“Please be friendly, supportive and respectful!”
Those words are right on the main myFICO Forums page.
Unfortunately, too many posts in recent weeks and months fail the test of being friendly, supportive and respectful, as well as often failing the test of plain ol’ good manners and common courtesy. Such posts usually are defended or justified by their authors as being merely ‘dissenting opinion’ or ‘tough love’.
To paraphrase a recent post by Hauling:
Dissenting opinions are healthy, if shared with proper respect, courtesy and consideration. Offering contrary viewpoints can be helpful!
Tough love also is healthy and helpful in certain situations, but only if delivered with proper respect, compassion and consideration.
NOT helpful (nor friendly, nor supportive, nor respectful) are:
- preaching
- insulting
- condescending
- browbeating
- name-calling
- belittling
- smugness about or sneering at another’s misfortune (even if it is partly or wholly self-created)
- posting unasked-for, self-important opinions that contribute nothing productive to a thread
- prejudging (assuming that one knows all the facts of another's situation and posting judgmental comments,
when one quite plainly doesn't know all the facts)
- TJ'ing a thread to indulge in petty wars of words
To quote marinevietvet, “We can agree to disagree on a variety of subjects without being disagreeable.”
People come here for help, so let's get these boards back to being a welcoming, productive, informative and helpful environment for all by being a bit more agreeable and a bit less of the not-helpful things bullet-pointed above, when posting.
(...or else...)
Signed,
The myFICO Forums Admin & Mod Squad:
Barry
ByrdMan
fused
Lel
LilMirth
llecs
Scamp
