Reminder about politeness

[Dan]

We all know that sometimes, differing opinions on issues such as quarantine, wing clipping, and breeding can result in arguments. However, we have noticed a bad trend recently that when some people ask a question in one of these or other similarly-heated areas, some members have replied with either directly rude comments, a snide comment, something unnecessary, or just something not polite that simply wasn't needed (and all this often without addressing the person's original question).

While at Tailfeathers we have no problem with having members disagreeing and debating with each other, rudeness and all the other things listed above do not fall under debating. A lot of comments have not been directly rude but just not very nice or polite; we have been somewhat lenient with this sort of impoliteness recently, but after this reminder we still start getting stricter.

If you want to mention that you disagree with what the person is doing, that is fine; we want to encourage showing all sides of an issue as this just increases knowledge regarding all the options and what is best. However, please do this politely and have consideration.

Rude or semi-rude comments from now on will result in a warning for the member doing it, so please -- regardless of the issue, stay polite. We don't want to have an environment at Tailfeathers where people feel scared to ask questions -- that is the worst, as then knowledge won't be shared. This is not what we want Tailfeathers to be, and we aren't going to allow Tailfeathers to become one of those sorts of boards.

Just a final note that this does not apply to a huge majority of you; most of you do, in fact, always stay polite. However, we just figured that a general public reminder would be the best way to do this for now.

Thank you for reading!

[Dan]

I just want to add a quick note to reiterate that everyone is welcome (and encouraged) to voice their opinions when they disagree with something a member is doing or says, especially if one feels that it may be threatening to the bird(s) in question. This isn't what we're saying we would like to see end. We encourage and welcome this, but what we just don't want to see is rudeness or something close to that when this is being done.

The message can be gotten across politely, and doing so will work much better: not only will the member be more willing and likely to listen and discuss the issue/sides to the issue, it won't keep others who share opposing views from posting or asking questions (regarding that issue or any other question in general they may have), which would be bad as knowledge sharing would stop. It could also potentially scare away new members who get the wrong idea of what Tailfeather is like, something that would also hurt the community.

Thanks!

[Birdmad Girl]

I am bumping this reminder up, because it seems that some people either have not read this and understood properly, or they generally need reminding.

Tailfeathers is a place where members should be free to share stories and information about the birds that we love without fear of attack by others. To achieve this, we must all remember to be polite, even if we disagree with what someone has said, or what someone has done. Please DO NOT take up a tone with anybody, or be disrespectful and rude. Anybody who is seen to be addressing anybody rudely from now on will be personally dealt with, as we will no longer tolerate this type of behaviour no matter what.

Thank you for reading and for your co-operation.