When you put something out in public you ought to expect a little blow back. There are people who are going to have different ideas about things than you do, so it hardly makes sense to get upset when they put it out in public in response to you.
What brings this up is that I recently got flamed, sort of, by an op (original poster) who took offense to a response I made to the op’s op (original poster’s original post). I was very surprised at the vehement reaction because I certainly didn’t mean to offend the op. I wasn’t trying to. I didn’t make any personal remarks, I don’t think. I didn’t tell the op how to feel, in fact, I acknowledged their feelings. But I did tell them how I thought they should act and I was frank, which is what I thought the op wanted. Boy, was I wrong. The op took offense. C’est la vie.
The real interesting note in the op’s response was that the op expressed gratitude to those responders who were ‘supportive’ as opposed to those who were ‘judgmental.’ So now to my point.
We can post things here at TuDiabetes in a public forum or we can post them privately on our blog pages and restrict access. It seems to me that if you don’t want people to disagree with you, or be ‘judgmental’ or express a different point of view you maybe shouldn’t post your thoughts in a public place where everyone can respond to them. If I’m looking only for people to agree with me and tell me I’m right or to vent with me, I maybe ought to post my thoughts in a blog and invite only people I know will sympathize with me.
If I put something in a public forum I certainly have the right to expect responders to be polite and civil and not to call me names and other bad things. (I didn’t do any of that stuff. I was just ‘judgmental’ whatever that means.) But I don’t think I have the right to expect them to agree with me all the way down the line or to keep their contrary opinions to themselves. And if they do disagree, unless it’s in an unpleasant way, I don’t think I have a valid gripe about it since I’m the one that put it out there.
Well, enough said. I didn’t mean to offend the op, but the written word is an imperfect means for communication. There’s no tone of voice or expression. We tend to type quickly and hit ‘reply’. You do the best you can.
I agree to Terry. That’s why I don’t comment to much on things here. Ppl get upset with my point of view. I’ve been a Type 1 for many years (36) and some of the things I learned the “hard way” and I know there’s a whole lot more teconology out there now so I just keep quite. I totaly agree with you and John if you make it public then get ready some may not agree with you and I think they have the right to express it.
I am with you on this one Terry…I was one of those , who was told to not patronize the poster , as it appeared, that I told " my story and how things work for me " . …
I myself have started a thread of what I thought was an amusing (but uneducated) idea about diabetes, by a non-diabetic medical professional. Sort of a “gee guys, this is funny, look how little they actually understand about life as a diabetic”.
I was surprised at the vitriol and hatred that came back from others at the non-diabetic medical professional. Geeze, guys, I thought it was funny. I didn’t mean to make everybody here get their veins popping out or anything.
A long time ago an angry young man wrote the line “I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused”. Really, I try to be more amused these days.
I don’t know if you recall, but there was member who did just that to her post regarding her “non compliance” and she asked that people not tell her to “do what she should” and that she should “just test her BG”, and people did it anyway! So the theory is nice, but doesn’t work in practice.
I agree that it doesn’t always work in practice. The best way of ensuring things go the way you want them to is to write a blog and then moderate the comments on that blog. I know a lot of people that moderate comments on their profile pages and blogs.
I think the OP herself deleted the discussion. If you start a discussion, you have the option to edit it at any time, close it or even delete the whole thing. But you cannot delete other people’s replies in discussion forums selectively.
I think a few others will disagree with you, but you are entitled to your opinion. For clarity: Are you saying, that by being compassionate and offering comfort to those who seek it, and sticking up for a friend, I’m being too sensitive?
Since I got online 14 years ago and participate in all sorts of forums, chat rooms, discussion groups, etc I have noticed a pattern repeated time and again where people get angry, hurt, flamed, apologize, say “let’s all get along”, etc. It’s all good and none of it is going to change or necessarily needs to. But sometimes I think we can all avoid a lot of discomfort of all kinds when we remember that an online forum is just that…an online forum. I know we all love TuDiabetes and it is a huge part of our support as diabetics. I don’t disagree about that. I get pretty unsatisfying results in talking to people in my real life about diabetes, they just don’t understand. But…when things go beyond just information or casual support, feedback or points of view, and become intensely personal and emotional then we are making ourselves vulnerable in what may not be exactly the ideal medium to do that.
I have run support groups for many different types of issues as part of my career for many years. One of the most important things we do in those groups is spend some time fostering an atmosphere of safety and trust. Some people can walk into a group the first day and bare their soul but most people need to spend some time learning that the group is a safe place to do that. I preferred to run my groups as “closed groups”. The same 6-8 people every week. That way trust could be built up as they all got to know each other. Part of my job was to remind people of the difference between challenging feedback and hurtful attacks. Uncomfortable topics didn’t get deleted they got dealt with by talking it through. But we all knew each other and could look each other in the eye. Very different! I’m not saying nobody should bring up painful topics online. I’m not saying we won’t get our feelings hurt. But I am saying it is important to bear in mind the limitations of the online medium.
“Way too sensitive” in the sense that you take offense very easily when you don’t get the kind of response you expect…one can be compassionate and offer comfort to those who seek it without despairing that others are not doing it, too.
I know she wasn't looking for people to agree or disagree with her. She was expressing a frustration and a very real pain.
In that case, doing what you have done on your blog would have been the right way to go about it...write a blog post and don't allow any comments. That way, she would get to express her feelings and get no posts disagreeing with her.
Update: I just saw that you have deleted your blog post.
I’m sorry you interpret this as taking offense when I don’t get the response I want. I don’t see it that way. I am responding to your responses, just as you are responding to me. So I suppose this can be interpreted as you also not getting the response you expect. Or we can call it tit for tat. Either way. I’m sorry that I thank it’s sad that people aren’t compassionate. I guess I’ll have to live with that fault. Thank you for your responses. I’ll keep that in mind in the future.
I was very bothered by the way all of this came down. In fact, I deliberately observed the discussion from its beginning. If one read the progression, the ending was no surprise. In fact, it was as predictable as darkness is at night. If you read the entries closely, I believe you can see that the discussion was deliberately lead to end as it did. There were indications of it almost every 10-12 comments, if not more.
I must say that I agree with you, Terry, in that if you put “that type” of discussion out in front of everybody, you have to be prepared to read a broad range of responses; if that is too much, then think twice before putting yourself in a position where you may not like what some people have to say.
For the most part, I believe this has been escalated to a point beyond what is reasonable in this type of forum. In fact, as soon as I read the “ending” (conversation ended by decision of initiator) I wrote to one of the owners or moderators of this site and said that I was concerned about the discussion and the lack of moderation that took place, and asked if this type of dynamic is often seen on the site.
I think it would have been better for most everyone if the discussion hadn’t gone as far as it did. I also don’t think it is reasonable that the initiator end things as she had. Here, let me rip you apart, say some nasty things, then close the discussion so you can’t say anything back. “Boo hoo…poor me; you’re bad; I’m not playing anymore.”
So for all of us, let’s be prepared to participate as a grown-ups or stay in our own sandbox!
One thing I’ve learned - always be civil with women and respond nicely even if they are not. Almost 90% of the time, about a week or so later, they are completely different and behave very nicely again. Lord knows how many fights I have avoided, both online and offline, by following this one simple rule.
