Disappearing contributers

It is so easy to hid behind silence isn’t it.

It is not a good look nor is it terribly sensible.

Your advertisers will be a tad alarmed at the unhappiness of their targeted audience.

Unhappy people do not buy as a general rule.

Lauranorder hear hear. 👏 👏👏

Allira if you are able to read this - keep strong and good luck with the quest for reinstatement. Your contributions will be missed.

LauraNorderr

I haven’t been on GN much recently but read through this thread because I was intrigued by the whodunnit aspect.
Well getting to the end and finding that the subject is Allira, by far one of our nicest, kindest and most interesting posters, I am gobsmacked.
Come on GN let’s stop this silly nonsense. Let all posts stand so that us grown ups can decide for ourselves who is who.
Bring back Allira.
In fact let’s have an amnesty and bring back everyone.
We adults are quite capable of deciding who to engage with and who to ignore.

👏👏👏👏
Although we then have to take the chance that threads might wander and then somemembers would get mightily annoyed.
But hey, they might lighten up and go with the flow, just like a conversation.

WhiteWave
I’ve been pondering this from the start of this thread.
I wonder if it’s come across Justine Roberts desk 🤔
Somehow I doubt it.

Hasn’t she sold the brand?

Possibly the best way to deal with posts that people object to would be for the reporters to post Reported under their names, like many posters do on the threads with sales, or anti semitic posts, but leave the post to stand.
That would have a double benefit in that people would think before they post and reporters would have the chance to explain why they reported.

Mollygo

Possibly the best way to deal with posts that people object to would be for the reporters to post Reported under their names, like many posters do on the threads with sales, or anti semitic posts, but leave the post to stand.
That would have a double benefit in that people would think before they post and reporters would have the chance to explain why they reported.

Great idea.

I just think posts shouldn’t be removed, there’s enough people on here willing to call out those they feel are being rude/aggressive/personal.

Gives said poster the opportunity to explain and apologise.

Doodledog

*Allira is not a polarising poster though, she is popular with people with different political views, so it seems particularly unfair that she would be a target.*
Agreed. It doesn't make sense, so if the ban is meant to serve as a deterrent to others it hasn't worked - nobody knows what we're being deterred from doing.

That's what I can't understand either. It's very confusing all round.

We might even be doing it now, without knowing we are!

eazybee

How can you report anonymously? Just checked.
You press Report button, fill in the box with the reason for the report and underneath is your user name which identifies you. Surely?

I have reported spam threads several times, but I always follow up with a message saying "Reported" so as to let others know that they don't have to bother. Otherwise nobody else would know that it has been reported, let alone who has done it. I know I'm not the only one who does this.

However, I have never reported a fellow GN-er for an opinion with which I don't agree. As many of us have said, we are adults and should be able to be trusted to deal with differences of opinion. Obvious racism/sexism etc is different, but if I should ever report a post like that, I would certainly say that I had done so.

LauraNorderr

I haven’t been on GN much recently but read through this thread because I was intrigued by the whodunnit aspect.
Well getting to the end and finding that the subject is Allira, by far one of our nicest, kindest and most interesting posters, I am gobsmacked.
Come on GN let’s stop this silly nonsense. Let all posts stand so that us grown ups can decide for ourselves who is who.
Bring back Allira.
In fact let’s have an amnesty and bring back everyone.
We adults are quite capable of deciding who to engage with and who to ignore.

I would support this!

Whoever on here who is still in touch with Allira, please give her my very best wishes.

Doodledog

MayBee70

petra

Galaxy

I think the size of the site partly causes that, as I have said before, when I spent time mostly on MN, it was only on the feminism threads or the archers thread! where I would recognise a few names. Other than that I was talking to people I didn't 'know'.

It’s the best of GN and the worst of GN. It’s lovely tgat we get to know each other and become real friends. But the flip side is members take some comments too personally.
Let’s say a member told me to put a sock in it I would probably laugh😂 It can’t be personal because you don’t know me.

If you’re sitting at home on your own and someone says something like that to you and you read it in the early hours of the morning it can be pretty upsetting. I don’t think the internet is impersonal because you’re reading it in the security of your own home but someone has entered your own space where you should feel safe. Difficult to explain if it hasn’t happened to you but someone on another forum did that to me years ago and I felt as if a bucket of cold water had been poured over me. We must all be aware that we don’t know what’s happening to someone in their personal life. And some people, me included, have used the internet at times in their life when they’re feeling very lonely.

We don't know what is happening in others' lives, but at the same time, the Internet is not a gentle place, and with all due respect to everyone, if someone is feeling fragile enough to be so affected by 'put a sock in it' that they feel the need to report it, maybe they should be taking a break. It's not fair to expect everyone to know how we are feeling at a given time and act accordingly.

I do understand that words can hurt, but I also think that rules on a board like this have to be applied in the same way to everyone, not tightened when particular members are going through a bad time, particularly when others are unaware. I hope I've explained that properly - I'm not excusing rudeness, just saying that there should be no special pleading if someone is upset because of their circumstances. We have to take responsibility for that ourselves.

And we have to take responsibility for the fact that we might be saying something to someone that will hurt them which can’t be excused by the fact that the person saying it is less sensitive and therefore thinks the offended person is just being over sensitive.

The internet itself is benign
Its the people who use it, how they use it, when, and why that complicates issues.

Cossy

Whoever on here who is still in touch with Allira, please give her my very best wishes.

She is reading the thread.

Waves at Allira, there are loads of us rooting for you, hope that helps give you the strength to carry on fighting for your return.

And we have to take responsibility for the fact that we might be saying something to someone that will hurt them which can’t be excused by the fact that the person saying it is less sensitive and therefore thinks the offended person is just being over sensitive.
Yes, we do. But we can't be expected to know whether someone will be upset by any mention of tigers, because their father was eaten by one (daft example so as not to accidentally post something that might upset anyone).

It's always possible that anything might upset someone - that doesn't mean that the person saying it is insensitive, just that they weren't aware of the sensitivities of others. If people can be banned for saying something that upsets someone who is particularly sensitive one day, but a different poster can say something far worse the next day which is not read by the sensitive one, how can any of us know what will result in a ban?

Leaving moderation to reports is always going to be fraught with inconsistency, as there are those who see every disagreement as a personal attack, as (presumably) they are not used to being disagreed with. If they report every time someone disagrees it may make life easier for them, but it's not good for the board as a whole.

Also, there are posters who seem to assume that all reports result in bans, as they say 'I won't report you as I think others should see you for what you are' or similar. Leaving things for others to see requires no action, so what they mean is 'I am pointing out to others that you have annoyed me' . Others do just that with no fanfare, and don't report the most egregious of insults, which means that the posters making them seem to get away with more than others, as HQ doesn't see them. It's far from an ideal system.

Hello there!

We are adults, and for the most part we are aged adults, many have lived through hard times and good times but we are being treated as children who are not old enough to be told the truth of a situation, and I for one am upset by this. I find it demoralising to be treated as a child, I find it completely OTT for a regular pleasant contributor to be ostracised without explanation, it feels we’re not worthy to be treated as fully functioning adults and after all without us this platform would not exist
Would a mod please come on and talk to us on an adult level and explain what this is all about

Well said, BlueBelle.

Would a mod please come on and talk to us on an adult level and explain what this is all about

I don’t think the mods take much notice of threads unless someone is reported on one. I’m wondering if we should put a link to this one on Site Stuff to draw their attention to it. Or perhaps actually report it so they have to read it?

Has anyone contacted them directly about it?

Perhaps we should all report ourselves, our own post

Looking back, I don't think I've seen any post on GN that should've been removed or the poster banned - posts by regular posters I mean.

Obviously, I've not read them all, but on the threads that I am on there hasn't, as far as I can remember, been any that would induce me to push the report button. There are some, particularly on the N&P threads that can be 'challenging', but, what the heck, we are as has been pointed out, adults. And I can choose to respond or not.

I am up at 3am in the morning because we have the most awful thunderstorm here and the lightning and my phone which keeps flashing Yellow weather-warning notifications are keeping me awake so I'm checking GN for company...

I haven’t seen any mean or spiteful posts for a long time, thankfully. I think in the past, pre Covid, there were a few nasty ones now and then but mostly the people who wrote them disappeared fairly quickly, presumably having got their negative feelings and hatred of the world off their chests in this anonymous way. Now and then I have felt a tad threatened admittedly but nothing really extreme. I am certain Allira would not attack anyone personally, she is not that sort of person. Whoever reported needs to take a good hard look at themselves.

OK so I was reported and deleted last week on one of the very threads mentioned here. All I did was to stick up for Allira, I mentioned no names but I was cross with the reporting person. I know my days are probably numbered but I showed my support, as that's what one does at injustices.

GNHQ has told Allira there were reportings, in the plural, about her that were concerning. That to me confirms she was unfairly targeted. I am saying no more.