The owners of Triond apparently had the idea that writers could exchange ideas more freely without a moderator. Perhaps they thought that we were mature enough to moderate ourselves. In my opinion, they thought wrong.

A Trionder who asked if there was a moderator here said “I was surprised when I came across comments with cuss words and there were those which were personal attacks, just wondering”

She was told:

” no this forum does not have a moderator…. we are able to speak freely in here…. most of the time you will find half of those “personal attacks” to be made in jest… yes there is cussing… we are all adults here, i am sure most of us talk a lot worse outside the forum than inside it…’

When a new writer ventures into the forum looking for, of all things, tips for beginners (that is after all the first category on the menu list), they are instead met with mockery and condescension. If they have made the appalling error of posting the titles of their first articles, expecting to get advice from those who have been here awhile, they are usually shocked to be greeted with profanity and reprimands for having the audacity to “spam” the forum. Yesterday, for example, one new user who made this error was told, “SHUT THE F*** UP! NOBODY WANTS TO HELP! Don’t you f**king get it!? You have to gain some respect before you ask for help!” Not quite the welcome that Triond was anticipating new users to receive, I’m sure. That same day, another veteran wrote about a new person, “Something tells me ****** will be keeping her distance for a while.”

This is not an isolated incident. Almost every time I have ventured into the forums, I have witnessed shockingly rude comments made to new Triond users. Another recent comment from a user who has been here for awhile was: “This guy is phenomenal. I love it when we get new douchebags. I may be illiterate, but I can still spell f**ktard. (Asterisks my addition – if I leave the curse words in the quotes, Triond will likely decline this article. In the forums however, anything goes.  

New writers are not the only targets in the forums. Outspoken Christians (I think I know one) elicit the most vile comments. Now, I admit that I have made comments that people who do not believe in a personal God and a literal heaven and hell will find offensive. I believe with all of my heart that the Bible is God’s word to us, and the Bible tells us that Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and that no one comes to the Father except through Him. I believe that people who have not accepted Christ as a personal savior are lost, and that lost people matter to God. My most offensive belief is that my role as a Christian is to fulfill the Great Commission, which is to go into all the world and make disciples of all nations.

Now, these beliefs annoy some people. I expect to meet with resistance from some people for expressing them. The first time I spoke up in a Triond forum, I told an adherent to Wicca that the “elementals” that she calls upon to weave spells and curses are in reality (according to the Christian Bible) evil spirits that can be dangerous. They don’t like that. I was told that they have ways of dealing with people like me.

There are a few people who have for some reason come to the conclusion that they make the rules in the forum, like a clique of schoolyard bullies playing a game of Who’s the King of the Castle. The rules, by my observation are:

• 1. No spamming. By this, they mean that you can only post the title or the URL of one of your articles if it is relevant to the subject of the thread.
• 2. No discussing religion. Especially not Christianity.
• 3. No calling attention to the foul language used by the rulers.
• 4. No text language. (This one I agree with. A forum of writers should be able to read each others’ posts. Most of us are too old to know the teenage language of txtspk.)

So recently, I have been starting threads for Christians. The problem is that the schoolyard bullies follow me into the Christian threads in order to mock my beliefs, and to let me know what an idiot I am for believing in God and suggesting that the Bible is still relevant and authoritative.

Now, I have pretty thick skin (most of the time), especially when conversing through cyberspace, but some of the comments I have received are truly uncalled for. I won’t quote any of them here, as Triond would not publish them.

A tactic that this clique uses to get rid of the Christian threads is called “bumping.” Every time someone adds a new post on a thread, that thread moves to the top of the list. A group of people will add posts to every other thread so that the thread they want to get rid of gets pushed to the bottom, and eventually gets retired to the archives. Lately they have been speeding up the bumping process by starting many new threads.

I don’t know what it is – curiosity, Looky -Lou syndrome, or some kind of gravitational force, but the forums are hard to resist. Addictive even.

I think that creating a forum for Triond writers was a good idea. And to be fair, there are a lot of great conversations and good advice being given. At one point about a month or so ago, apparently several forum regulars were sent notices from the Triond team to clean up the language and to use the forum to discuss writing. That worked for a day or two. People used asterisks to replace a few letters of the profane words.

Yes, we are all adults here, and perhaps some people really do use even coarser language in real life. But I think that writers should be able to come up with vocabulary that wouldn’t make a sailor blush.