If someone browbeaten away from Fluther decided to try again and asked you how it was now, what would you tell them?

It’s been quiet here for the last couple of weeks. Of course…I haven’t posted any questions about Native American Mexicans on Food Stamps and wearing pyjamas, either.

I would ask if they had changed: are they made of sterner stuff so that Internet rowdies cannot get to them now?

@marinelife I would ask if they had changed: are they made of sterner stuff so that Internet rowdies cannot get to them now?
Why should I ask that of them when there are some still here who don’t do that well?

@Hypocrisy_Central You asked our opinions, @marinelife gave hers and now you are browbeating her.

@chyna You asked our opinions, @marinelife gave hers and now you are browbeating her.
I am no more interrogating her than I would be blaming someone who left because they felt victimized if they changed as if the problem was solely with them. I am just curious as to why she would choose to address the behavior of the friend/close acquaintance than address the climate the person asked about, especially when that person would be no more or less thin-skinned than some present members.

We are coming up on election season. If you are thin skinned, it won’t be pleasant.

I’d say I’m still enjoying the day.

I agree with @marinelife. I’d remind them that the internet is a tough gig. You have to be able to turn it off and walk away. Nobody here can expect the rest of this community to protect their feelings. In a perfect world it might happen, but that’s not real life. So we need to develop the resilience to accept people will disagree with us, and sometimes none too politely, and the self-esteem to not take it too personally. I’d also let them know I’m there as a sounding board if they need to vent if someone is horrible to them.

Fluther is a pussy cat in terms of internet nastiness.

I’d tell them not to bother and keep enjoying what they are doing away from Fluther.

@Earthbound_Misfit Nobody here can expect the rest of this community to protect their feelings.
That is kind of the unwritten mantra around here.; protecting people’s feelings

I would tell them to expect the same variety of attitudes and demeanours (though the content and the number of participants has changed a lot), and as @marinelife suggested, ask if they were able to deal with that.

I think people who quit Fluther because of “browbeating” must be taking their Fluther experiences too personally. I can’t imagine leaving for that reason. If you want to stop interacting with someone, you just stop interacting with them. It shouldn’t keep you from ever participating in the site again. That’s an extreme response.

@Hypocrisy_Central, I think we should all be considerate of other people’s feelings but beyond that their feelings are out of our hands. I don’t believe caring about how someone feels extends to not disagreeing with them. If you post to an internet site there is always the risk someone will disagree with you. That’s where developing some resilience comes in. We all have different tolerance levels and I don’t see my role here as protecting the feelings of other people and I’ve never felt obligated to do that.

@Earthbound_Misfit I think we should all be considerate of other people’s feelings but beyond that their feelings are out of our hands.
There is disagreeing, then there is the way one disagrees. For instance you can have an exchange between two motorcycle riders where one says ”I believe Harley Davidsons is the best motorcycle made, and better built then foreign jobs”, that is different than, ”I would never ride some foreign piece of crap, anyone who does needs their head examined, they are sell outs buying that foreign junk, especially from Asia because they are too cheap and disloyal to buy American”. If the other rider owns a Kawasaki or a Honda, they might not take to it as well as the aforementioned sentence. The latter can be taken more of a glancing or tacit attack or slight.

And the second person would have to decide whether to respond, to determine the HD rider is a dick and ignore them or to take their Kwacka and ride into the sunset. We should be considerate @HC but of course there are plenty who are not. However, regardless of how polite or rude a participant is, they can’t dictate how a person reading their post will respond. That’s in the hands of the receiver. In addition, just because someone takes offence doesn’t mean the original poster was at fault. People take offence for pretty much no reason at all. And then there are the rude bastards who offend everyone and don’t give a shit. So I’ll go full circle and say, how we individually respond to contributions is ultimately up to us.

What @jonsblond said.

I haven’t been here all that long, but that sort of question about a place such as this is like the man who lived in the tropics and thought himself in paradise until the typhoon. The man abandoned his paradise, and asks those who remained “how’s the weather?” You can tell him “it’s beautiful”. You can’t be responsible if he lacks the sense to appreciate that future storms are inevitable.

@Hypocrisy_Central I would take that approach because the Internet is full of assholes, and that doesn’t change, ever. The only thing that we as individuals can control is our responses to those assholes.

I was browbeaten away and I came back after several months.

I decided to come back mostly because I was a little bored with Quora and I enjoy Q&A forums. But to be brutally honest, I have decided I really don’t care enough to get even remotely emotionally invested in this site and if it were to go away tomorrow it wouldn’t bother me.

@osoraro I decided to come back mostly because I was a little bored with Quora and I enjoy Q&A forums.
When you decided Quora was a bit stale and thought of coming back to the lagoon, if you had contacts that were still on the site, and you asked them how Fluther was at present, if they would have asked you have you toughened up and gotten more of a spine or thicker skin because people will say nasty things, and no one here is in anyway responsible if you feel insulted or maligned (though the mods seem to think otherwise, that is why they are here) what would you have made of that, coming from a friend or close acquaintance?

@Hypocrisy_Central I am a little lost in the question you’re asking in all the conditions. I didn’t really talk to anybody except, perhaps Dutchess, who in no way influenced me. In fact she was surprised when she found me back.

It’s not that I have any more or less of a spine or thick skin. I have the same skin as I did before. I just don’t care as much.

@osoraro I am a little lost in the question you’re asking in all the conditions.
What I was asking (since we have a name, we can use it) if @Dutchess_III would have answered your inquiry as to how Fluther was before your return by asking if you had toughened up, etc. how would you have taken it, or thought of it? That is if you would have asked her to gain some insight as to the climate here before wading back in.

Talking Heads…same as it ever was.

@Hypocrisy_Central Oh. Well, it’s hard to answer the hypothetical since I didn’t ask her. I came back on my own accord.

But if I were to ask her, she probably would have said what @ucme had said, “Same as it ever was.” The climate hasn’t changed except that the air has gotten thinner and by and large the questions more inane (sorry). Fluther is but a shadow of what it was when I first came here after the demise of wis.dm.

^ [.... by and large the questions more inane (sorry). Fluther is but a shadow of what it was when I first came here after the demise of wis.dm
Ahhh….if I had only 1,000 lurve to give for that, as sad as it is so true.

Hippy Central….were you on wis.dm?

I would tell them, Jesus, nobody twisted your arm to be here today. You’re here of your own volition. You like to think the weight of the world rests on your shoulders. Like this place would fall apart if you weren’t here. Jesus, you overcompensate for having what’s basically a monkey’s opinion. You push fucking buttons. Anybody can waltz in here and do our posts. You… You’re so obsessed with making it seem so much more epic, so much more important than it really is. Christ, it’s a fucking Q&A site, dude!

@Dutchess_III Hippy Central….were you on wis.dm?
I substituted wis.dm with AB and YA, in hindsight, YA wasn’t that bad…...

@Blondesjon You… You’re so obsessed with making it seem so much more epic, so much more important than it really is Christ, it’s a fucking Q&A site, dude!
You would actually speak that way to someone you are familiar with and not mad at?

@canidmajor Right?

@Hypocrisy_Central . . . I would if we worked together . . .

@Hypocrisy_Central If I had only 1,000 lurve to give for that, as sad as it is so true.

Ha! Says the person who asks questions about what motivates women to have sex with dogs. C’mon, dude. If you’re going to ask these types of questions, you can’t exactly be snubbing other questions as being inane. Unless you’re really trying to live up to your username?

In relation to your response to @jonsblond @Hypocrisy_Central, sometimes friends have to be frank and direct.

Friends can be frank and direct without being so harsh. Just sayin’

Lol, sorry @jonsblond, I meant @Blondesjon. But I agree people can be less harsh than @Blondesjon‘s response, but there are times when being blunt is the only message someone is going to hear and sometimes the only people who’ll be frank and honest is a friend.

Pretty much the same except most of the aholes left and we miss them terribly.

@fluthernutter Ha! Says the person who asks questions about what motivates women to have sex with dogs. C’mon, dude.
It was a pertinent question to me because women actually do it, and we all know it, unless you live under a stone. Because women (and fewer men) do it, some see it as abusing the animal; these women do not see it that way I am guessing. In any case, it is bizarre behavior to many. It is fair to ask why, maybe you would if you discovered that dropping off your pooch for a shampoo and a clip he was getting some ”extra treatment” that wasn’t on the bill. Maybe is it best to buy wool or cashmere, is just as pertinent to some.

I’ve been here since 2007 and I love it. I’d say it’s a smaller group and a relatively intimate group, as many of us know each others’ personal situations, are on other social media sites with each other and know each others’ personalities. If one can resist being too emotionally involved, remain polite and hope for politeness in return (which is what I try to do), it’s all good. I don’t usually feel attacked here – very few instances.

I would simply relate my own experience. Shaken by a brief encounter with another jelly and fed up with contentious and nasty threads about religion, guns, politics and other highly contentious topics, I left a few years ago with minimal intention of ever returning. But a year later I decided to give it another shot, vowing to stick mainly (though not solely) to less controversial questions which I felt I could reply to with helpful advice based on personal experience, and to dial down my emotional investment in online activity in general. So far so good.

@Pachy: Good reminder about the era of the contentious religious questions. Thankfully, that era is over. (just my opinion – I know some people enjoyed the debates).

I would say there is some serious food for thought as there always has been but oft-times there is much ado about nothing. Come back, take a look and leave if you are not amused, informed, taught or challenged.

@jca, Yes, I’m sure many jellies enjoy religious debates, and I certainly support their right to do so. Personally, I prefer keeping my views and beliefs on that topic private.

@Pachy Yes, I’m sure many jellies enjoy religious debates, and I certainly support their right to do so.
I would say I pray as far as faith behind Christ that it would be avoided as most (and I am going on record to say it) do not have enough spiritual foundation to accurately speak on it. As far as other religions go, I don’t get involved because I don’t know it well enough to debate details. However, to speak or contain the line of questioning to things that happen in the secular world, people get can get annoyed; don’t understand why when some things in the secular world are pretty bizarre or twisted, but that is the world. Lucky for me my Kevlar is fairly robust, but others might not deflect the bullets as well and run for the hills.

” don’t understand why when some things in the secular world are pretty bizarre or twisted”

As opposed, of course, to things in the religious world which are perfectly rational?

and so it begins.

@canidmajor You don’t think it began with the question? I’m going to guess that, of the people who left feeling “browbeaten”, the vast majority did so following discussions of religion.

@dappled_leaves: Good point, but the actual atheist vs theist discussion on this thread didn’t start til the boys right up there…

@osoraro Check your PM. I can answer it, someone will disagree, say something in a way that will offend someone else or insult their faith, and if that person doesn’t have 5 layers of Teflon and 3 layers of Kevlar, they might leave; not like it hasn’t happened before. So, I may pose that as a question in a different thread, because I believe it is a good and pertinent ”Flutherable” question to me.

I got browbeaten over a diaper. It wasn’t even a religious diaper!

^ Diaper changing in public or semi-public situations? Or was it clothe vs disposable?

@Dutchess_III Were they barefoot and in pajamas at the convenience store?

YES! And they were INDIANS!

Yeah, @Hypocrisy_Central PMed me. Don’t worry, I’m not going to get drawn into debate. And if Hypocricy insists on continuing to PM me, I’m going to make his PMs public and then the fireworks will start. Fair warning.

^ You will not have to hid them if you feel you need to have them in open forum, I PMed you because this is not the thread for that and I don’t want to take people on that journey that want to deal with explaining to someone why they should or should not come back if they felt they were bullied. I am sure if they had a PM conversation and to gain support the person they PMed opened it up in open forum, that would have driven some away.

A simple question: “Grown a spine, yet?”

What are you going to tell them?

@Apparently_Im_The_Grumpy_One What are you going to tell them?
Is that directed to me? I have not heard any legit question plied my way. As much as I just love being the Lurve King setting people up for tons of loot when they think they put the rock in the hole, it was really a rimmer and popped out. I know if anyone was asking if you had a spine, I know you have because you are still here among several distractors. :-)

Yes, after all this hubub I’m curios what you ended up telling them. (If this is a real scenario)

Nobody can be browbeaten on the internet unless they let themselves be. People suck and say shitting things. You deal with it or you don’t. You revisit sites or you don’t. You stick up for yourself in a way that makes you proud. Simple. But if your opinions and attitudes are so far out of the general norm, you should ask yourself ‘should I seek help from a psychologist?’.

@cazzie
What I wonder is if a site capable of browbeating someone should see that same psychologist.

I’m pretty sure ‘a site’ wouldn’t get an appointment.

Perhaps some people need to get a frequent visit discount to a proctologist for all the butt-hurt and while they are there, they could have the bug removed.

@Apparently_Im_The_Grumpy_One Yes, after all this hubub I’m curios what you ended up telling them. (If this is a real scenario)
Had I had the opportunity to tell them, I would tell them it is no better, and decidedly worse. I would not have need to tell them to grow a spin not toughen up when some people here only have tough skin by way of the mods. I would tell them if they waded back in to expect treatment in a manner they will be accused of doing. The place is lives up to its content farm moniker.