We never dreamed Coffeetime would become even 10% as successful as it has in the space of a few short months, It’s great how people have supported and created a super friendly and very interesting community that I personally enjoy reading and commenting on every single day, it’s a warm and engaging place to be.
When we post, we should always be mindful of what we post, especially if it is aimed at specific individuals, because comments on the internet are immortal. Unless the place where they are made is well managed, they might be read by your family & children and will often still be there after you have left this world. Once, I had the rather unpleasant task of cleaning up nasty comments made about someone who is no longer with us (please mention no names), out of respect for them and their family.
I have been told (by more than one person) about the questionable and sometimes defamatory commenting on CFUK by certain individuals, aimed at this forum, myself and others. It must be upsetting to read and tempting to respond in kind on our forum, but I’m really pleased no one on this forum has done so, if I’m honest I didn’t expect anyone to. I cannot control what you post on other forums, but I would urge you not to respond elsewhere for the following reasons:
- It may put a target on your back
- It’s feeding the trolls/bullies (that’s exactly what they want and need)
- You don’t need to comment, they are making themselves and Verticalscope look bad enough already
A higher standard of behaviour and respect (as has always existed here), is far more effective showing the coffee world who we are, and encouraging people to get into coffee via this completely non-commercial community.
Why do Verticalscope do nothing to deal with all the defamatory or unpleasant posting? It’s certainly something we (the admin team), would not tolerate for a moment on Coffeetime. We can only think it’s because we affected them badly in 2 ways:
They have never experienced forum traffic dropping to almost nothing a month after a takeover (and rival forum being set up) lowering their rankings and reducing the return on a significant investment spent buying CFUK for monetisation.
We show how others in a similar situation can set up something very feature rich for “completely free”. Free software, free hosting…with NO adverts. Many thanks to those who have donated to the organisation that hosts so many forums for nothing (freeflarum.com).
VS probably hope, as do the people making the comments, that it will negatively impact our forum, destroy our reputation and increase activity on VS own forum at the expense of ours…I’m pretty sure that’s not going to happen because It’s not the way to build a community, doesn’t look too good either…You have to really care to build something.
Thanks to you all for making us proud to be a part of this great community and able to help others enjoy our coffee obsession. Onwards and upwards!
Admin team.