Dear Jacob

Recently a lot of political posts have been allowed. It's your forum, but it seems to be a fairly new development. When I first came here it was a refuge from the toxic political environment where I could just talk mystery shopping. We managed to get through a horrible election without any drama to speak of.
Now, Moosehoose refuses to stop making political posts slamming liberals. I always feel like I need to defend myself from him and that is not a nice feeling. I"m not even that much of a liberal, being a more tolerant, middle of the road type, personally. I can imagine how the more wallflowerish among us feel.
Why do you allow posts that target roughly half of us and make us feel bad, or angry, or unfairly targeted? I just don't get it. And yes, I wouldn't want to see that type of thing about Conservatives either.
I have successfully ignored somewhat political posts in the past and not complained, because it wasn't a pattern of the person who started the thread. This is a pattern. It's a refusal to stop targeting liberals and calling them names and accusing them of everything under the sun. That is why I'm speaking up about it.
I know there is an ignore option but you also know that it's not 100% effective. At all.

If this is the new normal then I have to rethink the time I spend here.
Thanks, CQ

Permitting a hostile environment to grow in the forum is not a solution. Just advising other forum members to toggle the offending party is like blaming the victim, IMHO.

I know some people didn't like it, but the thumbs down button certainly gave good hints (putting it mildly) about what was acceptable/members were willing to tolerate.

Deactivating the thumbs down button was not such a great idea. I guess we can still report threads we think are inappropriate, but I have done that before and nothing happened. I have seen these posts where forum members attacked another forum member for their political stance, and reported it, and...crickets. Nothing. Yet, I joking called another forum member a pot stirrer and my thread was deleted with a note that I had personally attacked him (after he had liked my post). Sheesh. I guess it depends on who you are and whether the mods like the other person and/or their politics better than you and/or yours.

I feel attacked and saying my town (Hollywood Shame) in OP's thread and allowing it to go on and on will of course bring a response. Mooshoose has an agenda and it is political. Talking about politics, bullying one due to their preference or talking about religion is not acceptable. Everyone has a "right" to their personal view, and a shopping forum is NOT the place for others to bully, put down or be made fun of. he/she is nothing but a troll stirring the pot. I want to thank CoffeeQueen for her brave thread, and please don't leave, we've had fun, but I understand, things get too heated so why waste your time.....whoever agrees with me to ban Moosehead, please vote.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/08/2017 04:23PM by Irene_L.A..

The political threads do not affect shops or shoppers. In the past others have defended political discussions by saying it's part of General Chat, but that's a false equivalence. General Chat involves shoppers talking about their personal activities and food and beverage preferences, i.e., innocuous, general chat about shoppers' daily lives. Topics about celebrities and politics is unrelated to shopping or shoppers.

Using the thread purposely to create a stir is a misuse of the thread. There are many other forums that cater to discussions of celebrity lives, why come here to talk about it? Same with politics and religion. Why go to a mystery shopping forum to discuss those topics? There is an internet forum for every proclivity. The only reason to cross-post is to provoke a fight. The topic of celebrity wrongdoing doesn't affect MSing, MSers, or the OP. It's irrelevant.

i think many threads or posts in forum usualy, general chat are irrelevant. to msing. from what i can tell its been going on for years.
celebrities shop all the time. they just dont have to write reports when they get home.

The problem with moderating political threads has been that, in the past, only one side has been moderated. There are long-time posters who are given a pass on their posts while others are jumped on immediately. That's what happened with the thumbs-down. A small group of posters decided to downvote anything by particular individuals.

The easiest solution is to separate the posts into a Politics forum. Then those of us who would rather discuss politics in a more appropriate forum can just skip that section. You don't need to "defend" your point of view here. I'm guessing that close to 100% of people here are set in their ways and not apt to change from a message board post.

It’s not clear what you are referring to, unless it was cut off my this annoying baby ad in my face , below your post.

@michaelfitz.gerald wrote:

It’s not clear what you are referring to, unless it was cut off my this annoying baby ad in my face , below your post.

Do you frequent this forum, often enough to pass comment? I know I haven’t been there myself. It sounds like it’s a general convo board , which is allowed here.

The question becomes...what is socially correct and that is for Jacob to decide, and us to abide....lose good long time members or cater to a troll....balls in your court jacob (with all respect).

@iShop123 wrote:

The easiest solution is to separate the posts into a Politics forum. Then those of us who would rather discuss politics in a more appropriate forum can just skip that section. You don't need to "defend" your point of view here. I'm guessing that close to 100% of people here are set in their ways and not apt to change from a message board post.

I am sure that there are already politics forums out there, just like there are cooking forums, mystery shopping forums, etc. This one is about mystery shopping...but the offending thread is in general chat. I guess people can choose to participate or to not participate in that particular thread. But, it seems as if it was created to get a rise out of people and create dissension, which is why the OP created the thread we are posting in.

@Irene_L.A. wrote:

whoever agrees with me to ban Moosehead.

Oh I just caught your typo. Was that on purpose? That's hilarious. Even more hilarious if it was unintentional.

I am not sure that banning anyone is a solution, but it would be nice if people could just behave civilly, or at least some of the time. It gets a bit tiresome when some forum members seem to get bored when things are calm and peaceful in the forum and are hellbent on causing trouble for their own amusement.

@JASFLALMT wrote:

@Irene_L.A. wrote:

whoever agrees with me to ban Moosehead.

Oh I just caught your typo. Was that on purpose? That's hilarious. Even more hilarious if it was unintentional.

I am not sure that banning anyone is a solution, but it would be nice if people could just behave civilly, or at least some of the time. It gets a bit tiresome when some forum members seem to get bored when things are calm and peaceful in the forum and are hellbent on causing trouble for their own amusement.

Honest error....

@JASFLALMT wrote:

I am sure that there are already politics forums out there, just like there are cooking forums, mystery shopping forums, etc. This one is about mystery shopping...but the offending thread is in general chat.

AFAIK, Jacob has not seen fit to make a rule. Frankly, I wish he would, one way or the other. At *that* point, the message(s) can be removed for violating TOS.

Actually I wasn't asking for anyone to be banned. I would like to see clarity one way or the other as to if posts bashing liberals or conservatives either one is allowed. If no clarity appears and the situation continues then I will do what is best for me, and that is not remaining in a toxic environment.

Oh I know, CQ. It would be great if some people didn't have to try to create that toxicity that's got so many forum members feeling uncomfortable. I don't understand the motive. But I hope you don't leave over this.

CQ - this isn't worth leaving the forum. Ignore the politics. I'm absolutely sure most people wouldn't agree with my political views and i just focus on mystery shopping for the most part on this forum. The general topics to me is for harmless and light hearted topics.

The past as in the past six months?

@iShop123 wrote:

The problem with moderating political threads has been that, in the past, only one side has been moderated.

Irene, didn't you get the wrong end of the moose?

One of the same....just my opinion.

The usual suspects are ganging up in their campaign of bullying and censorship because only 'Liberal' views should be heard.

P.S. Please be advised that I won't be opening any more unsoliticited abusive PMs from those who find it necesssay to invade my personal space. I have never sent you PMs so I don't expect to receive vile abuse from you.

I am not Jacob, and the opening post was not addressed to me. But I am going to add my views as they relate to the topic of this thread and of a different thread on another forum board. In addition, I reference a third thread.

As of this early AM posting, name-calling was used in this thread and liked by other posters. It is possible that during typical waking hours, those posts will be moderated in the interest of decency, kindness, politeness, or some such quality. Meanwhile, we may wonder: Should the name-calling in previous posts in this thread be edited-- or should this behavior be taken with a grain of salt, an admonishment to consider the source, or some other platitude?

I believe that this thread references two concepts. First, there is a long-time (at least as long as I have been here) pattern of behaviors. Some posters seem to have a need to eradicate certain views while promoting certain other views. Second, I believe that the OP may have reached a tipping point when reading a recent thread that was in the General Chat section and expressed views and frustrations regarding how females are chronically targeted for assorted forms of abuse. I believe that the OP is referencing patterns of name-calling, haranguing, hijacking, diversion, domination, and other forms of personal attack or browbeating. Now, I don't know any of you personally and I do not know your genders. Thus, I cannot determine if a similar but smaller-scale abuse is occurring here. However, I can wonder. Today's wee wonderment is about us (the forum membership), how we behave here, and how our behavior compares to the chronic abuse that was the subject of another thread in the forum.

Is it chronic abuse when certain posters here consistently post personal attacks such as name-calling, haranguing, hijacking, or other methods of diversion, domination or browbeating? Are these methods acceptable ways to norm, dumb down, brainwash, arm-twist, or otherwise force compliance with a specific point of view, if only by making a certain point of view the only visible one? Are these methods used against certain posters often enough that some posters have become targets for these methods, which may or may not constitute chronic abuse? Can these methods impact us negatively, such as by eroding our personal/professional abilities to remain neutral when we are gathering and reporting information in this industry? Do we need the push-back from opposing views, if only to keep us sharp and aware of the difference between our personal views and our professional activities? Will exposure to a variety of notions help us to consider the gamut of views so that we can be opinion-aware while on the job and separate the subjective from the objective? And, aren't our jobs in this large industry related to the foundational purpose of this entire forum?

Should moosehoose be acknowledged for having a point of view instead of being attacked in their own thread and mentioned in this one as if this were a new issue instead of an apparent ongoing effort by certain forum members to control the viewpoints that they themselves see and, potentially, what other forum members will see? Was moosehoose targeted? Was moosehoose one in a series of targeted posters? Is there really a political point of view here that is just under the surface and waiting to pounce on certain posters who dare to opine differently and, worst of all, dare to post about it?

As an example, I refer to two posts made by one poster, That poster has written something similar to me and to moosehoose, in separate threads in which their point of view differed from moosehoose's and mine. The response indicates that I and moosehoose had blathered and that the poster could not get past a few sentences of that. Are there any additional instances of this particular response type?

How many instances of this and other pejorative remarks belong to the poster mentioned and/or to other posters? In contrast, this poster has written to the OP of this thread about the need to address the toxicity. Does that poster contribute in any way to the toxicity via their various response styles?

If the OP of this thread wants this forum to be free of the mentioned toxicity, they might begin to quantify and qualify the postings that constitute that toxicity. In this way, Jacob and/or the moderators might be able to see specific posts and series of posts from that viewpoint.



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 10/09/2017 09:03AM by Shop-et-al.

Shop-et-al has given us all something to think about.

Anyway, hopefully I Irene's 'ban the moosehead' campaign won't be successful.

Mystery shopping is a relatively new thing for me. It is not something I do for the money as it only provides me with less than 1 percent of my income. But it is a learning experience.

My background is totally different from anyone on here. Even if I mentioned anything about it, I know I would be branded a 'liar.' I have been called a 'liar' enough on this board already.

Anyway, I have been informed that others have stopped posting or stopped visiting this website because of certain posters.

But I believe most posters on this website are decent people. ChrisCooper and Walesmaven often make informative posts for example. They might not like my posts but I respect them for their knowledge in the field of mystery shopping.

Walesmaven might even make a good candidate for a moderator, if she stopped joining in with the silly filling up threads with recipes game.

This forum is a interesting for me as most places I go in the real world, I am well-liked (my opinion). My challenge is to convert people into liking me on this forum. I expect to be around for a while!

I have Moosehoose toggled. However, here is the first post in the thread I am referencing. I switched out the word Liberal and substituted Conservative. Draw your own conclusions.

Totally disgusting that Ashley Judd is receiving almost no support in the Weinstein sex abuse case from Conservative Hollywood.

Streep, Clooney, Kidman and the rest of the Republican crew refuse to condemn fellow Conservative Weinstein.

A big chance gone in the what should have been a fight against sexual abuse and violence of women.

Physician, heal thyself. Who are you to judge me? I have a subscription to National Review. I seek out informed political opinions on both sides. What I do not seek out is using either Liberal or Conservative as a perjorative. Moosehoose constantly blames every ill of the world on Liberals. And as I pointed out in my OP, they make up roughly half of the board.

@Shop-et-al wrote:

Should moosehoose be acknowledged for having a point of view instead of being attacked in their own thread and mentioned in this one as if this were a new issue instead of an apparent ongoing effort by certain forum members to control the viewpoints that they themselves see and, potentially, what other forum members will see? Was moosehoose targeted? Was moosehoose one in a series of targeted posters? Is there really a political point of view here that is just under the surface and waiting to pounce on certain posters who dare to opine differently and, worst of all, dare to post about it?

Coffee Queen is bringing up politics again! She has me toggled so I am sure she won't comment on my opinion below.

Just to clarify. I am not a Republican or Democrat. I vote for who best represents the country's interests. I don't respect people who have voted for the same guys for the last 50 years whether they are Republicans or Democrats.

Anyway, people should be able to criticize Trump as much as they like as long as they accept criticism of Mrs. Clinton.

i could give ra about political views of forum members. i find it the neverending & repetitive posts of certain posters to be more annoying. i love scroll bar.

@moosehoose wrote:

My challenge is to convert people into liking me on this forum.

That likely won't happen until all of the sensible people have left the forum.

And for the record, I have not PMed Moosehat or anyone else who I find boring and annoying (other person, you know who you are). You two birds keep flocking together...

Why would anyone NEED strangers to like them, conversion, not in my lifetime. First impressions rock.
Can we now get back to shopping and fun topics...please!!!!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/09/2017 10:45PM by Irene_L.A..