Snarky Groups, Criticism, And Drama

[Fierce Critter]

So, I've been on this yahoo e-mail group for over 4 years. It's all about cat issues and behavior. It's been a wealth of knowledge for me over the years. Lots of great people with diverse backgrounds, experience with cats, etc.

When I joined, one of the things I liked best about the group was none of the members got snarky with people who were less knowledgeable, or even with people who posted with situation where it was kinda obvious that the poster was doing really majorly stupid stuff. Nobody called anyone "stupid". The responses were tactful, and there wasn't any of the sort of snarking that people can do when they know a lot about something and disdain people who haven't yet gained such knowledge.

But in the past year or two, that's been changing. The list owner herself, and one other person, started getting REALLY nasty in their responses. Belittling people, thinly veiled snarks, sometimes outright rudeness.

I posted sometime last year with a problem with one of my cats. I tried handling it the way you might handle a dog, but wasn't sure that was a good approach, and knowing I might be "barking up the wrong tree," I posted on the list. The reactions from the list owner and her cohort were really nasty, and just about accused me of being an abusive monster. I got a LOT of off-list e-mails from people who couldn't believe how I was being treated.

But when I corrected the way I was handling things and posted my success, did they respond to say "good for you?" No. But when someone else posted publicly about how the board was seeming snarky and how it was kinda sad that the list owner thought the way to handle things was to keep inviting people to leave - and I dared to agree PUBLICLY with her - the situation with my "problem" cat was brought up in a really snarky way.

So I tried to handle the situation off-list with the listowner and the other person - who turned out to be a fellow list-owner - and after a bunch of e-mails back and forth, I am now banned from the group for daring to point out that they couldn't handle criticism. Even though both of these people admitted to me privately that they might be a bit impatient these days and not being as tactful as they should.

Sigh. I had SO many people contact me privately over these sorts of things, saying that they were sick of the way these people act and it was making them not want to post. But I'm the stupid fucker hanging out on the cross 'cause I'm the one who dares to say so publicly.

So, I'm banned from a site that was a major source of info for me and my cats. Got to find a new one.

Sigh.

[Rayne]

I had something similar happen to me on AOL's message boards. It's horrible, I don't even post there anymore.

[Fierce Critter]

I had something similar happen to me on AOL's message boards. It's horrible, I don't even post there anymore.

I QUIT AOL message boards because that sort of stuff happened CONSTANTLY. At the time I joined that cat group on Yahoo, I was still a member of a rabbit board on AOL that was just SAVAGE. I quit the rabbit group and all other AOL groups. That Yahoo group was initially such a breath of fresh air.

It just really pains me that someone can at one point say, "you know, you're right - I've been handling myself bad" but then a few days later say, "you're a big bitch and it's all YOU."

Gads. If I owned a group and someone said, "you know, you've been kinda bitchy lately, is there something going on?" I'd probably say, "yeah, the number of people who are just completely clueless about x, x and x is getting me down, I need to watch myself."

Sigh.

[Msterbeau]

I QUIT AOL message boards because that sort of stuff happened CONSTANTLY. At the time I joined that cat group on Yahoo, I was still a member of a rabbit board on AOL that was just SAVAGE. I quit the rabbit group and all other AOL groups. That Yahoo group was initially such a breath of fresh air.

It just really pains me that someone can at one point say, "you know, you're right - I've been handling myself bad" but then a few days later say, "you're a big bitch and it's all YOU."

Gads. If I owned a group and someone said, "you know, you've been kinda bitchy lately, is there something going on?" I'd probably say, "yeah, the number of people who are just completely clueless about x, x and x is getting me down, I need to watch myself."

Sigh.

Start your own group and invite the people you like from the other one... :-)

[Rayne]

I QUIT AOL message boards because that sort of stuff happened CONSTANTLY. At the time I joined that cat group on Yahoo, I was still a member of a rabbit board on AOL that was just SAVAGE. I quit the rabbit group and all other AOL groups. That Yahoo group was initially such a breath of fresh air.

It just really pains me that someone can at one point say, "you know, you're right - I've been handling myself bad" but then a few days later say, "you're a big bitch and it's all YOU."

Gads. If I owned a group and someone said, "you know, you've been kinda bitchy lately, is there something going on?" I'd probably say, "yeah, the number of people who are just completely clueless about x, x and x is getting me down, I need to watch myself."

Sigh.

I used to work for AOL doing message board moderation. It was so much better before they fired us all and farmed it out to a company that could care less.

[Fierce Critter]

Start your own group and invite the people you like from the other one... :-)

Thing is, when I've "gotten into it" with group owners like this - ask Jon, he'll second this - it always seems to be women who seem to have NO LIFE outside of owning and running online message groups.

These women are online ALL DAY. They micro-manage these groups, and often they get really weird about how they handle things. They're not open to suggestion, and they're quick to ban people rather than admit that maybe they need to back off a bit and breathe.

I got into it with a woman who owns one of the freecycle lists in the downriver area. I found out that she's got some kind of chronic illness(s), and spends ungodly amounts of time managing lists. She moderates EVERY post on EVERY list, and makes the most ridiculous changes to posts, etc. When I dared to say that maybe she's going a bit overboard on the way she was handling something, BAP! I got banned.

But the really bad part of it is, she ended up "temporarily" running the list in the very city I live in - and banned me on that one, too. Even though the former owner never had any problem with me.

Then she took over ANOTHER local list. And yep - banned me, too.

Jon also got banned, even though he was on the lists under a different screename and never had any moderator run-ins. But the IP address got searched and banned.

So even though I tend to give away waaaaaaaay more than I ask for on Freecycle groups, I'm pretty much blocked from doing so due to this psycho hose beast.

I won't start my own group because I just have too much going on in my life to want to put any kind of focus on something like that. Even though I'm dealing with depression that has me very reclusive, I'm not willing to take on something that I know will keep me from getting off my ass and away from this monitor. I've been very good about not falling back on DGN to keep me sane like I did when I lived in NC, and I don't want to end up in the same boat but with the responsibility of owning a group.

I'm searching MSN and Google for a new group. Thusfar I'm not finding much. I don't like, however, how she basically dared me to find a better group in her last e-mail to me before blocking my e-mail address from contacting her. I really don't want to believe that there's nothing better out there.

[Kit Kat P]

I agree w/ Marc and if the woman dared you to find something better, maybe you are that something better because you have life.

[Onyx]

It's crazy isn't it? That kind of stuff happened to me when I joined a new mom's group when my youngest was born.

Lots of "I'm leaving" posts and lots of she hit me first type things. It was ridiculous!

The list broke up into 3 different lists and I was on all of them. Eventually I resigned from them all because I got so sick of it all. Sorry you are having this same experience.

Damn humans! No wonder I'm a hermit lately.

[Homicidalheathen]

I used to go on yahoo pagan groups but quit for the same reason and have found no group or board minus some drama and crap, usually know it alls or just people who use the internet to take out their crap on strangers.....

right now I like myspace groups but the attendance is low.....SG is still good though.

[Homicidalheathen]

Oh and the native american groups.....people actually got into an arguement once about who had the highest percentage Native blood in them. I left. Cause you know, that doesn't make you an expert on knowledge but a lot of people acted like it made the 'thee athoritah'

[sass_in_the_pants]

Okay, first of all, there's a CAT discussion group???

I should not be surprised, there's a goth group, and there are WAY more cat owners than there are goths, so why not, right?

I can't believe people get snarky over dumb shit. Who on earth has that kind of time, y'know?

[Msterbeau]

Damn humans! No wonder I'm a hermit lately.

Amen, sister.

[EnViOuSPoPpEt]

I am appalled to hear such things about people, I mean everyone who connects to the internet these days think that they are God. I mean what's up with that.. We are all people, and we are made different (different aspects of life such as different opinions), so if they are a bunch of impatient tarts they shouldn't be running a forum to begin with. The forum is a job for someone who's patient and honestly has a lot of costumer service experience and actually likes dealing with the public. Not some person who's going trough mid-life crisis. Oh yes, and I love it how you are the only one that get's banned, what happened to the people that agreed with you or after seeing what happened to you, did they evaporate... Flaky supporters..

Try www.Vin.com it's a veterinary web page that can be used for the public as well as Veterinarians.

The people who run the web page are very professional and polite.