klondiketoo

I was sifting through posts this morning and came across one that interested me. As I read along, it started degenerating from a "helpful" post into a "mudslinging" one among some of the "personalities".

I know the "regulars" and have become accustomed to those with social idiosyncrasies; I know their handles and just gloss over the posts, not even reading their quibbles back and forth...which is a shame because every once in a while, I'm sure they have something worthwhile to say....somewhere....amongst all that quibbling verbage.

A newly registered contributor posted on the thread, "just began using this forum a couple of weeks ago. Is this normal banter? Is it meant to be helpful? Every time I get on there's some contibutor spewing mean-spiritedness. Maybe I'm just too thin-skinned to play with the big dogs."

My first gut reaction was to just tell this new poster "Yes, get thicker skinned; that's what I did."

As a new member, many years ago, I was horrified at some of the responses and attitudes that prevailed so I quit checking in, for months at a time, but came back each time I needed to prepare for a trip. You just "get used to it".... like abusive family members.

This, though, produced my second gut reaction--one of anger.

Why should people have to get thick-skinned? Why can't people just contribute, without denigrating one another and making it personal? I have recently noticed a definite shift towards one-ups-manship, I-know-better-than-you, big-me/little-you mentality on Fodor's that I don't find elsewhere, and some of this from people who used to be positive, caring posters. It seems a few "bad apples" may be starting to spoil more in the barrel. imo.

What's up with that?! Well, I'll tell you what I think--the great posters of Fodor's are becoming OLD and CROTCHEDY!, if not in years, then in spirit. Maybe I've been one of those "silent" family members of an abusive family too long. As my dear husband says, "You can't be static; you're either part of the problem or part of the solution." We all make our own choices--we choose to be negative or positive, helpful or spiteful every time we post on this site. It's possible to have good intentions, develop bad habits, and arrive at negative results.

It's sad. In a perfect world, there would be nothing but good apples and soft skin. I'd like to experience that world, if only for the short time it took to read through a post here on Fodor's.

Happy Travels!

adrienne

I don't see much mean spiritedness on the Europe board. There may be 1% negativity or crankiness and 99% helpfulness. That's nothing to complain about.

If you feel someone has posted something insulting it's your responsibility to bring it to the editors' attention and let them sort it out.

klondiketoo - I find your post very negative and upsetting as your views don't reflect my opinions on posters and postings on this board. Yours is definitely not a "good apples and soft skin" post.

adrienne

If anyone is interested in the post where someone asked if this is normal banter, here it is.

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...ousands.cfm?34

CYESQ

Hi klondike It's official for me. One of the posters (who shall remain nameless unless she would like to fess up) has actually called me old and crotchety. Another called me out in a way that was so offensive that I asked for an apology and was told that I did not deserve one.

When I signed up, I used the Europe/US/travel forums and then started to wander into the Lounge. I learned a very hard lesson that to disclose an opinion here leaves one especially vulnerable to the spews and vents of others who may have nothing valuable to contribute but seem to enjoy lashing out at others. The personal confrontation sometimes comes across as so angry and ugly.

This forum presents some intesting and provocative thoughts and subjects which can be a nice distraction during the day. But when the topics go sideways and devolve into mudslinging, it's not a pretty sight. I just don't understand why it's necessary to rant or speak unkindly to one another. I may think that a post is silly or whatever and I have to make the decision whether to respond or keep quiet. There have been lots of posts that I thought were utterly stupid and it was prudent for me to just stay away from the post and go elsewhere to make a helpful contribution.

I saw that new person's post as well and it was a pretty good reflection of some people's behavior - and it was embarrassing. This should be a fun and enlightening group discussion, not a place to tar and feather those who don't believe the same as someone else does. For whatever it's worth, this is my two cents worth. Thanks for your post.

CYESQ

Sorry, I need to make a correction. I had one of those "over 50" moments and thought that I was in the Lounge. I stand by my previous comments but they pertain to the posts in the Lounge, not on the Europe forum. I agree that for the most part, the comments in the travel forums are helpful and only occasionally are negative. I can see how some of the sarcasm could offend a newcomer, but don't think it's generally intended. When the 100th person asks what they should do to see all of Europe in a week, we can get a little snarky.

qwovadis

Agree 100% with your comments having been slammed and defamed by a few "regulars" over on Maroc recently for trying to help newbies fend off first time no profile touts and trolls posting helpful links to them.I find much to my amazement I am a "sinister" profiteer making millions from "clicks" instead of what I thought I was just a traveler helping other travelers.If only it were true.For me a thick skin IS required and forgiveness is the vestibule of heaven. I think a few regulars tend to forget posting guidelines below.The golden triangle of death was created for a reason. The key to getting along is universal respect.

Keep it positive and welcoming to a general audience.
The anonymity of the forums sometimes leads people to say things they wouldn't in a face-to face-conversation. Please remain civil and refrain from personal attacks on other posters. Sarcasm, no matter its intent, is a tricky thing to interpret online and may be perceived as a personal attack.
Personal attacks and offensive comments will be removed and can result in the suspension of your account. These include but aren't limited to:
•Profanity and other vulgar, obscene, and sexually suggestive and/or explicit language (no matter how creative the spelling)
•Attacks on an individual or group's race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexual preference, political or religious beliefs, or physical characteristics
•Inflammatory material or references

Padraig

Fodor's is a community, but not a community like Stepford. It comprises people with different personalities, experiences, viewpoints, and even communications expertise. While you might find the style of some people grates on you, I would find that an excessively sanitised forum would lose much of what keeps me coming back here.

Yes, sometimes people cross the line that I would draw if I were the moderator. But other people would probably draw different lines, and if all those lines became boundaries, there might be very few people left here.

If people want to curl up and die as the result of witnessing one or other of the more robust exchanges that can be found here, then I would wonder about their capacity to endure the vicissitudes of travelling in Europe.

CYESQ

Quite right Padraig - and I missed saying that I do enjoy robust exchanges, very much do so. It's when some people cross that line of civility and go to more extreme negative behavior that's not enjoyable. I like a good argument, I don't like heated arguments because (IMO) that's when people lose their objectivity and start the unnecessary roughness.

adrienne

<< I would wonder about their capacity to endure the vicissitudes of travelling in Europe >>

I agree but would also wonder about their ability to survive life's more dramatic moments.

zeppole

klondiketoo,

I don't know if you realize it, but in the thread that you got you "thinking," when the poster asked if anger was the norm, etc., everybody turned around and pointed a finger at me and implied I was responsible for everything this newbie was complaining about.

However, if you click on the newbie's screen name, you will see that I never responded in a single thread she had posted in. She asked lots of questions about Italian trains and other things I never even click on. The nasty exchanges were between other feuding Fodor's regulars.

I have pointed out before that the people claiming they are champions of civility on Fodor's are nothing of the sort. The only call for civility as a way of continuing a feud. Their posting style is actually quite insulting most of the time not only to the people they want to "get even" with, but to new posters. They are sarcastic, derisive, mocking and could care less how they are perceived and how their targets feel.

If you would like a nice, thoughtful travel board, go to Frommer's. It really is nice, and the posters are flexible in their travel thinking, and quite a few have the capacity to imagine other people's feelings, even when they are different from their own. I have no idea how old they are, but they are not set on dogmas and formulas for travel. They respond to the questions asked, not from some truly stupid travel ideology created out of a universe of one.

You seem to imagine that on Fodor's, the same people who pound in "Priceline! Priceline! Priceline!" as the answer to any query about finding a London hotel, or who automatically recycle their 12-year-old cut-and-paste bus tour itinerary to any inquiry about Tuscany, or who put up indecipherable gnomic nonsense about trips to places nobody is even asking about are capable of putting themselves in other people's shoes and imagining how they feel. It's nice you have such a big imagination, but I tend to think you are imagining something you about which there is abundant evidence to show these people are not going to change. To prove it, I'll stop posting, and not just in this thread. You can monitor if they start responding with any greater sensitively to new posters (especially if they are young).

ilana25841

Interesting thread. I've read some posts that make me wonder whether the responder wants to be helpful, or wants to draw attention to his/her cleverness/"razor sharp wit"/brilliance, or simply wants to make noise.

To an annoying post (and I grant you there are plenty, especially depending on how badly your own day is going), one has a choice:
-ignore, or
-politely point out how the question might be usefully framed or relocated

But beyond that, most of the responses are just self serving to the responder. I learned a useful acronym to use when meeting new customers: WAIT (why am I talking?). Something posters might consider.

Marija

Qwo--if you think that throwing out links that often don't work or have nothing to do with the question, (including in the last year 700 references to insure my trip), surrounded by nonsensical text, is helping the novice traveler, I respectfully disagree.

zeppole

PS to all:

Adrienne linked to this thread but I will link to it again because it really is an excellent example of how the "good" people of the Fodorite community manage to persuade themselves that anything they do is "good" and any angry criticism of it is "bad apples."

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...ousands.cfm?34

A fair number of Fodorites apparently honestly believe that as long as you don't raise your voice or use a mean word, it is perfectly civil to put pressure an employee in a tourist board who has already helped you all he can but simply couldn't give you wanted. They think it is perfectly all right to come to Fodor's and put up an insulting, even slanderous, unsubstantiated headline on a post, looking for "community support" for this behavior. It's OK with Fodorites to suggest to more ways to harass employees of the Rome tourist board with tweets and e-mails and Facebook postings. They were as a group completely oblivious to the idea that maybe their incivil behavior might provoke anger at them (I think legitimate).

I don't think this is nice behavior or demonstrates a nice community bedeviled by a few "bad apples." The Fodor's community is dominated by people who don't recognize they are small time bullies who think it is fun or righteous to slap and push others around, and when somebody steps up on behalf of those being bulled and says outright the bullying behavior is ugly, destructive and uncalled for, they so hate the taste of their own medicine they spit back at the whistle-blower night and day and say how shocking and awful that person must be to such a thing about this virtuous community.

zeppole

One more pensées d’escalier, then I will vanish as foretold:

I was struck the other while reading an article by an economist that he made a distinction between a "society" and a "community."

The article mentioned in passing that a society is made up of people whose fundamental interest is one of completing transactions, and therefore is open to new ideas to facilitate that activity. A community, he said, involves people bound by sentimentality, which resists new information, so cronyism becomes the way a community survives.

Might be true!

ira

Hey klon,

>the great posters of Fodor's are becoming OLD and CROTCHEDY!<

That's crotchety to you, buster.

If you have nothing better to do than go around calling people names, that's up to you. However, I'm not going to waste my valuable time responding to this sort of nonsense.

No siree, I'm just going to sit here in my rocking chair on the front porch and watch the car go by. It goes East in the AM and West in the PM.

klondiketoo

Thank you, all, for taking the time to reflect and share your thoughts.

This posting was not meant to offend, take sides, or upset anyone. It was an open forum to get others' perspective on the topic. I specifically posted on the Europe forum because that is the one I use and was reflecting on; the Lounge is a different forum where one expects a greater repartee just by its very nature.

This post was my sharing my reflections with you, on my own attitudes--to question how/if they've changed, why they may have changed, etc.--and to listen to yours if you cared to share. Hence the word "musings" instead of "complaints" or "rant", and "we" instead of "you", to share my impressions, to express my feeling. Sometimes it's nice to know you can do that.

I can only be accountable to me and certainly don't need or want to "monitor" anyone else. Fodor's has their watchdogs for the extreme cases. I can't do anything about others who don't look inward or can't/won't change.

But if, in the process, my musing gets others to stop and consider what they bring to the Fodors' Table as well, I don't consider that a negative thing. I like Fodor's; I would like it to be the best it can be.

"99% positive posts" is a good number; I'll take it. But I like 100 even better. If that makes me a dreamer, then I guess that's how I see myself. If others view me as negative, that certainly is their perogative; that's the beauty of a forum.

Happy Travels!

klondiketoo

Point well taken, Ira!...at least I called you "great", right?

(hope you're feeling better, by the way)

ira

>... then started to wander into the Lounge. I learned a very hard lesson....<

Sheesh. Try walking into a corner bar in Hoboken some evening.
..............................................
Hey Zepp,

>a society is made up of people whose fundamental interest is one of completing transactions, and therefore is open to new ideas to facilitate that activity. A community, he said, involves people bound by sentimentality, which resists new information, so cronyism becomes the way a community survives.<

I take issue with the definition of community as being a group "bound by sentimentality". To me a community is a group that is bound by more than a desire to engage in market transactions - an idea which is beyond the ken of the Chicago School.

I also take issue with the idea that a group organized to "complete transactions" will necessarily be open to new ideas.

Of course, by defining these words in the way he has, your economist can just say that I'm merely a member of a community and am bound by sentimentality to resist new ideas.

OTOH, as a doctor I can find him mentally unstable and delusional. By denying my diagnosis he proves that he is delusional.

ira

Hi KK,

Thanks.

Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better.

suec1

Well OP I agree with you - sometime ago (years?) there was a frequesnt and knowledgable poster that passed away - there was a link to his obituary - in it was the phrase "he did not suffer fools gladly" - I think there are a number of posters on this board who see this as something to aspire to.

I work in a job where I have to be extremely patient - often far beyond my natural inclination. When I "hit the wall" I usually try to let off steam with (I hope) mildly sarcastic comment but in the end I try to be as patient as possible.

What I don't understand is when a question that is asked is redundant or naive - just don't answer it if it annoys you. Its not like these posters are in front of your desk!