Nathan I am trying to ignore a poster, in truth bet a few are
So know you highlighted someone who is not worth reading or thinking about a nasty piece of gear that poster

Hi Belly,

There is a forum I like, run by an expat Brit living in France (Psoriasis Club). Inspire I find much less of a community and with plenty of shonks pushing dodgy treatments. Useful info on both sites though. Seeing the American system in action I am glad to live in Australia, although we are behind the standard of care for psoriasis in Canada, France and the UK.

Re bullying on olo: We paint a self portrait with the comments we make.

Cheers

Fester thanks, yes shonks trying to make cash is a very real problem for sufferers
So too is the wrongly held view we are victims of something others may get
Right now, first time in twenty years, a new spray on is some help, but boy have I tried some stuff
Nathan J be yourself, you are as good as anyone here and believe me better than some
You ask for better and got jumped on but you win in my view

The user list for OLOA is at the bottom of this page. I just did the word count for A - 1,164. At least another 15 letters have roughly the same or more users. Allowing for some over-count, where a user name is two words, there have been about 10,000 people registered here over the years. A full count and graph of the drop-off in useage would be possible.

There's obviously been a huge decline. Only about a dozen people post here regularly. I do it less and less, for two reasons.

First, there is little dialogue. Many people just repeat ad nauseam their negative opinions; it doesn't seem to matter what the topic is, they will have a negative opinion. Second, I'd have no problem with a negative opinion or criticism of another post if there is some solid evidence or justification; but so often the 'reason' given is just insults to anyone who holds a different view.

Some of the arguments put here: other blogs are worse, it was worse at school, that criticising bullying is the same as bullying (that's a bit like 'she made me do it!' seem extremely defensive. Just because other people behave badly is not a justification for your own bad behaviour.

I tend to limit my comments to topics where I can make a factual contribution or suggestion, as here with the note on user drop-off. I like to learn new things. But here many of the posts just reinforce what I already know: that many people like to make nasty comments. I puzzle, why? Do they have nothing more substantial to contribute? Why do they just repeat the same insults? They seem to be unhappy.

In contrast to OLO, I really enjoy Quora. Plenty of difference of opinion, but much less personal invective. And lots of facts, on all sides of debates. I always learn something, or get a laugh out of anecdotes, and when I post, the feedback may be critical, but it is most often friendly

Cossomby you may well find me part of the problem, quite ok I do too sometimes
I have never seen you, or for that matter our author insult anyone
In my self imposed exile I tended to drop in briefly about every three months
Just see who was still here not thinking I would return
I left over a needless insulting so the thread has meaning for me
We have lost great posters yes some like me SIN they do not toe the right of reality line so many demand here
In the end freedom to be different say different things should not be reason to insult others
BUT being followed from thread to thread just so insults can be thrown is in my view not completely done with here
And such behavior only brings about retaliation , that truth will one day be focused on as online comments face censorship in laws that will be drafted like it or not

Belly, Rather than retaliation, one strategy might be just to ignore posters who repetitiously insult. But that just leaves the field open to those posters. To a great degree that's what has been happening to OLO. People have been ignoring such comments, and not posting, and then giving up altogether. I don't see any easy solution to building up numbers of people who would like an informative and civil debate. Yet there's no doubt that many of the topics are important, and worth debating.

One thing that depresses me generally is the number of people who comment on-line and make factually inaccurate statements, even where it is really easy to check, and where other people have posted the correct information. As an example, I followed the coverage on the end of the Uluru Climb in a couple of newspapers and blogs. I was surprised at the number of people who persisted in claiming 'Ayers Rock belongs to all Australians' even though others corrected them: 'No, the Aborigines own it as freehold land under our western legal system'. I can understand why people might think that it should 'belong to all Australians' as public land, or that everyone owns it symbolically, but to deny the actual legal status seems odd. If only because to deny freehold land gives people rights in the case of Uluru, also throws out their rights to their own freehold land. (Please everybody, I'm just using this as an example, not to start an argument over the climb.)