Wetlook World Forum

I wanted to say, I have been with the community for a somewhat long time (almost 6 years).  I've seen several ups and downs, some good wet pages come and go, as well as evlolutions of the forum on which you are now reading this message.  It seemed a terrible thing when Trolls first made their appearance, and to some, it seemed the end, but things evolved and adapted, and I believe they will continue to do so.

Now for WBB, my personal opinion would be to give him a chance to apologize and learn from his mistake and grow from it and be a better community member.  If we ban and exile him, we basically just "pass the trash" as well as we will likely receive our own "new trash" as time goes on.  Why do I say this?

A few years back there was a community member.  I will not name him by name, and I haven't seen him post in a while, but if he has been lurking like me, I think he knows who he is, and no, it's not sopping!

Anyway, he posted a pretty inflamatory comment that was (what I imagine WBB's comment to be) Bascially, he was demanding that another webmaster (anyone remember WetMathias???) to update his webpage, it had been a whole week (or month, etc) since the last update and this person was tired of waiting around for him to post new (free) pictures to his website, and just what was his problem making him wait, anyway?  Well, that got everyone hot and bothered and hungry for this person's blood.  I certainly wasn't amused either, but among the verbal (or electronic?) daggers thrown, I simply encouraged this person to set up their own website, and see just how much work it is to do this - just to set up a website, not to mention to produce material.  In fact, this person did go on to set up their own website (free) and became a staunch supporter of other webmasters making updates when it happened to be convenient for them, and left his ways of picture grubbing lurkers of which we have so many...

I guess the moral is (like the forum guideline) to try and be as positive as possible.  Maybe I'd like to add that before we jump down someone's throat, let's try and understand where they are coming from, and try and correct them first if we can.  If you have a guest at your party that is mis-behaving, you can toss them out the door on their butt and slam the door behind them, they will probably try to get back in through the back door, a window, or even a crack in the floor board, if they can.  If you show them how they have done wrong, and that they should never do this again and let them stay, then it's a "more-the-merrier" situation.  If that's just the way they are, but you convince them that this is not the place for them, then they leave on their own and never come back - that's a lot better than the troll that keeps trying to sneak back in.

Kicking a bully's butt may be very rewarding - but here's how I look at them.  More than likely, they were bullied themselves (at home, by an uncle, or older brother, etc) and that "conditions" them to think that this is "normal" and that's mainly why they do it.  If they get their butt kicked by someone they intended to bully, then they just see themselves as having made a mistake, and have bullied the wrong person and then continue on to seek out another victim.  If they are watched closely and punished for additional bullying with the punishment of bullying itself, they didn't learn anything, just that they fell back into the roll of the person who gets bullied.  If you can teach them to stop bullying, then you have one less bully as well as all the other people that they might create as bullies themselves.

I am not so naive to think that somepeople just can't be corrected though.

that's enough for me and for the most part I will return to the shadows to visit and lurk when I can.

Nigel, thanks for not deleting my post!

-Greg