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Hey guys. As many of you have noticed, there has been an increase lately in flamewars on the Weddingbee boards... much of it caused by a few patterns of behavior:
These threads are definitely tricky to deal with. We delete personal attacks, which often helps. But some users have gotten really good at antagonizing others while avoiding personal attacks.
As a result, a number of threads are quickly becoming about a few people going back and forth. The discourse goes something like this: "I'm right, you're wrong," "Wait no, I'm right and you're wrong so there." *Commence mutual pushing and shoving* Then when we get a bunch of flags about all this, I'll post on the threads and hear a chorus of, "That's not fair, she started it!!!"
It makes me sad... I wish that as a community, we could ignore and walk away from trollish behavior so that it would die out. But unfortunately, that's probably not realistic as the community grows in size.
I'd like to do something about the increased flamewars, but I am not sure what we should do. The fact is, our rules work best if someone is clearly delivering a personal attack or clearly acting like a troll. If someone learns to avoid personal attacks and skirts the lines around trollish behavior... we don't have a way of dealing with that.
I don't think it makes sense to have a policy regarding outright Debate threads. That said, I'm wondering if a threadjacking policy might be useful. There are usually two sides to threadjacking:
Put an Instigator together with a Last Worder or two, and you have an endless loop of drama and flamewars. Seriously, the back and forth just goes on forever... and ever... and ever.
How do you guys feel about having a policy against threadjacking? If someone keeps instigating drama and/or threadjacking and insisting on having the last word... then we could warn them. If it continues to be a problem, we could suspend or ban the user over time.
What do you think? Also, any other ideas on how we might handle this issue? We'd love to hear your thoughts.
Thanks!
I think it's a good idea. And agree that it's becoming more and more frequent. I like the idea of giving the person a warning first, then if it continues, persue further action.
Sigh. I will, from this day forward, be ignoring the one person that I feel offends a lot of people, and instigates a lot of arguments. i have felt the need to stick up for myself and others, against her rude and insulting remarks. But I see that it has made no difference, and has caused more issues. So I will no longer respond to her. I hope this helps
I like this idea. Especially with the warning aspect as some my not realize they are instigating or "last word-ing".
Love the idea of warnings and then suspension. That's not to say they won't come back with a new username, but it's a way to calmn things down around here.
Thanks for trying to do something about it!
Do you have the manpower to do what CNN does? I.e., comments are reviewed by a moderator before getting the "ok" and posting it. So if MissXhoney writes "that is so tacky" a moderator would change it to "that might be considered distasteful".
Edit: Not every post has to be reviewed but certain words like swear words, tacky, stupid, get filtered out to await approval
I agree! I'm for the threadjacking policy too! I'm thinking that as long as it doesn't stop very calm debates where the posters are being kind to each other...I think it's a great idea.
I also agree 100% with the idea of anit thread jacking when it is done in a way that is not helpful.
This wouldn't apply to innocent threadjacking I assume? Sometimes I don't have the greatest mental focus and end up thread jacking because my brain likes to jump from connection to connection to connection.
Also, what about a debate section? Rules should apply to that, but.... perhaps that would help? Some people honestly just enjoy arguing. Then, if someone does start a debate in a non debate thread... it could just be moved by a moderator.
I definitely feel like something has to be in place but I would love to hear other Bee's opinions. I have found lately that some of the threads have gotten very hostile and I feel sorry for the OP because they come back to find some intense word war going on between two or three other posters.
Hopefully people can find ways to disagree wtihout throwing nasty descriptive words around - I think that is what starts a lot of arguments. For example: If I wrote - "I love pink wedding dresses and I can't wait to wear mine" and a poster wrote back "Pink wedding dresses are so tacky and awful" instead of "It's not my thing but as long as you love it". I think that many of the heated posts seem to start off this way and it leaves the OP and those who also like "pink wedding dresses" feeling slightly attacked.I know that we are all adults and should be able to share our opinion but it would be nice to do it in a more friendly manner. Example - my friends say "those jeans dont sit on you right" instead of "holy crap those jeans show your fat hips" lol - bad example but thats just how I see it!
Happy Weddings Everyone!
@ItalianLady: Most of the mods on here are volunteers. So I don't think they have the manpower for something like that.
I like the policy of warning of instigators and last worders. Sometimes I think people may even be getting caught up in the heat of the argument and not realizing they're antogonizing a whole lot of others in the process. Others by nature just like to "debate" till the cows come home, just for the fun of it. I think a friendly warning of "hey, you're upsetting others, it's time to step back a little" wont hurt anyone. Hopefully the message will sink in without it having to come to a ban or suspension. I know this will make WB a lot more pleasant for the rest of us.
I really like that idea Mr. Bee. I think some times posters get carried away and maybe don't realize they are threadjacking. At least I hope they don't realize it. A warning followed by a temporary ban is perfect. For repeat offenders, I am all for the permenant ban. I don't really care for moderation of individual comments but something has to be done. It seems like all of the sudden people don't know when to stop.
Mr. Bee I think this is a good solution that will be fair to everyone. It might be good if you turn it into a yes/no poll so you can gauge the reaction of the hive.
i don't mind the thread-jacking policy, but i think it won't be easy to be objective about who exactly is doing the thread-jacking. sure, there is one person that everyone aims their distaste at (whether or not it is fair), but what about the posters who don't even realize that they are part of the problem? they continue the answering back and forth, but add disclaimers or "i'm not trying to offend anyone :)" lines to soften their stance. so if it goes into effect, it needs to be fair.
Would you be looking to an individuals's postings across the entire boards, or just in specific threads? Because sometimes back and forth can be helpful in having a conversation about a particular topic.
I haven't been around the boards a lot lately, so I'm not entirely sure what's been going on, but this seems like a difficult policy to enforce. Shouldn't it be left up to the community to just not let these posters get there way? If we all just ignore the instigator and the last-worder, they can hash it out between the two of them, and when they stop getting the attention they seek, they will go away.
I just totally fear the slippery slope of where this could go.
I agree! As long as it is a calm this is my side, I might not agree with your side, but I still am respectfull then no problem. Sometimes things just become rediculous around here lately. I also agree completely about the people. who.won't.let.it.go!
I could go both ways on this one. On one side, I appreciate the attempt at keeping things civil and avoiding the back & forth arguing. However, on the other side, I see this as another way people might be afraid of voicing their opinions. Sometimes in voicing opinions, we do get off track and need to be brought back to the original topic. And there are some bees on here that are excellent at bringing the readers back to the original topic in a nice way. I don't know. I just personally find myself coming to weddingbee less and less....not because of the trolls (because those are easy to spot and I just ignore them), but because of the atmosphere of it just not being "real". Not every thing is sunshine and lollipops and I feel that more so than ever I can't read/get an honest opinion on here. Now, with that said, I still love weddingbee and I can see the benefit of getting rid of snarky comments, personal attacks, etc....but to get rid of the natural flow of conversation, no thanks. Leave that to the wonderful hostesses that we have here to get back on the right track!
I am also totally for a threadjacking policy. I hate to say it, but sometimes it is like gradeschool when this happens. Maybe, the policy could include:
Kind of like a "three strikes and you are out" policy or something along those lines. Unfortunately, if a poster or posters want to act like children, they will have to be treated like children.
like Tunacupcakes was saying, I'm all for it assuming it doesn't apply to non-dramatical thread jacking. :]
I'm all for something. For the posters who can't seem to walk away or avoid the threads that get out of hand, I think the warning is good first step to making posters pay more attention to the type of posters they are responding to or repeat responding to.
Please let's do this! I have really been hoping for a response in this vein. I have been really happy to see Mr. Bee step in and attempt to stop the madness, and appalled to see him get sassed. Bleh.
@noritake22: I like this too. I'd just want to make sure that the poster didn't get all 3 strikes at once.
i.e. be involved in a heated back and forth for 20 min or so and not realize they have received a PM from the mod.
Can mod's see a time stamp when PMs are read? That way the mod would be able to know whether the 2nd or 3rd post was before or after they read the warning.
I may be in the minority here, but I appreciate reading different opinions on any given topic. I would prefer more freedom and less censorship.
@KatNYC2011: I think that it would be best set to just one thread; not for each comment.
I think this is a great idea.
Remember when the hive was too nice?
I think it will be easier to moderate and to participate if we have a clear bright line that make it easy to see when it's crossed. Yes vote here.
Having a threadjacking policy is IDEAL, but very tricky to enforce.
Strong opinions and people who aren't able to express themselves verbally without sounding curt, are part and parcel of forums. Having moderated and administered a few large communities in my day, I feel it is the nature of the beast.
I dunno. I think it could cause more problems than it solves because there will simply be arguements about whether there is threadjacking going on and then we'll have a lot of closed/deleted threads.
I would want this to have a lot of guidance as to what constitues threadjacking.
The way I see it, threadjacking often means taking the conversation in a slightly different direction, not necessarily one of an argument. For instance, one person will start off asking about how much wine they should have for a dinner and someone else will end up suggesting a wine, and then a few people start discussing how awesome that kind of wine is.
I totally made up that example (obviously, because it is a bad one), but I think a lot of the time conversations naturally flow a little way away from the initial posting with no negativity or arguments whatsoever. Just someone mentions something shiny that is kind of off topic.
Is something like that going to go under the threadjacking policy? Or is it more when an argument is taking over a thread and getting negative?
@ATP2011: An opinion is different from outright flaming and disrespectful behavior. I too enjoy a good debate; however, some of the threads lately have been way over the top.
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