Not sure if many of you will know who I am, but after many years here I am leaving.
I might still hover around and have a nosey But won't be posting.
You're the nicest bunch of people But due to a few, I no longer have any freedom of speech and everything I say can be turned into a personal attack, accusing me of being this that and the other, 'this could destroy your future career' etc.etc. It really saddens me.
So I think my time here is over I'm no-where near thick skinned enough for this, I give up!
Thanks for all the help and advice i've been given over the years - from before I'd ever touched a violin to now being in music college, I really wonder if I'd even be here without the inspriation and help from everyone here! So thanks!


Good luck with all your music making!

Music is a valuable commodity, and learning to play it is enriching the world's culture. Only some sort of General Franco type fascist would attempt to make your journey in music a difficult one, and then have the cowardice to dismiss it as 'constructive criticism'.

When you play violin solo at the Royal Albert Hall you will remember this...Pob lwc gyda phopeth a wnewch yn eich gyrfa cerddorol, sy NEWYDD ddechrau!

I'm so sorry to hear this, Ffliwt. Have you said anything to the mods? I don't want you to go and I don't see why you should.

I am really sorry to hear this ffliwt as you have always appeared to me to be one of the sanest and loveliest posters on here. You have always reminded me of an older version of my youngest...maybe due to your instrument choice and sport choice! I hope you decide not to go.... but thanks for being a lovely member of this on line community. I for one will miss you.

ffliwt, sorry to hear that you are leaving. I saw your postings in question, but never felt anything wrong in that even though I come from same ethnicity.

I sincerely hope you are not leaving the forum, though it is personal choice!

I am sorry too - I think it would be a loss to the forums and I hope you will reconsider.

I don't see any reason for you to go. I really don't. Hope you will reconsider.

Occasionally, ffliwt, you'll end up in a conflict on the forum, if you post anything like regularly, however hard you try to avoid it. I know I've been involved in plenty! I don't think it's a good reason to leave completely, and I hope you'll reconsider. If you do decide to go, all the very best in the future, I'm sure you'll do fabulously!

On the rare occasion a post irritates you, you reply with firmness and good humour. Not everyone is as balanced. Wolf-pack behaviour does happen and unfortunately tends to happen when the invariably unwitting 'offender' is vulnerable in some way; animal behaviour at its worst. Two threads active this week, at least, bear witness to the time and thought ffliwt puts in to helping others despite her demanding conservatoire studies, yet she now feels obliged to leave. We need to develop a collective and robust no-tolerance policy to wolf-pack behaviour, and leap to the defence of victims before it reaches the stage that prompts a thread like this. The temptation is to keep quiet in the hope fuss will die down but wolves don't respond to that.

I read the thread in question before it was edited extensively and didn't see any wolf pack behaviour.

All I saw was one person who objected to some of the generalisations which Ffliwt was using and advised her not to use them on a public forum as they could be construed as racist remarks. And another person agreed.

As Ffliwt's comments have now been deleted she must have agreed that it would be more sensible to do so.

The matter is finished and dealt with amicably and there is no reason to leave the forum and I hope you won't.

"Amicably"?

Was it not?

Like others, Ffliwt, I hope you will reconsider. But if not, you will be missed; like many others, I have appreciated your comments, and wish you all the very best.

ffliwt - I hope you'll stay, but I understand it may be hard to if you feel uncomfortable here now.

The problem with policing "wolf-pack behaviour" is that it is hard to tell when someone is really being hounded and when it is simply a few people disagreeing with what one person said. I've no idea which happened here (could be neither). The danger is then that people become reluctant to disagree because they're afraid that they'll be seen as ganging up on someone.

I dither a lot about whether to post dissenting opinions (including this one) because I'm afraid that it might be taken the wrong way.

Well if the net result is that a long-standing forum member feels the need to leave, then I wouldn't say it was amicable.

So it's ok for short standing members to leave?

OK, maybe "amicable" was the wrong word.

Whatever I try to write just doesn't come out right so I'd better leave it at that.

But I'm still sorry Ffliwt feels she needs to go and hope that this will all be forgotten in a few days' time.

Depends on the member

Having been off-line for a few days, I've missed what's caused all this. Whatever it was, I hope that things will blow over and no valuable members (no matter how long they've been a member) will feel the need to go.

[***]Well if it helps, your comment on (my) term above is justified - it was probably over the top in this instance, but I was leaping to the defence of what I saw as a weaker 'animal' that two challengers had - possibly unwittingly - brought down. While I used 'wolf-pack' deliberately and am happy to be challenged for that, not all of us are battle-hardened to the need to consider exactly what terms we use when speaking or writing, especially under emotional conditions.

Thanks for your kind posts.
I'll be hovering but not posting for a loooong while.

99% of you are the loveliest people ever
But i was sickened and saddeneded that I could be called such things (racist etc.) when I'm 100% not. I'm a Catholic, I have high morals, I'm a generally good person and I'd never hold someones race against them, racism absolutely makes me sick. I was purely stating a fact of what has happened to me and every other girl i know here... It's a genuine real problem for us.

I haven't edited or deleted (though i did deleted one post and replace it with 'deleted due to ridiculous conversation and responses' or something) - mods have. I don't feel like I had anything to deleted!

I'm really, really not thick skinned so the slightest remark and i'll be upset - like now!! But if i no longer have ANY freedom of speech i don't think my post are valuable. Maybe I should have PMed her to tell her about the problem upon thinking about it but it's too late now.

I do also understand that as a musician if i want to be successful i have to be very careful about what i say to keep people on my good side, which is why im staying away from the forums for a good while.

Goodbyyyyeee lovely musicy people! I look forwards to coming back in maybe a few months or a year and seeing all your progress

You can always use the power of the PM to help out violin-y people if you feel you want to, ffliwt, until you return to regular posting

Oh for Heaven's sake!

I read the thread in question before things were deleted, I am not "affiliated" with either side and don't know anyone personally, and I'd just like to say one thing:

Our own sensitivities, and the way we react on things, don't mean that others don't have sensitivities, too. We can't, imho, expect others to tiptoe around, but on the other hand exercise our own perceived right to say what we like without being aware it might come across hurtful to others.

Freedom of speech (as long as brought forward in a decent way, which it imo was in the thread in question) applies to everyone. Others exercising their freedom of speech might hurt us, but what we said might have hurt/upset them, too. And if I dare say so: What hurts us, and what we read INTO things written (sometimes wrongly), hugely depends on ourselves. This applies to both sides.

I didn't think anyone was ganging up on anybody, there was also no "wolf-pack"-mentality. I think this really gives a totally wrong impression of what happened and might actually change a balanced view of what really happened. It was just people with different opinions and sensitivities stating the obvious.

My advice in that case, exercised on here many times: Breathe deeply, walk away from it, take a few days off, don't make a big drama of it, and in the long run, treat others the way you want to be treated.

A less superficial approach to moderation (Universal policy: delete the thread and, if it seems warranted, hand out warnings) would prevent this sort of trouble.

It is like refereeing a football match. When the ref gets it wrong, or punishes both innocent and guilty alike, or when a situation is just left unresolved, then everyone feels aggrieved and the underlying disagreement just festers and runs on into the rest of the game.

A lot of us have been on the receiving end of hurtful remarks/criticisms and have taken 'time off' from the forums as a result - but then have poked our noses above the parapet and starting posting again.

I really hope you will do the same...

You're asking for more heavy-handed moderation?

The problem seems to be, at least in some people's eyes, that some people on the forum either have the ear of the moderators, or are too quick to go crying to them when they see anything which *they* see as unacceptable. Surely a principle of firmer moderation will breed more of this sort of thing, not less?

I occasionally read posts from people who often end up irritating me - in other words when I see their name I can almost predict that I will end up feeling irritated. But other posters may feel that they come close to their own way of thinking. There are probably groups of people here who feel one or the other way about me. Or you.

I've been on a forum before where there was one person (let's call him XYZ) who was constantly being banned, and coming back with a different name through a new e-mail address, and deliberately upsetting the people on that forum, mainly just to destablilise the forum itself. Any suggestion, however veiled, from any of us (and I made a couple myself) that this was XYZ would end up with our getting a warning from the moderator ("we can tell you that Mr XYZ no longer posts to this forum"). They were almost apologetic about it when I replied that I would desist, and implied that I still thought so nevertheless, and it seemed to me that they were asking us to desist because Mr XYZ was just making their jobs hard and unpleasant for them. (He was eventually banned one weekend when I was away, and I missed all the "excitement")

But XYZ was often outright offensive. I've not read anything on this forum which is anywhere remotely near what he was doing.

I don't think there's any need to bring height (or lack of it) into the discussion.

No, not more heavy-handed but more correct, taking the trouble to identify the original cause of any disagreements, and not deleting entire threads (so as to pretend they never happened and keeping the site sanitised). What I stated as "Universal Policy" is what I see as the present policy and not what I thonk the policy should be.

Because the present system, where you can never get rid of a warning once you have it, is SO unfair, isn't it, VH2

I didn't see the thread in question, but just to say ffliwt, I'll be really sad if you do decide to leave. I do enjoy reading your posts.

This is all very sad. I missed the particular posts referred to here, but it is a great shame that a few people apparently can't tell the difference between true -isms, whether it be racism, sexism or anything else, and an individuals (or groups of individuals) actual experiences out in the real world beyond the words we read on the forums.

How much more pleasant would life be if we could all keep to the idea of "if you haven't got anything constructive to say, say nothing at all".

Oh bother! Don't go unless you really really want to!

I always like to read your interesting and helpful posts, and will miss them. Don't know what the conflict was about I'm afraid, but perhaps you could consider taking a break until the impact of whateveritwas has faded? If you do decide to go, well, I wish you all the very best with your musical career.

Ah - sorry, I read it quite the other way around. Thanks for clarifying

Hang in there, Ffliwt.

I thought -= "thonk" =- was the funny noise I made when I do not pedal correctly! You are at 166 posts but are already upset with the forums? I think I miss all the fuss or maybe it is deleted before I see it!

What linda.ff has just said is so true - it is so easy to read something the wrong way round. I've, done it, we've probably all done it and it is one reason for keeping discussion open - so that we can come back and correct something not clearly stated or not clearly understood.

I'm very sorry about Ffliwt - I do't recollect having read many of her posts and I didn't see the thread in question- I probably read a lot less than many people and am a bit limited in the areas I do read - but it is obvious she is much appreciated and will be missed. I hope she will be back soon.