Forum Moderators: open
[webmasterworld.com...]
Some people didn't agree and stated so in a professional manner. That's expected in a forum and not a problem.
However, some people went beyond that. They were senior members and even an administrator that were the most abusive.
OGLETREE (senior member) stated: "I drank a Russian beer one night and all my sites were ranked for all kinds of good terms." Hey, so you don't agree. Why use derisive sarcasm?
This abusive behavior is going to scare others off too. The forum will lose users and I don't think that is what Brett wants.
STEVEB (senior member) also went along with this abuse (Fur ball comment) and an administrator ROGERD also went along with this. Isn't it the administrators job to curb abusive behavior so people will continue to return and post more?
My reputation was so destroyed that I had to make a new name just to post on Google News. Most people would have just left altogether.
This incident was posted on other forums and lots of people there agree that that Webmaster World has seen these issues get worse lately. Lots of complaints.
Administrators: Are you going to allow this to continue?
Call me a whiner or whatever you want. This behavior is not right and will ruin the forum.
I know there was one post about a month ago that the moderators all loved and talked about. I on the other hand had to slap my hand several times to stop from reaching for the delete key.
The moral is, to take any comments you may regard as derisive or "not good", with a grain of salt. The good comments out weight anything bad 10 to 1.
The real story? Contribute in a positive manner yourself to help balance the scales ;)
This whole entire thread is sprinkled with a couple of people criticizing and making insulting remarks to a member who was kind enough and cared enough to share with fellow members. It's been a long time since I signed up as a member here, but I don't seem to remember any radio buttons we click when we sign up where we volunteer for any of the following roles as part of our membership1. Critic. Duties: decide whether other people's posts have value and if they think not, publicly insult or ridicule them so that they'll stop posting.
2. WFA (aka "World's Foremost Authority"). Duties: make sure to make demeaning, belittling remarks to those members who in their estimation know less than they are *SURE* they know and make sure everyone knows how superior their knowledge is to everyone else's.
3. Carnac the Mind Reader. Duties: without having seen the sites in question, knows beyond a shadow of a doubt whether a post is correct or whether a person is talking off the top of their hat when they relate something about a site they've worked with, and is thereby qualilfied to correct everyone.
4. Self-appointed moderators. Duties: decide what should or shouldn't be posted based on their highly superior algo-cracking skills.
Funny thing is, the first post was "sharing" some tips and out of everyone who jumped on the member's case, none followed suit by also sharing tips about what might have been helpful to other members in improving rankings.
What I saw was egocentric, scathing sarcasm and criticism, with a few narcissistically and quite rudely placing themselves as the center of attention and showing themselves to be "experts" and taking the entire discussion off- topic, thereby leading to other members trying to jump in and smooth over the despicable display of rude behavior and try to save a fellow member's feelings.
A couple of people around here, who I might add happen to be chronic offenders with being insulting and negative and starting friction and dissension in discussions, need to forget about what great algo-crackers they are and take a little time to learn a little about common courtesy and develop some better people skills.
>>This abusive behavior is going to scare others off too.
There is never an excuse for abusive behavior. Fortunately it doesn't happen too often and isn't done by too many people; most are kind and genuinely community-minded, and not like that at all. But not all, and sometimes it's time to think of the feelings of others and the good of all, take a stand and just plain speak the truth.
I guess it just takes a while to get a thickened skin like us old veterans around the boards.
We who know you all know you're a good member of the community and share some great info, too. Newer people don't know who's who, and the different personalities and ways of kidding - it can just take a while.
Meantime, it all ended up straightening out.
Meantime, it all ended up straightening out.
Hear, hear!
I'm a long-time non-believer in "smileys" as addenda to posts, since I think that smileys never mitigate the actual INTENT of a post, whether for good or ill - and in fact, I do believe that many people use smileys either as throw-away gestures, or actively seek to cover the real intent of a nasty post by cloaking it with a "grin" as if to mean it was only posted in fun when really it was intended as anything but.
I honestly believe that the only way to peacefully coexist in the net world today is a basic "live and let live" attitude. In other words, NEVER assume another poster means harm UNTIL IT HAS BEEN PROVEN. When you realize that fora like this one encompass a WHOLE WORLD of cultures, attitudes, languages, idiomatic expressions, there is just NO way that a posted text statement can be parsed for either "sarcasm", "humor" or "serious intent".
Life's too short, people. Give the other guy the benefit of the doubt. There's a TON of important information on this one site alone - don't cut yourself off....
And yes, I did read the "thread in question" in its entirety before I posted this....
Just ignore.
Which, for me, is all the more reason that I check and double-check my posts before I post them. Just because I know how they sound in my head doesn't mean that's the way they'll sound in someone else's. I've read enough posts and sticky mails that are probably *meant* to be funny but are really not very nice - it makes me take notice of my own posts.
Always a good idea to check yourself before hitting submit, regardless of the post. Also, don't forget that many of the "supposed to be funny" comments throw threads off track - and this is a place where we really care about the quality of threads.
