Forum Double Standard

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

Quote from the last post of the locked thread:

“Fellas- I’m going to go ahead and lock this thread. The reason being, it’s going to turn into a useless, name-calling fight rather quickly.

We have a common thread of being interested in railroads. When a thread like this pops up, all it does is get everybody’s blood pressure up, without accomplishing anything. I relate it to the bar fight scenes in movies. Once somebody throws a punch, everybody in the bar is duking it out, for no apparant reason.

Please don’t take this as being aimed at anyone particular. It isn’t. Let’s please just move on.

-Norris user/moderator.”

Norris,

I don’t care if your locking the thread is aimed at anyone in particular or not. It should not be aimed at the thread in general. It is inconsistent and hypocritical to lock that thread when other threads are allowed to go on and on, sanctimoniously heaping scorn and hatred on people who had the misfortune of being killed while having the audacity to interfere with a train.

2

I’ve been away for a couple weeks, so I can’t comment on anything in particular, but I suspect it has something to do with this:

Insulting people on a forum is bad because they fight back, things escalate, and flame wars break out. Dead people (ghosts and other spiritual forms excluded [;)]) don’t do that.

3

What thread?

A link would be helpful.

Thanks,

K.P.

4

This one: http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/t/175163.aspx

But there have been many examples of the topic. It just happened to have been challenged in this thread, and the challenge became the controversy.

5

[quote user=“Bucyrus”]

Quote from the last post of the locked thread:

“Fellas- I’m going to go ahead and lock this thread. The reason being, it’s going to turn into a useless, name-calling fight rather quickly.

We have a common thread of being interested in railroads. When a thread like this pops up, all it does is get everybody’s blood pressure up, without accomplishing anything. I relate it to the bar fight scenes in movies. Once somebody throws a punch, everybody in the bar is duking it out, for no apparant reason.

Please don’t take this as being aimed at anyone particular. It isn’t. Let’s please just move on.

-Norris user/moderator.”

Norris,

I don’t care if your locking the thread is aimed at anyone in particular or not. It should not be aimed at the thread in general. It is inconsistent and hypocritical to lock that thread when other threads are allowed to go on and on, sanctimoniously heaping scorn and hatred on people who had the misfortune of being killed while having the audacity to interfere with a train. In my humble opinion, this is one of the creepiest attributes of some

6

Norris,

No, I have no desire to see a barroom brawl. I don’t know what that thread would have done, but if there is something to fight about, maybe there is a deeper underlying issue that needs to be addressed. Maybe we need to clarify whether or not the rule against personal attacks extends to people outside of the forum. I don’t think that thread got particularly deep into the victim bashing that I was describing, but it presented a good opportunity to bring it up.

I do know that people have registered for the forum just to come on here because they were friends or relatives of crossing victims and they were offended by the bashing of the deceased. So if victim bashing is okay, it ought to be okay to have a little disagreement about whether or not it is in good taste without considering it to be a barroom brawl.

7

Sudden violent death is a result of the reality of mistakes made in and around railroad property by both employees, the general public in ‘public areas’ and trespassers. Those involved in the movement of trains will be involved in such incidents during their careers…it is not a matter of if, only when. Employees, who deal with this reality on a continuing basis, every day of their career have a totally different outlook on these occurrences as opposed to those whose only contact with these kinds of incident is reading about the in newspapers or seeing video clips on TV.

Yes, rail employees have a calloused attitude toward these incidents…they have seen and been involved in far too many of them to permit their natural human emotions to be unleashed. The rail employee has to show up for work again tomorrow and do the job the carrier is paying him/her to do, they can’t do their job professionally if their emotions are running wild.

8

The originator of this thread cries foul at the “double standard”. Yet that same poster is the one that felt the need to bring up the signal maintainer incident in Illinois and went as far as to say they should have been given a Darwin Award. Last I checked, that incident was still under investigation. Now I ask, who is really holding a double standard?

9

It appears its time for this thread to be euthanized.

10

Maybe the subject of grade crossing incidents should be treated like hobos and graffiti in that specific incidents are not allowed to be discussed because of said polarization.

11

I have not read this particular thread, but in all of the threads I read where scorn was heaped upon someone killed by a train, this is an inaccurate description. A more accurate description would be “doing something incredibly stupid.”

12

I gots my goats milk and OREOs, and I gits a ring sides seat and elinore is right cheer besides me and we gonna watch this fight.

13

As a Moderator on another Forum on another military website and not to intrude into Schlimms profession too badly (heh-heh), I’ll say this to the OP:

Humor is a way of dealing with death. When faced with death repeatedly you will also see folks turn to Alcholism, reject their religion and turn Athiest, appear to be Bipolar when posting, etc. People have different coping mechanisms because watching someone die is abnormal and causes internal conflict in most people. Some people have to find a way to deal with it to retain their composure.

It’s also normal for others to see the above behaviors, draw a conclusion and attempt to lecture. What you have to do is step back from the PC every once in a while and think about someones post vs responding to it immediately. Let it go and move on.

Your interpretation could also be correct, it could be a railfan being overly insensitive or cavalier. That happens sometimes as well. One response is all that is merited there not repeatedly arguing back and forth over it…IMO. If it is a repeat behavior across several threads by the same poster. Collect the links to the threads and report the behavior to a Moderator and tell them you are offended. Thats how it should be handled, IMO.

I think the Moderator was correct in closing the first thread and I would have done so if I was the Moderator.

14

Why on earth would they be coming here and doing that ? I know - searching for answers, etc., but still - do they really expect bouquets and eulogies ?

More to the point, as long as incidents such as this are allowed to be posted, we ought to recognize that there are several different “audiences” here, and that each is going to have an understandably different view, “agenda”, and “take-away” from the reporting of the incidents. For example, there are T&E employees, management and consultant types, pure or ‘mere’ railfans, maybe some journalists, those with EMS and/ or public safety or OLI interests, psychological, counseling, and forensic backgrounds, etc. Depending on which group(s) one is in, legitimate reactions could range from “That’s so sad” to “That’s so dumb” to “Why did they do that ?” to “How can we prevent that from happening again ?” to “I’m so sick and tired of this happening to train crews” and “Can’t prevent it - just have to accept it and deal with it”, etc.

All of these viewpoints are valid, and one of the virtues of a more ‘open’ forum and the resulting ‘free speech’ privileges is being able to air all these different viewpoints and opinions for others to see, learn, discuss, comment on, object to, revise, stand by, etc., and hopefully tend to better inform and educate the railroad-oriented community here as a whole.

  • Paul North.
15

What you say is pretty true. I said something similar on the thread that was closed. You fail to observe, however, several important points. 1. Whatever someone does, no matter how bizarre or disturbing to cope with loss is a private matter and should be tolerated. If it is self-destructive, hopefully friends will steer that individual in a healthier direction. 2. However, when that same person’s coping mechanism intrudes on other people’s well-being, tolerance ends.

Additionally, I wonder if all or even any of the posters, who feel the need to ridicule victims, are in fact railroad engineers who are attempting to deal with PTSD symptoms following a grade crossing accident? And if they are not, why should they be cut any slack for the tone of their posts? It also occurs to me that the goal or motivation of some posters is not to vent but to get the thread locked because they don’t agree with or feel threatened by some of the opinions expressed.

Double standard? Not sure about that. My feeling about the entire matter is that offensive postings should be reported, removed by a moderator if warranted and the poster warned. Locking threads only encourages repeat offenders by reinforcing their behavior. It also curtails further discussions by the interested majority and may be one reason why this forum has fewer participants.

16

Hmmm, I wonder if this thread about threads being locked will itself be locked, as will the next thread that refers to this thread, on and on ad infinitum…

17

Completely agree!

18

Wow,

So many ways to address this, issue.

As has been pointed out, each of us deal with death differently.

I can understand you being somewhat upset, first at what you felt was Wabash1’s gallows humor and by what you at first perceived as an attack on the person who died.

Later, you retracted you statement that he attacked the person, which I find is a rare thing here and on most forums, a member who admits he was wrong and makes amends.

Rare is the man who can step back from a heated debate and reassess his own position, and I compliment you for being one of the few who has done so.

And I can promise you that, while he may seem callous, Wasbash has, and most likely will again, lose sleep over any grade crossing fatality he is involved in.

His comment about dirt naps is a common one, it is part of the coping mechanism all us railroaders have to employ, because as was pointed out, we have to get back on the motor and go on with our job, we don’t have the luxury of being able to take a few days off and work through it.

While there are allowances for crews to call a relief is these situations, most don’t, because our culture wont allow us to, we are expected to suck it up and get on with it.

There is no worse feeling than that of being up in the cab, and seeing something unfold ahead of you and knowing there is not a thing in the world you can do to alter the outcome.

Your engineer pulls all the air he dares to, he may even plug the train, but you know, deep down in your bones that you are going to hit them unless they move, and move right now.

You are helpless and impotent and completely useless, in a situation most people never find themselves in, completely with out any control over events, you are only along for the ride.

When things finally get stopped, your anger at being placed in this position boils to the surface.

You want to, no you have to blame someone for this…and while your rational mind might t

19

To Ed B:

WELL SAID!

20

Thank you Ed.