Dear GNHQ

Chocolate gets the seratonin levels up.. so could we have a chocolate bar??

Stop what?

Stephen Fry is a depression sufferer but he still wouldn't want other people to be ruled by his sensitivities. That's what I like about his view on offence.

Stephen Fry is a Marmite kind of person! I like him but I have several friends who dislike his style.

I can understand that folk who have had to deal with/ live with people who rely on / misuse prescription drugs could feel sensitive about those drugs being represented in a light hearted way.

It is a fine balance between being too sensitive / serious and making prescription drugs look harmless and fun. I don't think OP meant to imply people should swallow happy pills willy nilly or that Alea wanted to appear a spoil sport. Both were expressing a personal opinion and that's OK!

I think that, if there is a possibility that someone who's going through a bad patch at the moment might be upset by it, it's best to err on the side of caution.

Err..... Have you read my explanatory post of 16:58:12 at all?!

#Gransnet

There is always a possibility that someone is going through a bad patch. Only people who know them well, and often not even they, will know about this.

There was no deliberate nastiness on this thread. There were no posts directed at individuals. I think some posts may have been taken as personal which weren't. There's always a risk of that but I think it is unreasonable to expect everyone to tiptoe around all the time, just in case someone somewhere for some reason might take something amiss. That's just crazy.

On a personal note, there were no posts on here that I replied to directly. I think at least one person thinks some of my posts were replying to their posts. They weren't. I was coming at it from elsewhere.

This was indeed addressed to one person ( me) and the final line was what upset me.

Alea. My post was intended for any high horse in residence at the GNHQ stable block and might fancy the odd [carrot] or two. I wasn't singling you out
No need for the lecture PM

As to whether replies to posts are general comments or seem to be directed at a specific poster, much can depend on the timing and context. If we are not to descend to ad hominem arguments, the relevance of an emoticon for those "on their high horse" is in any case pointless.
Cryptic references to PMs can give an impression that their contents are suspect. In this case, I believe a false impression.

To go back to the beginning, I am not particularly "upset" by Jingl's "Prozac emoticon" suggestion, I just didn't think it a good idea. I gave my reasons and (I hope) not a " lecture" .
End of.

Ah yes. My mistake.
Is it also mistaken of me to 'gather' that that directed post was a result of a personal post from you that, since you'd already posted what you thought on the thread, its recipient felt was unnecessary and somewhat annoying?

Sorry to be so blunt, but it seems to me it was your PM that made things personal, not anything else.

I neither have, nor had, any problem at all with your early remarks saying you didn't like the 'happy pill' idea but I can understand the 'reaction' to the PM.

Yes, thatbags my PM was what made it personal and, the clue being in the acronym, didn't need referring to on the thread.
As it happens it was not sent after my post -what made you think that?

Pressed send too soon, I am sorry you felt dismissing it as a lecture was a suitable reaction to a (IMHO) perfectly reasonable PM, is the most suitable reply to a PM not best expressed in another private message?

Don't quite understand why most people seem to be so critical of someone just pointing out that the idea is a bit insensitive and not a good idea. Think the whole thing stems from a touch of the 'cacoethes scribendi' myself.

Exactly. If for any reason someone was ever upset about one of my posts, for very personal reasons they'd rather not share on an open Forum- I would be grateful if they sent a pm to explain. Don't know how the pm was written, but probably not as a 'lecture' but an explanation.

All this 'high horse' and 'judgemental' is, as said before, so JUDGEMENTAL - in itself. In some cases it could even be seen as a form of cyber bullying', eg. shutting someone up via a dimissive derogatory comment. And anyone who knows anything about horses, some horses are very much bigger and taller than others anyhow ;)

I copied, pasted and posted the PM at 15.59 yesterday Granjura having redacted the possibly identifiable third party reference, so I leave it to your judgement as to whether it constituted a soi- disant "lecture".

It read rather like a lecture to me, alea. It started to go squiffy I felt after this post: Alea Wed 23-Sep-15 14:09:35 starting "Am I to assume...?"
Up till then it was light-hearted in a non-offensive way (not the first joke about Prozac and won't be the last). Nobody had objected on the thread to your posts as far as I could tell. Certainly none of my posts were pbjecting to yours; mine had nothing to do with your posts. Maybe that's the real problem, that you felt your posts were being ignored. People are allowed to do that as well as being allowed to say they don't like something, as you did.

The painkilling pills (about 16 many days) I take every day could be described as happy pills. I'd certainly be miserable without them.

here you are. Enjoy.

#daftlot

I "felt my posts were being ignored?" Puh-lease!!
I have better things to do!
The trivialising /reductio ad absurdum (vegetarians and [chicken] analogy ), left me feeling, as you so charmingly suggested, " [squelch] ed " and my opinion rubbished. And if that isn't "personal", what is?
I suppose if you want to see what I wrote to Merlotgran as a "lecture" you must know what you are talking about.

You have better things to do? Really?!!!

Pity you didn't have better things to do yesterday than to stir up this unnecessary storm in a teacup.

Dear GNHQ -please can we have a cauldron emoticon?

Don't we all think this has gone far enough now for a thread that started as a joke. We don't need any more bad feeling.

A cauldron and a wooden spoon! The

FFS, alea, as I've already said twice, that 'squelch' post had nothing to do with you! I had just read something on another thread that seemed to me to be a 'squelch comment' and jokingly asking for a squelch emoji on this thread seemed entirely appropriate.

If I say my comments had nothing to do with you, that is EXACTLY what I mean. Stop implying that I'm lying. Dear me! What does it take to get through to some people?