I started that, not with the intention of upsetting anyone, but as an add on to the possibility of seeing Josh Schache and Matthew
Hammelmann in the same forward line as I would have found that quite exciting. I apologise if this offended you or anyone else,
but I can assure you my swimming pool is not that shallow and I salivate over no one.
Thanks Yojimbo, for me an offhand comment I can look past but the thing is going on and on and on, and some of the posts are very tasteless, I think. I'm not offended, I just think there's a time and a place and that the bulldogs media thread is really, really not the place.
I wholeheartedly agree that people should always be respectful towards one another.
Some people won’t though and beyond calling it out initially I don’t think we should do any more than that. The OP suggested that we have mods to assist with this, and that’s what I am referring to - I don’t think that’s their or our role. I’m not worried about the atmosphere being ruined if people decide to be more considerate. I’m worried about there being an atmosphere where there is some kind of imperative to have to chase up people who aren’t worth my time or effort when I’d rather be having a friendly chat about footy with like minded supporters.
*******s should be able to be ignored. As for sexually violent or misogynistic comments (which I was not referring to in my post, but due to it’s generality I’m sure you could take from it, so agree I should perhaps have fleshed it out more). That should be banned entirely. Any instance of it. I was referring to careless criticisms of players who have mental heath issues in game day and other threads (which to my mind are unacceptable, but not in need of follow up or censorship, unlike many things which are).
As for the weather girl comments in the other thread, yes they’re very creepy! Do they cross the line? Not my place to say. Do you think they do? (This is absolutely not a loaded question, just interested to know, as I just ignored them out of hand)
I appreciate your response, I think we do mostly agree. I'm definitely not suggesting that everyone on the board has to start policing everybody else, just that when people make their own posts or decide how to respond to others, they take a moment to think about whether they're being constructive or destructive, in a way, and think of the people who'll be reading the post.
Regarding criticising players with mental health issues, I think everyone agrees football criticisms are completely fine for any player, but when it goes into the mental health territory, the thing is that though the player themself will likely never read whatever goes on here, hundreds of other people will, and being dismissive of somebody's anxiety disorder (for example) can really fall pretty hard on other people who may suffer from the same or a similar issue. Comments about someone using depression as an excuse for other problems in their life (for example) can bring out the feelings of guilt and doubt that many people with depression have about the validity of their illness. Whether or not the mods are or should be involved, people with mental illnesses can be very vulnerable to the words of others, maybe even without fully realising it themselves, and it really doesn't cost much for people to be supportive rather than dismissive about it. People might say, "Well don't come on the board then if you're so sensitive," but withdrawing from the world and your hobbies and pastimes is the opposite of psychologically healthy for anyone, let alone someone suffering a mental illness.
To answer your question about the media thread, I think at least some of those posts definitely do cross the line, and the whole digression is way off-topic, if nothing else. It doesn't affect me personally, I'm not hurt by them, but I read that thread and I think about how many women might come on this site and click on that thread and read what goes on here and hightail it out of here and not come back. Not everyone can ignore this kind of stuff, and we shouldn't have to brace ourselves for it on a thread devoted to dogs media.