If you don't find OH helpful and supportive

I wanted to add one more thing.... If a person only comes here infrequently, and then when they do they are only posting how awful this place is... then they really are the ones who are missing the point. If they want this place to be supportive, then they are doing exactly what they are accusing others of doing... they are being UNsupportive.

Sometimes people say things on here that I think might not have been supportive, I think, "y'know, I don't think the OP means what some of these responses are touching on," and then I respond to the OP and to what I think they really meant to say. I do this because I feel like it's important to be true to what is within me. If it means that I don't agree with others .... even if I regularly DO agree with them ... that's okay.

OH is a great resource for those who are pre op and post op. However, I use to just lerk and read posts, I enjoy especially before and after pics. I have read post where people have went back and forth like an argument. Im not trying to hear all of that because this journey is going to be tuff enough.

using bold words an using captial letters is considered raising your voice. So even toned speech would be reflected in normal lower case type. Sometimes Ladylithia you come off as aggressive and confrontational. Yes the info you give is spot on. And as you say, you have good intentions. but I fail to see how I can read other posters as speaking calmly and come across some of yours as aggressive. It is only my opinon and as you requested, I called you by name. I am usually a poster who if I disagree with someone I will post another view, I don't like to call someone out and copy what they say so I can comment on it directly to that person. Rather, I agree that we all see things from a different angle. But in this instance you requested that I call you out.

Not everyone subscribes to your idea that "using bold words an (sic) using capital letters is considered raising your voice". Writing an entire sentence in capital letters (when the rest of the paragraph is not) is one thing, but many people (including me) use bolding, italics, or capitalized individual words simply to try to provide the emphasis or clarity in written communication to replace what one would normally do with vocal inflection when speaking face to face.

Lora

ON THE INTERNET THIS IS SHOUTING

But on the internet, when it's allowed, using bold, or italics, or underline is used to emphasize particular words, to add emphasis and inflection, to provide a focal point to specific words.

I don't know how long you have been on the internet, but I have never EVER heard etiquette that says bold is shouting. Since I have been around on the internet since prior to it's popular inception, and BBS systems prior to then, owning one myself, I feel like I know what I am talking about.

Frankly, I consider that the time that I take to add emphasis, whether it is italics or bold or any other inflection is a mark of how very much I want individuals to be able to understand my intent in what I am saying. It has never been meant to be agressive, or pushy.

YOU may see lower case words as the only even toned words, and anyone who uses any form of emphasis as being aggresive but just because you perceive it to be so, doesn't mean that  everyone else on the planet has that same perception. I appreciate your sharing it so it isn't passive aggressive. See, I've never once in my five years on this site had any single person tell me that they thought my normal courtesy of providing the tonality that text normally lacks as being agressive or pushy. I'm a teacher. I use the spoken word as my normal form of communication. But I can't make solid emphasis without either using all caps for certain words (as is required on some comment boards I frequent as the ONLY sort of emphasis that is allowed) or by adding color, size, bold, italics, underline and any or all of the above to give each word or set of words emphasis.

I read books a lot, and I appreciate it when the author takes the time to add italics as emphasis in quotations of the spoken word. They add a dimensionality to the written word.

Example.

Susan just looked at him and said, "I really wish you wouldn't say that"
or
"I really wish you wouldn't say that"
or
"I really wish you wouldn't say that"
or
"I really wish you wouldn't say that"

There's a difference in tonality. The first is flat with no intonation the second emphasizes the wish, the third emphasizes the PERSON, the fourth emphasizes the THING being said. Four different short setences, each with a different set of intonation. I try to give what I share with others on this site intonation. Just because YOU see it as pushy and aggressive, doesn't mean that others see it that way. I frankly reject your personal concept of bold italics underline or color as being the same as WRITING IN ALL CAPS. All caps is shouting on the internet, the rest is not. Even toned speech does NOT emphasize what is important. I'm not a monk trying to accomplish a chant. I'm a human being, and human beings don't SPEAK in "even toned speech" when they are making a point.

They do say, however, that "perception is reality" so to you, I'm aggressive and confrontational. That won't change so long as you have a perception of the internet that just isn't SO. Seriously. half the early texts on internet etiquette I wrote. I am a published author, with more titles to my name than I could remember.

Again, I appreciate a direct approach over the passive aggressive approach that some undertake. I'd rather know for sure. But I won't change my method of communicating my intonation in a way that communicates MORE than simple lower case even tones. I don't speak that way and i don't write that way. Teachers generally do inflect perhaps more than the average human. It's how I am. It's how I write.

Lady Lithia,

I've been a reader for over 6 months and just began posting (wish I could post more - 2 little kids, grad school, husband in grad school, getting my life together with surgery, etc) and I have NEVER seen you to be anything other than helpful, kind, and giving with your time, advice and support.

The same goes to the other vets - I have learned SO much here from you all. You have made my time before and after surgery much easier and I feel informed and empowered. I've learned more from you than my surgeon's offce (that is another story for another day) and I'm very grateful for the time and energy you put into posts and replies.

Frankly, I'm amazed when people even bother to try to tell someone else how they should post on a support board. And I'm amazed by the patience the vets show in answering the same questions over and over - even when the answer is just a page or 2 away because someone else asked it just a few hours ago. I've been on boards where the response to repeated questions is: search first then ask, please don't waste our valuable time asking the same questions over and over. None of y'all do that, which is an unacknowledged gift, in my mind.

. As for the folks who think 

 My iPad has a hard time with this board sometimes, so I'll finish here. Straightforward is not the same as unkind or being a bully. Direct questions or direct answers are important and necessary. Sometimes I want to say to people (but I don't): Holy Moly! Get it together! I know this is hard because I'm doing it too, but for heaven's sake, are you KIDDING ME?!?

That all of you maintain composure is a testament to your patience and kindness in my book. There is massive amounts of information given here and this information has helped me in very real ways make it through these last 3 months. I take my vitamins, drink my fluids, eat as my surgeon has told me to, exercise and I've been helped by the success stories of those who've come before me and the difficulties others have had and are willing to share.

If there are people who are that easily offended by a direct and not unkind answer to a question on a support board, then it is my guess that there are larger problems in the mix, you know?

Thank you for your kind words. I really enjoy helping when and where I can. Title a post "help with exercise" and my trained eye won't even SEE it.

But title it on the "week-three-stall" or tailbone issues or protein shakes or a variety of other issues, and I like to share information as much as I can. I can't help but be human, and I'm here because this place gives me more than I give back.. Perhaps that is little of me. But if/when I post a messsage and need help, I often respond to ten or twenty other posts while waiting to see if I get any feedback on my issues. I love to help others. I love to teach what I know, and share what I've learned. It's my self-definition.

I don't mind if people don't care for my bold italics underline style. I don't care if they think I'm really only here to bully people. But I encourage anyone who thinks like that to go on ahead and block me. If what I write is that negative, and makes anyone feel bad, they should block me. The block button can be your friend. I had more than 60 people blocked when I got approved and through my sixth month postop. I unblocked them when I felt more stable in my mind (My mum died on the day of my surgical consultation, I was dealing with more than postop surges of hormones, I was dealing with a personal loss too)... It's important to make this place what you want it to be. You (generic) have control over who you allow into your orbit. If someone makes you upset, it's smart to do what it takes to avoid that. Some can ignore, some can't. I have an example... if Pasta, Rice, White Potatoes, Candy, Cake and Cookies were all people on this site, I'd have to block Cookies. I can't come close without wanting to buy them and eat them. I'd probably ignore anything that Cake posted and seriously re-think my choice not to block it. If cake was chocolate triple layer... I'd have to block it too. But all those other characters, they don't bug me, and won't phase me. As members of this forum, we have the ability to eliminate the people that raise our blood pressure. We have the ability to custom make our surroundings. I urge everyone to do that. Don't let any one person, or set of people make it less than it can be for you. But I do think that it is also important to re-judge people at later points. The hormone surge atthe beginning is very powerful. I wasn't here much even with a lot of people blocked, because I saw how touchy I got. So I distanced myself. When the first surge was over, suddenly things that bugged me didnt' but me any more. It's easy to not realize how much you are affected until you're through the surge.

I think that I am probably the only one here who makes greater use of bolding, italics, caps, etc. than you do (LOL) and I am sure as hell not going to change the way I communicate just because a few people misinterpret those communication aids as intensity, harshness, voice raising, or whatever.  In a communication medium that lacks both vocal inflection and facial expression, it seems not only appropriate, but desirable, to make use of various methods to overcome those limitations.

Lora

I think over the summer I started to emulate you by adding more emphases.. now that we're back to the school year, I doubt I'll get as much time to add emphasis to what I have to say.

I agree though, I think that just because some people have a viewpoint that it is aggressive or pushy, doesn't mean that I'm going to change it.

If we could ONLY post messages that EVERYONE would like, we wouldn't be able to post ANY MESSAGEs. I accept that others will say things I don't like, and I'll say things they won't like. I don't agree with everything that even my friends on here say all the time. But that's the keystone to friendships... the ability to disagree without wrecking friendships.