everyone is judgemental as its self-preservation. that person was obviously very flaky anyway so I don't see how you leaving can help anything.. this whole site is about being real.

Hi folks, I was shocked to hear one member decide to harm herself after some interactions on the website. The member who posted this hasn't contacted us regarding this and has already deleted his account. I did some investigations and believe the post that he was referring to is this one:

[agnostic.com]

I reviewed the comments on this thread and don't think any stands out as mean-spirited or personal attacks. Your opinions? The poster's own comments/replies were all deleted with her account so I don't know all the details. But please contact me or @admin here or in PM if you want. We want our members to feel safe here.

This sounds like church preaching to me. No details, lays on the guilt, everybody's at fault.

I was on this site a bit yesterday but totally missed whatever the post was. Sounds sad.
At the risk of sounding harsh, though, one of the best bits of advice I ever took to heart that helped me transform from a young anxious compulsive people-pleaser always craving approval to a confident, assertive person, was that...

"You will NEVER gain everyone's approval, so stop trying so hard. Some people are determined to find fault, to dislike you, and to blame you. Your only viable choice to gain happiness is to stop trying to win approval. Seek instead to live, with empathy, yes, but with integrity most of all. If people criticize you, consider if their claims have any merit and can be learning opportunities for you. If not, move on. "

In a public forum with many people, there will unfortunately always be some who are deeply troubled with issues well beyond the scope of the forum. The fact that they point blame at that forum for their unhappiness does not make it so.

The risks we all take being in any online forum, are that we may encounter crass, cruel, non-empathetic people, who cause others upset. While it can happen on any site, I've not seen much of it here. But then, you need to decide for yourself where to be - as we all do.

Well, Rick_T, If you choose to go, just go like you did, it's your free choice to visit, live here and leave in our little internet community. I'm not gonna move to another town because somebody in the town that I'm living in, is molested by somebody that could not control its temper. This gives me the feeling of judging without trial. Of course I don't know exactly what happened, and you might be right to blame this site for not preventing things like this, but to me it gives me the feeling that you were not very happy here anyway. Too bad you can't reply anymore because you deleted your account. It's like my son, that broke up with me several years ago, blaming me for "something'. He never told me why. Although it is of course his own free choice, it still leaves an empty space not knowing.

With all this ambiguity, how are most of us supposed to ascertain that anything untoward actually happened?

@Admin.It would be nice to clarify this if you have any knowledge of it

what happened?

The fact is that I missed it all yesterday and I have no idea what has been going on. It seems that something terrible has happened. Every site you go, where people gather to communicate/converse, things happen for whatever reason. Sometimes terribly wrong, sometimes amazingly good, it is hardly impossible to prevent that. Its only result is that people try to be more careful for a while. This site is very understanding and moderate, although I also encountered a small collision in the beginning. Beginners rubbing I guess. As it indeed is related to the critics on someone's English, I, as a Dutchman, posted too, although I can't find the post anymore. The basic reply was that speaking and writing a language without mistakes is beautiful, but the basic goal of language is that people can understand each other. Sometimes beautiful language is not important to understand each other. The thing is that my reply is gone.

I have yet to see anything worse than crass, rude, insensitive, immature, or potentially race-baiting. Obviously I am not looking in the right (wrong?) places because I find this report very shocking and unexpected. I have no idea who was involved, what was said, what happened--or if any of it is even true.

Can someone in the know please PM me or tag me to a link or something? If this kind of thing is happening here I'd like to be informed so I can be prepared at least and proactive at best.

Y'all, if I ever come across as hurtful, please call me out. I try to be very careful with my words so I'm not expecting it to be an issue...which is where the danger lies. I don't want to get sloppy.

Is there a thread already about dealing with online bullies, jerks, and trolls? If there isn't, should we start one? I only mention it because I think the best thing to do is not respond until and unless a ToS infraction occurs, and then report--but I have seen well-meaning bystanders jump in and respond with indigent replies. When I see that I think "You're just giving them what they want, which makes it worse..."

If it's the thread link that @Rhetoric posted below, then they were being rather caustic themselves while at the same time exemplifying the same fault they were criticizing (bad english/grammar). That will attract negative comments from any community.

I have found this site to be exceptionally warm and welcoming.

At the same time everybody here is a human and we all have our strengths, frailties, and baggage. Everybody has the potential to get triggered by what another person says or writes. If somebody comes here and posts some outlandish, rude, false or other offensive statement, I am going to either 1. Ignore it; 2. Block them; or 3. Reply with whatever is on my mind.

While I would not like to think that I ever caused somebody to relapse into their own unhealthy coping mechanisms, like another member said, this is not a support group or healing center. There is no way any of us can magically know that somebody is struggling with self harm issues and should therefore have carte blanche to speak their own mind and not get honest feedback.

I think it is each individual adult's responsibility who is participating in this community to muster the courage to say "Y'all are hurting my feelings" or something similar.

I am all for not intentionally hurting people. That is one of my core tenets about who I am and strive to be. And, I feel like we've all been called to the principal's office, chastised, and sent to detention without knowing what caused another person's relapse into unhealthy coping mechanisms.

I've had some rude comments made to me as well. Now I just move on and apologize for upsetting someone. I mean no harm to anyone here. I'm sorry this happened.

I find this site to almost always be kind and respectful. I don't believe it is possible to have a group this size and not have an occasional rude or mean comment/interaction.

wow... I'm so sorry that happened... we should be kinder here... after all we're most of us here to escape the judgmental pricks.... but I can see it ... some nitpick, some insult, some need some sort of intellectual superiority ... I need to think on my comments more carefully

Wish you could remain. Your empathy for others is a welcome change from trolls encountered in other social media sites.

What? I missed that...is the member okay? Did they get help?