Back in the olden days as my grandchildren call 10 years ago – I  am talking about the time before Tim Berners-Lee invented the world wide web back in 1990, and we entered the digital world most of us live in now, most of us were taught the fine art of good manners.

There was an etiquette to how we behaved, passed down through generations.  ‘Don’t put your elbows on the table’ (I never really understood why as it felt comfortable,  but woe betide any child that did that).   ‘Don’t eat with your mouth open’ ‘ Don’t speak with your mouth full’.   We learned how to be seen and not heard as children.  No-one would dare talk back at their parents, or be rude to Grandma if she popped around.   We were taught how to be polite.We were taught about respect.

One of my favourite things I still hear my own children now telling my grandchildren is ‘Play nicely children’.  I can hear the echo of my own mother in that phrase.  Another one was ‘If you cannot find anything nice to say, then keep quiet”.

So why do we think its ok to mock or be mean to people on the internet?

In this modern age the art of great manners sometimes seems to have been forgotten.  It is considered amusing to mock someone’s post or comment rudely about a person you have never met.  This behaviour is unacceptable, yet we see it all the time.  It’s a form of bullying isn’t it.

Think about this in the context of our wonderful crafting.  How often do we see someone destroying a fellow quilters confidence by telling them they are not using he right thread, or fabric.  Why does It matter if a person uses polycotton fabric or thread.   There are nicer ways of explaining than just bluntly stating it’s the wrong way.

I would say the majority of us in the facebook groups are hobby patchwork quilters.  I count myself in this group. I use moon thread, I will use a sewing needle more than once, and forget to clear out my bobbin race every time I rewind a bobbin.  I forget to close the cover on the rotary cutter, I use polyester wadding (brillo) sometimes if it’s all I have. I rarely pre-wash fabric and I don’t think I have ever cleaned my cutting mats.    I am not making quilts for competitions, I make them for my own pleasure.  These days we are ‘quilted out’ at home and people are beginning to avoid me in case I offer them a quilt.   Not every point is pointy, and the stitch is never quite in the ditch. I don’t always mitre a corner and I stitch my binding on back to front. But you know what .. I enjoy every moment of it and I get a real buzz when I do manage a pointy point.

If you gallop past this one you might not see the missing points or the sight ripple – but once it was quilted they melted away – believe me!

How does this make you feel?  Does it offend your professional knowledge, or make you want to put me right?  Do you want to make rude comments about this, or explain categorically how I should be doing things?  I hope not.  I hope that if you don’t agree with what I am saying, or showing, that you would politely scroll on by.

I hope you would not take my comments and transfer them to another group and leave them open to ridicule. I hope if anyone has commented already on my post that you would not be rude to them or laugh at my attempts to show a badly sewn block, or have chosen the wrong colours.

Of course not!  But I have seen all of these things happen at some time or other in a variety of groups.  People swearing at each other, disagreeing with comments, bullying members and more plus even copy/pasting a comment they found amusing into other groups to mock.

When we see someone pouring their heart out in the social group I think we should be supportive.  We might not agree with something – and when that happens I scroll right on past unless I can make a constructive comment. When someone posts their quilting  pictures I feel we should offer praise or constructive comment here too.  Don’t berate them for not following the ‘rules’, it’s simply not necessary is it. If someone asks for help we should give it politely. Yes, we know there’s google, or other places to look, but maybe that person is reaching out for human contact. Perhaps they’re living at home alone with their crafting and want just to show off what they have made. We have no idea why that person is  needing to vent or if they are  having a really bad day and need to talk to empty their thoughts.  If something really offends you then talk to an admin of that group – there’s more than one way to skin a cat (my Granny’s favourite saying) and often a polite word can do so much more than a heavy handed action can’t it. There’s no harm in giving an opinion, but there are nice ways to do this .. I imagine I am talking directly to someone rather than through the virtual cover of the internet .. its an eye-opener that is as to how things can be phrased politely.  I often think how someone might feel if I challenged them in open forum and try to open a conversation that everyone could contribute to. We are making our own personal comments after all, not banging on about right or wrong according to the quilt police. Facebook is a social group for people to play nicely in and we really shouldn’t take things too seriously either should we?

It took me a while to realise that facebook truncates comments, so you only see the latest ones.  This means the question could already have been answered higher up in the thread – I have been caught out by this more than once.  The trick here is to open up the thread of comments and look at what people have been commenting. Maybe a simple like to show you agree is all that’s needed and in doing so it helps reduce the length of the thread.

The polite manners we learnt as children are sometimes forgotten in the virtual world we live in.  We ought to apply them in exactly the same way we would have done when Mum or Grandma were watching over us in our childhood  (not sure about the elbows but I think fat fingers are a real issue for some of us on digital keyboards) but one thing resonates from those simpler days of my childhood:

If can’t you say something nice, say nothing at all.

Perhaps this now translates to ‘scroll on by’!

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