Common Sense and a Reminder

[journey11]

We are usually a pretty well-behaved group over here on TEG and don't see as much of the moderators as they do on the sister sites.

To my perception, this forum has not been nearly as enjoyable for a while now for all the bickering and personal attacks going on. It's ok to disagree with someone, but please let's try to be respectful and courteous nonetheless. Hiding behind a keyboard is not an excuse for bad behavior. There are real people on the other end of all these avatars and I doubt one would be so bold to say such things to a person's face (or take the consequences).

Some may have neglected to read (or heed) the forum rules and in case you don't know where to find them, there is a header at the top that says "Rules".

I've seen at least half a dozen of these broken recently...

The TheEasyGarden Forum is a place for members to ask questions, share their experiences, and help each other learn while making new friends.

We've got a huge community, so in order to manage such a large group of diverse people we must enforce certain standards and rules. Underlying these rules is the fact that TheEasyGarden is a family-oriented board where people of different backgrounds and ideas can all feel comfortable.

Do's
* Be friendly and courteous to all members at all times.
* Respect the TheEasyGarden Staff. They dedicate LOTS of volunteer time keeping the forum running smoothly.
* Be nice to newcomers and help them feel welcome.
* Respect that people may have a different political, religious, philosophical and cultural background than you.
* Be very descriptive in the subjects of your new topics and try to stay on topic as you post. Example: do not say "HELP ME!", but instead say "I'm having a problem with xxx yyy and could use some help"
* Link back to TheEasyGarden.com from your site and/or blog, especially if you put a link to another site in your forum signature (see rules on poultry sites below)
* Read the sticky topics at the top of the "Feedback and Announcements" section of the forum.
* Have fun and learn!

Dont's
This is a list of things you should not do on our board. TheEasyGarden Staff will lock or remove topics if there are posts that are contrary to the good of the community. The TheEasyGarden staff have over 50 years of combined experience with this community and these rules are based on this experience. The staff love the community, but if a member contnues to disregard our guidelines they will be banned from accessing the TheEasyGarden forum.

1. Remember this is a family board no swearing / foul language and no inappropriate "Adult" topics.
2. No PETA or Cock fighting posts, period!
3. No Flaming (verbally attacking people or groups of people - e.g. a profession, an organization, a company.)
4. No Trolling (posting to provoke others, luring them to flame or rant). Trolling is sometimes done involuntarily, so please be considerate when posting.
5. No teasing, mocking, ridiculing, or otherwise making fun at other member's expense.
6. No Spam. Spamming is posting the same thing several times. "Bumping" (posting to move a thread up on the forum list) and cross-posting (posting the same thread in several forums) are examples of spam.
7. No Fighting. Taking a personal conflict to the forum is unacceptable. "I'm right, you're wrong" threads and posts will be edited or deleted.
8. Do not post overly personal information like your phone number, address, age (especially if you are a minor) or any other personal info you don't want the whole world to see.
9. Do not promote other similar websites that could be considered in competition to TheEasyGarden. Sometimes it may be appropriate to link to another site that has specific information relative to a question, but moderators have to right to remove links and posts at their discretion.
10. Luring members to other forums is not allowed and we prohibit discussing drama that happens on other forums. We've worked hard for 10 years to build up this community and we will not tolerate people coming in and spamming our members via the public forum, private messages, or emails to join another community.
11. No advertising or marketing of your products or services outside of the TheEasyGarden Buy / Sell section. Even posts in these areas should be in moderation.
12. We strongly discourage religious and political topics and reserve the right to delete them at our discretion. The topics of religion and politics should be confined to the Random Ramblings section of the forum.
13. Do not solicit donations or charitable requests for yourself or other people or organizations.

 

[curly_kate]

Agreed! Although I've learned to avoid certain threads just based on the title. :/ I just wanna talk about my garden - no interest in a political discussion.

 

[baymule]

A big AMEN to that! People, please stop all the arguing!

 

[Nifty]

Thanks for the reminder! Moderating any group is tricky and to make our jobs (and the overall feel of the community) better, we request that members:

1) Be courteous and friendly with the content and tone of their posts. Remember, even if you don't mean something to be mean or rude, it may come across that way.
2) Have a thick skin and remember that a post may not have been meant to be rude or mean. Also, it's good to learn not to take things personally and let stuff roll off your back
3) Don't feed the trolls by responding "in like kind" to a post that upsets you. Instead, report posts that violate our rules and be patient as our team reviews the context, discusses the situation, and takes action where needed.

I echo that we have a great community here with relatively few problems. Let's all keep working together to keep it that way!

 

[HotPepperQueen]

I agree completely. Some of the threads being started on here are making me shake my head. What I do love about this forum is that even after disagreements on threads that turn into full blown arguments, we all come back together and talk about what we love- GARDENING. Isn't that why we are here? I think everyone is getting restless and can't wait for warmer weather! :tools

 

[897tgigvib]

Thank you for the reminder Nifty. I sure know I'm not very perfect and sometimes realize only after that I was feeding a troll, so sometimes I go back and edit my post and just leave a smile or the word peace. Thank you for being so understanding of us as imperfect humans with sometimes imperfect emotions.

And thank you for forgiving me and my imperfections!

 

[Smiles Jr.]

Did I, or am I missing something?

 

[canesisters]

Nevermind Smiles - go back out and play in the dirt.
:watering

 

[897tgigvib]

hay cane, you know how to do those cute little emoticons too, like digit! wish i was that smart!