I recently observed a thread here where a member simply would not quit. I know he likely felt “bullied” as a result of several members telling him to stop pushing. Was he being bullied? I feel like he was being the bully forcing himself on folks who really did not want to read one more post stating his opinion. From there it went into defensive mode.
In this scenario, who is the bully?
That was a good exchange in that thread to memorialize what "gang-ups" or as this thread is titled; bullying of another member by a group of members. IMD; bullying on a forum is the gang-up of a (regular) group of members against an individual member. One person can fit the traditional "bully" definition, but they really don't have any effect/ power. The group does and that's where the imbalance creates a "bullied" dynamic. The many-to-one relationship defines the term. The cherry tends to be the same voices doing this over different sub-forums. In this case it's KSP and KS. As always, political alignments/ supports almost always hold strong through political and nonpolitical forums. This was the case, again, in the Mental Health thread. When one consider's who was being "attacked", it was a bit disheartening given the amount of personal info the poster has shared with us, despite how it was shared. IMO, of course.
When folks get dogmatic and refuse to accept feedback or see another side this is true. Sometimes the conversation isn't about objective, factual material and then I think it's even easier to get to this point.
I love the quote on one person's signature on another moto forum, "One of us is right, the other is you." Never fails to make me crack a smile. We are polar opposites and get along like peas and carrots in spite of it.
Is there a requirement that people accept feedback, though? Is the feedback mandated to be accepted and it it's not, is the gang-up the accepted response? Are members allowed to be wrong, convicted, confused, resistant, slow to accept, etc.? I mean, consider every single counter steering thread we've had...I agree some conversations aren't always objective to some members...but to others, they are objective.
People's brains operate differently and because of that, we all communicate a bit differently. We process and then communicate in our way, which actually favors reading one's post (or posts) several times and asking yourself "what are they trying to communicate and to whom"? BARF tends to operate like all forums; fast paced and response posted which gives little time for pensive considerations. I get that. But then, we should all understand that probative questions are a better response than assumptions followed with a Bic lighter and can of WD-40. FWIW, I fall victim to fast response mistake over and over too.
