Oh FFS!

Think that idea could be construed as paranoid. Ana "They are all in it together " sort of concept.

(Not you personally, understand, just the concept!)

Why the Hairoil should HQ conspire with a few members against others? Come on, be sensible, you'll give us all a persecution complex.

sel I liked your comments. My grammar is certainly not up to much at all being dyslexic. I was a 'secondary modern girl' not expected to succeed at anything and always called a "failure" by my parents. However I trained as a nurse, I got a degree and a very good job but never read the Guardian!

I feel some hesitation typing this that I too am going to get a negative comment back. It's also a sad state of affairs that people do not feel able to express themselves honestly without fear of retribution or banning. Free speech seems to have gone out the window in all walks of life. I also don't know who has 'gone' recently, as i to do not visit the site daily or read all the posts, and I feel very upset and empathetic for anyone banned, they must feel awful. Do they have the right of reply to the ban?

Wouldn't work because.....? I don't understand. I'm sure GNHQ would not ignore you.

I mean your suggestion wouldn't work, when!

Ana not sure what you mean, but it was only a suggestion.

Church hall? No thanks.

Finishing school? I was lucky not to have been expelled from grammar school.

Hockey? Avoided it like the plague, with forged letters from mum, claiming I was menstruating on an almost weekly basis, and crippled with pain (sorry, I knew nothing of feminism then).

Sewing lessons with nuns? No nuns at my school.

Oooh-er. I'm cast adrift!

When, if it were true that certain members have the ear of GNHQ it must be a mutually beneficial arrangement, and any presentation of suspicions/concerns would probably prove fruitless.

I don't like swearing and would prefer it if those who do would use the * method as somehow that feels like a more acceptable compromise.

I don't have time to go on other forums so am not in a position to compare us with Mumsnet or any others and don't understand why we should. Can't we be stand alone with our own rules and standards?

Perhaps it would be better if we went back to a warning that a thread will be deleted, perhaps 'at this time tomorrow' and with no more additions, to give everyone a chance to understand why it is being deleted? I find it frustrating to look at I'm on and find that the thread has gone.

Perhaps a similar attitude to post being deleted could be taken? Maybe saying this post is inappropriate and why and that it will be deleted in 4 hours? I am always curious about what was so offensive about a post especially if there have been replies which are not outraged!

Imo it is the not knowing which makes people feel that there is some sort of unfairness going on.

Personally, I did not go to finishing school, hated hockey (earache every games day) and never met a nun.

I confess to the sewing, though. I quite liked that, in spite of making the most ill-fitting blouse I have ever seen, but then my mother made most of my clothes so it was not an alien "middle-class" concept to me. It was survival on a small budget and a chance to use creative skills.

The word "worthy" seems to imply something rather distasteful - that discussing serious topics on which some people have strong opinions is somehow to be derided.

There is room for light, funny posts and to debate more serious issues, and people can take their pick.

I couldn't care less if people swear or not (provided it's an expression of exasperation rather than directed at a specific person), although I do agree that use of the "c" word is one which, to my mind, is offensive to women.

It is by no means all worthy on here. That is a load of b*****s. A a lot of pure silliness and good humour goes on.

What is wrong with older ladies straight from the local church hall and with their own sweet reminisces of finishing school or, at the very least memories of the school hockey field and sewing lessons with the nuns?
Some of that generation were very feisty types. Don't categorize them as always ladylike and well behaved. It's stereotyping.

Just a thought.....if the Gransnetters who don't like to see people's threads get deleted, or (rarely) banned, believe that certain posters are influential in bringing this about........what's to stop them from presenting their own arguments/concerns/suspicions to GNHQ and having a serious exchange of views, maybe as a group, in order to remedy this? Just a suggestion.

My post crossed with Cari's. As usual, she made her point more succinctly that I did. I type slowly and (try to) read what I wrote before posting, so I often find that by the time I have finished, it is irrelevant and does not get sent.

Can I repeat myself without being accused of being in the pocket of management (if I were paranoid I would think that as a local editor, the "some people have more pull than others" line might be partly directed at me, but luckily I don't take everything personally) ? Anyone can start a thread, and obviously some people take advantage of that and keep baning on at the same drum again and again. so if you want threads that you enjoy, then you start them and keep on posting in them.

Don't complain about the worthy serious threads that you don't enjoy. Would you object to your local evening classes having courses in Existentialism, or Zen and the Art of Crosstitch Design, just because you would not attend them?

It was a rousing post though

The advertisers would not be here without us, though, would they?

Elegran I think you have used exaggeration to make previous comments about GN sound ridiculous.

No-one has ever blamed someone else for 'all the ills in the world' or said that people deliberately sabotage threads with 'giggling insults and sneers' just that frivolity is sometimes inappropriate (in their opinion)

And sometimes people try to express legitimate concerns about what goes on on GN. They don't want to have to bugger off.

... and I'll add another 'Yay'!

Yay! Elegran Again delivering her usual good sense.

Have you been dipping into your painkillers once too many times this morning, bags?

Yay! Sock it good and proper, elegran! Yeehah!

FFS If you want a frivolous, light hearted thread which is not about anything worthy then why not start one yourself? No, I don't mean one where one gang sandbags the other with accusations of being teacher's pet or in secret cahoots to stifle the other, or of sabotaging genuine discussions with giggling insults and sneers, but one where people can enjoy themselves. Remember that concept?

As for anyone who can only enjoy themselves by getting at someone else and blaming them for all the ills in the world, then why not b****r off somewhere else and get together there for a spot of mutually destructive fun?

I don't think anyone is banned without a warning or two (or more, some people seem to have had warnings galore but manage to scrape past the boot) and the number is very small compared to the thousands of members. I could criticise things about each person who I know has been banned.

Another small point - someone said a little while ago that the members keep GN afloat, and without them it could lose revenue. No, sorry to inject some realism, but what funds GN is not us, it is the advertisers, who flock here because of the viewing figures. What makes the viewing figures rise? Controversy and the hope of seeing blood on the keyboard.

If you are trying to make things hot for GN you are going about it the wrong way, Intelligent calm discussion and good neighbourliness would be less media-worthy, so they are more likely to welcome a touch of argument than go all out for boredom, so to be booted out someone needs to be really disruptive or duplicitous.

I went away, changed my name, came back refreshed. It was me that needed to change, not GN.

I do not like the swearing
and never have but I can just get over it and move on to another topic. It does not spoil my day.

Sel in your last post you have expressed the reasons we are all here. There's room for serious and frivolous discussions and no need for checking out whether posters are businesswomen, state pensioners, public sector workers, tinkers, tailors or whatever.

Sorry, should have made that remark clearer....either by being banned, or the constant sniping by other members makes you decide that enough is enough.