Hellobee Boards

@sorrycharlie: Oh I know that hostesses aren't moderators, but I do think they are sort of seen as leaders and therefore are responsible for setting a tone for the boards sometimes.

I don't have any issues with you personally, by the way.

Question though - can hostesses view flags, or is that handled exclusively by the Bee family?

@Arden: no worries, I just figured I'd throw it out there while it was fresh in my head! I forget things incredibly quickly these days. embarrassing. nope, we can't see flags or anything like that!

Nicely written post Mr. Bee, but it doesn't address any issues. People want and deserve to know the outcome of certain situations, we all know which ones I am writing of.

I logged into my laptop to expand a bit. I think you've got to address things when they happen, not wait until later. There were several opportunities to address the situations that have occurred in the recent past but they were swept under the rug and it just boiled over.

@sorrycharlie: Good to know, I did not realize that!

@mrbee: Dude, you need to be able to go on vacation and enjoy your family. This stuff, you should not be firing up a generator to deal with. I really feel strongly that you shouldn't have to do it all alone.

@Boogs: actually, I reached out to the hostess/ user directly as I have done with another user that I felt was a bit abrasive toward me. Users have reached out to me when things need to be taken "off line" so to speak. The reason why I am still here is because Mr.Bee reached out to me before fulfilling my request to deactivate my account. So what I am sharing is not news to him at least. I will wall you the thread and welcome your perspective if I am being too sensitive.

@Mrs. Lemon-Lime: If I was the abrasive one you're referring to, I sincerely apologize. I've started and stopped a wall post to reach out to you like 10 times now, and I promise I will finish it here someday soon.

Two things I've noticed is

People are negatively alluding to others comments a lot more. Instead of asking a question of the user or just stating how they do things and why, there's often an indirect but definitely purposeful jab at someones comment.

A lot of people seem to be waiting to comment until someone's 'on their side'. This is just a random example but if the question is do pink or blue lollipops taste better, the first few users might say blue, then one popular user will say pink and then everyone who was thinking pink but didn't want to rock the boat will jump in. So it creates these weird waves, which feels like ganging up but I think it's just people being afraid of rocking the boat till they see someone else agreeing with them.

@Maysprout: Yes. This is an excellent point

@Mae: Same. I think I only survived motherhood thus far thanks to HB answering all of my FTM threads

@Mae: @Danizaur: me too. But I think it's my (our) personality? Like...I'm somewhat persistent. If I don't get a response on one of my threads, I just repost it in a different way. Or if I'm having trouble with sleep, I post on someone ELSE's sleep thread where people are already talking about it, rather than creating my own.

@mrbee: thanks for posting this. I personally agree that the boards haven't been much fun recently and I've pulled away from them. As a hostess, I don't want that to be the case. I hope this brings things back to the Hellobee I've enjoyed since inception!

I really do love HB. I gained so much valuable perspective and information while pregnant, and during the early days of very difficult breastfeeding.

I will say, being on the more "natural" side of things, I don't find a lot of other people who I've really bonded with here. I love reading threads about things I don't know about (lately, it's been about sleep training ... we didn't think we'd need to do it, but we did, and it was a life saver). I think I try to approach threads in a kind, gentle manner, and I'd love to meet and form bonds with more bees like this.

Recently, I posted a thread, and was basically accused of being an asshole. My post about asking a question turned into people questioning my choice of home birth, and co-sleeping. UGH. I felt pretty attacked and embarrassed. In the end, the answers did help me (with my original question), and I am grateful for that piece, but I wish it could have been done more kindly. That same day, at least 5 bees sent me private wall posts telling me they agreed with me, but were "too afraid" to post it to the thread.

Not trying to rehash that ... I was happy to let it sink into the boards, but just pointing out that there's an odd way of helping others around here at times. If I don't have kind, constructive (even if it's not what they person wants to hear) feedback, I let a thread alone. I think it's a courtesy to others.

With all of that said, I know that some information here, during my pregnancy, really helped me get through certain days. When I was worried about something, the bees were here to calm my fears, and I am truly appreciative.

I look forward to the future of HB, and I'm excited to be a more active user again.

I've been away from my computer since saying my piece on the Duggar thread, and am just now checking in and seeing everything that has gone down since then. Frankly, I feel like this has gone on for too long, and I know that you are really against the idea of moderation, Mr. Bee. I know it can cause more drama. But we are clearly in need of SOMETHING here, because the turn the board has taken has just gotten to be ridiculous. From what I've seen, it can pretty much be broken down into two issues:

1. This is the big one, and this is where the problems all started...bees feeling like they were being specifically targeted by other users. I know I've totally felt this way - there was a string of threads awhile back where I felt like no matter what I said, Lipgloss and Looch would be there slamming me and saying really uncalled for things. I pretty much said right in the threads that I felt that way and didn't get it. I also flagged some posts. No one ever bothered to get in touch with me about my flags about feeling attacked, but the issue pretty much went away on its own. I feel kind of weird just naming names like that, but there's been a lot of beating around the bush going on and I'm just going to call it a spade a spade and put it all out there. Despite the fact that this is not an ongoing issue for me, I have seen this happen with other members (on both ends) where someone expresses an opinion in a way that really isn't overly harsh, one of the more popular users attacks her for it, and then the bandwagon of +1s starts. Unfortunately, this kind of behavior was allowed to continue for quite some time with no action being taken, which eventually led to issue #2...

2. People getting all butt-hurt about it every time someone +1s a post telling another user that they're out of line. If moderation is not going to be provided on this website, it's not surprising to see some users start to take it upon them self when they think someone is being offensive. So then we end up with two opposite issues - you have the +1s that are actually a legitimate problem and come across as a bunch of mean girls ganging up on someone. For me, this is stuff like Mrs. Lemon Lime being made to feel like crap for her thread/poll about keeping a special needs child. I don't keep up with everything going on with every single user on HB, and people just kept piling on making her feel bad even after she apologized and made it clear that she wasn't aware of the other situation and didn't mean any offense. It got totally out of control. And that is just one example - there have been MANY threads lately where the OP just ends up having it closed because the popular gang piles up on them for being accidentally offensive. And they're rarely kind about it, they always seem to assume that the OP had bad intentions.

On the other hand, you have the times where someone legitimately +1s something and is automatically accused of bullying and ganging up on someone, which is what I felt like was happening today in the thread that started all of this. Clearly not everyone would agree with me about that, but it is how I feel. So then we're left with two choices when we see someone say something that we think is nasty or inappropriate, and someone else say so - we can say nothing, making it look like it's just the one person who has an issue, or we can agree and be accused of being a mean girl or bullying. (Although as far as I know that accusation has never been made towards me - there's really no pattern to who I agree with and who I don't, so perhaps that's why. And also because I typically stay out of drama threads, but today has just been ridiculous.) Either way, if some form of moderation was enacted people could voice that they felt a user was being mean or offensive without resorting to +1s that could potentially make others feel attacked - they could simply flag it and share their opinion with the moderator.

I realize moderation is not a perfect system, but I think it would be a lot better than the mess created by groups of users, particularly when they're friends, basically attempting to moderate each other.

@wonderstruck: I think you might have a point about the pitfalls of self moderation when naturally, a lot of people on this site have become friends in real life and are going to instinctually back up their friends over a random person, which might escalate mundane disagreements.

Two people disagreeing is just a disagreement. But two people disagreeing and then 5 friends coming along to support their friend on one side of the disagreement causes trouble.

But as you said, it's natural for people to feel protective of their friends. I'm sure most people engage in it without even realizing what they are doing. And moderation is really difficult. In another lifetime I was a moderator on a travel website and a lot of political stuff was talked about since the members were very global, and things would get heated fast and any moderation would be met with a shitstorm of complaints that you either did too much or too little....acted too fast or too slow, had favorites or just weren't reading enough and seeing issues fast enough. Moderating is a thankless job where 60% of everyone is going to disagree with anything you do (or at least it feels that way).

So that's a problem, too. And it doesn't have an easy solution.

I've been away a lot from the HB and am slowly catching up with bits and pieces so I must admit that I have missed many of the threads we are talking about. Thank you @wonderstruck: for naming and laying things out so that we can actually follow the discussion. I think talking so cryptically about things is making it worse.

I hope we can get back to a place where we can be in the opposite side of things but still give our differing perspectives without people feeling attacked. I always think about my interactions with @runsyellowlites and @junebugmama and how in spite of how far apart we are in terms vaccines and other hot button issues we were still able to talk about it and other things and enjoy each other.

Personally when people disagree with me harshly or otherwise, I don't feel attacked and I am perfectly happy to say exactly how I feel at all times. However, I don't want to be seen as mean or bullying so I would hope that people still feel comfortable enough to tell me if you think I have been mean to you!

@plantains: I miss them. I feel like most of us on that side of the spectrum are long gone, and they all feel like they were bullied and/or not respected... When you talk to them (not just the two you mentioned, but others included) they all say the same thing

@snowjewelz: I really agree that's it's natural and mostly impossible to control. I've seen enough waves of this to be mostly over it.

I truly think some of the behavior is ridiculous, but I don't think it can truly be moderated either beyond the measures HB has already enacted to limit trolling. The larger a community gets, the more conflict you see because the population diversifies.

I think the posting today shows the real community though...it's basically back to normal...which is a crowd-based response I think.

Personally I avoid all posts that look like drama because that's not why I come here. I also avoid posts by certain users that bug me...although I've never muted anyone or hidden anything. And I know full well the consequences of posting something controversial, so I don't.

This site is like other sites. If you don't want to read a topic, don't want to have an adult debate about something or completely disagree, just skip it and move on.

Fairy dust and unicorns are not real. That's reality. Sorry