Sexual Harassment

I agree with you for the most part, but the last part is entirely wrong.

That's like saying someone trying to grab your ass, female or male, its entirely psychological.

-B-

 

Can there be a like... a mandate or something telling certain users not to post in this thread anymore, at all? They have a corrosive effect on the potential of the thread, especially after Rachel's post took us in a promising new direction. They've made it clear they're only hear to either bait or spout nauseous opinions.

 

In the same way that the user responsible for all this can't be named, we also can't name other people from this thread who have had action taken against. But action HAS been taken against some people, and others have been warned and are under close scrutiny.

 

Agreed.


Let's move the discussion forward in a positive manner. As this is a serious board-wide issue, I say we start focusing on solutions to the problem, or steps we can take individually (both victims and by-standing males) If users have offensive views of harassment, let's just let the admins and mods take care of them.

Here's what I'd like to see happen:
1) The ability to block unwanted PMs from harassing users. This is something I'm pretty sure would have to be taken up with IGN

2) The ability to use IM's as grounds for harassment, as the majority of awkward advances I've been victim of have been on AIM. I'm not saying TFN's jurisdiction should be able to reach into other mediums such as AIM, but I think if I receive a harassing IM I should be able to send it to a mod in order to have the problem taken care of on the boards.

3) I would love to see users start helping each other out. I have a lot of great friends on the boards, and if all the men who never have the misfortune of being harassed would start stepping up and defending the women when they see they are being made uncomfortable, it would cut back on other users harassing them, since it would make them feel isolated and uncomfortable in their own advances.

4) Mods and admins perhaps releasing a stickied thread (which was locked, so as not to get another discussion of this topic going) just making a general announcement declaring their stances on harassment and letting all the female users out there know that they don't have to take it. It would open up a lot of doors for communication between harassed users and the administration. A lot of users don't read comms, or get too involved in JCC drama to know about the situation going on, and if something was officially announced just saying that harassment will not be tolerated and users who feel harassed should go to a mod or admin, it would reach out to those isolated users.

 

Thanks for illustrating precisely what I was talking about with regards to male ignorance and negative attitudes, wannasee

Something else people need to realize is that - in addition to online sexual harassment being just as bad as RL - the women (and occasionally men) here have histories. You absolutely cannot tell someone else how they should feel in a situation. They feel how they feel. Consider (everyone) that you don't know what has happened to these people in the past (both in RL and online), you don't know how they react to things, etc. Sexual harassment online can absolutely, positively, 100% be incredibly traumatic.

As to the MS standing up or not standing up to Wise... well, I completely understand your situation and I do admire the even-handed take on it. I do wonder if Wise would ever even know if someone told people. The one thing I don't really understand is why regular users aren't allowed to say anything, though.

-sj loves kevin spacey

 

Why are you making it personal? Now I have to defend myself. "Empathy" would have sufficed for your answer.

I cannot have empathy for a victim of sexual harassment as I have never been a victim of it. However, I do know what it is like to have a negative state of mind, so in that respect I do have empathy for the women. This is why I gave them some very sound, if not appreciated, advice.

Don't make a big fuss about how you are feeling, and pretty soon that feeling will go away. Of course, if people want to make a big fuss about the nasty emails some guy sent them, they are free to do it.

I was only trying to help...

Also, posts can't have empathy, only people.

Do I win?

As far as I know there is nothing derogatory, ignorant, or belligerent in any of my posts.

I see we have a difference of opinion with regard to online activities. I am not afraid of anyone on the internet. You are. I don't see how this makes you "right" and me "wrong".

I never said that women were asking for harassment. I merely said that if a girl does not seem to respect herself, she is more likely to be harassed. That's the way this world is.

And there are a couple of guys who post in the pic thread who could claim they were being harassed, if they chose to, so don't try to make it seem like girls are saints.

And there was a girl who posted in the pic thread who was prettier than the other girls, and all the girls along with Spiderfan ganged up on her.

And now I am being ganged up on and everything I have said is totally reasonable. And if it isn't reasonable, at least it is presented respectfully. Yet I am the one being warned...

 

Bye.

Anyway, I kind of get the same vibe about a certain somebody being so detached not to consider an exception, then he'd also not stick his head in. You know what I mean?

 

No. You've been warned. Your next post in this thread will get you a ban. I hope that's clear for you.

 

First off, as this is bordering on baiting, I will have to try my hardest to respond with a level of professionalism.

I am not "afraid" of anyone on the Internet. Do not ever dare to make insinuations about me when you have never taken the time to know me, which I beg you not to ever attempt. I am not afraid of anyone in real life or online, as I have the ability to take care of myself no matter what situation arises. Which is why I am posting here right now.

ALSO, I have a very high level of self-respect, and yet I am harassed. All my pictures are decent and the very furthest thing from revealing. I stand up for my opinion and abused users around me, even if it might make me unpopular. You even attempting to claim that I do not respect myself and therefore am being harassed is baseless, ignorant, belligerent, and all the traits I associated with your posts earlier.

This level of self-respect makes me feel it necessary for other users to respect me as well. Therefore I will not allow users to think they have the ability to disrespect me by making obscene comments or treating me as if I am only a product of my physicality.



You, sir, are disrespecting my integrity, my sense of self-respect, along with my ability to handle myself in whatever medium I find myself in. Attempt it again, I dare you.

 

WHAT. I don't care if everyone else already addressed this, I'm flaming pissed.

The problem is not gone. The user may be gone. The problem now, is being dealt with by the mods - how they choose to handle future cases like this, and what they're going to do about the deceased user. You don't just brush it under the rug and say "all gone". It's certainly not gone, and for all we know that user is intelligent enough to come back under a different name, IP, whatever else.

The mind of the victims? What? I've certainly got no self pity - I'm ****ing pissed off about how someone like that can go around harassing me and craploads of others, while at the same time spreading lies about me! And what did I do to cause this? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I never spoke a word to him ever before, all of a sudden I get a pm in my box with him hitting on me. Did I instigate something there? No. I'm very conscientious of my behavior, thank you. Even after I gave him the hint to back off, he didn't. That's why we're talking about UNWANTED HARASSMENT, not how a woman should handle herself appropriately on forums so as not to draw attention to herself.

Self pity is basically on a completely different page, if you want to pin emotions to the harassed, how about something like "pissed off" or "afraid".

 

No one should have to hide to avoid harassment. Thats ludicrous and incredibly illogical.

 

Harassment causes issues just like the one you're creating now, wannasee.

I tried earlier to steer away from posts like yours and offer productive suggestions to keep this thread moving in a positive direction. But instead, you directly attacked me and made me defensive enough to divert the thread once again to address your ignorant remarks Is that what you want? Some form of sick attention?


Can we start having productive discussion now, please?

 

Please stop the personal comments

This

 

Like I said earlier, it's not a bad idea but it doesn't guarantee someone from harassing users with other accounts they may have.

 

So if you receive a PM from them on a different account, you have the ability to block that one as well. Think about how easy it is to block someone on AIM.

 

Blocking is by far the most effective means of stopping harassment online. Because harassment is always going to happen, no matter what, and we can try to decrease it, but blocking really is the only way to just put a stop to it.


Except of course, if your harasser has your IP address and other personal information to hunt you down. Then you're screwed.

 

That's more bordering on stalking, which is a much more rare and highly exaggerated form of harassment.


Stalkers are called such since they go out of their way to obtain personal information and use it against you. Situations like this can't be lumped in with the discussion of harassment, as they require special and specific attention that depends on each individual case.

 

So what should we do about that specific situation, he had access to so much information.

It's one of those things, we have no evidence of any stalking - but how do we know for sure? If he lied about everything, how do we know how much we can trust him even now? How do we know what he still has for information?

Or is that something that can't even be dealt with on the boards, with mods? Is that something entirely larger, a, "let's hope it doesn't happen" sort of thing?

 

I'm sure you know the answer to that. Having a place where people can publically make accusations against others is a very dangerous road to go down, and opens up the site to all sorts of legal issues.

 

How does it open the site to legal issues if it's not actual members of the mod squad that are expressing how others made them feel, and the board isn't responsible for messages posted on the forums?

 

If I was going to take legal action, I already would have. I don't need the name to be publicly released to do that.

 

As this isn't Puritan New England, I don't think we have the right to put anybody "in the stocks" and read off execution sermons in order to publicly humiliate them. It would also result in a type of "revenge"-game. Staying with the Puritan theme, kind of like a witch-hunt, which is the biggest fear of mine as for negative impacts of this recent focus on outting harassers.

 

Unfortunately, that's just doing an end run around what Wise has already forbidden. This is like if a newspaper had a policy of not directly naming victims of sexual abuse as in, "Ms. Jane Doe claims to have been sexually assaulted by the accused John Smith", but the reporter writes, "Linda Doe said, 'My cousin Jane Doe was one of John Smith's first victims.'". Obviously, this example is a reverse of what we're dealing with on the boards, as most people with gumption would be more concerned about protecting the victims than they seem to be concerned about protecting the perpetrator, or their position as owner of the largest Star Wars fansite, but it appears we must abide by Mr. Wise's decree.

On another issue in this thread on steps to reduce the possibility of such reprehensible actions to recur/or to be sustained, I think allowing people to block PMs that would be a good function to have. I don't think it's possible that mods can have any jurisdiction about any sexual advances made in IM; unfortunately, this falls outside the purview of TFN mods, even if the intial conversations/meetings were made here. As long as a harrasser keeps his/her harrassment off the boards, it's not really the admin's place to deal with it.

 

I'm not talking about people flaming others - that's obviously against the rules. I'm talking about users who feel victimized being able to publicly say that. When you're telling someone "thanks for the information, but you can't tell anyone else" that's taking away even more of their control. People post stuff publicly about other users all the time - so why in the case of sexual harassment, they suddenly can't?