Hi, everyone.
I notice that this issue has been starting to bother the community. So I thought that I’d go ahead and tell you all about the story. This is a bit of a lengthy read, so prepare yourselves…
Volatile joined the forum right at the beginning and she posted some helpful and insightful topics. She helped a lot of people with encouragement and support. I really appreciated that and I loved having her here on the forum. I even presented her profile to some of my work colleagues when I told them about a new forum I started. One of these colleagues is an ex drug addict, so he truly appreciated her story.
Shortly after this she declared that she was going to leave the forum. She then later decided to stay and instead asked me to delete her topic. She has done this multiple times. Her reasons usually were something along the lines of this: Other members have “taken over” the forum. Now, this forum is here for everyone to contribute to. It’s a bit unrealistic and selfish for her to expect that she’ll be the only one posting valuable information and helping people out. We have some great members on here. All of this was fine. I get that she has some mental issues (she told us about them), so I don’t mind.
Over the weekend she posted about suicide. Instead telling us about how she feels though, she made a rather unsettling comment that had a few very negative implications. Members of the community flagged this comment to me and asked that I remove it. I thought it over and decided to remove it because I did not want someone fragile who is struggling with addictions and/or suicide to come on here and see that.
So I deleted her comment. Now, instead of behaving like a mature adult and re-posting her comment in a more sensible way, she started to rant on the topic and completely derailed it. She also sent me an inbox message where she ranted further and swore at me. I stayed patient and I explained to her in a rational way why I removed her post and again gave her the opportunity to adjust her comment. Note that I could have edited the comment for her by using my own words, but didn’t.
The very next morning, instead of being mature about it and just simply changing her comment, she attacked the forum. She announced that she is leaving the community and with that she called me names, hurled accusations at me and even lashed out at other members who disagreed with her. She posted everywhere about some “forum” that she started and completely derailed topics.This finally crossed the line for me. It’s not what Talking Sober is about. Talking Sober is about talking to your peers, sharing your experiences, supporting each other and in the end bettering each other. It is not about attacking each other and it is not about spamming every topic with links to your own interests.
I suspended her account to stop her from disrupting the community. She spent the rest of the weekend creating multiple forum accounts with new emails every time. She then used these accounts to continue her attacks and link spam. I deleted these accounts and their spam.
She accused me of censorship. I want to make it clear that I’ve never deleted anyone’s posts besides hers. I’ve always allowed any content on here. I don’t worry about foul language. You can talk about whatever you want. My only concern here is the well-being of the community. If someone or something threatens that, I will have to take action. That being said, I will always give someone the opportunity to rectify their actions.
If you have any comments, opinions or questions, post away.
