Birthday wishes?

[ashwsh]

So I have a question, And I have been noticing this for the last few months, certain members are wished on their birthday and some are not...could any one tell me the rationale behind it and the process of selection? should there not be a standardized approach for it?

@Moderators- please shift the question to the appropriate thread if needed. I didn’t know where to put this up, so put it in this section.

 

 

Edited December 18, 2019 by ashwsh

[Kays]

It's my birthday today 🙂

[Raggydoll]

2 hours ago, ashwsh said:

So I have a question, And I have been noticing this for the last few months, certain members are wished on their birthday and some are not...could any one tell me the rationale behind it and the process of selection? should there not be a standardized approach for it?

@Moderators- please shift the question to the appropriate thread if needed. I didn’t know where to put this up, so put it in this section.

 

 

We in the staff start as many birthday threads as we can manage and we actually appreciate when members help us out to start threads. I think that sometimes it’s not obvious all the things that we do here, every single day. Aside from running circles, participating in exchanges, planning fun stuff etc. we do A LOT of work behind the scenes and we answer a great deal of PMs and reports. Not to mention the monitoring of feedback and misplaced threads etc. And aside from this we all have real life stuff to manage. So you will have to excuse us that we cannot keep up with all the birthday wishes. It’s NOT that we don’t think that some people are less deserving of a birthday wish. Absolutely not! So when you see that someone isn’t being congratulated - why not start a thread for them? That would be very kind and helpful! 💕

[Raggydoll]

2 hours ago, Kays said:

It's my birthday today 🙂

Happy birthday! 🎉🎂🎈 

 

Did you add your birthdate to your profile? I just checked and you don’t show up in the “todays birthdays” list. 🙂

 

ETA: This is what I mean. We have a widget on the home page that shows birthdays but it can of course only do so if people have registered their birthdate on their profile 

 

[gregory]

Birthday threads are started by people who want to start them, usually for people they happen to like. They can't be started for people like me, who refuse to list their birthdays. I also point out -grinch that I am, that when we started this forum and were asked for suggestions, one thing I asked for was to disallow them. Precisely because of people who can't understand why there wasn't thread started for them. The idea that the forum staff should have to set them up and administer them in silly.  I am amazed to see raggy say that they do so. They have important duties. As she also says, if we must have them, members can start them for anyone they want, as on every other forum I know, where there is usually a note on the front page listing today's candidates. It shouldn't be an admin job.

 

And ultimately, why does it matter if 900 members you have never met say happy birthday? It doesn't mean anything. Now if my partner didn't mention it, that would matter..

 

To anyone I failed to wish happy birthday to, I have set those threads to invisible... So it won't happen

Edited December 18, 2019 by gregory

[AJ-ish/Sharyn]

ditto what Gregory said. And an odd thing to consider a mod duty. 

[Raggydoll]

Thank you both for understanding 💗 We will always prioritize the technical side of things and to help people in any way we can. So hopefully members can start congratulating themselves when they feel like it. 

[ashwsh]

Yes I agree it should not be a mod duty to be responsible for the start a thread, all I was pointing to the fact from a member point of view it feels discriminatory when X is wished on his/her birthday and Y isn't. So if the tech could either automatically have an option to wish someone or not have it at all. There must be a better way to manage this.

[ashwsh]

9 hours ago, Kays said:

It's my birthday today 🙂

Happy birthday @Kaysand @Gazelle

Edited December 18, 2019 by ashwsh

[Saturn Celeste]

15 minutes ago, ashwsh said:

So if the tech could either automatically have an option to wish someone or not have it at all. There must be a better way to manage this.

The forum software does not do that.  We have over 2500 members here, almost half have never posted.  Also as has already been said, if the member does not enter the date in their profile, we have no idea it is their birthday.  We have had some members start threads for others here, it might be something nice you would like to participate in.  If a member has not posted in a year, we tend not to give them a birthday thread.  In any community, participation is important to keep it alive.  We like the birthday feature but as @gregory said, perhaps we should get rid of it  and honestly that would be a shame but not impossible to implement.  If the section offends you, Ash, you can close off the section by clicking on the little (-) on the right hand side of the section bar and it will collapse so you don't need to see it.

[ashwsh]

13 minutes ago, Saturn Celeste said:

The forum software does not do that.  We have over 2500 members here, almost half have never posted.  Also as has already been said, if the member does not enter the date in their profile, we have no idea it is their birthday.  We have had some members start threads for others here, it might be something nice you would like to participate in.  If a member has not posted in a year, we tend not to give them a birthday thread.  In any community, participation is important to keep it alive.  We like the birthday feature but as @gregory said, perhaps we should get rid of it  and honestly that would be a shame but not impossible to implement.  If the section offends you, Ash, you can close off the section by clicking on the little (-) on the right hand side of the section bar and it will collapse so you don't need to see it.

As I said earlier, my only issue here is how sometimes it may show biases of people towards another. So one of the instances I do recall that happened a few weeks back was about a member mentioning about their birthday on the thread (and it didn't show up in the section bar) and subsequently a thread was started by a moderator wishing her birthday. But the ones whose birthday was very much listed in the section bar and are vey active members got no wishes. I did seem a bit odd to me. I did find it very unfair.

My only submission to this is, that wishes should be equal for all!

I don't have any problem with the section showing up in my account, I love wishing birthday to people 🙂 but clearly I am not a thread initiator. 

 

[Saturn Celeste]

1 minute ago, ashwsh said:

I did find it very unfair

Life is not always fair, Ash.  I'm sorry to say that but at my age, this is one thing I know is true.  It's how you deal with it that counts.

.

2 minutes ago, ashwsh said:

but clearly I am not a thread initiator.

It's never too late to start.  This seems like an important topic to you so please, take the initiative, you would be helping us.

 

I do hope this conversation is finished now or perhaps we will have to remove the section after all.  This is not something to 'discuss,' it's how the forum is run, we try to be fair but real life happens and we might miss someone.  I'm sorry to those I've missed but we'll hopefully get them next year.

[ashwsh]

43 minutes ago, Saturn Celeste said:

Life is not always fair, Ash.  I'm sorry to say that but at my age, this is one thing I know is true.  It's how you deal with it that counts.

.

It's never too late to start.  This seems like an important topic to you so please, take the initiative, you would be helping us.

 

I do hope this conversation is finished now or perhaps we will have to remove the section after all.  This is not something to 'discuss,' it's how the forum is run, we try to be fair but real life happens and we might miss someone.  I'm sorry to those I've missed but we'll hopefully get them next year.

My only intent was to bring it to the notice of you all that the current approach may get offensive for some people. I understand that moderators are really busy and along with managing their own lives they have this forum to take care of too. In no manner I want to discount the wonderful job that all of you are doing. The fact that a lot of us love hanging out here, shows it all. I would be happy to help and support it in the best possible manner 🙂.

Edited December 18, 2019 by ashwsh

[gregory]

1 hour ago, ashwsh said:

As I said earlier, my only issue here is how sometimes it may show biases of people towards another. So one of the instances I do recall that happened a few weeks back was about a member mentioning about their birthday on the thread (and it didn't show up in the section bar) and subsequently a thread was started by a moderator wishing her birthday. But the ones whose birthday was very much listed in the section bar and are vey active members got no wishes. I did seem a bit odd to me. I did find it very unfair.

My only submission to this is, that wishes should be equal for all!

I don't have any problem with the section showing up in my account, I love wishing birthday to people 🙂 but clearly I am not a thread initiator. 

 

It cannot be totally fair given that many of us don't list our birthdays. But if you want it to be, you are free to start one every time a name shows up on the first page. One member on AT used to do that. 

 

But I can't tell you how sure I am that it should never be up to admin. And as to cliques - if I believed in such threads, I would only ever start them for people I saw as on line friends, never for someone I've never interacted with. To be blunt, why would I want to say happy birthday to someone I've never spoken to?

Edited December 18, 2019 by gregory

[Raggydoll]

I’ll be the first to admit that I forget to check birthdays a lot of the time! It’s just that I’m too busy with other things. And likely that will not change. So if you see biases in that @ashwsh then I honestly feel that you are seeing things that aren’t there - because I have also forgotten to congratulate real friends of mine here on the forum! 

[ashwsh]

13 minutes ago, Raggydoll said:

I’ll be the first to admit that I forget to check birthdays a lot of the time! It’s just that I’m too busy with other things. And likely that will not change. So if you see biases in that @ashwsh then I honestly feel that you are seeing things that aren’t there - because I have also forgotten to congratulate real friends of mine here on the forum! 

@Raggydoll with no offence, I used the word 'may' and not said it that it certainly happens or it certainly exists. And I understand personally you don't intend any, but I don't think you or I can can speak with certainty for others.

 

Edit: I was actually fearing from starting a topic on this. I knew I would get a lashback for this, but I still felt that there was no harm in pointing out certain things that may come across as insensitive to others. Next time I shall just stay mum🤐

Edited December 18, 2019 by ashwsh

[Raggydoll]

2 minutes ago, ashwsh said:

@Raggydoll with no offence, I used the word 'may' and not said it that it certainly happens or it certainly exists. And I understand personally you don't intend any, but I don't think you or I can can speak with certainty for others.

I can’t speak for every member of the forum, no. But I can speak for my staff colleagues and they are not acting out of biases. So we can effectively put that worry to rest. 

[ashwsh]

44 minutes ago, Raggydoll said:

I can’t speak for every member of the forum, no. But I can speak for my staff colleagues and they are not acting out of biases. So we can effectively put that worry to rest. 

Thanks 🙂

 

[Raggydoll]

9 minutes ago, ashwsh said:

Thanks 🙂

 

Anytime 🙂

[gregory]

@ashwshi really don't understand what you mean by bias. Anyone can start a birthday thread for anyone if they want to and if they know when the birthday is. Admin shouldn't have to be bothered with it anyway, but as to the rest of the membership, I'd expect people to be starting such threads for people they have interacted with here, not for random people. Is it bias for me to say there are perhaps ten people here I would even think of starting them for? There are hundreds of members whose names I wouldn't even recognise! Is that bias? I don't send cards to many of the people I meet IRL either.

 

[Little Fang]

I added a birthday wish forum disclaimer. 🙂

I'm going to shut this thread down so there is no more fuel in the fire.

Blessings, all!