'Nice one' bloke.
Tiger Woods should have had a word with you before before doing his thing.
Cheers.
I can't speak with any authority about the inter-relationships between people that seem to cause some of the friction. I can only talk about where I see it, which is in the current affairs forum.
We're all part of the swinging lifestyle, it's why we're here. That's all we have in common. In everything else the only certainty is diversity.
In the current affairs forum you see all the stuff you see in every other forum out there on the interweb. So you get outraged of Tunbridge Wells. You get Mr Right on lefty. You get people who think there are rules of debate. You get trolls and wind up merchants. You get people who get angry about anything they consider fuckwittery. You get people whose blood pressure resembles a Saturn V rocket on the launchpad. You get people with no sense of humour and people who can't bear to lose. And you get the mods wondering why all these loonies who're obsessed with politics and current affairs don't piss off to political forums or the Daily Mail or the places that set out to attract them.
In short, you set up a forum and people happen. The coarsening of behaviour on the interweb is just part of it.
Petty squabbles & the my gang/yr gang mentality
That sadly is human nature. Although as a species we aspire to the all one happy family of common goals and ideals, the truth is that as human beings we have this in-built weakness to be selfish, We’re not saying that it’s right (or indeed that it is wrong) but we must accept that for the most part people are motivated to do what they think is good for them – what will give them greatest advantage – or just what makes them feel good. When we enter the forums we hope to find the more altruistic side of the human condition but we must accept that the uglier side exists and we are just as likely to find that.
Fun forum discussions
There are still those that write with wit on the forum – yes they are a little harder to find these days but this kind of thing tends to go round in cycles – at the moment such story telling is of the hens teeth variety but we’re sure it will return in the fullness of time.
11 yr-olds
If more than 2 people meet and talk then sooner or later the 11 yr old mentality comes out. It’s not a bad thing just a fact. What matters is how the other people in the conversation react. Do they too become 11 yrs old too, or do they treat the descending level of conversation as it should be treated? In this reaction we show ourselves to be fun-loving people or vindictive, spiteful & selfish ones. And who is to say which is the truer reaction? Certainly not us!
AUP
The AUP rules are for the most part a combination of common sense and good manners set out to prevent the rest of society intruding into and judging the lifestyles of the good people on this site. When they are used against the people on this site we are often mystified by the reasoning used. But the fact is we do need them. The good-hearted, open side of many of the sites members would be constantly open to abuse and exploitation without them. So we all should learn to operate within the parameters they set out. In the end they are not as petty or seemingly obscure as some would have us believe.
Anyway that's our little ramblings on this subject
Despite all the shite that goes on we love being part of the site and meeting the people that we chat to here
Long may we continue to do so
Laff n Chilli
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B1oke I think I love you :inlove: Marry me? :rose:
an open opinion, and genuine questioning in an open forum can merit unqualified reaction from all quarters, I have found.
I hope I can return to this when real-life allows some time to be serious, instead of simply hoping to relax and enjoy my time here.
lp
As long as people keep posting contentious things we will have a forum and a site.
BIoke: a very thought provoking thread! and it hit a chord with how I feel about the Forum in its current AND past state. I notice that a fair number of threads from the past were brought forward this morning so suspect a number of us will be looking back at the fun times we had on the forum, and forgetting the contentious cliques and newbie bashing/ignoring that has been evident through out.
A large part of my "day job" is training people in reminiscence therapy for people with a dementia. Looking back over things can be cathartic, however it can also cause people to grieve for the "good old days", it can also open up old wounds and negative emotions.
As people are responding to your post with references to the good old days of the forum, I can honestly say that despite changing faces, and clothing the cliques (those who stick to the rules, those who throw in the one liners, those who make us think, those who make us laugh) are all still there, perhaps in larger or smaller groups, but still there.
SH has become a lot bigger, perhaps there are a lot more people posting into the forum now so gangs have become tighter to protect themselves from exposure or harm... Sometimes we need to look back to realise that we miss read something, and responded without thinking, or typed something that to us was innocent, or in fun however others miss read and respond with negativity and feuds follow.
It takes a brave man to expose their thoughts and admit fault in such a seething pit of opinionated people as this! Thanks for making me think. :thumbup:
Al
Everyone is bound by the AUP flower. Noone has "mod backing" as you put it, if you are implying (as it would seem you are) that some are treated more or less favourably than others.
If this thread is simply going to be a point scoring exercise - and by revelling in quoting posts that members have deleted does seem like this - then I will have to lock it. Now that's a shame, as on page one there was some interesting discussion.
Just lock it nola if that's OK. I'm editing my own posts now for fear of being accused of one thing or another and I never do that.
Big shame :-(
This thread is back, please keep it within the AUP and on topic.
To be honest the forums no fucking different now to what it was 4 years ago. There are people such as Bloke who are a popular read and can possibly get away with more than others because of the way his posts come across and personally i think that maybe that in reading posts of his and Nola's lately they've had a "thang going on" in a swing sense (if i'm wrong i'm sorry but thats how it reads) So guilt by association with the Mod hat on I guess. I think its bollox personally but I can see it in there. flower comes across lately as someone who thinks the whole world is out to get him by the accusatory nature of his posts (again I might be wrong and sorry if I am) Lp/Ro got banned (Wrongly in my view)and this seems to of jaded his posts since, which is a shame.
This has had a knock on effect with whips who jumped to LP/Ro's defence in a lot of her posts as not being funny but it seems obvious, to me, theres more than a forum acquaintence between them. Varca does come across as trying to say something without saying it in some of her posts (again i might be wrong) but then sometimes it must be hard to say what's really needed for fear of retribution.
s for Brucie then its fair to say that there has in the past seemed to be a conspiracy of silence from the moderation team for the most part but not entirely, whereby he seemed to be able to say carte blanche and get away with it. Coming across to a lot as an arrogant, pig headed, able to get away with it, git. Though at times it has its entertainment value, whether right or wrong, but it certainly does appear to a lot that he appears to get away with far more than others.
Come on shit goes on, it always has,
Oh and i am probably thick as f*ck and see things as though looking from another planet, this is just a little of what I see and for one all in all these things ad to the place whether good or bad forum needs colourful characters, when they shut up forum is shit .
The problem with all forums is that high post count contributors subconsciously take on a sense of ownership of the forum and react badly to changes they perceive as unsettling "their" domain. Nothing hidden or mysterious - just human nature and common on many internet forums.
Failing to read and absorb the message before responding is the biggest crime of many prolific posters as their urge to up the post count exceeds the real obligation to read the OP, absorb the thread and engage in debate.
On a recent thread that we started about a fake couple two or three prolific posters could not accept that as 5 year veterans on this site we might just be posting the truth and instead made the point that the fake couple were in fact the affected party despite the evidence being written earlier in the thread. We don't know why veteran forum members should be so immediately disbelieved unless it had something to do with the association to verification which was made in our post. We have since found out that the verification topic is a hot potato particularly disliked by a vocal number of prolific posters.
In summary - perhaps everyone should be a little less trigger happy and in responding (and we admit it - starting -) threads use the old adage - READ, PAUSE, CONSIDER, RESPOND
Don't get me wrong, it's still fun and I'm swinging more than ever right now but it used to be hilarious without being hurtful and personal. 
Send me a dirty PM and I'll think about it 
