Posted by pseudoname on March 4, 2006, at 9:31:23
In reply to Re: trigger warnings, posted by Larry Hoover on March 2, 2006, at 12:39:06
Larry, your post was very moving. I had no idea of this about you.
I now realize the main reason I have never used “(poss trig)” in the subject line is that I've never posted about self-injury, suicide, etc.
However, after reading your post, I will earnestly be much more aware, and I will use warnings wherever called for, and I'm open to suggestions. Like ZH said, I'm sure you spoke for many others here. Thank you for writing what you did. I had no idea.
My reason for wanting warnings to be *voluntary* (as they are now) is that I fear the expansion of inadvertent, innocent rule infractions people will be PBC'd and blocked for. When the rule-breaking is clearly innocent or misunderstood or even impossible to predict, I experience these punishments as inhumane, abusive, arbitrary, authoritarian, autocratic, mindless, condescending, indifferent, frustrating, one-sided, suffocating... I can't even describe what they do to me. (I 100% knew what you meant when you said the trigger subject was so important to you that you were speechless about it.) I feel this way even though the punishments are always directed at *other* people – I've not yet been PBC'd.
These reactions stand in marked contrast to my other, strong, persistent very favorable thoughts and feelings about Bob and Babble. I think Bob's amazing commitment to creating a civil environment (especially free from personal attacks) makes Babble work.
But I literally lose sleep sometimes over other people's PBCs. So I was / am really leery of seeing more regulations I feel guaranteed to be powerless against, get punished for, and fail to understand. I'm not happy thinking THAT “minefield” is expanding.
But thanks to your post, I think the catastrophic reactions of people who are triggered by words & topics are clearly more serious than my reaction to punishment, which I see as a smaller and different sort of problem. I need better responses to it generally, and I can work on that.
So I'm willing to support an unavoidably displayed policy REQUIRING a warning (checkbox *or* personalized) for certain clearly specified content, even if I will sometimes be upset by its enforcement. I would appreciate it, however, if its enforcement never involved BLOCKS. Perhaps always just a PBC/PBS?
Despite feeling "speechless", Larry, you made an excellent post.
poster:pseudoname
thread:614568
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20060225/msgs/615803.html