Fellow "deletees"

I totally second what Alpal said.

I'm really, really tired of entire threads being deleted because hateful people target them with hateful posts, and then delete any comments that try to counter the hatefulness.  Melissa, that's what I saw happening with the thread over the weekend.  Once again, the vast majority get punished for the misdeeds of a few -- which I believe is the intent of those few.

The few or one.

Blue:  Something is bothering me and I want to run it by you and anyone who knows more about the internet than I do.  It seems to me that "you" out of kindness made a post about bringing in the calvary who knew more about computers than you did and all of a sudden the entire thread got fried! I am wondering if there was probably something the creeps knew your friends could find on them and they found a way to get us to go up in smoke so there would be nothing left to work with.  What I am getting at is I would like us to put a warning out there to whomever is doing this that "we" will have people who understand these things checking periodically and they will be caught if they continue. We just won't let them know when it will happen and if your friends can periodically check whatever thread we are on (if and when the deletions and bans start happening again) and try to catch them off-guard. I just don't think it was a coincidence that we were fried soon as they thought we might have a way to catch them.  Do you think your friends would be willing to help you when you contact them. 

The one thing I have learned about "bullies" is they are cowards and like to strike at others but can't stand being hit back if you know what I mean.  Also, I do hope we can find out "why" Melissa continues to punish us instead of the stalkers.  I know I got off the mark yesterday and sometimes apologizing isn't enough.  The fair thing would have been to ban me.  Not punish the entire group!  If you will notice I went back yesterday and deleted many threads I had posted because I shared personal information about my life that I did not want the creeps to know about. I hope I got it deleted in time.  In the future I will be more careful.  Hope we can get more ideas about how to resolve this problem.  I had no idea it had been going on as long as it has.

Jane, that's unbelievable.  You were banned!?  I believe the mod made a big mistake on banning you and letting your post be deleted.  Geez!

Dotti, I'm sorry to say, but I am no longer through with tx.  I now have mets to the bone as do other women who post on the "political" threads.  We do like to debate.  Blue posted a great "header" asking that you read at your own risk and no tattling.  I believe many of us love coming here because it was our "first home."  You have a right to your opinion. 

rosemary:  Don't we have a right to know who our accusers are?  This is not some Third World country where people are punished and don't have the right to face their accusers.  Melissa is making this too easy for our enemies to trash us!  If I were in her position, I would let the emailers know I would do it only after I posted on the thread the names of those who were reporting them.  That way we could know "why" the emailers were upset about our threads and try to do better and also if we were doing things that deserved being deleting, we would be able to correct our behavior.  I am sorry but I think Melissa is dropping the ball with her responsibility to this group.  We have a Right to know who is accusing us or in my opinion, Melissa is helping the problem makers.

 Why can't we have the right to control our own thread?  But we can't do it while Melissa hides these people from us.  Whether she knows it or not, she is keeping this problem alive by her inaction to help us.  Sorry if I seem harsh on Melissa but she has taken all our rights away and leave us floundering hunting for new places to get together.  This is wrong, imo!

Ang7, I love sauerkraut on hot dogs...bad hot dogs...don't have them often. 

Hi, Ang7 -

I'm sorry about what happened to the I Say Yes thread, but unfortunately it happens regularly here.  Not only did the deleter not like our food discussion, they also did not like the political discourse and, more specifically and importantly, the few who made significant dents in their arguments.  When you're losing an argument, I guess it's just easiest to have the argument deleted.

E

Edited to fix the title of the deleted thread.  I'm forgetting it already, and it was only just deleted!  Stupid Arimidex.

Iodine - I'm with Shirley on this. (Don't anyone faint) I am also Stage IV and the deleted thread gave me an excuse to quit thinking about damn cancer 24/7. If not for the deletions, Melissa would not have deleted the entire thread. If we don't cause trouble, I see no difference between our thread and the humor and games forum. What do they have do to with cancer? I just happen to like to argue more than I like to play word games.

Okay Alpal .. we'll put the new thread in the "humor" section.  Anybody have any suggestions for a name?

I agree with all the above ideas. Identifying the deleters will make them more ciurcumspect (one would hope) about deleting. They would need to setup a lot of fake screenames to get posts deleted, not that they wouldn't do that.

Melissa -- Thank you for your reply, but showing the "reporters" has been on your list for quite some time....and in the meantime, posters here are getting fed up and leaving.  And you can be sure that as they leave, they won't be recommending BC.org to anyone else until this mess gets cleaned up.

With respect and with hope,

Linda

Medigal .. self-regulation is a very good idea.

Jane, I think that this was a generic email (self-generated) sent to you after a number of your posts had been deleted by the "community". If enough posts are reported by the community, you are automatically banned. I actually believe that I "un-did" your ban. Please correct me if I am incorrect about my recollection. I certainly am not calling you anything negative. Please accept my apologies if you felt that.

Also, we have our name "Moderators" because it is not always only me. We will make effort to sign each of our posts. 

Linda, we just did an end-of-year fundraising and the money is going to making some of these long-awaited changes that we have been eager to do. Thanks for your patience. We all wish we could just make such changes faster and more cost-effective. 

Medigal, self-regulation is a good idea. That is what we were hoping for with our "report" function. It will be a tricky thing to select who would be part of such a board. We don't want others to feel "left out". However, I will certainly discuss with the team. 

How about re-starting the thread, without all the negative comments? Thoughts?

Melissa 

Melissa,

Are you telling me when I posted the study from the San Antonio Breast Cancer Conference (without any editorial from myself), and a certain number of people "reported" it because they didn't like the scientific findings, that post was automatically "deleted by the community?"

So, BCO has an automated system that deletes a post or posts when I certain number of reports kick in? So basically you have automated bullying and censorship in your software?

Seriously, does Breastcancer.org want to enable this function? I would think this would be a public relations disaster, aside from the ethical considerations.

Bren - great, I encourage you to re-start the thread. 

Jane, yes, that is correct. That was an odd situation, and I re-instated your posts, as well as removed the ban. It takes only a hand full to report, and thus delete the posts, before one can be banned. We also need to work on this! Not a great thing all the time (although it extremely helpful with spammers!).  We apologize that this occurred. 

Melissa