Abusive and Offensive Posts

[admin]

As someone for whom the jury is out re a new supermarket, it is increasingly difficult to identify pertinent information on here. Why is it so hard for some to sustain a robust debate and respond to differing opinions without entering into personal attacks on each other? These insults to each other discredit you and mean that others of us will miss other salient points you may make amidst all the back biting. Surely you can voice opinions without the added nonsense?

As regular visitors will know, I took the "Sale of Hibbert Lane Campus....." board offline for the Christmas Holidays because conversations were becoming personal and abusive again and I was not prepared for Howard, Lisa or me to have to spend our own Christmas break trying to keep things under control.

I've quoted Miss C's post above and I'm going to re-quote most of it again because it sums up exactly what I would like to say:

"Why is it so hard for some to sustain a robust debate and respond to differing opinions without entering into personal attacks on each other? These insults to each other discredit you and mean that others of us will miss other salient points you may make amidst all the back biting. Surely you can voice opinions without the added nonsense?"

I've removed a large number of posts from the main ASDA/Tesco thread made just before Christmas that were too personal, abusive or irrelevant and sometimes all three. I have also removed a number of posts that were not a problem in themselves but were quoting and/or responding to ones that were. For this reason you may find some of the thread a little disjointed, however, I believe that everything of relevance still remains.

I've considered whether to leave the Supermarket board off-line permanently, and from a personal point of view it's very tempting, but I believe that it is the most important issue to face the Marple Community for a very long time and therefore it wouldn't be right to stop it being discussed here. But if it continues to descend into abuse all the time then maybe that's what we'll have to do.

So everyone needs to up their game and remember their manners for 2012 please. In order to try and make this the norm (on all threads and topics, not just the Supermarket) the moderators and I are going to become much less tolerant of bad manners, insults, abuse, irreverence, irrelevance and poor attempts at humour that can be misconstrued.

Last year a couple of users were banned for contributions to the Supermarket debate that were unacceptable. I've lifted those bans today to give them another chance to contribute. They may not wish to and of course that is their prerogative. This may well be a mistake on my part but those bans will quickly be reinstated or new ones introduced if things get out of hand and once again, tolerance thresholds will be lower than before.

I'm sorry to sound so heavy-handed but I feel that it is necessary to improve our standards if this forum is to continue to be a useful facility for the Marple Community. Happy New Year everyone!

[admin]

There have been complaints today about a couple of posts in this section of the forum – more in one day that has been received in the last 12 months in fact.

With lots of new people joining from different backgrounds and circumstances, especially with different views on the Hibbert Lane Supermarket issue, and with most people choosing to be anonymous too, it is going to be very easy for things to get heated and out of hand. We all need to try and do something about that if we are to continue discussing important but contentious issues without your posts being removed or overwritten.

Today’s “offending” posts and direct responses to them have been moved to an area that is not visible to ordinary users and guests. I did this while I was at work today and have reviewed them more closely this evening. I am not going to put them back because they were not very well written and I can see why offense was taken, but I also think there was an over-reaction to them by the people who were offended. So I believe that everyone needs to start thinking more carefully about how they put their points across.

It is very easy to offend with the written word and without facial expressions and body language to convey the feeling behind them words on their own can often be misconstrued. Humour is particularly hard to convey and something said face to face with a twinkle in the eye can easily become offensive when written in text. Quite often the smiley faces used do not convey what is intended either.

Remember this when you are posting and think about how it is likely to be received. Similarly, when you are reading a post don’t be too quick to take offense by reading something into the message that quite possibly wasn’t intended.

So, if someone makes a post that you consider is offensive, don’t reply to it and start a running argument. Read it a couple of times, come back to it a bit later, and if you still see it that way then report it using the Report to Moderator” link.

After doing that, make a post to say that you have done this so that others know they don’t need to report it and then wait for it to be reviewed. You may have to wait a while as I do have a day job – so please be patient.

Finally for now, if anyone posts anything abusive report it straight away as described above.

Thank you.