Taking Care of Our Own

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The Infinite Flight Community is growing. Which is mainly a good thing. Great even. The more the merrier, right? I’d like to remind the community of the fact that we are all human though. We’ve already seen many discussions and arguments, showing just that. It’s just human nature.

This specific topic is about something else though. With every huge group of people there are bound to be people that aren’t as lucky as others. People which are in trouble even. That also applies here. Sometimes you see someone being rude or picking fights and you just know that something else is going on.
Don’t misunderstand me; that doesn’t make it right. Absolutely not.
It does mean that there should be people trying to interact with those displaying that kind of behavior. People who will PM that person and just say: “Hey! You seem really angry. I’ve got a feeling it has nothing to do with the topic you’re arguing about. What’s really going on? Will you tell me?”.

I came across this today. I can’t and won’t go into details but while I was doing just that, the account in question was suspended and our communication was cut off. Luckily we found each other online and could continue our communication for a while. Sometimes people just need to vent. Because they don’t have anyone they can talk to. Can you imagine having no-one? Sometimes other things are going on as well. Things they could really need help with.

If the polls are right, most members are under 19 years old. My age is about two to three times that of the average person here. I do have experience in coaching and counseling. I picked up on the issue today and tried to be of assistance. In an ideal world everyone has someone to talk to. Unfortunately the world is far from ideal.

Although this community is all about Infinite Flight, let’s not forget that the community exists of people. Persons. Human beings. A whole lot of them. Each and every pilot or controller is a person. Some community members are impolite. Some are actually trolls and deserve to be banned or suspended. But some are in real trouble and could use the help and support of that same community. They are people who deserve the benefit of the doubt. They deserve our help.

We call ourselves a community, so let’s act like one as well. We all deserve that, right?

I’m not saying we can help everyone in every situation, but we can listen and try to get that person the help that is needed. To me this subject really hits home and I believe that it becomes more important in a fast growing community. Do you also experience this?

What would be the best way to offer support to those in need of it and to take care of one of our own so we can keep flying happy and peacefully?

Please don’t change this topic’s category to Meta.

This is a community wide topic that does not fit Philippe’s description of Meta:

"The Meta category is here to discuss the workings of the forum itself. This is the place to ask questions if:

You wonder how a feature works.
You wonder if a feature is available.
You wish to request a feature.
You’re having a problem with a feature of the forum."

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Man I can’t stand this kind of topics… Can we talk less about the human being and more about aviation?

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directly about Infinite Flight

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Sorry you feel this way.
Luckily no-one is forcing you to participate, so if you don’t have anything positive to add, please stay out of it.

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Jan, I can’t think of a answer worthy of your post without writing an essay.
Needless to say, you are spot on, and I think the older and younger members here have a lot to offer each other on level terms.
It would be nice to see members bouncing ideas off each other a little more.

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I like your sentiment. [quote=“Jan_Polet, post:1, topic:31444”]
I’m not saying we can help everyone in every situation, but we can listen and try to get that person the help that is needed. To me this subject really hits home and I believe that it becomes more important in a fast growing community. Do you also experience this?
[/quote]

I’m always a little bit wary of proffering advice to those who I’ve never met, it’s sometimes difficult to get a gauge on what he or she is going through and getting context is not always easy. I’m not saying we shouldn’t get involved but I’d be careful of getting sucked into a situation I know little about. However the sentiment is a good one and we do begin to develop relationships over time and people’s true personalities begin to shine through when they post regularly enough.

As an example Max pretends to be a grumpy old fart but really he has a good heart and wants the best for the forum. And then you have Carson who claims to be a benevolent kindly Mod when we all know he’s a power-hungry maniac with a penchant for barbecuing kittens for his breakfast. :-)

I’d like to think I would never leave someone to struggle but I’ve been caught out on internet forums before and been disappointed by folk who end up not being what they first appeared to be (and I’m not talking about catfishing here!).

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Empathy is the first thing we encourage on this forum.

If you encounter behavior that might suggest distress, reach out to the person with a kind and respectful message or talk to a mod about it.

We are taking steps to educate our staff on proper handling of such situation.

Edit: “Distress” can manifest in many different ways; being rude is one of them unfortunately. A good rule of thumb is to always be kind and respectful regardless of the response you get; be the better person in any argument :)

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Do you actually have experience in counseling?

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Adding onto that; Be careful what you say to people. They may be acting rude, but you do not know their story.

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The problem here is how far should we investigate? And how far should we give leeway to people in certain situations compared to others?

It’s very tricky to answer both of those, and on top of that our job is to enforce the rules. Yes, we obviously don’t want to create an awful situation by banning someone, but there is a balance we have to keep. If someone is swearing, being abusive and so forth, we can’t just accept it because of a certain situation compared to another.

This is why it is very hard to moderate at times. We have to find the balance between moderation and leeway, and personal issues of members create a very tricky issue we have to deal with.

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Yes I have.

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I don’t think you should worry about that, there’s no point second guessing yourself.

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I still consider it myself even though I may not have to. Half the time banning someone creates more issues that it solves

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Well, maybe there’s a way to prevent the person in question from posting but to keep PM open.
That might help in figuring out what’s going on.
You do need to know how to reach people of course and even when you do know that it’s not always possible, but still.

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We have done that several times ((:

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I understand your point but there has been millions of topics related to this, so ig really makes no difference