Posted by twinleaf on December 9, 2009, at 11:18:59
In reply to Re: editing posts after submission » Dr. Bob, posted by SLS on December 8, 2009, at 15:22:57
I see a lot of hopeful things in this thread. I think Dr. Bob is really making an extra effort to treat individual posters respectfully, and is genuinely trying to understand what posters really want to say to him. I think his asking the question about whether or not people feel safe here shows that he is becoming much more open to hearing how we really do feel about the issues which are important to us.
At the moment, it seems as though he is working hard on a solution to a "problem" which only he thinks we have- the need to erase or amend posts. Rarely, posters have asked for erasures because they have posted identifying information....e-mails and phone numbers.... which, upon reflection, they do not want to have on the internet. Dr. Bob has always been extremely co-operative in rapidly removing these identifiers whenever he is asked. I don't think we need anything more than this. Leaving original posts, and adding modified ones, which may include apologies or modified thoughts, seems to have worked just fine.
However, this does leave us with several unsolved problems. I think Dr. Bob knows that the answer to his question about whether people feel safe is, far too often, "no". Many people have ceased active posting, citing feelings of lack of safety, and almost all of the remaining posters post only in a brief, superficial manner. There is one exception to this- there still is fairly active medication information-sharing on the medication board. This is very helpful, but it involves little or no sharing of our personal selves. The volume of posting is way, way down, and there do not even appear to be any deputies who are willing to be active.
What is making people feel unsafe? The thing I would put first is the sense of not being heard or understood by Dr. Bob. The most recent example of this is, by at least 100-3, posters expressed their fears of being more likely to lose their privacy and anonymity if their posts were automatically forwarded to Twitter and Facebook. Dr. Bob never acknowledged to anyone that this was a valid fear on their parts. Instead, he attributed their concerns to a general "fear of novelty". Posters here do not have any special fear of new things; they are here, at least in part, because they are open to trying new, and possibly challenging, medications and therapeutic approaches. They also want to take the risk of forming new and rewarding relationships here. I think we all felt insulted to have our legitimate fears of loss of privacy translated, without any evidence, into a generalized fear of change.
While we all understand that Babble is a public forum, and that people find it through Google, the chances of being identified through the increased connections with Facebook and Twitter are real. It happened to me soon after Dr. Bob put the initial connections in place. My son has a very active
Facebook account. Someone posted a thread containing something I had written in 2004 about brain imaging. It was put there because it was relevant to what my son does; he is an experimental physicist who designs magnetometers which can be used, among other things, for new, more sensitive MRIs. Someone posted my comments on his Facebook because they thought that he might be interested in what I said, and the studies I mentioned. My son realized it was actually me- his mother- because my name was so unusual- a place name where we had often hiked when he was a child. He asked if it was indeed me, and I said it was. He saw how much additional, personal, sensitive information I had also posted here, and promised me that he would not read it. I would not have been nearly so lucky if someone had posted the same information to my employer- which could well have happened, and could still happen at any time..The second reason that people feel unsafe is closely related to the first one. Dr.Bob puts changes in place, such as the one about Twitter and Facebook, which may affect our safety and privacy, without prior consultation or discussion with us. Posters like me, who expressed disagreement, right at the start, about linking to these social networks, but who did so in a courteous and civil manner, are blocked without any warning- in my case, for five months. We do not expect that Dr. Bob will always agree with us, or necessarily do what we would like, but we do expect to be respectfully heard and understood. I do not think that respectful disagreement with Dr. Bob's views should result in a lengthy posting block. or indeed, in any block at all. But, more importantly, I think a real discussion within the community of changes like this one are vital.
This leads into the final reason for our feelings of lack of safety...long blocks. I have never seen a single poster express support for them. No-one, including Dr, Bob. has ever given any reasons for them- no explanation of how they are helpful to the posters involved, or to the community. I do not believe that there are any good or constructive reasons for them.
So, to sum up (sorry- long post!), we would like to hear from Dr. Bob something along the lines of. "yes, I do understand that there are things which I have done which have caused many of you to feel unsafe. I understand that you will not feel safe if I continually misinterpret what you are telling me. I understand, also, that you will feel unsafe if I take actions, without consulting with you, which may result in a loss of your privacy, and which could affect your jobs or personal life. And, finally, I understand that you do not think there are any appropriate reasons for long blocks, and that the fact that I continue to use them causes you to feel unsafe."
I used that format, above, just to express my thoughts clearly. I am not presuming to tell Dr. Bob what to do. But I am telling him where the problem areas are for us, and pointing out to him that, if there is to be a solution to the present crisis facing Babble, it will need to involve changes on his part. Without them, the sense of unsafety, and the progressive decline in posting, will just go on. I think Dr. Bob knows that Babble is very important to a great many people, and has been a very constructive force in their lives in the past. All of us who have had that very positive experience would love to find a way for Babble to be that way again. This is my contribution to that effort.
poster:twinleaf
thread:660662
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20091103/msgs/928628.html