I was quite saddened to speak to a FORMER member of this site today

[Cheryl Baumgartner CITRMS]

This is not going to go over to well with some folks here, but oh well. I'm quite saddened by the fact that a member was made to feel so uncomfortable here because they expressed offense at a post, that they felt their only option was to leave. This thanks to a third party.

Are we all adults here? Yes we are adults which means we should know how to act like adults. There is no excuse for anyone to get run off of this site because the members lack a little something called tact. I won't go into all of the gory details but I will say that we each have our opinions and every member of this site deserves to be respected.

The name of this site is Unfettered which means each and every one of us is free to be ourselves but it is never at the expense of another member. I'm quite appalled that it happened but even more appalled at the situation that caused this member to leave. I'd like to suggest that we act like adults meaning that we are fully capable of thinking before speaking or rather posting. There is no need whatsoever for a member to be made to feel as if they are being attacked!

So I have had to apologize profusely to this former member for the treatment received on Unfettered, a place which I believe was envisioned to be welcoming to new members and old members alike. A place where we are all welcome to come socialize and get to know each other in a relaxed atmosphere. I do not believe it was ever meant to be a place to spew vitriol at others. But that is exactly what has happened.

[Garnet Nagy]

wtf? Where have I been...what the hell is going on??

[Cheryl Baumgartner CITRMS]

I sent you a private message

[Karl F. Rose]

Cheryl, as you know from other sites I have been quite busy with things. I just want to say that this upsets me as well. I'm not sure if I want to KNOW the gory details but I just wanted to express my concern that a member has been 'run off'. Hopefully(and I KNOW you WILL) be handling the situation accordingly to make sure that this sort of thing does NOT spread like a cancer cell. A SAD DAY for Unfettered. Well I have to run. I am bombarded with other things but felt it NECESSARY to stop in for a minute and put in my 2 cents worth. It kinda sours my 'holiday spirit'.

[Arthur Webster]

a member was made to feel so uncomfortable here because they expressed offense at a post, that they felt their only option was to leave

This is exactly what is wrong with people nowadays - and I thought Unfettered was a description as well as a title.

How many people did it take to make this person 'so uncomfortable' that they had to leave?

How much offence did this person give to the writer of the post they took offence at?

If this person took offence at a post, did they qualify the offence or did they just say something like "You can't say that!"? It's all very well taking offence at a post but, having made that offence public, a real adult, grown up person would be able to fight their corner and defend their action OR admit that they were wrong to react so strongly.

While I have been struggling with an eye that seems determined to die, I have not been around a great deal on line but, one of the things I have been doing quite a bit of is verbal sparring. No matter how heated any discussion got, nobody flounced out in high umbrage and ran home to mummy.

It has become more and more clear that no matter how well intentioned the creation of a community might be, and David certainly had a great idea here, in these days of delicate sensitivities and the inability to formulate and express cogent and convincing ideas - there will always be those who express themselves strongly (vitriolic? really?) and those who cave in once their stated opinion is challenged because they have NOTHING to back up that opinion.

A forum is a place of debate. It is a place where friends meet and converse in terms that they would not normally use. It is a place akin to a boys' club or a girls' club where the subjects of conversation are open targets and, the greater the potential offence, the greater the group laughter - even though no real offence is intended.

Who is the greater offender of the two embroiled in this debacle -
The original poster for posting something that somebody could take offence at?
or
The offence taker for making a post that they could not, subsequently defend against a robust counter attack and so, had to bleat to admin and run away?

I'm quite sure that if real vitriol had been in evidence, the rest of the membership would have rallied round 'the offended' and given support - had they been given the opportunity.

[Cheryl Baumgartner CITRMS]

Arthur there is a big difference in stating an unpopular opinion and posting what people will find offensive and abusive. There is a line there. If we want the freedom to call ourselves
Unfettered it comes with the responsibility of knowing not to cross that line.

Nowhere in the "you are among friends, speak your mind" tagline does it give free license to blatantly post content you already know is inflammatory or will be taken as offensive by the other members.

This was never meant to be a place to freely offend other people, it was meant to be a place where all can feel welcome Debate is one thing openly offensive actions are another thing entirely.

[Arthur Webster]

Hi, Cheryl,

If we all decided to set ourselves up as the arbiters of taste and bought a big supply of blue pencils nobody would post anything anywhere and expect it to be there long enough to be seen by the membership..

It is not possible for a community to police itself if it is not aware of things that are going on behind the scenes. Certainly no community can exist if, like Adland, the only posts that are allowed are "Ooh, Lovely!" because I find that extremely offensive.

I find it offensive, also, that members do not have a say in what gets deleted - the whole point of this group was to get away from the police state of other forums but we seem to have brought it with us.

It is deeply offensive to me for anybody to post assinine comments simply for the fact of having posted but I would not dream of deleting such a post simply on my own opinion because I am aware that many people like simpering and 'being positive'.

Surely there must come a time when people past the age of 18 are treated as grown up and responsible people?

Far too many times the need to express a very strong feeling is looked upon as something disgraceful but there are times in everybody's life when the head of steam builds to a level that has to be demonstrated - otherwise, how is anybody to know that you have strong feelings and the measure of that strength?

Once the censorship issue raises its ugly head, and I have seen it so many times before, it becomes a rampaging monster tearing through a forum with no intent at all except to say "I don't like that so I am going to erase it" and before too much time has passed, you finish up with a crowd of giggling wimps sitting round a candle crocheting antimacassers and reminding each other how twuly, twuly wuvwy they all are - being so positive and all. Yeeuuuchhh!

[Cheryl Baumgartner CITRMS]

"Surely there must come a time when people past the age of 18 are treated as grown up and responsible people?"

Yes the time comes when they ACT like grown up and responsible people not children seeing just how much they can "get away with".

[Arthur Webster]

So, in your opinion, posting an aggrieved response to someone else's post and then running away in the face of a robust defense is 'being adult?'

Unfortunately the offending posts have been deleted so nobody else can form an independent judgement.

It has taken me a while to respond to this because I have been debating whether Unfettered really is - and I have had to draw the conclusion that it isn't. No club can have a member berated simply because another member makes a claim of unfair conduct. There are four admin members and at least one of them knew nothing at all about this - if admin aren't a team and aren't informing the membership of what they are doing, they need to look very carefully at how they are operating.

Look again at what you wrote "a member was made to feel so uncomfortable here because they expressed offense at a post" and then tell me there was not a degree of drama queen type hubris being deployed here.

Any grown up person who decides to express offence at what another grown up person says has absolutely no right to then cry foul when the other grown up person decides to defend him/her self even if it might be a more robust defense than necessary. It is called debate, argument, an exchange of words or, even, a dispute - only children run away to mummy and cry 'he was rude to me!" and mummy, if she has half the sense of most of the Mummies I know will ask "Why?".

It seems I still need to find out where the real grown ups are.

[Garnet Nagy]

Hi Arthur,

Real grown ups? If you actually find one Please do let me know! LOL.....

At any rate, we all have our own little 'ticks' no matter how grown up we believe ourselves to be, I'm sure. As for how someone reacts in the heat of a debate may have something to do with what they have experienced in the past and how they have learned(or not!) to handle their self. Personally, well I suppose I could go on, but I'd much rather say 'pluck it' and forget about it already...

[Cheryl Baumgartner CITRMS]

Yes I agree, The person who made the offending post acted like an adult and removed it. It would have been the end of it but a third party decided to bring it back up and use that as an opportunity to heap derision on the one who found themselves offended while defending the actions of the one who made a post which the average person would find offensive.


That has now been forestalled by the update to the rules which have been read and agreed to by David. This can now be brought to a close since any further posts of that nature will dealt with.