banned, just like herc posted across many threads, because she knew she was stepping over the marks of respectful posting as a member, even respectful challenging of myself. There are ways to do things, ways not to do things.... most people have enough commonsense of right vs. wrong, even with PTSD.

There is a lot of space given to every member because off having PTSD, and all you have to understand and accept is that I know all of this because I have been at the worst PTSD has to offer myself, so I know what boundaries to allow and what not to allow. A member who tries to milk it with me, they often find themselves shutdown very quickly because you are talking to someone who has PTSD, thus I have quite a detailed understanding and experience myself.... basically, you can't bullshit someone who understands the bullshit to begin with.

I hope that answers some of the doubts.... just post as normal and don't attempt to garnish sympathy by going on any forum rampages or the like, anything of extremes constantly, and you will be fine. Just read what is on this forum.... you will find the limits are pretty far and 99% of members will never reach those limits.... ever. Some just become a little too complacent I guess you could say, and think they could influence me over such forum standard procedures.... and they lose every single time.

You just have to read posts to understand me..... I have PTSD, I have healed and learnt, that doesn't mean I have no tolerance for everyone else to get through what I I have been through myself... not so. I do not go on forum rampages myself, I conform to the exact same policies and rules that members constructed long ago....

You have a very long rope here..... I would only say not to use it if you can, but just know you have a lot when you need it most....

 

[grace5555]

Just to clarify a couple of points...I only posted in the 2 threads dedicated to this matter. That does not seem to be a "rampage across the boards". Nor did I ever see any PM's of warnings, etc. Not that it matters at this point and I doubt this will be posted anyways but I would prefer the truth of the matter be stated.

 

[anthony]

Grace, yours was more the sympathetic aspect, but the majority was your want to challenge and conflict across many threads, which comes close to what is called a "troll" upon the Internet... a person who goes onto communities to cause trouble, to debate everything whether agreed or not, to just be disruptive. I had enough of it.... plain and simple.

 

[sunnydaze]

Anthony,

Anthony
Thanks so much.
It's just what I said in post #42 that you backed me up. I am truly grateful for all your hard work in keeping this forum from going out of control. You are a real blessing to society for wanting to help others in getting rid of the pain from our past.
sunnydaze

 

[Grama-Herc]

Anthony

With all due respect, I think that Grace got caught up in my little mini breakdown. I was the one who was causing the most trouble.

While she did express her share of questionable comments, she really did not participate that much in my mini fit.

I would like to see her given her access back. She has helped others here and her absence here will be felt.

I know the rules regarding the request to be taken out of moderation, however, I am not asking for myself. I am asking for some one who I unfortunately drug along with me during my mini breakdown.

 

[anthony]

Hi Herc.... Whilst you are trying to defend another here which may be admirable on its merits, the facts are that each person here makes their own decisions. Grace made hers, regardless what you say here, Grace made her decision to endorse and create her own rant. Not good enough.

 

[Nicolette]

I can vouch for what Anthony is saying as Grace and I had words and it had nothing to do with you Herc. Most interaction I have had with Grace has been with her posting a conflicting or argumentative post to something I have written.

 

[Grama-Herc]

Anthony and Nicolette, you are right. There are underlying facts that I am apparently unaware of.

I do, however, appreciate you answers/replies Thanx

 

[Trent]

Monkey is right

I tell you what, Monkey, you're right in citing the dictionary definitions. Those ppl here who "bragged" about being unsympathetic made me want to stay away. I ventured back today to see what was said, and it seems that most ppl really do not sympathize with others. And that is just wrong.

New ppl coming in here might be looking for pity, and if I stick around, maybe I'll run into them. On the other hand, every person coming in here either has a problem or they're looking to help others with their problems. Shouting out that there is no sympathy is really counterproductive and scares us away.

Especially, if you don't know what the word means.

My first reaction was to just ditch the site. Now that I've taken another look, my reaction is to verbalize a string of abusive epithets and see if there is a way to block certain posts from appearing on my screen. And finally, my reaction is, "maybe I'm overreacting. It wouldn't be the first time. Relax and see what there is of value here."

*ERRRRRRR.... grinds teeth and thinks "will we ever get beyond our past?"