Hi All.
I have been reading a couple of blogs and the subject of the moment seems to be CYBER BULLYING.

firstly may I say that I have not experienced cyber bullying what ever that may be.I have witnessed percieved either ganging up or ridicule etc by posters in forums on other sites. But my view is words are only words and we decide whether to give them any power or not. My approach has allways been to only take notice of firstly comments and opinions from those I actually know,secondly to take any points of note or new things to learn from what someone has posted. If I ever got laughed out of a forum, being such an egotist and superiour human being I would just laugh at the attempts to intimidate me or make me feel small and know that recieving such a reaction would prove I had hit a soft spot,a raw nerve in an other person. It would be their problem not mine as I never make any posting a personal one. BTW those who know me know that I am not serious about knowing that I am a superiour human some times my dry and self depricating humour sails above mosts heads.

Suggestion:
I use many other sites and forums (much livelier and with higher postings than in here at TW) and in one or two site's there is a time out position that a posting gets moved too. These are usually postings that end up for what ever reason turning personal and thus moved to the back door of a forum so to speak where they can still be read but no one may add to the thread kinds od kills the vitriol that may occour.

So my question I pose you is this. How can someone be bullied by mere words?......I am always amazed at how people react to a posting that they dislike,disagree with or misread and get personal with.
Too many start posting when under the influence of anything and everything other than common sense.

Still Long live free speech.....

now dont all you regular Posters get all defensive here but just an observation from me.
I visit many many Ts sites and forums populated as ever by many from here in Uk and around the world. Some sites have many thousands of members and some not as many. In some sites the quality of the postings is very high as there are a lot of very smart TSwoman out there and Tv's too I may add. Now what I wanted to say is this......in some sites I can go in each day and there can be another 10-20 new subject postings and the number who contribute to the forums can be many .
Being in so many different sites over time I see a pattern emerging from all and every site.
There are the regulars people who will invairiably post with advice to every posting.
Those who respond to postings that apply specifically to just them as in what ever group / label or the topic that applies in their lives.
And the occasional dipper of a toe in a forum.

The trouble this may cause in a persons eye is that there is a clique of a few people and they are top dogs/cats whatever in the forums. So this tends to make those who might post frightened of having a say.
Remeber this happens in all sites I am not pointing a finger here at TW or any members here making just an observation.
To me the healthyist sites are the ones where there are plenty of forums postings keeping people coming back every day to see whats new what is the hot topic etc.

I know I rarely contribute much here I dont in most of these other sites either unless I feel I having something of real value to add or say or can give sensible advice.
For the world of Tvs and TS the topics are generally over the same subjects / topics and questions which I could list easily enough as they get posted so many times everywhere.

A site is only as good as the members who belong and contribute to it and the regulars do their bit.
How do you get others to add contribute ? when you look at membership numbers of a site such as this it is disapointing that more of them dont join in add / query/ question/ joke etc and contribute to making the forums more lively and poss more interesting.
There is one site I use and visit daily only to read the forums beacause there are so many people who post with such a wicked sense of humour that I am guaranteed to find a smile on my face by at least one posting...often very surreal and off the wall the humour may be twisted often but very funny indeed.

What am I trying to say here ? I dont know other than i would love to see this site flourish more come alive to see more people contribute.
Remember it may be a site for the TG community but we do live out there in the real world full of music TV programmes,politics,religions,Arts,astronomy,physics,biology,transport ,holidays,sites things of interest and LIFE that can be discussed and talked about.

Remember no one can bully you with words online we have the power to see them for what they are and not take a personal offence even if personally aimed now come on fire some juicy insults at me spice up my night

So what are your thoughts about what I have said ?
Any suggestions such as (get of the stage ) lol you know what I mean suggestions to increase rates of postings and subjects covered ?

Sarah (quite a bore at time) he he

obviously I am probably one of the regulars here and enjoy adding my two cents to many topics. I think you did a great job describing a typical forum site. I follow several forums at different sites and there tends to be a common thread amongst them all. Simply put, there are cheerleaders out there. People who wait for someone else to say something, then they jump in both feet agreeing. It happens here all the time. Unfortunately the hottest topics for that are personal attacks. Eventually you get to the point it is obvious people commenting have no clue what the original topic was. Amazing how frequently that happens. What I have seen in other forum environments is moderators will put a stop to a thread quickly if it gets out of hand. Often here there seems to be a "can't we hug and all get along philosophy" which is a nice thought but is as unreal as some of the members. Eventually after things are beaten to death and everyone is pissed off, threads are suspended. Too little, too late. In the end I think people respect order and control over chaos. Even if that hurts someone's feelings.
Hugs,
Marsha

In my experience, whenever bullying is discussed, in real life, the victims rarely make a comment, whereas the bullies themselves are usually very vocal, he who shouts loudest is often the worst offender, isn't serial posting a form of shouting? A way to dominate a thread? Isn't that a form of bullying?

Hi lovely girls,

Sorry I haven’t logged in for ages but this is mostly due to the fact that I had a feeling that I was not welcome here and as a fairly new member, some of my posts were deleted even before I got warm.

Anyhow, the reason why I logged in today was just to post something about another subject matter (you all know my wife died of breast cancer) and I thought I would look for some new friends here. I’ve got several friends in other transsexual forums but even there people don’t care so much about another so I though I would give it another go here to see what’s happening.

But then I came to this thread and I did read it all and found it quite interesting because in fact you also find cyber bullying on other forums and chats I use (mostly French sites) so I was not surprised at all.

What I would say to this is that I support the thoughts said here and Anne Selene pointed out one really important thing when she said “we must be extra careful as it can also lead to death” because we all know that in the TS community the rate of suicide is fairly high and if the wrong person is bullied it can cause him or her to go into depression with the death as outcome.

Myself was extremely sad when my wife died 5 years ago and frankly speaking I was also very sad when my post as deleted because don’t forget that I’m French and for me writing in English is not always so easy but I’ve got good help from Microsoft Word which I got the English version of now.

So my suggestion here is just take it easy because no matter what forum or chat you go to you will always find people you like or dislike and you know what? I think its very much what you make out of it yourself.

I hope that the fact that I use herbal hormones from Anne Selene does not make me a bad person? and I still wish my post were not deleted because I said nothing wrong or did I? and if I did I’m sorry I did.

i am glad that some have found this topic worthy of discussion.

For one all sites including this one includes Rules about posting contents.

Lucien sory for your loss 5 years ago and welcome back hopefully to a more positive situation in here than was your previous experience.

Karen sorry to hear about your Cancer scare and I hope it proves unfounded.

I am suprised to find that many current and Ex members feel that things have taken a turn for the worse in the tone of either content and percieved personal attacks on those who post here. As well as in chat.
Chattiquette ( Chat Ettiquite) has its own rules and is generally the same on most sites....Subject for another forum posting I would suggest.

Nikki I agree with you and feel there should be an equal measure of positive postings and discussions as well as those about moans and groans.

No one no matter what their veiw is should personally attack another in a posting and should leave such judgements to the forum Moderator who we all hope is of a balanced and unjdgemental nature. IE Unbiased.

A web site is a community unfortunatly I know all too well how bitchy many can be in the Transworld I have heard seen and experienced such attitudes over the years.

There are no solutions that can be implemented to either get more posting or about the quantity and quality of the subjects that are discussed in these forums.

As for inaccurate information that should be pointed out questioned even highlighted and the correct imformation be made by either / and both the moderator and resident experts and other knowledgeable forum posters.
This is especially so for any Medical Facts espoused.

We are adults and should be able to police and moderate our outbursts and outpourings in a most public place.

Happy Posting.

A very good post Sarah and I hope it is read and commented on by a lot of the members here. Personally, I have found that the fun element seems to be missing at the moment as a large percentage of the posts now seem to contain a gripe or a moan about something, not necessarily to do with TW, but why aren't people posting about the good things that happen in life as well? Some do try but those posts for whatever reason, receive little attention.

With regard to moderators, it was the case that we do not police the forums (despite what people might think) and that we allow free speech. The exception would be if someone got personal in a posting in which case those comments would be hidden or edited out, although the remainder of the post could stay if it was relevant. Of course, then we have complaints saying we are being unfair and should have left it alone, some days we can't win!

Blogs in my opinion, should be left unmoderated. It is somewhere to sound off if you need to without putting it in the public forums which just upsets people. If blogs start being moderated I for one will stop writing in mine and I think others would too.

I know a lot of my friends have left this site recently because of the direction it has taken and I can only hope that TW can turn itself around and go back to being a very positive community instead of the backstabbing and whinging one it has become of late. (And that's my whinge)!

I am trying to stay positive and I still like being here but I do hope something changes soon. TW has lost it's smile adn we need to get it back.

Nikki

I think that at the first sign of a personal attach that post should be taken out. People can argue a point without getting personal. Those that can't are small minded.
Most of these happen in the general forum where most new threads are posted. With only 2 moderators it is hard to keep up. I also think that for a time we need to be a little heavy handed in what is allowed to be said against another person.

Christine, I would encourage anyone to disagree all they like with any comments make in the forums, it would be pretty dull if we all agreed all the time and we are all entitled to our opinions after all. The issue isn't about disagreeing with a particular posting, it's about attacking the person who made the comment.

'Attack the topic, not the person'. It can get heated sometimes and it can be difficult to reign oneself in on occasion but that is when the mods should step in only to edit any disparaging personal remarks, nothing else.

Nikki

So respones that are considered negative to the general thread, should be deleted, hidden censored,

I don't think anyone said that. But responces that use negative remarks against a person should be delt with.

This comes at a time when I'm told I have cancer. TW is my only real outlet. But since every thread seems to be so negative anymore I don't realy like coming here anymore.
I think I need some time away from all this down crap.

As an add on to my cancer remark. I just now got home from the doctors & I don't have cancer. The CAT was misread.