To wonder if some posters ever think before they respond to an OP

[user1485342611]

I've just seen several threads today where responses to the OP have been unnecessarily rude, nasty, personal and unpleasant. I'm not talking about threads where the OP has posted something really insensitive, contentious or goody. Just threads where OPs have expressed minor annoyance about something, or posted a perfectly innocuous opinion. Some of them must be feeling dreadful at the nasty, snippy, hurtful, unfair or malicious responses being piled down on them.

AIBU to think that, even if you are disagreeing with an OP, you should remember that they're a real person with God knows what going on in their lives and a bit of civility wouldn't go amiss?

I've noticed it too. I don't object to people "fishing for compliments" on here. If someone is looking for reassurance about the way they look then what's wrong with that? Women are allowed to want to feel better about themselves. Saying nothing at all is always an option, instead of making barbed comments. I think people are too often accused of stealth boasting too. Again this seems to be the confidence police trying to ensure no-one gets above themselves.

Pluckedpencil

Do you have a link to the Radio 4 series you mentioned? Is it womans hour proper or a spin off?

I saw someone being too they 'should see a therapist' today over a pretty harmless view they'd stated in an OP. Another poster jumped on eagerly to agree. Pretty disgusting to say that to a stranger on the internet who you know nothing about.

TBF these MN forums are a particularly shit format, not allowing edits, replying, avatars which would allow you to easily recognise shit stirrers (I've started to spot the same usernames again and again being aggressive but with just a stream of comments it's harder to spot than on FB for example). A really simple way to make the forums better would be to have upvote and downvote buttons like Reddit has, so it's built into the mechanics. AIBU could even have radio buttons under the OP so you could just vote Y or N!

Yes, I think the inability to press a quote button and reply directly to a previous person's post means that some posters get away with nasty comments that would be highlighted and criticised very quickly on other forums. Bolding their comment or putting quote in brackets after it doesn't really have the same effect and can even be a bit confusing at times.