MizElz
Well-Known Member
Apologies if New Lounge is not the right place, but Soapbox did not seem appropriate either
Two completely separate, unrelated posts have taken similar negative paths in the past 24 hours. I would imagine that most people know which posts I am talking about, and I dont really want to force the OPs of those posts to get involved here if they do not wish to. I'm sure many people will agree when I say that we need to find some way of stopping this kind of thing happening - people come here to ask for advice and ideas, and often all they get is abuse, sarcasm and accusations of ignorance/stupidity/cruelty. Some people are strong enough, mentally, to ignore this and simply listen to the good advice that is given, but others are reduced to tears, and made to feel that they cannot come here any longer.
It has to stop. We must not lose sight of the fact that HHO provides an invaluable network of knowledgable people in a variety of equine - and other - fields, and as such, it is right and good that people should feel they can come here to ask for advice. But when advice is what they ask for, do not, instead, give them judgement.
It is utterly wrong to make people feel, on the strength of one conversation, that they should sell/shoot their horse, or to tell them that they are ignorant/cruel/a useless owner. I've said all this before, and no doubt some people will slate me for saying it again - I'm just sick of seeing people frightened away, and made to feel they cannot post here any more. Surely, it is only a matter of time before one of the people who has been lambasted here actually DOES sell their horse, because they feel they are 'not good enough' to keep it?
I was having a RL conversation with someone the other day who observes this forum, but never posts. In her own words, she said to me: "I really don't like your forum." When I asked her why, the reason she gave was simple. "The people there would not say the things they say if they were face to face. To actually go through the process of writing something nasty, re-reading it, and still sending it takes a lot more time, effort and calculation than simply saying something in the heat of the moment."
I thought this was a fair point, and again, it underlines the issue of the written versus the spoken word. We cannot solve this problem, but surely the old saying, 'If you can't say anything nice...' would apply here, too....at the end of the day, by replying in a negative light to a poster asking for advice, you are not achieving anything. Keep uncivil tongues at bay; give advice, or encouragement, not criticism - and if you have no advice to give or encouraging comments to make, then you obviously would not be able to do any better in that given situation, so therefore are not really qualified to judge, are you?
I'm very sorry if this has turned into a rant, and I would like to stress that it is NOT aimed at any member of HHO individually; in fact, it is probably aimed at most of us - and I say 'us', because I am not absolving myself of blame - I'm sure I can be as judgemental as the next person. But we really do need to think about general conduct here; people should be made to feel welcome here, yet I fear that is simply not the case at the moment.
Two completely separate, unrelated posts have taken similar negative paths in the past 24 hours. I would imagine that most people know which posts I am talking about, and I dont really want to force the OPs of those posts to get involved here if they do not wish to. I'm sure many people will agree when I say that we need to find some way of stopping this kind of thing happening - people come here to ask for advice and ideas, and often all they get is abuse, sarcasm and accusations of ignorance/stupidity/cruelty. Some people are strong enough, mentally, to ignore this and simply listen to the good advice that is given, but others are reduced to tears, and made to feel that they cannot come here any longer.
It has to stop. We must not lose sight of the fact that HHO provides an invaluable network of knowledgable people in a variety of equine - and other - fields, and as such, it is right and good that people should feel they can come here to ask for advice. But when advice is what they ask for, do not, instead, give them judgement.
It is utterly wrong to make people feel, on the strength of one conversation, that they should sell/shoot their horse, or to tell them that they are ignorant/cruel/a useless owner. I've said all this before, and no doubt some people will slate me for saying it again - I'm just sick of seeing people frightened away, and made to feel they cannot post here any more. Surely, it is only a matter of time before one of the people who has been lambasted here actually DOES sell their horse, because they feel they are 'not good enough' to keep it?
I was having a RL conversation with someone the other day who observes this forum, but never posts. In her own words, she said to me: "I really don't like your forum." When I asked her why, the reason she gave was simple. "The people there would not say the things they say if they were face to face. To actually go through the process of writing something nasty, re-reading it, and still sending it takes a lot more time, effort and calculation than simply saying something in the heat of the moment."
I thought this was a fair point, and again, it underlines the issue of the written versus the spoken word. We cannot solve this problem, but surely the old saying, 'If you can't say anything nice...' would apply here, too....at the end of the day, by replying in a negative light to a poster asking for advice, you are not achieving anything. Keep uncivil tongues at bay; give advice, or encouragement, not criticism - and if you have no advice to give or encouraging comments to make, then you obviously would not be able to do any better in that given situation, so therefore are not really qualified to judge, are you?
I'm very sorry if this has turned into a rant, and I would like to stress that it is NOT aimed at any member of HHO individually; in fact, it is probably aimed at most of us - and I say 'us', because I am not absolving myself of blame - I'm sure I can be as judgemental as the next person. But we really do need to think about general conduct here; people should be made to feel welcome here, yet I fear that is simply not the case at the moment.
