Tooting & Mitcham v Billericay

[editor]

Good on 59robbery for calling out some of the shit and abuse which is dished out on this forum, including from a club committee member, which puts me off posting these days. Shame the observation has to come from outside.

Football forums attract some very odd people, some of whom should just be shouting at the bins instead. But we pride ourselves on being different. We shouldn't have to tolerate some of the shit that gets casually lobbed around here.

We talk a lot, sometimes piously, about making Champion Hill as welcoming as it can be. But we fail to make this forum the same. People being called cunts for attending a football match. I mean, just think about that for a moment. Abuse dished out because someone says they would rather not travel by coach to an away match. Really?

I don't necessarily agree with blocking swearing, because the nature of the rest of U75 involves some robust language. And I know we can mute stuff, and I have done, but that only kicks the can down the road. If this forum's going to prosper, and not be met with rolled eyeballs when it's mentioned, then this stuff needs to be dealt with.

Ideally this should be self-policed by the forum users, but there is also a 'report post' function which notifies the mods. Before anyone does that, they should make sure they double check the rules first. We've always been fine with robust debate and some in context swearing, but full on personal abuse and endlessly sweary attacks are not on.

That said, there's always some posters who just wind each other up and make the forum worse for everyone else. My first suggested port of call is the 'ignore poster' function, but if that fails to stop the spats disrupting the discussions, mods can force users to ignore each other.

Running a forum is not easy and it's is categorically impossible to moderate it in a manner that satisfies everyone, so there has to be some give and take along the way, backed by supportive users!