QRZ.COM Forum

[One Country Boy]

I enjoy reading forums and getting others views and opinions on everything from politics to ham radio and RV’ing. Not to mention I have learned a lot from others, saved money and spent some. QRZ.COM has a forum for Amateur (Ham) Radio. I browsed the forum section months back see what was going on there and hopefully learn more about my favorite hobby. I found some interesting articles and information, but much of it tainted by rude and dehumanizing responses. I found new comers to the hobby asking legitimate questions, only to humiliated with rude, unsavory responses. I quickly learned this was not the place for me. My ONLY use afterwards has been the callbook and checking a few ads.

Logging on today to pull up an unfamiliar call, I noticed a new post by the forum administrator (Fred, AA7BQ), entitled QRZ Policy Update - Ban on Trolling. This post addressed some of the problems I had discovered. I read through a few of the responses that followed. Most encouraged Fred but some were in the negative. There were far too many to read but one caught my attention in particular. A guy stating he had fought for his country in the military and been shot at to protect our rights including, “freedom of speech”. Now, I really appreciate this individual having served in the military and fighting for our country. My question is: “Why be rude to people, just because you can ?” His response and some others were discouraging to me.

I didn’t bother responding on the forum. I quickly sent an e-mail to Fred encouraging him and thanking him and the moderators for attempting to clean up the forum issues. Only minutes later I received a return e-mail from Fred expressing his appreciation and advising me to look for more clean-up to take place. If you are a QRZ.COM user, I would like to encourage you to do the same.

Thank you for taking the time to read.

73,