trolls vs support

amberlyda1

I was fairly disheartened by some in this community. We are all on here for support. I would say most of us are on here for weight loss tips, advice and general support. I had a difference of opinion from some yesterday; which is fine. Like everyone else on here im wrong sometimes. I read and do my research and it doesnt always line up with other peoples. Yesterday because I could not offer "superior" sources from my phone I was not only told I was wrong, but that I needed to rethink college, my education was sub par etc. I did not realize that I needed to have a doctorate to be on here. Not one person offered alternate sources. Instead it turned into something weird and ugly.
If we were all experts on nutrition, weight loss etc, than we would not be on here asking for advice. None of us would be struggling with our weight. I came on here originally because I thought it would be nice to cheer people on while working on my own weight loss. Yet as I read your posts there are a number of people on here with a very sharp tongues and very insulting rebuttals.
Everyone's body works differently. There are many different studies out there that contradict each other. Instead of calling someone names and insulting them; offer an alternate theory. Dont tell them their sources arent good enough; so obviously they have no idea what they are talking about. If you dont agree with someone, thats ok...but dont insult them personally. It is uncalled for and incredibly immature. Im not just saying this just for myself, as I read a handful of posts this morning with some people commenting with very nasty replies.
This is a support forum. It is supposed to encourage people, not drag them down.

stevencloser

First, this is not a support forum.
Second, the best form of support is offering accurate advice and pointing out when something is inaccurate.
If you said something wrong, it is the best thing to tell you that it is wrong.
Also many of the people on here have reached their goals long ago and are only sticking around to give advice to people needing it. They are experts, more or less.

janejellyroll

Group slaps, in my experience, tend to be really ineffective. If you have a message for specific users or an issue you would like to address, perhaps you should use the PM feature to contact them directly.

There is a ton of misinformation about weight loss and fitness out there. I think we've all been in a situation where we have inadvertently given out misinformation or written something that turned out not to be correct. Focusing on sources helps keep discussions full of helpful and accurate information and I appreciate that.

prettysoul1908

I am totally not a fan of name calling and insulting someone's intelligence (unless they reallllly asked for it)

But I do appreciate the no nonsense tone of some of the posters. It's a debating style that cuts away all the fluff.

Personally I am far more diplomatic when it comes to dealing with people than some on these boards. But I know that is not everyone's style of communication. If they're speaking the truth and giving facts... That's all I care about.

pembr0ke

I agree with you completely. There does seem to be a 'militant' element to some of the members who can be quite critical of others opinions. Saying that, I think the majority of members are similar to you and I - looking for support, advice and friendship. Ignore the others, life is too short!

richln

There is a support forum here if that is what you are looking for:
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/categories/motivation-and-support

diannethegeek

It's been my experience that every helpful poster on these forums, every single one, will be called rude, mean, negative, troll, bully, etc. at some point or another no matter how carefully they phrase their advice. Posts like this tend not to be very helpful. When every helpful poster is called out as mean at some point or another, then making a post like this without examples or qualifications just ends up pointing fingers at everyone.

There is some actual rudeness that goes above and beyond what should be acceptable here. Report it if it actually breaks one of the guidelines (use the actual report function not the flags) and let the mods deal with it. But posts like this just add to the negative atmosphere that you're trying to combat instead of solving anything.

It would be great if every new poster lurked for a bit and read through the stickied "must read" posts to get a feel for some of the hot topics and to see how using sources like Fed Up is likely to be received. But it doesn't bother me enough to start a thread blasting those who don't.

Calliope610

OP was defending "starvation mode", was set straight; ergo this thread.

'Nuff said.

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/comment/34250185#Comment_34250185

BurnWithBarn2015

Well not to be rude, or bash you.

But i am a certified ( Dutch) Coach/trainer and nutritionist.

Still due to eating to much out of boringdom & frustration when i was injured and went back from working 90 hours a week to zero i gained weight.
Even with eating a very nice balanced diet.

So not totally true what you say there

People can be here for many reasons, support, advice, interest, use it as a tool for their exercise etc etc.

But agree with the part that it can be rough here. But keep in mind there are people here coming in ( dont read posts sometimes) as a question then get advice/support and they dont like the result. They go against it big time. So i understand the other side too.

Just shake it off I know i did. I stop reacting to first posters i dont go into "big" discussions anymore and only post or read something when i take a break from what i am doing. So not really that much here anymore.
Somebody advised me to get a thicker skin. And so i did! no problem at all. I have let go the idea of having friends or trusted people here. And went on with real life. Worked super

Calliope610

or maybe it was this post

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10262337/juicing-for-weight-loss/p2

jemhh

Is this about the juicing thread? Read the thread. Didn't see anybody suggest you rethink college or that your education was sub-par. Were comments deleted?

tincanonastring

It was the juicing thread in which Fed Up was used as a citation for the evils of sugar. I can't imagine why someone would question that!

tennisdude2004

stevencloser wrote: »

First, this is not a support forum.
Second, the best form of support is offering accurate advice and pointing out when something is inaccurate.
If you said something wrong, it is the best thing to tell you that it is wrong.
Also many of the people on here have reached their goals long ago and are only sticking around to give advice to people needing it. They are experts, more or less.

Pretty sure the people running MFP would disagree with you on that one!

lemurcat12

You think they are against accurate advice? Hmm.

In any case, it's not unsupportive to disagree with someone about a matter of fact.

emhunter

I agree with you OP. Many of the mfp people that feel like you do not post in the forums. I hope that will change soon. In the mean time, just ignore them. And report any behavior that violates the rules.

janejellyroll

tennisdude2004 wrote: »

stevencloser wrote: »

First, this is not a support forum.
Second, the best form of support is offering accurate advice and pointing out when something is inaccurate.
If you said something wrong, it is the best thing to tell you that it is wrong.
Also many of the people on here have reached their goals long ago and are only sticking around to give advice to people needing it. They are experts, more or less.

Pretty sure the people running MFP would disagree with you on that one!

I'm pretty sure the people running MFP think of this as a forum to increase engagement with the website. Does support take place here? Sure. But there is also discussion, information sharing, and advice.

jemhh

tincanonastring wrote: »

It was the juicing thread in which Fed Up was used as a citation for the evils of sugar. I can't imagine why someone would question that!

I figured that was the thread.

OP, if you're going to post something as a scientific truth, you need to be prepared to cite good sources. Even then, you may have some people refute them. (I seem to run into a lot of people who like to refute Lyle McDonald as "a guy who wants to sell books" but when that happens, oh well.) Don't take offense easily. Is this your first time on a message board? Because it doesn't seem like anything in that thread was out of the ordinary for a web-based converstion.

Francl27

tincanonastring wrote: »

It was the juicing thread in which Fed Up was used as a citation for the evils of sugar. I can't imagine why someone would question that!

*snort*

OP, at some point people got to admit that *maybe* they are actually wrong.

WinoGelato

There is a big difference between someone asking you for reputable sources to back up claims that you made in a thread, then pointing out that the sources you provided are not peer reviewed scientific studies - and not being supportive or being a troll.

If you are in school for a science based degree that will have real world applications (I think you said going to school to become a dietician?), then you really do need to learn that a quick google search to pull whatever the top three responses that come up is not necessarily going to provide the most extensively vetted information that you can access. Google Scholar is your friend. Studies published in peer reviewed literature. Not a blog post, a link to a popular website, or even an abstract of a study without links to the actual study and citations.

I know it is hard getting openly corrected on a public forum - but that doesn't mean that the people who were correcting you were trolling or are not supportive. Those same people are some of the most helpful people on this site. They just want to ensure that the information provided is accurate, unbiased, and science based.

Don't take it so personally. Good luck with your studies.

_John_

If you really want to dig as deep as you can to ensure "good" info, you have to make sure that even the peer reviewed stuff isn't in some low impact journal that a lot of the PI's collaborator aren't editors/reviewers of. Peer review is kind of the best we have, but still, there are agendas/bias to "science".

WinoGelato

_John_ wrote: »

If you really want to dig as deep as you can to ensure "good" info, you have to make sure that even the peer reviewed stuff isn't in some low impact journal that a lot of the PI's collaborator aren't editors/reviewers of. Peer review is kind of the best we have, but still, there are agendas/bias to "science".

Very true. But it is a vast improvement over references to popular documentaries like Fed Up as a viable source.