[LinkLover]

As I'm sure all of you moderators are aware, the state of this forum is declining rather quickly, with arguments on almost every single thread and people being rude to each other. Since I don't want to start any issues by posting in the other sections, I just need to say something about this to you all.

I joined this forum just over a year ago, to improve the care of my Betta, Link, and all future Bettas I would own. Without all this information, who knows what would have happened to him, or if I would have fallen in love with these fish as much as I have after being here. However, not only did this forum teach me how to properly care for my fish, but it became a place where I could come an enjoy myself. I have severe clinical depression and anxiety, and I can't tell you how much it helped to have this group of people to "interact" with, and things to learn to keep my mind busy. After taking a break due to severe morning sickness during my pregnancy, I was so excited to come back and continue being totally Betta crazy. I am literally on this forum on and off all day long, since I am a stay at home mom and don't go out much. Unfortunately, I have become less and less comfortable posting here due to the unpleasant atmosphere that seems to be forming. This makes me really sad, because I feel like I am losing something that has been very helpful to me emotionally, and there are few things that really make much of a difference in that department.

I know that you are all doing your very best, and I am not trying to say that you aren't doing your job. You can edit posts and give people reminders, but you can't change their attitude or behavior (as nice as that would be). There isn't really much of a point to this post I suppose, I just really, REALLY wanted somebody to know how much this forum means to me. Thank you for reading.

 

[Romad]

Hi LinkLover,

Thank you for making this post. It's not always easy for us to see where potential problems lie when there are so many members and so many threads and posts going on at any given time.

So, if you can be more specific it would be very helpful to us so we can take a look at the situations that you're concerned about. Are there members in particular that are causing problems or continuing to casue problems if they were addressed initially? We won't share anything that you post here with any other member(s) of the community.

I don't see the forum as declining - quite the opposite actually but we're likely to hit a few speedbumps every now and then. What I can tell you is that the team insists on keeping the forum a place where everyone like yourself feels comfortable and part of the forum community.

Thanks again and congratulaitons on your pregnancy or newest family addition.

 

[LinkLover]

Thank you very much. Unfortunately it's really hard to pinpoint anything specific because I feel like it's taking place all over the forum all the time. However, two members that I feel are dragging everyone else down are Stone and Popcorndeer.

When I read through threads where Stone has posted, it always seems like he comes at every debate with a bad attitude, and appears to want to fight and cause drama rather than discuss the issue like an adult. I think this showed pretty clearly with the thread he recently made (that has been closed) about why people won't post here. I felt like it was more of an attack and a way to start drama rather than a discussion as he claimed.

As for Popcorndeer... I'm sure you have had multiple complaints about her already, but I really feel strongly that she has been a huge disruption here. Almost all of her threads end up being closed due to arguments about her improper fish care or how she always seems to have different answers to the same question each time she's asked.

I hate pointing out individual people, but I think these two have been large contributors to the uncomfortable atmosphere the forum has had lately. I know there isn't much you can do to change the way people behave, but hopefully this will help you all get to the root of the issues around here.

 

[redchigh]

Thanks for the information. You can be sure they will be investigated and discussed in the depths of Modland.

 

[Destinystar]

Thanks very much LinkLover for alerting to this issue we are working hard as a team to understand and deal with these issues. Our members concerns are also ours and we would never want you to feel uncomfortable in posting. Do you know how to use the report post button, its the little red triangle with the ! inside it. Anytime you feel someone is being rude to you and you would like to report it just click that button and make a report and include the post with your report and all the moderators will be alerted to your report.

Congrats on your pregnancy , I was a stay at home mom also for many years, they grow up to fast I sure miss having my kids around all the time. Take care !

 

[LinkLover]

Thank you all very much for taking my concerns seriously. I'm glad to see that we have such great moderators who really have the best interest of all the members in mind.

Thank you. I had my daughter in March (sorry I forgot to mention that in my response to you, Romad), so she is now just over two months old. I do have to agree, I feel like she was just born yesterday!

 

[ao]

Please don't feel intimidated by the change in climate I my self joined only a little over a year and a half ago. I've noticed that these things come and go with the coming and going of different personalities on this forum...

We always watch threads that have reported posts to make sure that things don't snowball out of control ^__^ the report button is very useful that way.

 

[LinkLover]

Sorry it took so long for me to reply, I think I read your response and then got distracted. Probably by a little person screaming at me. But thank you for letting me know that, it's good to know that this is probably temporary and will (hopefully) get better with time.