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Re: drawing blood » Dr. Bob

Posted by Dinah on November 24, 2009, at 7:13:12

In reply to Re: drawing blood, posted by Dr. Bob on November 24, 2009, at 1:52:18

Real words can't be changed after the fact. And you asked how reading one thing and coming back to find it had been altered might affect someone's sense of reality, or something like that. I answered.

So if it's retraction like the real world, why can't what was altered be available by a link? You can't change emails sent, or messages left, or words spoken. Retracting them formally does not alter the reality of what was done before.

Others would think someone is out of touch with reality if they respond to something that is no longer there. I explained that in an earlier post.

This has been a longstanding issue with me. You didn't even introduce it as a way to change errors in typing, or make factual corrections. You are introducing it as a way to deal with incivility. And I can't imagine how it's a useful way to deal with incivility. It's like a bullet made of ice. The evidence in the form of a bullet may disappear, but the damage is just as real.

If I feel unsafe at this moment, it's from an administrator who would propose that incivility is ok for 24 hours, as long as it is edited eventually. I don't even comprehend that as a possibility of being ok, unless you can also undo the hurt. If you wish to apply it solely to posts directed to you, that's fine. Or even posts that are insensitive to groups. But not to words directed towards an individual.

It is nothing at all like an apology. It is pretending after the fact that something didn't happen. It is trying to distort everyone's sense of reality into believing that what they see is not actually what they see.

I proposed that the original post be available by a link. That would be closer to a formal retraction of words that can't be taken back. It's a way for administration to avoid acting on incivility, like an apology, and like urging others to convince people to apologize. But it would not mess with people's reality. The reality of what actually happened. *Again, this is particularly important because you introduce the measure as a way to deal with incivility.* I think a good many of us are familiar with spouses or parents or others who act one way in private and another in public. People who harm us then deny that it ever happened. People who try to tell us that whatever we think happened didn't really happen. If you haven't, then I'm glad for you, but you might try to understand how Babble has always been is reassuring and sane, as in congruent with reality. And how what you are proposing seems an awful lot like gaslighting.

But I believe I am wasting my metaphorical breath.

Do you think allowing more incivility is the way to draw people back? Despite what people say is the reason they left? Are you disregarding what people actually said because you don't like it? Are you trying to substitute small bits of this or that that people said for addressing what people have said is the problem?

 

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