Student to Student @ ULM is one of the most important sites in the University of Louisiana at Monroe community. Student to Student as students call it is a Facebook group that allows for discussion between ULM students.

These discussions range from job openings, to where to get a haircut , best shopping areas and to even ULM controversies and issues. Student to Student, however, is turning into a place that needs oversight and change.

To me, Student to Student’s problem is broken down into three problems: disrespect, non-ULM students and a lack of rules.

Disrespect is the easiest to define in terms of Student to Student’s issues.

People must learn to respect each other’s opinions, within reason. Everyone has a different opinion about topics, rarely do two people think the same. This is why the discord about the recent Student Spirit Athletic Fee became so polarizing.

A large group of students in Student to Student became incensed when they heard about the fee that proposed to raise students fees, benefitting mainly athletics.

For over a week, Student to Student was full of posts from people on both sides of the coin.

There were many posts during the election process and at times Student to Student became heated with people calling each other ignorant and people from both sides of the argument ;being passive aggressive to the other side by “thanking” people who agreed with them.

The point of Student to Student is to not scream back and forth about who is right and how to vote, it should have been kept to only informing other students of what the bill was.

When it devolved into opinion based talk only, someone should have stepped in. This is even truer when people were being rude to each other.

Student to Student needs someone who is capable of monitoring these conversations and ending them before they get out of hand.

Student to Student needs monitors for more reasons than that though. Someone needs to take professors, staff and non-ULM students out of the group. Their presence creates a different atmosphere within the group.

There are constantly people in Student to Student who now go Louisiana Tech or who no longer attend ULM otherwise.

It is a simple fix, click on their profile if they no longer are a student at ULM they need to be out.

All of these would be easily fixed by my third issue: rules. If there was a set of rules for conduct, Student to Student would be able to be run more smoothly.

Some of these basic rules need to include that student must stay respectful, students cannot campaign for themselves and certain language will not be tolerated.

Staying respectful will keep from fighting on Student to Student and it’ll teach us how to further articulate our points without being offensive.

The language rule is intended exactly for not being offensive, as you don’t know where a person’s trauma comes from. Campaigning just floods everyone’s timeline taking away from anyone who may need help.

Plus, it’s just plain annoying.

All of these issues inhibit Student to Student from being able to run properly.

When students are rude, they fight bringing droves of others who want to see what’s happening, myself included.

When its flooded with campaigning, any important topic gets pushed out for glorified selfies of people running for office.

The fix is simple, add to the rules that already exist.

To give credit to the creators, they have done a good job of keeping people physically safe by telling them not to post their full schedule. Beyond that, though it seems as if there are no other written rules needed to create the atmosphere it was intended to be.

The point of the rules more than anything would be to continue what Student to Student was made for and to keep it on its point. Fighting, campaigning and trolling have taken Student to Student away from its original goal of helping students.

A set of rules would help Student to Student to thrive and get back to its real purpose.