Years ago at one of the more popular Philadelphia stamp clubs there was a man named Bob. Bob had a pretty fair philatelic knowledge, though he wasn't nearly as capable a philatelist as he thought he was. But that wasn't Bob's biggest problem. No, he would come to the major club meetings and brag about what he owned and what he knew, and over the course of time he got into fights with various members and the club's attendance would decline, and Bob would have to move off to ruin another club. Once Bob confided in me that he didn't understand why the clubs in Philadelphia were declining so. He said he needed to go from club to club because as soon after he started regularly attending meetings the attendance at that club would decline and soon the meetings would stop entirely.
Bob was poison and only a small amount of poison can make an entire room toxic. People can get their fill of prickly personalities at work and dealing with health insurance claims. They don't need it in their hobby. And just what Bob did in the local stamp club circuit in our area often happens in the modern version of stamp clubs -stamp chat rooms. Bullies and obnoxious people need to be banned. A club today would never allow a cigar smoker to pollute the air of the club or a spitter to foul the floors so why do we allow flame throwing and incendiary insults on stamp chat rooms. Insulting chat doesn't just degrade the writers of these insults. It degrades the readers and our hobby. It's difficult to look away when two grown men are hitting each other. The monitors need to have them take their fights outside.
Bob was poison and only a small amount of poison can make an entire room toxic. People can get their fill of prickly personalities at work and dealing with health insurance claims. They don't need it in their hobby. And just what Bob did in the local stamp club circuit in our area often happens in the modern version of stamp clubs -stamp chat rooms. Bullies and obnoxious people need to be banned. A club today would never allow a cigar smoker to pollute the air of the club or a spitter to foul the floors so why do we allow flame throwing and incendiary insults on stamp chat rooms. Insulting chat doesn't just degrade the writers of these insults. It degrades the readers and our hobby. It's difficult to look away when two grown men are hitting each other. The monitors need to have them take their fights outside.