Antiseptic,

My post made it quite clear that I was not participating in any contention that you may be involved in within, or outside the thread. The claim of SallyG that words attributed to JW in a post having a specific timestamp by you were made up was a checkable one.

SallyG described how she checked for the alleged quote.

I applaud checking.

I checked on SallyG, looking through the user posting history of JW. There was no post matching the timestamp you had claimed. The content of the only post of similar date was entirely different to the claimed quotes. There was no marker indicating any post had been removed: indeed, I don't think OLO currently has any provision for marking where a post may have been removed, another point that has recently been raised in the Technical Support threads.

The point I was making was that SallyG's contention that the quote was made up provided a perfect illustration of how an intra-Forum quotation background colour feature would make such contentions a thing of the past. The way such a background colour feature works is such as to require the user quoting to actually visit the post and select the quote.

As you yourself point out, the post from which the quote is claimed to come is not there. It has evidently been taken down. That being the case, nobody has any business purporting to quote from it, at least not with any degree of credibility. Was a quotation background colour feature to have been available on OLO at the time, your own claim that it was a genuine and accurate quotation would have been backed up by the software was it to have been true.

The making of such a point requires no apology, to you or any other user. I was making it because it was a feature Fractelle had expressed pronounced interest in within the TS threads, Fractelle having made a tenacious and courageous posting contribution to this thread, to the quality of which the feature, had it been available, may have contributed.

Fractelle, I'm not completely unbiased when it comes to Usual Suspect and Antiseptic so I know my observations may be coloured.

I think much of the criticism of them ignores the context of the attacks they often face (and give). With my most dispassionate glasses on they often seem to be under so much attack for what others think of them that it would be very difficult to provide balanced sensitive responses to those who disagree with them. Some posters seem to never engage them in discussion of the topic but rather post entirely on their perceived personal failings. I know I don't do well when I feel attacked from all sides.

I try to give posters the benefit of the doubt (I don't always succeed). I try not to assume that those who say things I don't like about men are necessarily anti-male and I'm not convinced that the evidence exists for most of the claims made about Usual Suspect and Antiseptic. It can be difficult to move past previous conflicts and harsh words. Sometimes it takes a determination by one party to try and engage on an issue committing to putting aside insults and perceived insults. You and I got off to a bad start and chose to move on from that. My suggestion, put aside what you believe about them. See if you can turn the interactions around. Be the one who does not offer insult or respond with insult and see if your perceptions change.

There is little to lose by doing so and potentially much to gain.

In regard to hostility when discussing my experiences, yes I've had it in the past. Not always from women. I've been told to grow some balls, to be a man etc. I've been accused of being an abuser. Even in this discussion the claim that by wanting violence against men spoken about I'm somehow trying to cover up violence against women has been hurtfull. Maybe I've interpeted that differently to the way it has been meant but it's still a hurtfull claim.

R0bert

Forrest gumpp:"As you yourself point out, the post from which the quote is claimed to come is not there. It has evidently been taken down. That being the case, nobody has any business purporting to quote from it, at least not with any degree of credibility."

Rubbish. The post was removed because I quoted from it. It thus became an embarrassing piece of evidence that JW/SallyG wanted removed. If GrahamY and Bronwyn had not quoted from it in the original thread, her attempted deception would have worked.

You do owe me an apology, because you jumped in feet-first to support someone who claimed that I made up the quote, assuming me to be dishonest. I am not.

I don't see that your colour-coding idea is of much use, frankly. Far better for the moderators to simply not comply with the wishes of posters wanting to hide their dishonesty by deleting old posts.

R0bert:"Some posters seem to never engage them in discussion of the topic but rather post entirely on their perceived personal failings."

The discussion here has been the subject of an attempted hijack by a few members associated with the DV industry. As usual, they want us to only discuss the topic of their choosing and any efforts to widen the discussion are resisted violently. I note the Pynchme has not had the good grace to apologise for her violent, controlling behaviour toward me and Romany, as usual has had her little snipe and scuttled off rather than answer any questions she may find difficult. At the risk of being accused of "belittling" the experience of victims of violence, I can only point out that this rthread is a clear demonstration of why we should not allow emotions to rule our responses to these big societal issues. It is also a clear demonstration of the hypocrisy that is at the heart of the DV industry in its present form.

OK, one last post.

'Some posters seem to never engage them in discussion of the topic but rather post entirely on their perceived personal failings'

Wow. Someone understands. I thought I was going crazy.

I had recently tried to use less emotive language in my posts, but the last few topics I've just been attacked as soon as I said anything. Fair enough if you don't want to reply to someone, but if that's the case, why snipe at them and accuse them of this and that while you're ignoringing their points.

It just shows that once a perception of you is made, fair or not, that's what you will carry around with you.

People are not the slightest bit interested in the actual contents of your post, they see themselves in a war where they actually go to the lengths to sift through hundreds of posts, and then twist them and take them out of context, just to score points. So the topic at hand becomes null and void, your comments are not worth writing down, as nobody addresses the points you make anyway.

Then when you address people and the points they make, you are ignored, but then used as an example of bullying, vitriol and abuse, which I can only assume is based on some previous topic because you look over your posts and all you have done is disputed their position.

Antiseptic, you might find that there was a lot less angst if you put less effort into responding to attacks and focussed on the discussion - says me after some recent posts :(

To get discussion happening someone has to decide they don't want to fight and stop doing so even when they feel attacked. Thats never easy but it can be much more productive than continual bunfights with other posters. Try a polite rebuttal of comments you don't like and another take on what you are saying and see if that makes a change.

I don't like a lot of the criticisms you cop from others but to get that to change you may have to do things differently (fair or not). It's hard to rebut either side when both are playing the same game (or enough on both sides are doing it to not be able to tell who said what).

R0bert

I find it amazing that Fractelle for example, from the get-go, talks of 'callousness directed at women', 'vitriol that pours out whenever violence against women..' in her first post.

This shows that people see any gender based topic as a continuation of a war. I really believe Fractelle is hurt by all this, but the effect of her comments is to perpetuate the conflict.

Then the rest of her posts are full of accusations of bullying and name calling and her being silenced and dismissed, and I really cant see any evidence for this. Certainly evidence started to appear once people got their backs up from being accused of things they didn't do. Perhaps a self fulfilling prophecy? Perhaps people should identify directly who they are acusing of bad behaviour, and what words they are offended by. If not, the designated 'et al', Usual Suspects', and 'some male posters' will always get their back up.

BTW: The most interesting post, that has been sidestepped by all the posters here saying there is support out there for men, is roberts list of quotes from the sites which men would presumibly have to go to if in an abusive situatiuon.