Posted by itsme2003 on March 15, 2006, at 12:47:22
In reply to Posting more difficult **TRIGGER** » itsme2003, posted by Larry Hoover on March 15, 2006, at 10:13:21
Larry,
Firstly I want to say that I hold you in high regard because of the very knowledgable posts that you make regarding dietary supplements and related topics.
I only want to reply to one of your points. You said
>I, the main proponent of mandatory flagging, did not ask for that [...imagine every possible way that something could be triggering to someone]. I asked for protection from core and obvious triggering posts. Believe me, you would not be in doubt of what they are, when I am through with working at each stage of the process. Nor do I believe you would question why I would have them so designated.
I truly think that the devil in the details could easily get out of hand here. I have no doubt that you would put a lot of work into this and come up with a good set of guidelines. The problem is that once you start down this road, the most likely end will be the lowest common denominator -- in this case requiring alerting about any imaginable possible triggers.
Suppose you proposed just a simple guideline based on what you said above such as "...protection from explicit and graphic depictions of trauma." That might work for you and for lots of users, but I think that others here would feel that did not adequately protect them from their triggers.
I could live with a one-sentence mandatory guideline based on the "...protection from explicit and graphic depictions of trauma." I do have one major condition on that, however. I feel that it is essential that in ambiguous cases, the presumption is that the poster has obeyed the rules. I feel that in the case of the civility rules the presumption is the opposite -- if someone can imagine a way that a statment could be viewed uncivally then it is considered uncivil. Here the presumption of innocence in ambiguous cases really must lie with the poster.
** Possible Triggers ahead **
Consider the following sequence:
1) Someone died in a house one block from me the other day.
2) He died of a gunshot wound.
3) I read in the paper that he was shot in the chest.
4) And that he was found in a pool of blood.
5) The newspaper said police were investigating. I had a neighbor tell me that this person lost his job several months ago and moved back in with his parents. The neighbor said that this case was a suicide.
6) The neighbor said that this person's girlfriend had broken up with him earlier in the week. The person waited until his parents were gone, then he took his father's pistol and shot himself in the chest. His parents returned to the house later and they were the ones to find him in a pool of blood.
This is a true story. I have arranged it in the order of least graphic and traumatic to most graphic and traumatic. Reasonable people would disagree about what is the first number that should trigger a trigger warning. In my opinion, only number 6 should require a trigger warning. Other people might want a trigger warning at number 4 (or even earlier). My request is that since reasonable people would disagree about where the trigger point should be, and since some (or many) reasonable people would place the trigger point at number 6, then number 6 should be the trigger point and anything less should not require a trigger warning.
poster:itsme2003
thread:614568
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20060225/msgs/620616.html