To feel sorry for some posters on AIBU?

[passemoilevin]

Even ones that have BU. They have hundreds of people scrambling to call them names, call their kids names etc. Not just a page, but 20 pages absolutely laying into them off the back of one silly post of a couple of hundred words.

I've been on the firing line, and it's made me feel absolutely shit, and I'd never post here again except in a lighthearted scenario even after a few wines (except this one clearly).--

I get that this is what AIBU is all about. And honesty is appreciated. But calling people cunts over the silliest stuff, saying they shouldn't be parents, saying they're not surprised nobody likes them etc when clearly the poster is vulnerable and down. What do people gain from that? I don't get it.

YABU because.. is easy enough to say. You are a stupid unreasonable cunt and I feel sorry for your poor children to have a mother like you is never acceptable IMO. Sometimes I feel desperately sorry for some posters on here, and feel others forget they are real people.

Yanbu

I have made up my own name for it “forum fatigue”, this used to manifest itself slightly more gently (not another x thread, this has been done to death, use the search function etc) after being around the forum for a while people just forget that someone may be a genuine person looking for advice. Posters just come to see it as entertainment and so that’s why you get accusations of troll, drip feed etc really quickly. Like someone does not bother to mention something as maybe it didn’t seem to be relevant, like “I live in a bungalow” immediately there are MASSIVE DRIP FEED OP! Comments from self satisfied “I know the rules” types. Also it’s not always appreciated that a gang of people post all at once, you can get 5-6 comments all of a similar nature within seconds (esp from the self satisfied “I think you mean you’re, not your” types) which feels really shit if you are the OP and everyone seems to be piling in being horrible.

well sorry but I don't know what they mean !

I post because I want to. So...?

You're obviously free to post, but it's weirdly martyrish to dislike something so much and then to go out of your way to participate in it.

People who get abusive and personal get deleted.

However, if you want kittens and sparkles and fairies and "awww hun, ur babz ur rulez" then maybe this isn't the forum for you. Nobody's forcing you to post, read or even be a MN member.

See this implication that you’re not sensible or robust enough for MN so should go somewhere more fluffy is annoying too. People are unpleasant and attacking on here at times and people do come along, see a pile in and gleefully join in. It doesn’t mean you’re a delicate little flower because you get upset by it. A load of strangers telling you’re a shit person on very flimsy grounds would upset most people.

There is some very aggressive and abusive behaviour recently and I cannot understand why these posters think it's acceptable. I have decided as soon as the abuse starts, I disengage and I will not respond to those posters again.

The same names seem to crop up again and again, and god help anybody who offers an opinion which they do not like. Instead of replying to the point which they disagree with, what they do is announce to the thread how the poster is some label which is horrible, and then make up whole backstory about what they think is behind your post, that you must have a secret evil motivation or be anti-something, or be in whichever profession they like to put you in to then hate you even more. I am so shocked by the levels of anger and a weird all-consuming vendetta which seems to eat some posters up every time there is any remote questioning of an area in which they have some adamant belief which they cannot even bear to think about.

I don't know why some posters cannot just debate or discuss politely, I wonder what hell it must be in RL to engage with them. We all have different opinions, and on AIBU especially we are surely creating the scene for two camps really - Yes, UABU or No, YANBU. So let's allow us all to speak and politely disagree or challenge, surely?

I’m the least delicate snowflake there is, I still think some MN posters need an empathy infusion! There is a happy medium between an arsehole and the hun/babes type responses I would imagine LunaSpectreSpecs.

That's what I thought Mummyoflittledragon. I really had to sit on my hands when some scammers came on to a thread complaining about them, it was very difficult! I don't want to be deleted. 😇

Agree totally Ski4130, the go off to another site that's all fluffy is the number one response from a certain type of poster when called out on their aggression. When I first joined MN there was an acronym that was widely quoted - PARD, meaning polite and reasonable discussion, that concept has completely disappeared from AIBU.

It is perfectly possible to disagree with someone robustly or criticise them or their actions without being downright nasty.

The funeral thread referenced earlier is a great example of posters piling in on the OP for something unrelated to the question she posed, - she's been torn to shreds for not attending the funeral, for feeding her child chips, for her husband returning to work after the wake, accused of not loving the person who died and generally mocked and vilified. That's not robust discussion it's just plain old spite.

I'm in the minority as I find it entertaining BUT there have been occasions where I've typed a response and then had to delete it all before I posted it because it was unnecessarily harsh. I think the fact that I've also been banned from two other forums that I've been a member of for years is a sign that my posting style has become more harsher since posting here. But my posting history on the whole has been mostly kind. I think.

I would actually like to find an alternative forum but can't find anywhere else online that's got the same range of topics and such active discussion.

Mission you find it entertaining when people are on the receiving end of a sustained verbal kicking?

CassandraCross

Sometimes. (But I was actually talking about finding AIBU entertaining in my other post, not the sustained kickings). If you can dish it out you have to take it, so if every response from here on out are posts attacking me for saying that then, shrug I can't act shocked and upset by it after what I've just posted.

I don't think it's right at all to tell posters to go to another site that's more 'fluffy' just because they pull you up for being nasty and abusive. Why should they? Why are you not able to consider that maybe you have crossed a line and the right thing to do might be to tone it down? No one is saying you should change your opinion.

The funeral thread is disgraceful. Nothing but bullying.

Nine times out of ten the OP who is getting a kicking isn't dishing it out, Mission, they are just expected to take it 'cos it's AIBU innit.

You can tell someone they're being unreasonable without being a bitch, sadly bitchiness seems to be the main aim of some commenters on here. They make a sport of it.

YANBU. I won't go into details because it was under another username and I don't want to dig it all up again but I once posted about a disagreement I had with DH and I did mention that I was struggling because my gran had passed away just weeks before. Looking back it was one of the most vulnerable times of my life and of course I shouldn't have posted personal stuff online but it's hard to see straight at the time. Anyway people really ripped into me without considering the circumstances. They seemed to assume I was a horrible selfish person and reacted accordingly but I'm really not. To be fair, some people were supportive but I was very overwhelmed by the vitriol of the negative responses. I just remember reading the replies and crying so hard I could hardly see the screen. I suppose I sound pathetic but it was the last straw at a really difficult time. I absolutely begged mumsnet to delete the thread but they wouldn't. There can be a bit of a dog piling mentality on AIBU. Of course people are entitled to express their opinions but just remember that there is a real person reading them and you are talking about their life.

I'm very new to MN and TBH I'm shocked at some of the bullying, name calling and spite that is thrown out on some of these threads. Some of the language is also rather unnecessary as well and I am not a prude. I feel sorry for people who might be feeling a bit low and are then bombarded with some hate filled comments, though I do agree that it is ridiculous when somebody asks about BU and then will not accept the majority view that indeed they are and just continue to argue and inflame the situation further.
But I thought this was a forum to support and give thoughts and advise, not throw around ridiculous assumptions and spite.

If you don’t like it maybe you’re better off posting on NetHunz....not that different to women being to,d that if they don’t like Twitter death and rape threats then don’t use Twitter, is it? The premise is that it’s your choice to be here, and if you can’t take the heat then piss off. Exactly like playground bullying.

It's all over MN. I posted on the food/recipe board asking for some recipes for someone who can't chew and got a barrage of 'you are so wrong they can chew, stop panicking' messages, I think it's just a stressful time of year all round.
Then I inadvertently did it myself...someone asked for bulking out Christmas ideas for teens and I said ' don't do it, you'll set yourself up for years of misery' which was entirely about me projecting my own struggle not to disappoint my own hopeful/oblivious teens, and came across as judgy even though I wasn't feeling judgy at all, just empathetic to the pressure.
The translate all of those negative type posts into AIBU where being negative/controversial is the point of the board and it just becomes horrid.

Perhaps this is just me - probably! - but t seems like the nastiness has been in fuller flow last week and this than it has been for a while. Not sure if everyone is just tired or stressed by Christmas or what, but it does seem worse even than usual.

Oh Millenial you don't sound pathetic at all. I'm sorry you had that. I've never cried but I have felt cold and sick and I suppose a bit in shock before. Was to do with my children who later both went on to be diagnosed with additional needs.

I do rather judge those who enjoy it actually. Personally if I see a poster being laid into wholesale I won't join the thread even if I think they're totally out of order. Why do they need yet another person telling them how shit they are?

A while ago MNHQ clamped down on AIBU after a huge number of complaints and a thread in Site Stuff about how out of control it had become, it noticeably calmed down. However, it's even worse now than it was then perhaps it's time for MNHQ to become involved again.