THE administration team behind Skibbereen Notice Board’s Facebook page are considering pulling the plug.

Last weekend, a large notice appeared on the page stating ‘Skibbereen Notice Board to be Deleted’ with an explanatory note saying the administrators are not prepared to take any more abuse online.

‘Our very small admin team have lives, jobs and families and run this group out of our own time, for nothing but grief and abuse,’ a spokesperson wrote online.

‘There are 23,000 people in the group, and 22,000 of them are a pleasure to deal with. However, there is a select group who insist on making our team out to be some sort of dictatorship who want to silence people. But this is not the case,’ they added.

According to the admin team, every time someone posts a comment online, and somebody else doesn’t like it, it gets reported. But when there are several reports, they, as a team, might decide to remove the offending post.

That way, they said, their phones are not hopping every minute of the day with notifications.

When this happens, they said: ‘A select few want to make us out to be some sort of monsters who remove stuff just because we don’t agree with them.’

Now, the team is considering three options. The first is to simply remove the disruptors, even if that feeds into the narrative that the team are ‘dictators.’

The second option being considered is to let the lunatics run the asylum and remove all rules. That option would mean turning off the moderator tools and letting people spam the group as often as they like. It would also clear the way for anonymous posts and the use of nicknames. Basically, it would let everyone say what they want, whenever they want.

The nuclear option would be to delete the group. The admin team is on record as saying: ‘This is the most likely action.’ But they agreed to discuss it before a final decision is made.

Terri Kearney, the manager of Skibbereen Heritage Centre, expressed her regret that the page could be discontinued. ‘So sorry to hear you’ve been subjected to such abuse. That’s just awful... this is a fantastic resource and we so appreciate your service, whatever you decide, thank you!’ she said.

Another member, Sheila Coughlan Finnegan, said: ‘Sad the way people carry on. Best thing is to block them. Rudeness should not be tolerated.’

Meanwhile, PJ Cremin suggested: ‘Throw out the troublemaker bunch. If you wouldn’t accept that behaviour inside your own front door then don’t accept it here. Don’t worry about them getting pissy, they’re going to be that way anyway about something or other.’

As we go to press, the original post appears to have been removed. Perhaps it was just a warning shot across the bows?