Can we bring a policy back?

Look, I'll just be blunt here, and I'm not pointing any fingers at any specific person(s).

There seems something slightly dysfunctional about the way this has all proceeded. I'd be much more interested in getting to the real crux of the issue here - how can we all work together and make things a little less dysfunctional - or maybe not dysfunctional at all.

It takes very little effort, comparatively, to write down a set of rules and have everyone agree to follow a specific set of rules. I've always done my utmost to follow the forum rules, and I always will, that much should go without saying.

The situation has been EXTREMELY bewildering to me in many ways for a number of reasons, and I'd be lying if I didn't say I had a very different take on the whole situation just two days ago. I would love nothing more than to be able to take certain individuals off of ignore, but the things they have said over many months have been deeply hurtful and they were completely uncalled for, imho.

It's not like a want to hold a grudge against anyone or have any ill will towards anybody. This whole thing has been extremely frustrating for me, because despite acting with the best of intentions, a lot of miscommunication has obviously taken place.

And I only found about this thread by accident! It's not like anyone pointed it out to me. But I had been thinking about coming to the communications section to try to get someone to listen to what I felt was an ongoing pattern of abuse and aggressive behavior, I was really feeling very besieged by that point. That's not a good place to be when all you're trying to do is to participate equally in online discussions and avoid unnecessary drama.

 

I really with this wasn't made about Tina. Not because I agree or disagree with her posting style, but because there are larger issues that could be fruitfully discussed.

 

Tina, many here have empathised with your perspective, but you seem completely unwilling to do the same for others. This is the crux of the issue.

 

@Darth Punk would like folks in this thread to know he's reached out to me and we'll be talking further via pm.

With good will to all and malice towards none,
PT

 

For the record I appear to be on ignore also following an attempted PM...

 

You wouldn't dare...

 

Going off this point, I've seen that you and other mods have at times asked that the threads go back on topic.

I would say the one example where more leeway was given (perhaps in part due to the seriousness of the situation) was the pinned pandemic thread. At some point, it feels like it stopped being a Senate thread and really became as JCC thread. And I wonder if that is much of the issue. Now, on the one hand- it makes sense to have a more serious thread to discuss the science and the politics involved especially when we had a JCC thread for those of us coping in quarantine to rant about the other stuff and a **** posting for the dumb politics of it. But, is it reasonable to think that the pandemic topic because it was pinned should be held to the same standards as other Senate threads?

I would actually say no because it was pinned and because of the circumstances. Consider that this thread is where we were and still are worrying when users exhibit signs of the virus or test positive, try to make sure the members who are on the front line are ok and getting the protection needed, and try to keep up on the latest data. I won't deny that having several tweets without context is frustrating, but then I guess it comes down to the moderator to make the call of whether intervention is needed. I would think if someone felt that way, they would have done so by now? If they have chosen not to, I would say it is due to the extraordinary situation surrounding the thread. We know there are plenty of moderators posting in the thread.

This said, it is not an unreasonable expectation for the threads labeled Senate to contain more discussion than just a tweet. But when a situation like the pandemic or the current protests occur, that means users who do not know what the Senate label means will enter the discussion. And I am not sure what the expectation should be there: Is there a clear clearly visible link that outlines what the Senate tag expectation is? Should it just be on the first page of each thread? Or should a moderator be expected to clarify when things go off track?

 

The COVID thread is a unique situation in that it was originally a JCC thread started by Punk but was then merged with Ken's pandemic thread which was Senate tagged. Maybe this is a weird suggestion but perhaps that thread should have both tags? COVID is affecting everyone regardless of their interest in political/social topics so it makes sense that the discussion there leans more towards "JCC" than "Senate" but both tags are still valid IMO.

 

I've had some time to process things and I see no reason why the double tag idea wouldn't work.

Just so we're all on the same page, because I've been around since the earliest days of the JCC but also was away from here for almost 10 years, I can be uniquely familiar and unfamiliar with a lot of things and I would hope nobody is going to start suggesting I'm disingenuous when I say I genuinely wasn't aware of one thing or another.

I do remember that even in the earliest days of the JCC sometimes even mods would be of different opinions about what was OK and what wasn't. I remember one mod saying something couldn't be mentioned and then @jasman coming to tell her it was OK. So, sometimes there's room for confusion or disagreement, even within the mods.

So, even in the earliest days, there were things either in flux or subject to different interpretations.

And some things changed a lot in the last 10 years. I remember what the senate was like when Kimball Kennison was a mod.

Things change constantly and change can sometimes be confusing. Also, these are stressful times for a lot of us. And sometimes we really feel the need to be understood and supported - all within reason, naturally.

Just since yesterday, someone posted in the Covid thread and expressed the need for support and advice, and someone pointed them to the Covid support thread. I think we're all trying to help or be helpful to the extent that we can and for which we have the bandwidth.

 

So much for "hugging it out" - what I thought was gonna happen did happen.

For someone who recently engaged in sexually-explicit personal attacks against me, @Darth Punk doesn't seem to understand some people just don't want to engage with him, even jokingly.

Now he's probably going to claim he's being misunderstood and that he didn't mean to give anybody a hard time..

I come to the forums for light-hearted banter and easy going chats and I have absolutely no desire to be constantly subjected to the hostility of people with evident antisocial tendencies, can one of the mods please PM with any helpful suggestions? Thanks.

 

I have no beef with you at all and don't know Punk outside of the boards but that to me would be someone making a joke (YMMV if it's good or bad)

There is no reference to gender, sexuality, skin colour or anything like that.

I understand you have a history with Punk and I have no wish to do that down and fully recognise that responses can elicit emotions but as an outsider looking it, that looks to me like a mickey take.

"I've not been to the mall in ages" leads to "restraining orders are tough" it could easily have been "do you struggle with the lock on your car" or "do you struggle with the bus timetable".

This to me "feels" like someone trying to engage with a joke, I genuinely do not think this is a malicious response.

Again I stress, I don't know your history with Punk and 100% recognise that certain engagement types can elicit responses but I don't feel like this is an attack. Punk is British and this is a British style of trying to build up a social relationship, sometimes it hits and sometimes it doesn't.

 

Please consider the context, DP and another person I won't name have been needling me for months in the pandemic thread.

Just a few days ago I tentatively signaled to DP my desire to move forward and forget the past, so long as he left me alone for a few days until I got that whole other thing out of my system. I was kind of hoping to take him off ignore today, and look what I came back to.

 

That's just it.

The response was innocuous. It was a silly response to not having gone to the mall in ages. I genuinely do not see anything here outside of mild piss takery.

Nothing sexual
Nothing racist
Nothing homophobic

I genuinely cannot see where his words caused offense to be taken.

I'm more than happy to be proven wrong but it looks to me like a joke that has fallen flat.



Which considering its Punk isn't really a surprise.

 

Ok, let's agree that it could be considered nothing more than that, on its own. But also please consider what he did just a week ago, and how it had to be edited by a mod, and how concerned I was.

And I had tentatively agreed to call it all water under the bridge so long as he left me alone for a few days so I could process things and get certain things out of my mind.

I was more than happy to start over again - if he just gave me the space I needed for a few days.

 

I thought you had him on Ignore. Didn’t you say in the other thread you chose to open and view Ignored Content?

 

As I just said, he and I had tentatively agreed to start over.

I was planning to take him permanently off of ignore today or tomorrow. And today, I clicked "show ignored content" on an individual post, I thought it would be at the very least an on-topic post.

 

@Princess_Tina, I reported your post in the Pandemics thread. Time to stop the dirty editing and false accusations. Punk is a standup guy, as anybody here will testify. In that very thread, he got people together to get Vaderize some masks. What did you do? Blabber over it. Shame on you.

 

What dirty editing? I edit stuff for clarity and/or typos or if I hear something new and the post is under 30 minutes still.
Also, I haven't made a single false accusation.

 

- blabber -