As a new-ish member, I don’t really know what it was like ‘before’, but as a newbie I read through all the posts that were trending and I have come to the following conclusions:
The written word often makes it difficult to differentiate between banter and (for want of a better word) unpleasantness - I would hesitate to use the word bullying.
During the last few months I have seen threads of a very doubtful nature where I doubt the OP was genuine, this caused me to refrain from commenting, as I felt uncomfortable, I didn’t want to get mixed up with it, feeling it was a scam.
On less light hearted posts there are often very serious, sometimes militant posters, who will often deride comments made by anyone opposing their views. There is no question that they could be wrong, and when they are, as happened recently, this is not admitted.
Over the course of time members have formed friendships, and as is to be expected, there are “in jokes“. This is often misinterpreted by newer members who are unaware of the background. Personally, I made use of the Search function and read the back stories to make it all make sense.
I struggle to put my final point tactfully...... when beginning improbable and/frivolous threads, the OP is laying themselves open to ribbing, and by continuing to post, is obviously happy for this to continue. I don’t believe there is any malice here, just banter.
Having said all that, in every barrel there will be one or two bad apples who cause genuine distress, but I do hope that various long time contributors will not leave. Gransnet has helped so many in these difficult times, even when it is just getting annoyed about something other than the virus.
