Some things to ponder.
Posted: Sun Oct 11, 2009 10:13 pm
I have recently returned to the men in skirts forum world after a long long sabbatical, to the point where I may as well be considered a newcomer to most. I've been posting on these forums again now for a little over a month and was invited to post on the ones over at Skirts4Men as well. Early on, I actually received Private Messages from older members warning me about the way people talk to each other on these boards, and stating why they no longer post here. It took me a bit but I did start to feel a similar inclination that maybe posting here wasn't something I wanted to continue doing. So as much as I want this post to be a constructive point of reference, it is filtered through my own frustrations and annoyances so I apologize if it comes off as a bit self-righteous. In fact, I know it will so I apologize for that directly now.
First, my biggest issue is that it seems that several of the regulars are so used to having fights over certain things that there is a tendency to preemptively make something into a fight when it isn't. On at least two occasions now I've been told in a response something along the lines of "We've had problems with things in the past." Well, that is a shame, however I don't think it is fair to allow the crimes of others to be an excuse to paint uninvolved different people's points with a negative brush. Also, this mentality really makes me think twice about posting anything because I worry someone posted something similar in a confrontational way in the past and I'll get jumped on for having mentioned it.
Next, there's a bit of a habit for people to argue the point they want to argue regardless of what the other person just said. Everyone is obviously welcome to talk about what they want to talk about, but there are a lot of cases on these boards of people putting words in someone else's mouth. I don't want this post to be a public flogging so I'm trying to avoid specific cases, but it really seems to happen a lot.
Finally, people seem to always assume someone is looking for a fight even when they don't. I actually had this happen to me recently when I was honestly asking a question. I never did get the answers I was looking for, all I got were defensive responses to something I wasn't even saying. I used to work for Apple inc. at one of their retail stores. They had a really effective in store conflict resolution program called "Fearless Feedback" where employees could air grievances over something without needing to bring in managers by following certain steps. The most important step, the first thing we were always told to do, was always assume positive intent. Before responding, take the time to think about what someone said and think, ok, maybe they did that for a positive reason. Sometimes you can't, but you should always at least make the attempt.
First, my biggest issue is that it seems that several of the regulars are so used to having fights over certain things that there is a tendency to preemptively make something into a fight when it isn't. On at least two occasions now I've been told in a response something along the lines of "We've had problems with things in the past." Well, that is a shame, however I don't think it is fair to allow the crimes of others to be an excuse to paint uninvolved different people's points with a negative brush. Also, this mentality really makes me think twice about posting anything because I worry someone posted something similar in a confrontational way in the past and I'll get jumped on for having mentioned it.
Next, there's a bit of a habit for people to argue the point they want to argue regardless of what the other person just said. Everyone is obviously welcome to talk about what they want to talk about, but there are a lot of cases on these boards of people putting words in someone else's mouth. I don't want this post to be a public flogging so I'm trying to avoid specific cases, but it really seems to happen a lot.
Finally, people seem to always assume someone is looking for a fight even when they don't. I actually had this happen to me recently when I was honestly asking a question. I never did get the answers I was looking for, all I got were defensive responses to something I wasn't even saying. I used to work for Apple inc. at one of their retail stores. They had a really effective in store conflict resolution program called "Fearless Feedback" where employees could air grievances over something without needing to bring in managers by following certain steps. The most important step, the first thing we were always told to do, was always assume positive intent. Before responding, take the time to think about what someone said and think, ok, maybe they did that for a positive reason. Sometimes you can't, but you should always at least make the attempt.