Never seen a community forum like MFP's!

Cliffslosinit

See you are attacking us wonderful folks here.
Now my feelers are hurt.
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I love this

Take a moment to review the Forum Guidelines:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/welcome/guidelines

1. No Attacks or Insults and No Reciprocation
a) Do not attack, mock, or otherwise insult others. You can respectfully disagree with the message or topic, but you cannot attack the messenger. This includes attacks against the user’s spelling or command of written English, or belittling a user for posting a duplicate topic.

Troll

Im on 4 different fitness sites, each progressively worse than the last. on here, youre either a fat idiot or a fit idiot. on BB.com if you arent 10% bodyfat or less, youre wasting everyones time. on another, you MUST BE SUPPORTIVE of peoples bad choices or youre hateful. its best on all of these sites to seek people who you like chatting with, PM them, and make your own clique. If you need buddies to help motivate you, find BUDDIES, not forums. forums are exhausting.

reneecgc

I have not seen the rudeness. I think most posts are encouraging and positive.

trackercasey76

Plain and simple "Keyboard Bullies" the anonymity of the internet lets everyone be a jerk without real life consequences.

spade117

There are a few exceptions, but most of those are boards where people know each other in real life and knowing you'll be seeing the other person in person soon is a great self-moderating incentive. The rest are bland boards that are either moderated to the point where no one dares disagree with the moderators, or where everyone is there with a shared interest in which there is no room for debate.

I've seen local forums where everyone knows each other and it is just as bad.

LifeOnMars_

For those people who will say - "this place is just like the rest of the internet" - no, it isn't.

What internet do you use?

specialsnowflakes.com

MonkRocker

Ive never been on a msg board that wasnt like this.

I am on one, but it's heavily moderated for one, and for two - it's $10 to join. That tends to weed out the suckers, since you'd HOPE that most people wouldn't pay $10 just to come in and troll someone, only to get banned and have to pay all over again.

The biggest reason, like someone already pointed out is simply because they CAN. I'm sure most of us are perfectly nice people were you to meet us face to face, but something about having the relative anonymity of a message board can prompt some people to toss politeness out the window.

That being said - there are cases here where it's justified and some where it's not. People get tired (and rightfully so) of answering the same questions or dispelling the same myths and misinformation that 30 seconds of googling would reveal a hundred more polite answers to. SeeL spot reducing, "why can't I see my abs?" "why aren't I gaining muscle, I've been lifting these 1.5 lb dumbbells like crazy!" and every other question that's been asked and answered a million times over.

The other type I see are hot button topics, like the recent "Children of God" thread, which quite frankly has no business being posted on a forum dedicated to Health and Fitness in the first place. Not sure why anyone would be shocked that turned into a trainwreck. Let's go ahead and cover politics, healthcare, abortion and whether or not the Easter Bunny is real while we're at it.

elenathegreat

It's the internet?

This is actually not that bad when it comes to online forums. Heck, I belong to a DISNEY forum and people get mean over there.

Then again, when people stop crying when someone tells them something they don't want to hear that would help too. Don't start a thread if you are not willing to hear all sides. 99% of the "OMG people are mean" responses I see are from people who don't want to listen to the truth and who only want sunshine and rainbows. Especially with something like healthy weight loss, the truth is VERY important.

I think this says it exactly. I have learned so much and enjoyed everything encountered here in the past year and a half or so. Maybe I just have a thick skin to match my sharp tongue!

Sharyn913

I think all forums and comment sections are like this. I think we all just have wicked hearts and say meaner things when someone is not in front of us.

Cliffslosinit

Have you seen the BBC?
Or been on it?

spade117

For those people who will say - "this place is just like the rest of the internet" - no, it isn't.

What internet do you use?

specialsnowflakes.com

Ha!

url not found, but the urban dictionary definition was funny.

ShreddedTweet

Why can't we all just get along? Oh the humanity. *yawn* People have opinions, end of speech.

MonkRocker

Im on 4 different fitness sites, each progressively worse than the last. on here, youre either a fat idiot or a fit idiot. on BB.com if you arent 10% bodyfat or less, youre wasting everyones time. on another, you MUST BE SUPPORTIVE of peoples bad choices or youre hateful. its best on all of these sites to seek people who you like chatting with, PM them, and make your own clique. If you need buddies to help motivate you, find BUDDIES, not forums. forums are exhausting.

Your username has given you away! REPORTED.

pastryari

For those people who will say - "this place is just like the rest of the internet" - no, it isn't.

What internet do you use?

specialsnowflakes.com

Actually it's specialjamfilledsnowflakes.com.

innocenceportrayed

Its like politics, everyone has an opinion and if you don't agree with their opinion you have a stick shoved up your *kitten*.

Everyone has a different opinion and most can't agree because most are too ignorant to open up and try something new. And since the internet is free space and sooo many topics are created on here every hour they can't control them all or at least not quickly. This site has trolls and people who are just downright nasty, but I've seen much worse things on other places. I'm not saying that it's not incredibly annoying and it makes you feel like you shouldn't ask a question because most people will jump on your back, pull your hair and scream in your face and not the kinky way.


I have to agree with an above poster though, bacon makes everything better, offer more. =D

ZombieChaser

dittmarml

If you don't want to subject yourself to it, by all means don't. But there's sure alot of emotion and hangups associated with weight loss and it goes to figure some of it will get played out in the wonderfully anonymous culture that attracts cowardly keyboard warriors.

spade117

Have you seen the BBC?
Or been on it?

I really hope you mean the British Broadcast Corporation.

cmriverside

I love when new people come here and start a "Complainer" thread. Gives me one more person to add to my "Ignore" list.


To the OP: See the little "Report Post" at the bottom right of every post. Yeah, there. Use it if you think guidelines are being violated. You have read the Guidelines, right? Good.

There are a lot of Moderators. You have to report something ACTUALLY against Guidelines and they will delete it. Dissenting opinions don't qualify.

Elzecat

Check out the newsvine at MSNBC.COM. It makes this place look tame.

CNN.com's comment boards are also frightening...It's like a train wreck, I try not to look...but sometimes I can't help myself.

As for MFP...I think it's like any other website, people say things they would never say in "real life."
I try to focus on the positive support, advice, and friendships here and ignore the rude people as much as possible.

I think that some people believe that by being harsh and rude, they are giving a type of support. Like a "kick in the pants" kind of support...but it can definitely be taken the wrong way, and there are many people who "troll" the threads and post things just out of meanness or boredom.

Don't let it get to you too much! Overall, I find the balance of positive versus negative here to be much in favor of the positive. I like the MFP tools and I get great support from my MFPals.