Facebook Groups - the good, the bad, and the ugly

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TL; DR - how do you deal with annoying people in otherwise helpful FB groups?

What sort of experiences have you had with FB groups? I recently joined one that is for sharing postings of music videos of members playing a certain instrument. I’m trying to decide if I want to stay involved or not.

The community is mostly (99%) kind, encouraging, and supportive. There are various levels of talent. It is a large group with over 20k members. I have received nice compliments on what I have shared, and I have been exposed to different composers and styles of playing. I enjoy listening to what others are posting.

However, there are occasionally comments on my posts that are super annoying. The group is predominantly male. On the last video I posted I received comments from two different men that were irrelevant to my playing but were about my appearance. Nothing over the line, but irksome. Both commented that I should smile more, and one commented on how my clothing choice was incongruent with the piece of music I was playing (I was wearing black and what was my point). However, there were 20x the number of comments that were about my playing, the music, the composer, etc. Relevant, IMO.

On another woman’s post a guy commented she needed to sit up straight. This was (like mine) among many other relevant comments that dealt with her playing, musical ability, etc.

I have no issue with feedback, but I feel it should be relevant to one’s playing, not one’s appearance. No one ever comments on what the men are wearing, if they are smiling, or their posture. The group has rules and the moderators keep good rein on those. Can only post so frequently, no memes, nothing political, etc. What those men wrote on mine don’t violate any rules, per se’.

My response to those comments was, “Thank you for sharing your feedback.” I wanted to write something very different. But a FB group is NOT completely anonymous, and I don’t really know what I’m dealing with, kwim?

Why do a couple of bad apples have to spoil an otherwise good thing?

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You could try to message the moderator about it or you can block those guys so you don’t ever have to see them again.

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Just block anyone (man or woman) that doesn’t sit well with you. They aren’t notified. There are some in my watercolor group that do weird posting too - I think it’s the nature of the beast. Block or ignore.

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I belong to a few of these groups. One professional and the others community groups. I simply ignore the annoying ones (people in the community love to rant about useless stuff and people in the professional one can be off the deep end quite often). I also don’t have notifications set for the professional one and only go there occasionally.

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How do you block a person? I know how to do it on my own personal FB timeline/page, but how do you do it in a group? And what does that do? Can they no longer post on what I post?

Thanks!

EDIT: If they no longer can post on what I post, it seems like they could tell that? OR can they just no longer find/see my posts?

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Still might not prevent interaction in group. See help center in FB.

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Thanks - I edited my question to be a bit more specific.

I’ll see if I can figure it out.

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I would have been more direct and certainly not thanked them for their feedback. I’ve unfollowed many a person on FB and you can block people in your group.

I also would ask the moderator to consider updating the group rules to include “please keep comments focused on performance and not appearance”.

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On FB, look for the three little dots in a row to the far right of a poster’s name. Click that or tap (depending what device you are on) and it will give you options to snooze a person, etc.

Or, hover over their name on a post and click the three little dots there - that’s where you can block.

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FB Groups can be as you describe: good, bad, ugly!! I think often the topic has a lot to do with it. Lighter topics (gardening for instance) less ugly. I think it also depends on the size of a group. Smaller hand-picked groups tend to be more civil.

Some people are uber competitive.
Some people spend a good part of their day drumming up drama on FB. Their resume of getting FB jail time is long and hearty!!

I belong to several groups. Often I think I could do without the rest of FB and just enjoy the groups. But most are light non-controversial topics. The most controversial ones are the large neighborhood groups - cause every neighborhood has those competitive/drama filled people in it!!

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Yes, I saw that. I am just unclear as to what that does within a group. I am obviously not a moderator.

It is a private group, but I’m not sure my doing as you say will do anything other than keeping him from finding me individually on FB.

I am going to take a wait-and-see approach and see what happens in the future. If they had written something completely inappropriate/overtly offensive, I would alert a moderator for sure. It’s just, to me, completely off-topic.

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I just read your post a little more carefully. I can see how the comments about appearance would feel off putting. Are you newer to the group? Maybe these guys are public performers and they are looking at a person’s personal presentation as much as the music? If you’re newer to the group I’d do a little more observing to see if theses kind of comments are their habit. You can even search within the group for a poster’s name and a list of their posts will come up - does this seem to be a trend with them??

Often I think that one annoying person tends to be on LOTS of people’s annoying list!

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FB posts make me appreciate CC!

So many of our FB neighborhood posts have turned into diatribes by a few. I’ve chosen to never respond to those (which is VERY hard - for me, as I believe we cannot ever find common ground if we only see or read posts that agree with us). I haven’t blocked them (yet) but generally skip over the names I know will be irritating. I tend to think totally differently from those posters, but occasionally want to hear (read) their thoughts to better understand another point of view.

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Lol. Some people do gigs and such. But, no, as a general rule these are just hobbyists just doing recording in their living rooms (as I am). That would certainly not be unreasonable in a professional group.

I have only been in the group a couple of months but have never seen ANY comments about appearance on ANY of the men’s posts. The only exception being asking for better camera angles so that one can observe playing technique. Which, of course, is relevant.

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Ah, I think “hide” might be the right term. You can hide their comments but I think the hiddenness is only visible (or invisible as it were ) to you.

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Examples of critiques I find irksome:

Very nice. What would make our view pleasure better is a beautiful smile from a beautiful woman playing a beautiful song.

Nicely done. (But, the rendition seems incongruous with the black dress. What’s the point? And, a smile makes a huge difference.)

Examples of critiques I find relevant and not irksome:

Nice arrangement. I would suggest a little more speed and syncopation, to make it singable, but you have it down!

You are a wonderful technical player. Now find your passion. Hear the words to that song in your heart. Its about a real person you know.

Sharing these so you all can assess if I am being too sensitive or not

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Just based on those comments my “impression” is that you are an excellent technical player but your body language (smile or other visable “passion”) would make the performance more effective/enjoyable for the audience.

(May I ask what instrument you play??)

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I’m not quite sure how to phrase this, but there are all types of performances - I wouldn’t expect a pianist performing a Rachmaninoff piece to smile (or really, any classical musician)- but someone performing a jazz piece may very well smile. Being singled out for comments on appearance due to gender is inappropriate and I wouldn’t like it either.

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I’m trying to think of what type of instrumental performance that would enhanced by a smile? Smiling is impossible while playing many instruments, so why would it be suggested for a particular one?

I think that these men are subtle misogynistic trolls due to the suggestion to smile, which many men know is not appreciated by women.

I read sports articles about women athletes now and then and the misogyny is horrible in every article about women. If the Article is about a basketball player, a hundred men will comment that no one cares about the WNBA. More often the comments are much ruder.

Just my opinion from what I’ve observed on social media.

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So I figured out how to block.

On your computer mouse over their name until a pop up window pops up offering to let you message the person. Click the three dots … to the right of that and there is an option to “block” under that.

On your phone you have to click on their name and go to their Facebook page. Then click the three dots … to the right of “add friend” and the message icon and you should see an option to “block”.

Alternately, when you post a video you could include a line that says more or less, “please comment only on my interpretation of the piece, not what I’m wearing or how I look”.

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