Posted by Nadezda on July 14, 2009, at 10:50:37
In reply to Re: Eample Apology Request » Dr. Bob, posted by Dinah on July 14, 2009, at 9:35:34
Upon reflection, I think Dinah makes an important point here.
I think the long blocks are too severe for a psychology message board, where people come when they're feeling threatened, angry, or hurt, and therefore may be more vulnerable than on other, more information-related message boards.
But this new policy of expecting the hurt perso--or others-- to request in a civil way some sort of apology-- or otherwise to intervene to help the person who's been uncivil-- seems too great a burden. First of all, it encourages someone who's hurt and who may not have a perfect sense of tone, to put themselves in the position of asking in the right way-- and therefore possibly of being uncivil themselves.
Moreover, it takes the responsibility for the incivility and its redress away from the uncivil poster and diffuses it among the community. For example, just to be concrete, when you say that the community wasn't able to help Verne, it could suggest that the ultimate responsibility for getting help here is not Verne's-- but that the community fell short. That seems simply inaccurate to me.
Moreover in the instance we have here-- and I don't mean this as a criticism or put down of anyone-- people were preoccupied by Verne's plight and really ignored the incivility that he had enacted-- and the person who was the subject of his words. This seems to me to be a significant mistake about who needs support in these situations-- I'm concerned about Verne, but the other person seems to have been lost in the discussion. The direction of this change in policy seems to put the enactor in the spotlight, as someone who is not being adequately helped, when the other person becomes someone who hasn't helped enough.
I hope this isn't taken as uncivil, because I'm talking about a specific instance. I just think it illustrates a danger in the new system.
I have to run and can't revise, so I apologize in advance if this is not well stated. I agree that safety is paramount-- although of course not the only value.
Nadezda
poster:Nadezda
thread:905306
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20090707/msgs/906714.html