Why post every animal atrocity story you find?

Hi Ron, I can understand your frustration it makes me sad too though this is what this page is for 'animal rights and advocacy' so people discussing issues in regards to animal welfare and vegan products ect. is 100% acceptable... I personally think that encouraging people to express their views and opinions on particular issues helps in inspiring others to see things from a new perspective and can often result in them transitioning to a vegan lifestyle. Not to mention the obvious; some people just don't have anyone with like-minded views when it comes to animal atrocities and so they come to a forum such as this to express and to 'vent'. I don't think that you have a valid point here Ron, sorry if this comes off as rude but what is it exactly that you would like from this forum just casual chit chat on various non-animal rights issues?

Unfortunately when you click on new messages you get to see that stuff - you have no choice.

You're probably right ... this is no longer the place for me.

I'm sorry to hear that you feel that way, I have spoken to you on many occasions and have considered you a very passionate advocate for animals... I hope your ok? I know that at times you may feel like that no matter what you do horrible stuff is going to happen to our beloved friends and you wish you can just turn off from all the bad things though hope is not lost... this page was built by animal advocates for animal advocates just like you that at times need to express them selves as well as share good or bad stories and encourage and embrace people to transition to a nicer lifestyle. I hope you decide to stay on this forum, if you need someone to talk to at anytime; unleashed community and myself are here.

I try not post here anymore, because I feel it already has too much negativity... and I am aware that my enthusiasm for positivism can sometimes seem and feel negative.

The forum however is not for activism, that is merely a classification system to keep topics orderly for searches and the like.

I feel the forum is for a light and airy way of giving lovely people a home to share any ideas, and is itself a supportive community for like minded people...

It is not a standard forum or social network where spam of topics obviously copied from more appropriate avenues is to be reeled off... It is not equipped to deal with this, there are no user based means of avoiding this if you don't want it to be like this...

Thus... there are better platforms.... unless you are however finding it a most successful venture here, with maybe one *thumbs* up per new thread....

I personally think, considering the community and the organic vibe of the site, that perhaps only 90 *thumbs* up could make the spammity spam roll, a worth while activity.

Unless of course your intention is to desensitize a most aware and sensitive group of LEGENDS

Hi Casper.s2 I think you have misunderstood Ron he is not talking about 'spam rolls' of petitions or informative stories from other websites; infact he even states he can understand people posting petitions on here but rather he is talking about issues relating to horrid animal stories not necessarily  from other websites but in general that he would prefer not be on here as clearly he is quite upset by it all which is completely understandable... As yes he is right it is in next to every post and extremely depressing at times but hiding yourself from the truth isn't going to help the animals infact that's one of the main traits that contribute to their horrid and untimely deaths; if we all just turned a blind eye and hid from the truth then no animals would ever be saved, people wouldn't even know some of the horrid things that happen to them if we all didn't share our knowledge.

Like you said though people are wanting to talk to like minded people about animal rights and such... The most common types of post on this forum are people seeking help from others on various issues relating to animal rights and protection, vegan products, informing of up and coming rally's and trying to branch out petitions and spread them arround to make the biggest impact inorder for the petition to be sucessful as well as any success achieved, and to also discuss your opinion about veganisum and animal protection ideas and issues as most vegans do not have many people to talk to with the same views and omni's usually don't  understand the passion for animal safety/rights.

Ron and Casper, I'm very sad to hear that you're both less inclined to be a part of the forum. You've both been such great, long time contributors, it would be sad to see you go.

I can understand where you're coming from. If you're already living a cruelty-free lifestyle and it just depresses you to hear more tragic news, then there's no reason why you should expose yourself to more cruelty. I know that there are times that I choose to stop listening to the news because most of what seems to be reported just leaves me frustrated or unhappy.

People contribute to this forum for many reasons: to connect with other caring people, for support, for advice, to get active for animals, and to simply socialise with likeminded people. These were all part of the reasons we established this forum. But first and foremost we established this forum to help animals, and in order to successfully do that we need to keep it an inviting and supportive place for all who contribute. So when community members are put off being a part of the community, I always find it concerning.

While some contributors come on here to share petitions/news stories and take part in actions, that's not what everyone comes on here to do. In recognising this fact, we recently merged all recent petitions into one thread: (http://www.unleashed.org.au/community/forum/topic.php?t=9674). This will make it easy for those who do want to take part in petitions to find numerous petitions that they can support in one place. It also means that those who are not here to sign petitions do not need to navigate as many new threads to find the ones they are looking for.

In addition to this, there is actually something else that community members could also do to help us keep the forum a comfortable place for all... If when posting bad news stories, people chose a title that is not too confronting, or which warned that the content is disturbing, this would give others who don't want to hear bad news fair warning not to click through.

When we have the capacity to further develop Unleashed we may considering offering tools for supporters to filter topics. But for now, you could also consider navigating directly to those areas of the forum that are of most interest to you, eg.
Anything Goes: http://www.unleashed.org.au/community/forum/?c=1
Food: http://www.unleashed.org.au/community/forum/?c=5
Cruelty-free living: http://www.unleashed.org.au/community/forum/?c=3

I hope we'll continue to see you're friendly faces around

What this forum should be or is, is open to interpretation.  Different strokes for different folks.  

I think it's quite well set out personally, for those looking for perhaps more frivolous yet informative and useful chit chat, like a descent vegan shampoo, to those wanting to get involved in activism, informing one's self and unfortunately discovering some awful atrocities animals have to endure and ways to assist, one can only hope.

I totally agree that it can be a bit much at times, I find it a bit overwhelming myself on fb when I log on and view my news feed and at times see a constant flow of awful things that are occurring, but at the end of it I have the control in that situation to not follow a page or 'like' whatever the term may be and not subject myself to it.  I believe the same applies here with the sub-categories, though you may view the general title of the thread if you don't specify a sub-group and just click on general forum, but I don't know, isn't that being just a bit precious?

I actually couldn't think of a more appropriate site to launch a petition, amongst others of course, especially when they are so closely related to the subject this forum deals with, but that's just me.

Chit-Chat and Activism, both are wonderful here.


Just not the majority of threads on the forums front page, being all pasted from somewhere else. I feel this forum is unique enough and has interesting members, so that you could have your own unique posts... about what ever !   _  !  (that is directed at the non-gun wielding, hunter pro manics that pass by, time to time, but of course the community)

Maybe a side panel, I can see working... specifically for petition links. You could have a entry system like "Title" "Url to Petition" "brief desciption (as the rest is on the page you choose to visit based on title of interest)"...

I agree it is a beautiful place to network and share petitions, like an animals activist own community hub. But as this is a thread on the discussion of why post every atrocity? I find the nature of every petition to be about an atrocity, hence why that comes to mind first.

But yeah, we don't all need to hear when your neighbour kicks a dog. Just report them.
Unless of course, you need support with who to contact and such...

I do notice some posts are unnessesarily sensationalized, for an already sensitive audience.

*** Isn't it weird that "caring at all" can be described as 'Sensitive'... ugh anyway!

Lets keep our energy focused on informing the right people, one's eyes can only open so far,
before they pop out of your head and carry a little brief case to work singing sea shantys...

I never know how to finish posts lol

_

While I understand the reasons behind the merging of petitions into one thread it is actually damaging to the cause I naturally assumed considering this page is designed for animal activists that you guys would all be quite happy for fellow activist trying to branch out with petitions to help animals; also I would like to bring up a problem that may or may not have already been thought of in making such as decision..what's going to happen when the thread gets to be more then just a few pages long people will have to scroll through all the pages of that thread  just to get to the end of it to read and participate in the recent ones or they just wont even waste their time which is the saddest thing of all... I know that most of us are already extremely busy - thus the reason I even started posting all these petitions to make it easier for them because our helpless animal friends need our help even when we are busy, not to mention it defeats the purpose of having subheadings like 'activism' where you can already custom your view to that of interest to you... So I think the decision to merge all petitions to one thread really needs to be assessed again; for the animals sake people just need to accept that this page is used for many different reasons and if for any reason someone has a problem with the content of information then they can, like previously stated, custom their view... I understand that people get depressed with all the bad things that happen but preventing people from openly discussing their views, asking for advise and sharing petitions is not the way to deal with that this is a trait that only adds to the problem.

Also I would just like to point out that Ron was explaining that he doesn't like the sharing of horrible stories as he sees it as depressing which I know we can all understand that as sadly it is true because these poor helpless creatures are in danger but that is the exactly why we must share them inorder to educate and prevent these atrocities from continuing; failure to act would only add to the problem not to mention sometimes people just need like minded people to comfort them and to remind them they are not alone in this fight. Ron wasn't in anyway complaining about petitions as he also understands the value and power they hold. Rather; once again it was Casper.s2 that proclaimed his problem with the sharing of petitions stateing that its at the point where he doesn't even want to post here anymore which is clearly just an attention speel as if you care to draw your attention to the last few weeks he has expressed his views, with very long and detailed descriptions I might ad, on next to every post... So if it has truly upset and or deterred him from this forum why so active?

And yes I do agree on maybe making it obvious by declaring that the contents may be distrubing to some viewers and a brief outline of what each topic is about without making it to confronting, but as you guys would be aware being that you guys at unleashed are in social media advertising and campaigning that having such confronting titles is what draws people in and encourages action thus the 'who was the lion eating' blog that was written on unleashed not that long ago, that too is quite confronting.