"Dear Mr. and Mrs. UH, I'm not sure how to say this, but..."

I assume sharing your experience would be more appropriate for the journal section.
I meant specific experiences and feelings related to the thread topic. Not in journal form.
 
IMO, when you`re asked.

Makes sense.

Really? I thought it was to share different experiences.

From the line above the link to the Poly Relationships board on the main forum page:
"Help Sharing & Advice for real life Polyamorous relationships, new or otherwise." So, it does say sharing, but it also stays with help and had advice in it. Seems pretty clear to me.
 
From the line above the link to the Poly Relationships board on the main forum page:
"Help Sharing & Advice for real life Polyamorous relationships, new or otherwise." So, it does say sharing, but it also stays with help and had advice in it. Seems pretty clear to me.
Sure.

Personally, I try to give advice only when asked. Sometimes, I`d rather keep my feelings to myself even if asked. That is my attempted MO beyond board statements of purpose. I guess, were I to post in it, I would specifically ask what I was looking for. As I did in the one thread I posted here. I`m not in great danger of posting there! :eek:

On the other hand, I have come across posters who specifically ask for advice and then, either ignore it, take offense to it, or make the thread an unending list of rebuttals.

If those are the posters you`re concerned about, I feel your pain. :)
 
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It has been a balancing act for me over the years to find a place that is not teetered over the edge into flaming and a crash and burn forum and one that is so soft and mild mannered its boring. There have been several occasions where we have had to remove people from here for various reasons and we as the mods have discussed, at great length sometimes, what we should do. We have not always agreed, but we have always, I think, reflected the spirit of this forum in our conversations. That spirit is one of respectful consideration of our differences and styles of written communication. I intend to continue that as years go on. I don't expect that others will as there have been many that have come and gone, but I intend to rise about my compassion fatigue (over and over again, :p) and be the team player I signed up to be.
We want it to be a place for people to share their experiences and get advice, discuss issues etc. Our approach is generally hands off as much as possible and in my viewpoint that's been for a few key reasons.

We want people to be able to express themselves with minimal fear of censorship, even when what they have to say may be controversial. I used to enjoy a good debate at home IRL years ago, but it requires that people to respect each others opinions, but also take responsibility for the debates, discussions, and conflicts that may arise from their own actions.

But also, like real life, or the dinner party example, there aren't referee's sitting around to constantly police their guests to be nice and gentle with each other. So unless there's a serious issue where we get complaints, we leave it to members of this community to practice all the classic poly skills, as well as the more universal set of everyday interpersonal communications. Whether tough love, or gentle touchy feely, or something in between, each person comes from a place of what works for them.

The community is mostly self regulating on it's own...which is where threads like this are awesome. Not necessarily to badger each other into changing the way we conduct ourselves, but at least communicate about what affect certain communication styles have on others, and raise awareness of how our behavior can affect others, both where it helps, and where it can hinder. And that can apply equally to the kinder gentler styles, and the tough love styles.

It's not up to the mods to make everyone be kind, nor to insist that people aren't coddled, or to sooth them when they don't like the way a dose of reality was reflected to them. It's up to the members of the community to figure out how much of each is the right balance, both in general and for the individuals that we're trying to help. At the end of the day, regardless of the method being employed, I think everyone here has a sincere desire to help their fellows on this forum.

Imaginary speaks for me in this post. We have talked about what he has said many times. The only thing we may disagree on as mods is how much I post. :p I am willing to put myself out there as redpepper the regular on this forum as much as I am willing to be redpepper the mod of this forum. I hope I pull off both.
 
Just an observation:

I had, of course, heard about the Unicorn Hunter phenomena long before joining this forum, and I thought I had my head around it. Since being here, however, I'm astonished at how common it seems to be. The posts could all almost be cut 'n pastes of each other.
 
Yet another question is not just how, but *when* to give advice on these difficult topics. For example, in the Poly Relationships section, ok, the whole point of that board is to give advice! But if I'm reading someone's blog and I'm seeing things that I think are problematic...... do I mention it and risk starting a fraught discussion in what's supposed to be their safe space?

If you see something in a blog that you think is worth critical discussion, feel free to start a discussion on that topic on this board. A person's blog is protected from unwanted criticism; any particular scenario they blog about is not off-limits for discussion, provided it takes place elsewhere and doesn't invoke their specific tale.

So, no quoting of a blog post to illustrate a situation and no writing up a situation and referring to the blog post or using the names of that specific situation. File the serial numbers off, so to speak, and you can discuss it in general without tying any particular individuals to it.
 
Yes, believe it or not, oftentimes a great deal of thought and consideration goes into posts that could possibly be received as harsh.

Y'all have to trust me that I know how cold the water is in the buckets I sometimes empty on people. The shock of that water may be the thing that finally draws attention to something I believe somebody has missed when thinking about a situation.
 
Y'all have to trust me that I know how cold the water is in the buckets I sometimes empty on people. The shock of that water may be the thing that finally draws attention to something I believe somebody has missed when thinking about a situation.

Yep.

I find this thread really interesting. I posted more last year, but have mostly been reading since, too busy with other issues.

I'm always wary when someone asserts that it's not necessarily the message, but the tone you deliver it in that's the problem. That critique is so often used against women in this sexist society. It pisses me off. I'm *not* saying that's how it's being used here by posters, but it does fit into a societal pattern of silencing women with strong opinions. Too much repression is allowed to go on in the name of politeness. I'd rather err on the side of taking caustic responses with a grain of salt, responding directly to the tone if I'm the OP and aggrieved, or if it's bad, telling a mod.

However, I generally agree that a more neutral tone can be helpful in getting one's message across the interwebs (I'm not big on "empathy", I prefer solidarity). But that's not always the case in every circumstance. We all come to these posts with our own experiences and perceptions. For example, I just read the thread that kicked off this discussion for the first time. As a survivor of sexual assault, my immediate gut reaction to the OP was "WTF, that's predatory and evil!" and I might have said as much.

I teach and have to deal with all sorts of communication styles in the classroom. Managing those in a way that allows people to hear each other without imposing a uniform code (aside from really offensive behavior) is my goal. I think it's a fairly similar situation here.
 
I've been off the boards for nearly a year. But, spent a great deal of time posting for a couple years prior to that.

As I understand it-there IS a place where common topics/helpful threads are located. Its the golden nuggets section. I know a few of my previous threads got moved there for that precise reason.

Also, there was much discussion a few years back over segregating the boards somewhat so that there were specific areas for "newbies" and such. Changes were made and it was sectioned out more than it had been previously. That was how we got the "general poly discussions", the blog section and the intro section. It didn't used to be segregated even that much.

I do think one thing that would help greatly is if there was a "catch all" guide (maybe there is, my computer auto logs me in these days) in intro-that said, "hey, this section is for this or that and there's useful guide info threads in the golden nuggets"...
but, it really comes down to dealing with the fact that people differ in their ideas of what is or isn't polite and in their typing abilities. Someone's difficulty typing can easily be misinterpreted as being caustic or "short" with someone else-when really it's just that they struggle to type out their thoughts.
;)
 
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