Re: Rider Bashing

[Sue Brown <sbrown@wamedes.com>]

>I keep thinking that I will unsubscribe from Ride Camp because of all of
>the bickering that goes on, but then I read some wonderful tidbit, piece of
>advice or positive thought and so I keep wading through the negative stuff.
>But it sure would be nice if people could keep their personal attacks and
>negative thoughts off of this list.
>

I've been on lists for several years now and they all have the same
symptoms in circumstances like this...someone will come along and bad-mouth
someone else, followed closely by a rebuttal from the "victim's" camp or
the victim of the bad-mouthing themselves.  In the end, the person doing
the bad-mouthing is taken to task for their indiscretions by others from
the "viewing public"...and reminded that a public forum on the internet is
not an appropriate place for these kind of comments.  You can't,
unfortunately, legislate morality, common sense, or ethics...and can only
hope that education on the right and wrong ways to do things will have the
desired effect.  There are lists where this kind of condemnation is
okayed...even rewarded...but these lists don't retain sensible people for
long.  Peer pressure has a very strong effect and persistent behavior
should be cause for dropping the offender from the list (by the list
manager.)  The "viewing public" on the list would be the ones losing if
*they* left since they would be missing a great many opportunities for
education and camaraderie from the many other, non-offending, members. 

A good thing to remember here, if and when ever you might ever, in your
lifetime, be tempted to say stuff about someone else, is (besides "there
are always two sides to a story"):  Imagine something you've done in your
life that could be misconstrued by someone else who didn't have all of the
facts and then imagine them broadcasting their vindictive version
(unsubstantiated and with lots of false info) to a thousand people -- sort
of like including the slander in the morning bulletin over the intercom to
every class at the high school. ;-)

Sue

Sue

sbrown@wamedes.com
Tyee Farm
Marysville, Wa.