Opinions are discussions back & forth, like passing a bill in Congress. Bullying is like a 12th grader taking 5th grader's milk money at school. Also name calling, getting personal & using profanity to cut down or belittle the other person. It only takes one person to bully another person, the bully doesn't need 2 or 3 other people to bully you, but they do want other people to laugh about what the bully is saying or doing to the said person. Let's say I call you a fat cow & then 3 other people join in by saying "LOL that's so funny", well then you feel bad about what I said but also hurt by those laughing at you for what I said. Now I think that Forum Rules #4, 5 & 6 are being over abused and rules 1, 2 & 3 are being ingored and to me thoses are what a bully does. Edit: I hope I said that right

I think this was a good topic for a thread Tammy, and if I may I wld like to ask for discussion on the difference between bullying and disallowing trolls to make inflammatory statements solely for the sake of troublemaking?

In example: someone comes on a friendly football discussion thread and calls everyone a que#r that likes football....ignore? Respond?

I respectfully disagree, I see an infestation of trolls breaking rule #9 with no consequences for their actions. The forus are sadly lacking in participation...who wants to participate when any comment may be trolled?


Maybe I am not paying close enough attention these days...I gave a real and pertinent example above of what I consider trolling. Anyone care to give a real and pertinent example of what y'all are seeing as bullying?

My thoughts (feel free to disagree) I say: ignore for as long as you can (meaning nobody reply to them) and if then they KEEP attacking, with no one prodding them on THEN try and get them to back off. If they refuse to be kind and play nice: then do what you feel is best to deal with them.

I agree with MRB's answer to question with her comment #14.

So do I......nobody likes to argue with themselves! :)

@OneWitWonder: I can not remember who said what to who in which thread that I can use as an example. But let's take your point of view of a "Troll" causing trouble in the football thread. Now I'm only guessing you're referring to the thread of "Seminole Nation" now let me make this clear I don't want anybody to get in trouble or be upset at me but here's my opinion of the ordeal: comment #2 started the Profanity but then a few other comments were made using profanity too. Which is why I said MRB's comment is right. Now I think those other comments were normal reactions to the troll, but they broke rules too. Should they be punished? That's for Andres to decide not me, like I said it was a normal reaction for the OP of that thread to have. Ok now being said this morning the OP of this thread said something to me & if I didn't know she was joking, I would of felt she was bullying me even though I said nothing about her. To me there's a big difference between just joking as a friend & somebody I don't even know as in what happened with the OP of the thread Seminole Nation.

@Martian: I pulled the thread I was talking about up John. Maybe that is why some members perceive bullying when in fact there is no bullying. Trolls are ignored repeatedly and then responded too. If you are only sporadically reading threads then it appears out of context. That particular thread was a good example, the OP was a fairly recent addition and only posts infrequently...if that is the kind of response he gets and nothing is done either by Andres or other users why wld he come back? Just to be called a que#r? If he sees that that behavior is not tolerated then he may venture back again. At least that's how I wld respond as a newbie. I cld pull up post after post just like that one....out of the blue statements designed to inflame and insult, but I can't pull up bullying posts because I don't see it.

@OneWitWonder: I have seen all kinds of reasons for people to be dunced and nothing being done about it-and also ones that have been dunced for less offensive comments...That being said-certain people believe responding to a 'troll' or person who is just randomly making rude comments on threads, is bullying. There are many strong, intelligent opinions and open personalities in this community-I believe thats why people consider it bullying?

that's as good a guess as any.....I guess.