Thoughtful Posting

How jolly to wake up and read this lot, not. Anyway, good morning gransnetters. You're all lovely, and we're very lucky to have such a great forum. Since joining I've read some hilarious threads, including stuff about intimate bits and bobs, classic. I've also read some really moving threads, where the love and support is fantastic.

It's actually a great forum and that's down to you members. I love you all. That's my attempt to lighten the mood on here.

Thanks pollyparrot - I was just busy being happily distracted by thoughts of a fireman delivering me my favourite chocs. Yes, let's have a good day.

But why join a forum if you don't like the way it is? And please don't address me as dear - that is patronising.

Is this the grumpy old women's thread? Or the I've come her for an argument thread?

The 'someone' ginny42 referred to is me. I posted what I thought and still think. I think it is self-centred of a grandmother to think mostly of her feelings after the birth of a grandchild than of the feelings and possible emotional needs of the new mother, and the post I responded to with 'harshness' struck me as exactly that.

It is quite possible that my impression of what the post was about was wrong. I accepted that and apologised for my quick fire response. The apology was accepted and then all the hoo-ha over my post was raked up again in this thread, impersonally (as it should be) until ginny42's post.

Everyone who knows me (and that's quite a few gransnetters by now) knows I'm a hard-hearted bastard. Aye right ?

I'd quite possibly have the same feelings after the birth of a grandchild myself in similat circumstances, but if I did I'd think I was the unreasonable one, not the new baby's parents.

So I told the poster that I thought, yes, she was being unreasonable.

I was not being nasty. I was simply telling the truth as I see it.

Which is what I do.

I am not ashmaned of this. I think it's a strength and so do the people closest to me.

And so do most of the rest of us bags, as will relative newcomers when they get to know you! That's my point!

Yep. Hard as nails, you are bags. As if!

Where do disappeared posts go to? Is there some sort of holding cell????

GOW thread?
It started with a lengthy rant lecture and hasn't improved, spawning more sniping and not all of it leavened by
The principal "rudeness" I observed on "that thread" was NOT to OP but another member. She said she was fine with it, sticks and stones etc, but if anything warranted a diatribe lecture on manners it was not the response to OP IMHO.
I'm with the "sounds like a lecture" , one of those " more in sorrow than in anger" ones which were always the most irritating. And yes, stroppy teenagers do turn on each other!!
Far be it from me to suggest any attempt at fomenting dissension was the object of the exercise, but we have had threads in the past saying how "unkind some posters are to each other."
They usually produced exactly the reaction they claimed to deprecate.

Classified as not for delicate consumption, as thet used to say!!!

For goodness sake, give it a rest. What have you got planned for today? I'm off to get weighed at the doctors in a minute, that should be fun. Then it's supermarket and to night out for a fish and chip supper! How about you?

Just re read OP . It is a bit like a teacher trying to sort out a bunch of quarrelsome kids/parents. And I should know as I too am one of the many former teachers on the forum !! Sorry if I revert to teacher mode..old habits etc.

kittylester it was never my intention to be anything other than polite. I am sorry that you found that patronising.

thatbags I think we both gained a better understanding of each other which I am glad of.

As a new poster the AIBU thread was a learning curve for me in how the site can work.

The motivation for beginning this post was a desire to see something good becoming even better - I don't see that as a bad thing. A new poster perhaps sees some things with a new clarity and what I encountered - and it wasn't just my perception / experience - was that sometimes some people can be abrasive and unkind. In more extreme cases, people have unfortunately made some very inappropriate posts on threads when very evidently the OP was in need/distress.

I have taken pains to say /I am not being personal and only wanted to be constructive. I don't apologise for highlighting concerns or trying to think through solutions, but Alea you seem to be right. This seems to be disintegrating into another bad advert for GN.

Time to stop and move on I think.

Don't call me 'dear', please Imperfect.

Bags I was convinced it was I who had upset Ginny42 but can't remember what the thread was about.

I expect there are other gransnetters similarly wondering if they are the guilty party, which just illustrates how frustrating it is when posters make veiled allusions to others who have upset them, rather than airing any differences on the thread.

grannylynn there are already forum rules about what happens when posters 'turn' on each other, as you put it. The moderators intervene and delete the offending post(s). Anything else is fair game.

Pen you don't

Crikey, what a tangled web!

I remember during my career an evaluation where my boss suggested one of my goals was to be brave ! To stand up and be counted even when I was the only person standing .

I feel Imperfect27 has done just that and has every right to . I see no element of lecturing in her post just a clear desire to make her point and do exactly what has been mentioned many times during this thread - get it out in the open. You don't have to agree with her ( you dont even have to comment if you don't want to ) but it is HER perception and she is entitled to it.

I think Ive taken it just as she intended it.

Its made for a lively ( and mostly good) debate. Which is what a thread not specifically aimed at getting support should engender.

Kittylester you asked why join a forum if you don't like it the way it is? Don't we all join because there is something we want , or are looking for. And if you find it isn't there - why not ask for change? I don't see any harm at all. Who knows what change will do - it might even improve something.

janeaisnsworth - as with kittylester no offence was intended.

I am sorry that people felt 'lectured' - I took a lot of time to phrase the OP to try to avoid that and not to make anyone feel got at personally. I had hoped people would take it at face value and simply as a fair point and that it just might lead to (some) people taking a little more care where care is evidently needed.

I have been a full-time mother and a whole lot of other things besides before becoming a teacher relatively recently. People seem to object to my way of writing - that is just the way I have always been. There is never any intention to patronise - just to share ideas. I hope that as we move on from this thread and we learn about each other more through other posts that will become more apparent.

Imperfect, I didn't find it patronising - it was patronising, as was your response!

GN evolves (within the guidelines) - so be it. We don't like to be lectured by anyone. And, I am not a grumpy old woman just someone fed up with relative newcomers telling us 'oldies' that we have been getting it wrong all this time. Had we been doing so the site would have closed ages ago.

It's like a family, we cope with each other - get on with it!

"People seem to object to my writing" - yes, they do seem to object, Imperfect and it might be worth considering why they object.

I have just trawled through all these posts, and it really boils down to a matter of tone, rather than content, and therefore to a reader's interpretation of that tone. So some people will interpret your OP as finger wagging, and others won't.

However, it has made interesting reading....

I had hoped people would take it at face value and simply as a fair point and that it just might lead to (some) people taking a little more care where care is evidently needed

Those last five words make it quite clear that criticism was not merely implied, but explicit.
Who says "Care is evidently needed"??
A matter of opinion, obviously and sadly despite claims of taking time in the construction of the original post, the message which came across was highly critical of the status quo and of existing members.

Well said Alea.

The opening post is definitely like a teacher to me. Second half rather than first half.
Though we must all be parts of our job!

ginny, glad you are not leaving.

Ginny42, perhaps you may reconsider?

Just a question - when do "relative newbies" become oldies in forum terms?

Is it a period of time? Or fitting in to the group dynamics? Or is there another measure?

Just a genuine question.

That's ok kittylester, second time around I did intend it to be patronising so I am glad you understand me sometimes .

I was never 'telling us (you) oldies' that you have been 'getting it wrong all the time,' - that is your misinterpretation. If you reread my OP I did not identify any individual or any group.

I have been consistently polite on this thread - though even that has been criticised - and have wanted to leave it now, but there is a limit to how much I can take. Quite a few people have taken personal potshots at me along the way so I will say something in response.

Where others feel I have been pointedly critical on this thread I feel I have simply been honest and said what is actually happening. if it makes you feel uncomfortable to have the mirror held up, that is for you to rest with your own conscience.

For the record, I think GN is great - there are just some times when it does go wrong.

I really am leaving this conversation now - not running away from it, but because everything that can be said seems to have been said and I never intended it to become another bad advert for GN. By all means message me if you still feel the need to berate me.

if it makes you feel uncomfortable to have the mirror held up, that is for you to rest with your own conscience

Let it go for goodness's sake Imperfect. That does sound very headmistressy.
kittylester is one of the least contentious posters and it takes something to make her criticise another poster.
And if I wanted a 'straight from the shoulder' response I would expect to get one from thatbags which could well be the trigger to make me think I was either whingeing or, if she agreed, that I had a valid reason for my unhappiness.

And some recent threads have had some mickey-taking responses because they are repeats of ones from someone who is obviously spamming (or is it trolling?).

When someone upset me recently on another thread (she was unneccesarily rude) I told her so in a post and didn't make a bit hoo-ha with another thread about it.

Personally I think this is a thread about a thread (or about another poster's remarks on another thread) and that GN should delete it. It's up to GN to police the site.