Heres how I see it and im probably one of the people the OP doesn't want to contribute but I will anyway.
I often take myself off the forum for a couple of weeks because there are posts that are just fantasy. I like this forum but I don't want to come on and read rubbish. theres enough real facts to keep the forum well and truly alive.
When I come back on, the rubbish is still there.. posts that conflict previous posts etc.. all stated as fact.
Ive got to the point where I don't really care anymore and ill point out discrepancies as they arrive. Many people have left this forum.. many of them were here from day 1 as I was.. they all left for a reason.
The " ignore" option was put here for a reason.
When posts are made that just don't add up or are in direct conflict to earlier posts then it needs to be addressed and its that addressing that causes vitriolic language and general nastiness.
Making stuff up on forums and having a negative effect is called trolling.
There is a reason why some people have a large amount of ignores to their name.
Well said, retropin and the ignore count observation speaks for itself.
The problem is that we are dealing with an individual who has decided to prioritise individual gratuitous ego masturbation over the greater good of community forum participation. This is why we constantly see threads get deliberately diverted to suit their own hubristic mindset and why they inevitably "turn to shit" and ultimately as a last resort get locked by the moderators thereby stifling decent forum participation.
The rub is that a personality type like that reads a thead like this and gets off on it as well as they can see that their repugnant behaviour is having a negative impact on both overall forum harmony and the generally positive interactions amongst most of its membership.
Maybe as a temporary solution the mods can set up a separate ego masturbation sub-section in the forum where an individual can feel the need to validate their self worth as the need arises, rather than constantly poisoning good threads with pointless anecdotes and self serving third party fantasy? I don't think in anyone's mind that this repeated repulsive behaviour qualifies as not only a character defect but bordering on a mental disorder so perhaps we should be looking to accommodate rather than futilely attempting to change it for the better. This way if an offending post makes its way into the main sections of the forum the mods can simply move the post to the newly created section without deleting the post or locking the thread. The post will still exist so there can be no spurious claims of discrimination and the rest of us can continue on with the thread discussion and the subsequent original raison d'erte of the forum itself.
never thought of that. Moving posts that may hijack a thread is moved quickly. Two outcomes may occur, such posts will stop or the mods will get so pissed that offenders find themselves having to visit other forums or take a good long cold shower. Thanks for the suggestion
