It doesn't take much to start heated debates on web groups. It could be that this is the case especially when the group is adoption-related topic-wise, but I wouldn't know if others are just as quick to rile as I don't often frequent sites that address other interests.

At the moment, members on various groups are up in arms, and at each other's throats, about, amongst other things, baby safe havens, a Chinese adoptee's bat mitzvah, the definition of 'support', and t-shirts.

Yes, t-shirts.

Seems someone somewhere had the unmitigated gall to put a referral photo on a t-shirt! Gasp!

Then ... yes, then! (can you imagine?) ... the "A" word was actually printed in bold font ... in combination with various other words ... on wearing apparel. (see photo)

Now we've got people wanting to sport "Adoption Sucks" across their chest as a slogan to live by. Others are talking about bio parents printing ultrasound photos and plastering those on t-shirts ... blah, blah, blah.

"It's tacky!"

"That's just showing off their "good deed"!"

"How dare they!"

"Their children will be SO embarrassed when they're teens!"

Sheesh. We're talking T-shirts here farcryinoutloud!

Yes, I'm a bit testy on the topic today.

No. Not t-shirts. In my world, everyone gets to wear what they want ... poor taste, offensive language, whatever. If someone wants to send a message to the immediate world that they're an idiot, far be it from me to stop them.

It's the group yapping that's bugging me at the moment.

Yes, some groups play hardball and get down-and-dirty, but one knows that going in. Sometimes this gets really dull ... beating a dead horse is only okay with the horse, who has, by definition, passed the point of caring.

Kinder, gentler groups may puddle in drippy little blops of boring, as well ... subject matter on a group gets bogged down in tedium, as most do from time to time. It often happens that new members hijack posts for a while, hashing over stuff that has been hashed and rehashed until there's no longer any interesting hash to hash and whipping each other into frenzies of golly gees ... or whatever ... and getting mired in a simpy pseudo-support stance that is often more about "this is me and I'm so totally jazzed about seeing my representation of me in print that I could, and will, go on for weeks" than, "this is helpful and useful information" or, "this of interest to a wider audience than me".

Normally, I either tune or opt out.

Sometimes, however, it happens that a red flag rises out of the "me, too!", "Isn't it swell?" blather, and when that happens I have to post. I can't stop myself from voicing concern where concern is due, or from suggesting assistance might be a good idea when it seems it could be helpful.

Web groups and forums are a community, and in my world people in a community step up. They should do so relatively politely, but worrying too much about egg shells just makes for pap, so calling a spade a spade is okay by me.

What is not okay is calling a spade something else or casting aspersions, as we all know ... or should.

Ooooh, there are some nasty people in the world.