Note on aggressiveness

I have noticed lately an increase in the aggressiveness in tone of many posts on the forum. It seems that some people have developped serious grudges against others here and forgot the main reason why the site and forum exist: to share information and learn new things about the biggest tragedy of the 20th century in this little corner of the world. Instead of that we have endless discussions and cheap shots between pro and anti-American present-day policy, with unilateral attitudes from both sides, we have members that joined simply to attack others, we have dirty PMs between members, we have insulting generalizations, we have hate.

All this has to stop.

I think the Mars planet has a more and more powerful influence on many of us, as "Urania" from the B1 televizion was saing

I think some members are too ideologised to participate calmly in a relaxed discussion. The administrators do their job keeping out extremist posts, but the guys I mentioned ( simple members like everyone else) try to act as administrators on ideological basis.

For example if I say I admire Che for the way he conducted an ambush/skirmish etc., or the Iraki resistance for the way in which they use small resources to wage a guerilla war etc., or the US forces should leave Europe etc., the ideological "administrators" label my post as extremist and turn on the person, not on the arguments.
Thus, a military-history post will spin off into an ideological one. Che was fighting for communism, so obviously admiring his military skill (if he had any) will surely make you a commie "bastard".
If I say I admire Bush or the US army for the way they conducted a campaign etc, I'll be targetted by the other side, and so on. I'll become a neocon.

Inevitably, the replies will gradually increase in extremism as they get more personal.

The solution: I think the ideological people should start professing what they stand for. There are lots of people who find democracy and tolerance convenient excuses to behave aggressively and impose their will on other members.

Especially when the forum IS moderated against extremism (I dont think Al Qaeda or Hezbollah is allowed to post propaganda here) the aforementioned attitudes are to blame for the remaining ad-personam extremism that rages around.

p.s. if the administrator thinks this post might start off another series of hate posts (because some people will probably recognise themselves in the examples I gave), maybe he should delete it. After reading it "carefully" ofcourse...

take care

This post has been edited by Imperialist on March 09, 2005 10:32 pm

Suggestions:

Be more impartial. You don't see things like "aviation freeks" and a lot of bad atitude of .. You remember me things from school - preffered students, and atitude created by this motivation. You see "iranian" were it wasn't this word, and were i didn't call Mr. Alexkdl "iranian" even if convinced all of you about that...

None of you spend a warning for some users.

Make a rule for presentation when someone join this forum. In that way we can know who are our partners, and why some want so bad title of "Mister" when you speak to them. Apropos... in forums all are eguals, and is not necesary to use this word. And in this way we can reduce the nomber of clones used for saying bad words.
You want to make 10 clones for each time you warn me, and each one clone to say "hey, let that nice guy in peace!" ?
Differenet IP's, different domains, etc. I know how to do that. I can really start a war with someone in this way. And ... what is the right word... "anarchy" like some try to do here... but with more success.
I can create clones to respond to other clones!


Anyway, is a good forum! Try to keep the horses at low speed!

Iama

PS - I like Che, too. Oh! It is a bad thing here... i know...

This post has been edited by Iamandi on March 10, 2005 08:24 am

Indeed that's what i thought when i first logged on this forum. The truth is that most of what i learned from leading members of this forum is that or aces had weak pilot and commanding qualities, that Translvania shouldn't be Romanian and the our troops commited atrocities all the way from Stalingrad to Leningrad! It apperaes that many of our members should indeed join other forums. Excuse me for taking side for Romania on a Romanian History forum. I think i'll join a Hungarian or Israeli history forum.They at least write their history on their own not let foreigners do it for them!
Peace!

This post has been edited by 109 on March 10, 2005 03:45 pm

That is verry right 109!

'109' finally honestly spelled out what bothers him the most. Namely that foreigners write about Rumania's history.

Based on this peculiar mentality, only persons ethnically identical to the history of a certain nation could write about it (citizenship is not good enough). Thus only German ethnics should write about the Luftwaffe, or ethnic French about L'Armée de l'Air, etc. (who can write then about the multi-ethnic Soviet Air Force?). So William Green, Eddie Creek, John Beaman, Jean-Yves Loraint and other non-Germans have no business studying and writing about the Luftwaffe.

I have to things to say to Mr. Badescu:
1, a suggestion: why don't you write your own version of the history of Rumanian aviation, that suits your taste? (I suggest a book as reference to start with: 'In cautarea eroilor', or 'Looking for Heroes', by Ioan Chereches).
2, an advice, regarding your adversity towards foreigners writing about the history of Rumania, advice made up by four short words: get used to it...

Peace!

Gen. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on March 10, 2005 05:40 pm

I could not agree more with Victor's words. The hard ideological lines and attacks really seem to have increased in the last couple months. And it's not just in the places one should probably expect it: General Discussion and Post-WW2, for example. Members really seem less tolerant of the international nature of the forum, and very quick to jump to conclusions (especially those based on nationality).

IMHO the discussions of Romanian WW2 military history have been some of the more reasonable. Other countries are far more criticized. I understand Romania did not have a chance to properly honor its military shortly after the war, and it is perfectly reasonable to do it now before that generation is entirely gone. But that doesn't mean that everyone who wore the uniform is a hero and a saint. I'm with General Denes on this one -- people need to get used to foreigners discussing their history, because it will happen. If you feel your history is being distorted (by foreigners or your own countrymen), the best remedy is a well-reasoned counter-argument backed up with facts. Nationalist drum-beating is only good for inspiring people who already agree with you.

I have not seen the admins doing this. Hopefully we are all adult enough to recognize that military skill and attractive politics do not always go together. And predicting the Iraqi resistance will win is not the same as saying I want them to win (I don't predict this, BTW). Even the discussions about what "should" be do not need to turn in to ideological grudge-matches.

I think is a verry good think there are romanian istorians,
is their job to do the resurching and the gadhering of information
searching the arhives and talking to veterans.

If they came in contradiction whit other foreign istorians is only normal.

Victor is judging the efect, not the cause.

Cipi, foreign historians, who know the language, can also do all the research. See, for ex. what I wrote regarding studying and writing about the Luftwaffe. If you know (some) German, you can study the Luftwaffe, even if you're not German. This is at least my idea, contrary to Mr. 109's and a few selected others'.

Gen. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on March 10, 2005 06:14 pm

Yes Jeff, precisely. The administrators are pretty reasonable, and though I had one of my own messages deleted, I bare no grudge against them.
I was talking about members that ACT as if they were administrators and do it from a biased and radicalised ideological perspective. (generally everything ideological is radical, whatever that ideology stands for. even a good ideology creates its "radical devils". the danger is always there for an ideology to be hijacked by people who merely want power, and to be left an empty shell. but thats another discussion)
I want to talk here about the military, military history, and current military related events. Sure, I also want to talk about their political ramifications but only in terms of strategy, geopolitics or power politics. Not ideology.
Ideology changes, but strategy, geopolitics, military action remain in basically the same framework.
Ideology is like a stage-curtain that blocks people from understanding what the show is all about.

Ofcourse, including the ideological variable in the world power-play would be an useful exercise. To see how people dominated by a certain ideology use their resources and relations to expand or insure the survival of that ideology.
Or, au contraire, see how an ideology is used only to hide a cold realpolitik.
However, in both cases un-ideologised people should participate to insure the 'survival' of the debate. Or at least people which feel close to a certain ideology, but are open to discuss it from other perspectives without going nuts...

take care

This post has been edited by Imperialist on March 11, 2005 06:02 am

Some consider have a message deleted to be a badge of honor.

Aha... the self-appointed admins. We do have some of those, unfortunately.

Guys,
Some of you didn't passed yet the 21th century barier and I sadly belive that they'll never will.
Each night I'm entering this forum for relaxation.
I'm steping over the unplesents topics/replies.Rarely reading them.
Yes once I did lost my temper,after an Hungarian member(not Denes)that I somehow misspeled his name by a typing eror called me names.
Since then I'm avoding those kind of "confruntations since like I wrote before ,this forum is made for promovating the anti war aspects,but also remembering the past and lerning from it.
The sad thing is that not all are lerning....
After a whole day in the traffic of Bucharest,and in mouths full of blood salive and a lot of other "pleasent "things,I'm entering this forum and trying to forget the whole day and step a little into the past.
I'm asking you people;do you really think that by tose arguments between some of you,anything will be diferent??????

Good point, Dr.
I am afraid not.

Gen. Dénes

aaa, since u mentioned hungarian...was that me? because i truly do not remember if i did it and why i did it... if i did it...