Ok, so what's all this about @xx posters being "rude"?

[ButchyRestingFace]

Come at me gently, please.

I do it all the time. And I'm a feminist.

I read that as @xx and thought it was some kind of targeted attack on women!

Hiroo, ta, I turned it off. Sorry I didn't hear you yelling. If you'd bothered to read the thread you'd have known.

@ButchyRestingFace
Is this really a feminist issue?

Oh fuck, I didn't know it did that. Sorry to everyone I've been @ing cos I was too lazy to do the bolding.

I remember a specific TRA poster several months ago (now banned I think) who would repeatedly @ posters, even when they were already on the thread talking to them. So you didn't just get one email from them - you got a shedload. It was clearly deliberate and it felt like it was meant to intimidate. I think it's been an issue on here ever since. On the other boards I go on it's used without a second thought.

Serfisafleur - it definitely seems to be as it's only on this board that you get told it's rude and for others to chime in with yeah, give up, it's rude!
Even if you've literally only ever done it the once.

Very recent member here - I had no idea this was considered bad form and I'd rather assumed that the person being @-ed got a notification on the site, not by email (the way most forums do it).

So if you want to thank someone, or ask a specific follow-up question, the only way to do it without the @ is to bold their name and hope - in a large and quickly growing thread - that they see it?

God I had no idea it was! I namechange a lot too so nobody will know I'm apologising to them... but er, sorry!

Very recent member here - I had no idea this was considered bad form

It isn't "bad form" Some posters don't like it. That is their prerogative and they can turn off the notifications.

God I had no idea it was! I namechange a lot too so nobody will know I'm apologising to them... but er, sorry!

There is nothing to apologise for.

There is no need to @ someone when they are already on the thread I feel. And I have seen it done by a fair few people just to annoy others who have asked for it not to be done.

Doesn't bother me as such, as my MN emails go straight to junk, but I imagine someone who actually takes notice of @ s and reads all their emails would be really annoyed by someone continuing to do it even though they are already currently part of the conversation!

I don't th ink it is rude. ( not that I have learned how to use the bold thing). It will depends on context eg on a thread about a topic there might be 3 recent posts and you are just answering one point from one person above so I might say "jane, my student children do XYZ"

Is this really a feminist issue?

It might be. Rumour had it the issue was particular to posters on the FM boards, so over I mosied to ask.

If the function is ever used as a tool for extra goady fuckery on another board on MN, a particular understanding regarding it may develop.

If someone has set themselves up repeatedly as an avowed adversary of the mean harpies on FWR, and then spends a lot of time whining about the fact that when they used the function that has been used by goady fuckers to harrass FWR posters in the past, some FWR posters were insufficiently nice about saying 'Don't do that', then perhaps the avowed adversary might want to be thinking along the lines of 'If the cap fits...'

Seriously. The reasons for the attitude towards it on FWR have been explained, at some length now. If you don't like it, you've made that plain. Continuing to complain is only going to entrench the feeling that particular people have axes to grind and is hardly going to remove the perspective that goady fuckery is the order of the day for some.

I read that as @xx* and thought it was some kind of targeted attack on women!

Oh, good call! No, I didn’t have anything like that consciously in mind when I typed it but it seems a bit Freudian now.

Perhaps it's a product of being old and a bit weary at the moment, but I can't iamagine having the energy to care about someone @ing me.