Do you ever feel intimidated?

Please GNHQ. If it still here there are bound to be other posts to scratch the sore.

Mind you, there probably will be anyway.

greatnan you have a point there. But I feel I know the answers to anything I might start- I could write them myself. Not being in a position to desperately need help amd comfort like a lot of posters on GN, I just coast along and we've done the politics and the Queen and dress sense and your mountain walks and travels and several health topics.
Is there anything left?

A lot of us have left already and I wonder what the average life of a forum is.

As long as people have a shared interest they carry on, but people come and go and the forum morphs into different things. I do wonder if the forum needs moderating more; most forums have 'volunteer' mods but I'm not sure that would work on here and I doubt any of us would want to to it anyway. You can't 'do' politics because the world is constantly changing. The support I had when I was estranged from my daughter was wonderful. There are people on here that know far more than I do about lots of things, and I'm always willing to learn from them. It was fantastic meeting up with the Midlands group the other week; when I was feeling down about my family problems it gave me something to look forward to. Maybe some of us do get passionate about disparaging comments about the forum because it does actually mean something to us and [even if it makes me a bit of a saddo] has become an important part of our lives.

GNHQ PLEASE DELETE THIS THREAD,

Forums develop and thrive and wither like any other group. New people join, the original ones move on, new subjects are discussed, old subjects are forgotten and then renewed by different people who do not remember the same comments going the rounds before. That is life.

Our ancestors discussed the same kind of things we do, reached conclusions, moved on. Others went round the same circles.

Stone age mothers probably exchanged their views on the dreadful attitudes of Ugg and his friends to the old traditional values. When Ugg found his own cave and brought up his own children he would tell them how HE did not treat his dear old parents the way HIS sprogs do him.

Then Ugg invented sheepskin boots and started plenty of parent/child arguments!

I am very surprised to see Geraldine revived this thread, when it had dropped off the Active list.

Sorry but I do not agree with deleting this thread. I fully understand the emotion to quell matters but it is not fair to posters who have made their views known.

It is justified to keep it on here so all G.N.'s can make an informed decision when posting on other threads. By that I mean they may come to a conclusion about posters they think they may have more in common with or not as the case maybe. It will not go away but it will cause posters to fester and as sure as eggs are eggs it will crop up again no doubt.

That was I assure you not easy for me to say but I have had first hand experience when a thread was removed and it simply left G.N.'s wondering what happened and created theories, that is just as bad, or worse, than letting a thread die a natural death, which it will.

Oh but UGG was wise and blessed the GN Halloween celebrations with his/her beneficence and all was good and all things were good and all was good!

Charlotta, how good that you don't need any help or comfort. I am sorry you find us all so boring.

Well said POGS. I agree it won't help to remove the thread.

I add to this thread hesitantly as I do not want to add fuel to the fire!

One of the reasons I use GN is because my close friends and I all share very similar values/politics etc and I think it is good
a) to evaluate your own views by being aware of the views of others every so often

&

b) to share your dearly held ideas and opinions, values and beliefs to challenge those who have a different perspective.

Honest debate is healthy!

I cannot take anything on the forum personally because no other poster really knows me so are not 'getting' at me but are legitimately challenging my views and opinions...which is why most forums exist!

There are some posters who appear to enjoy trying to deliberately wind other posters up in an unkind way. I choose not to respond to their posts.

Well said. I agree!

+ one - common sense prevails.

+ 2.

I agree too, POGS.
Whatever happened to least said, soonest mended.

Surely, jane, if the thread were to be deleted it would be a case of 'nothing said' rather than least said, provided nobody insisted on resurrecting the same sort of thing endlessly. (I don't care either way, but it just seems logical).

I haven't had time to read this - been too busy but sounds as if things got somewhat heated!!!! All good fun

greatnan I didn't really want to prolong this, but since you ask, it might be better to start another thread on forum censorship[rueful smile].
I'm coming at this from the point of view of someone who moderates a professional forum, but I've refrained from further comment because I still feel a bit 'new' here.
'Nastiness' has occasionally reared its head on my other forum and it is very easy for the moderators to have accusations of censorship levelled at them, resulting in further rounds of nastiness in addition to the original bone of contention [another rueful smile].
It is really much better if a forum self-moderates, without any interference, and we have seen on this thread valiant attempts at this by elegran in particular. I think there have been others who have tried to help, I but can't be bothered to read the whole thing again.
This thread has been a sorry episode, but on balance I think the positive thoughts about how we should behave towards each other by various contributors, and the advice on what to do if you feel intimidated, by far outweigh the stuff we would all prefer not to have read.
So my advice to the GN moderators would be if you must delete anything, delete those posts which you (the mods) consider offensive, but leave the rest.
Elegran, *POGS and others have obviously put a great deal of thought into their postings and I don't think it's fair to them to delete their efforts.
Kind regards to everyone and please , 'Tomorrow's another day'.
Let's all move on

Agree.

Elegran I am proposing you for the next Nobel peace prize. My citation is for "your persitance in continuing, with wisdom, patience and compassion, your attempts at dispute resolution in the face of sustained opposition."

Who else is going to back my nomination?

While you wait for your gold medal here are some

Oh yes - Elegran would be more deserving than the most recent recipient.

The other option available to moderators is simply to lock the thread, ie, no further contributions allowed.
[idea]

Aw shucks!

Actually I interfered in a spirit of whitehot indignation at the sheer selfcentredness of some posters (of various shades, so please no-one start WW4 on reading that) in thinking that all comments are meant to either put them down personally or to gag them from speaking freely and frankly, and acting up accordingly. Just getting on with the discussion in hand is the best way of by-passing incidental asides.

(BTW I have had some moments myself of being irritated by a post and replying a bit abruptly. I hope no-one was offended, though no-one has declared war on me yet. In real life I am one of the slowest to leap into protest at anything)

jane