Jessica23

Yes, it's brilliant being a tenant. In my current property I'm subject to 'inspections' every three months (nothing says home like someone you don't know poking round it), it was so cold here in winter 2010 that even with the heating running full blast you could see your breath in the air, the washing machine is at least 15 years old, there's a damp problem (obviously me opening the windows would totally solve that - except wait! It doesn't! And I'm freezing!), I have to get written permission for a picture hook, never mind decorating or anything crazy like that, the gas costs me nearly £70 a month because the heating is so inefficient (this is for a tiny flat, 3 rooms), I probably pay more rent than many people's mortgages...and I could go on. In previous properties I had to live with a broken fire alarm constantly going off for THREE WHOLE DAYS before someone would come and fix it and once I lived somewhere where the damp was so horrendous that the ceiling was actually crumbling onto my pillow as I slept. But of course the lack of responsibility totally makes up for all of that! (Never mind that I do actually have a responsibility to keep the property in good order, including dealing with the mess of a garden that wasn't laid properly in the first place and now causes all kinds of problems.) And as for gas safety inspections - that's a legal requirement, not something landlords do out of the goodness of their hearts. And it SHOULD be a legal requirement. If I've got no control over what kind of boiler I live with the very least I should be entitled to is the knowledge it's not going to kill me. I accept that there are good landlords and nice properties but please let's not pretend that anyone is doing it out of altruism.

By accepting a caution he's admitted assault.

Doom, unsavoury characters haven't ''attached'' themselves to the EDL. Unsavoury characters lead the EDL and represent them in the mainstream media. Tommy Robinson is unsavoury in the extreme.

natjack, if you want to be informed, there's a whole wealth of information out there waiting for you to find it. It's not the responsibility of people on here to educate you. If you genuinely want to know, as opposed to being disingenuous for the sake of rhetorical forum points, I'd assume you'd have already found the answers out for yourself.

Broken record is exactly the thing. I do feel it's important to point out at every available opportunity that the EDL are a racist organisation supported by racists.

If we're measuring political influence by number of twitter followers, I do feel its important to point out that Katie Price has 1.7 million.

I don't know, why DO a lot of our MPs support UAF? Could it be that our mainstream politicians are all secretly Islamic extremists themselves? It does seem the most likely answer.

Is it? A real, true-because-an-EDL-supporter-said-so fact? Well, now I really feel educated. Dude, you support a racist organisation lead by racists. Violent, ex-BNP racists. Forgive me if I take everything you say with a pinch of awful racist salt.

That's all well and good if you really believe that the EDL are just anti-extremism. They aren't, and believing they are takes a concerted act of credulous naivety. Everyone in mainstream politics is anti-extremism. No need to support the fascists to join that group.

Ah, my mistake! He's actually not a disgusting violent fascist at all. He's a hero. A free-speech martyr to the right of every violent convicted criminal in the land to spread racial hatred. Be still my bleeding heart.

We do all make mistakes! But I can't help but think that while being involved in one far-right group might be regarded as a misfortune, to get involved in more than one looks awfully like you're a disgusting violent fascist. Obviously I'm just twisting the fact he's a disgusting violent fascist to suit my own anti-disgusting-violent-fascist agenda. I've made peace with that.

Basic grasp of reality classes, perhaps.

Tommy Robinson on the Beeb this morning admitting convictions for 3 or 4 violent offences and being an ex-BNP member.

I'm sorry you were the victim of a false claim or of abuse or assualt and/or all of the above (I can't entirely make it out), but it is dangerous and quite frankly wrong to extrapolate from that the idea the country is crawling with women making false accusation and that the police are colluding in that. And on that note, I'm off. I've wasted enough time on here attempting to present a counter view to the prevailing idiocy without now having to deal with moderators on here threatening me. I wouldn't have brought up the fact that you're a moderator if you hadn't, repeatedly, on this thread. We all know you don't moderate threads you post on as normal users. So if you're not threatening me with a ban, what are you threatening me with? I know it's usually poor form to cross post from other threads but I hope Hecate won't mind: *flounces*

Quite happy to accept you have no clue, yes.

If you know what trigger warnings are for I don't understand why you've posted things that suggest otherwise. Like this: That isn't what they're for, and it isn't the knock on effect of having one. I don't have 'an opposing point of view' to you. I have a view that what you've posted is damaging. A view that is backed up by people who work in the field. My personal experience isn't really relevant here. What's relevant is that contributing to a climate of suspicion around accusations of abuse is damaging to victims. I haven't denied or refuted that there are false allegations, as I said very clearly in my last post. And if you don't think the police should be trying to track down victims or witness to an allegation I'm not sure what you think they should be doing instead to investigate it...

Trigger warnings are a courtesy to the reader. They are not a moderation policy and do not generally have an impact on moderation policies. They exist to warn people they might read or view something potentially upsetting and that is all they do. If the tide had turned and people believed victims then SF wouldn't be crawling with people who can think of nothing better to do with their time than cast doubt on those victims (or, you know, suggest that the police might be 'cultivating' them. Cultivating!). I've never stated or implied, on this thread or anywhere else, that there are no false accusations. But I have invested quite a lot of time and research into debunking the depressingly prevalent assumption that the rate is much higher than it is and pointing out that people who are concerned with attempting to suggest otherwise are doing no favours to victims.

You haven't upset me personally, and you clearly don't understand what a trigger warning is. If the tide really had turned, we wouldn't see so many posts on here, over and over again, expressing or implying the view that abuse victims are lying or not genuine.

I'm not portraying you as a monster. I'm pointing out why what you wrote was problematic. Damage isn't limited to physical damage. If it was there wouldn't be rules about abuse and harassment on here. We are on opposite ends of the spectrum, yes, because even if I hadn't been aware pre-Savile that there is a climate of disbelief around abuse/rape/harassment issues that had a knock on effect on reporting rates and victims (and I was) I'd certainly have been aware of it afterwards. It's been done to death on here, for starters. ''Just opinions'' doesn't really wash with me when it comes to publishing those opinions on a highly-trafficked website like this one. Words matter. Words have impact. Words can upset people. Your OP is potentially devastating to an abuse survivor who is terrified they won't be believed. Anyone who can't see that - and it certainly won't just be you - is in my opinion really lacking in empathy. Some websites come with trigger warnings and content warnings for upsetting content. Given the amount of stuff that gets posted on SF on this topic and others like it - including the amount of homophobia, misogyny and racism that just slides under the rules - the entire site should probably come with one.

Well, that's the beauty of SF! You can choose to discuss what you want on your terms and don't have to take any kind of responsibility for posting stuff that's damaging to abuse survivors.

Clearly not, since you haven't bothered to engage with the content of my second post.

I was attacking the post. I was pointing out that your post bears no resemblance to what I wrote in mine and suggesting one possible reason for that.

If you manage to extract from what I wrote in my previous post that (a) I'm angry and (b) that I assume all males are abusers automatically then there is a serious problem with your reading comprehension.

Well, here's a sweeping claim for you: the number of people who think nothing of coming on to SF to peddle damaging suggestions about abuse victims really does not contribute to making life easier for those victims. In fact, directly the opposite. Posts like your OP - yes, even when you frame those damaging assumptions as questions rather than statements - contribute to a culture of under-reporting, shame and secrecy around abuse (and rape, sexual assault, harassment, etc) that harms victims. The assumptions implicit in your question demonstrate a lack of understanding of these issues and are, in my view, irresponsible. /sweeping claims based on my own experience and extrapolating to assume it's the norm

Just enough detail to make sweeping claims about how the police investigate abuse cases but not enough detail for anyone to really comment sensibly on it. Perfect!