Posted by Larry Hoover on March 7, 2006, at 11:33:56
In reply to Am I the only one?, posted by Larry Hoover on March 6, 2006, at 15:26:26
I just sent an email to His Bobness, and it occurred to me that it might best be copied to the boards as well.
I know I've been saying stuff about taking a Babble-break, and then, there I am. Still posting. But after writing this, I am at the turning point. So, this may be my last post ever.
I have to decide: Babble-break or Babble-broken.
Which am I? Time will tell.
I can tell you that I am healing. I can tell you that I have certainty. I am on a healing path. I can speak of it. That is an accomplishment of some merit, and I am very proud.
To triggers, again, one last time.
Here is what I sent to Bob. (slight edits (I always see places for improvements))
Dear Bob,
It is so hard for me to not speak with passion, if I can speak at all, about what it is like to have PTSD and to be a member of the Babble community. I am grateful for your tolerance of me. I look forward to meeting you in Toronto. I want to shake your hand.
Assuming that you do set up a red-flag trigger warning system, I want you to think about the difference between mandatory and elective trigger warnings. What those two different worlds might be like.
In the elective world, I can guarantee that there will be posts that fail to meet the trigger protection guidelines, and sensitive people will feel that uncontrolled escalation of emotion. And you would leave it up to us, the sensitive ones, I suppose, to flag, notify, or reply to that failure to warn? Well, if that's what you want. I suppose I could post a civil but pointed reminder that not all people reading on these boards can manage unannounced graphic or explicit descriptions of human horror, and ask that future posts of that nature be flagged, in consideration of the sensitive.
In the other instance, everything is exactly the same. Up to the point where the warning comes in, everything is as it would be in the elective realm. (I really think that all any one individual will ever need is one such warning, but I may be wrong.) The only difference is that the reminder about being sensitive to triggering depictions would come from you, and/or your deputies. And, hopefully, deputies would be empowered to add the missing flag to the suspect post.
Two worlds. I warn, or you warn. It won't be pretty if I'm the one warning others. I don't want the job. But I'll do it. I'll be in there, in their face. Or you, with your boilerplate "please be sensitive", refer to the FAQ, standard notice. I would try to emulate your template, but it would be different coming from me, instead of you.
I know I've made much of the wheelchair metaphor. I carry my emotions around in a wheelchair. There are some places I dare not go. What a difference it would make, to have signs up, to guide my journey. You've seen them. Blue and white wheelchair signs. You've seen the curbs, older ones installed before the wheelchair activists got the ear of the able public, which have been cut down with a diamond-toothed concrete saw. Newer curbs always have ramps integral to their structure. Turning barriers into paths for wheelchair-bound people. It's a lot easier if you plan for that. Wet concrete is easy to form. Fixing it afterwards is a big job.
Do you want me to be the one putting up all those wheelchair signs? Do you want to make me cut new ramps all the time?
We're already responsible for aspects of our posts that we don't necessarily think about. You block based on what *could* be read, when a post's words are interpreted. You and I have fought about that aspect more than any other. How is it so different to make a poster consider one more aspect about their own post? Who could better know the content, than the poster himself? If you don't make flagging mandatory, you reverse the onus. It would be unique, in all that Babble regulates, to have the onus not on the poster himself, but on the reader.
Instead of self-flagging, you have proposed that I have someone maybe go ahead of me, and screen all the possible posts that I might read? How does that change the barrier to my participation in any substantive way? At the very least, I couldn't be spontaneous, as I'd have to wait until my posts were screened for me. And who wants that job, anyway? Your proposal is
unworkable, on its face. And why should the job be mine, in the beginning? It's not my job to screen posts for vulgar language. Why should it fall on me to screen for triggers?Perhaps you dislike any comparisons to Dr. Grohol's work. I don't know, there seems to be something in that. But Dr. Grohol didn't even flinch when he set up his guidelines for his own site. Some content is simply banned outright, deleted if it sneaks in, and other less triggering content must be flagged. It is simple. It works great.
Your site does not permit retroactive flagging. If the first post in a thread is triggering, but has no flag, how can the warning on that post's content even be given? It will always come too late. Always too late. Always. A sensitive soul viewing the archives a decade hence would still not see the flag in time.
The practical solution is also the one that works best. Make trigger issues the responsibility of the generating poster, and we will manage *that* with sensitivity. It is so easy to manage, up front, in the mind of the poster himself. I trust in the hearts of Babble posters. We can do this so that it works for everyone, without undue burden falling upon any individual. Just one extra thought per post, compared to generating horrors.
The alternative will be poster to poster confrontation, unless you administrate triggers, too.
I will not be posting to Babble any more, at least for the time being. I have exposed my most intimate vulnerability to the world. If that is not enough for you, then, in the fullness of time, it will be up to me.
PTSD afflicts up to 10% of the American population (and many of those don't even know they have it). It is associated with, and exacerbates, problems such as mood disorders, anxiety disorders, sleep disorders, substance abuse, psychosis, relationship problems, difficulties in therapy, poor response or abnormal response to medication, and declining health in more general terms. The elephant has been in the Babble rooms all this time, Bob. Isn't it time we started talking elephants?
This is not about censorship. Content will remain unchanged. I know and love cutters who post here. I know and love people who have been traumatized by others. I know and love posters who dwell intimately upon their very existence. I know how valuable this forum is for them. I simply cannot accompany them everywhere, on their journey. The trigger flags would be like
having a map. Right now, I am blind.Your humble friend,
Lar
poster:Larry Hoover
thread:614568
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20060225/msgs/617013.html