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Conflict and complaint thread

  
  

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Tom Coates
11:54 / 03.11.06
Hey guys, if I promise not to over-react or do anything, will someone throw me links to the relevant things I need to read to get up to speed?

In the meantime, I'm interested in how this particular fight escalated into the Policy like this. Did people try the private message route first? Did everything happen in thread and then end up here?

I'm interested for a number of reasons, but the main one is because I'm interested in the reasons that we don't seem to be able to contain argument as effectively as we used to. By which I mean, back away from positions that you don't care enough about to fight for, try to resolve disputes calmly and through debate, trying not to get too emotionally engaged in the bad stuff.

My first instincts here are that we have a number of problems here. Firstly we act inappropriately to wrongdoing. Rather than feeling confident and comfortable in the culture we have here and feel that it is strong enough to get through problems, incursions of the outside world are treated with significant hostility. A more appropriate path might have been to send a gentle PM to the people concerned, or to try and phrase a next post in such a way that it didn't seem like an attack (bring them in, persuade them, don't shout at them).

The second problem is, I think, the emotional level of the debate. Some of these conversations seem to veer into quite aggressive and emotionally dark territories quite quickly, based presumably on frustrations between people. Some board members do this more often than others, but I think we've all done it occasionally. If there's a situation in which someone is being unfairly treated in your opinion then the best thing to do would be to start a thread in the policy stating confusion around policy stuff - something like, "I'm interested - on the previous occasions we did this, on this occasion this is happening, do we have a stance on this one way or another or is it a case by case thing" and let it become an actual calm and reasonable debate in which people can learn stuff, rather than a fight.

The last thing, and I'm afraid this is specifically more at Haus than some other board members and it's not the first time he's heard me say it, is that the end results of these debates, no matter how the first part has been framed, should not be solely concerned with winning or losing. The relentless win at all costs approach does not lead to a stable and pleasant environment and it never has done. It is not sufficient to demonstrate to someone else that they are wrong (if they are wrong) through relentless logic if—as an end result of that—they find themselves unable to admit their error because of enormous loss of pride. Nor should one assume that just because one can argue more effectively than someone else that one has necessarily understood the reasons why they might argue what they are arguing. It's part of being able to engage with other people in an reasonable and ongoing way to be able to back away a bit, talk to them off board, try and work out what sparked the problem and look for ways to build bridges and get the best from one another.

All of which is to say, I'm currently more interested in the dynamics of this conversation than i am in the thing that's being argued about, because it's a pattern i've seen a lot. And I'm interested now in how we can move from the stated problem to a happy board without having a fight like this in between.
 
 
Disco is My Class War
12:14 / 03.11.06
Maybe I can clear this whole thing up by explaining something: my original comment on the Glandmaster thread was intended as a) a joke, content-free, to lighten what was fast becoming a heavy 'scene', and b) a call on what I read as slashy subtext, which was not, it appears, really all that subtextual.

If I'd been aware that other, more heteronormative accusations of hostility = attraction were being posted in the Temple, maybe I would have understood better why Lula responded as she did, and not taken it as a personal attack. Today and yesterday I've been quite tired, and possibly less peaceable and prepared to listen than usual.

Tom -- I made a comment here about Glandmaster's posts on the ORG thread here. Lula responded, as you can see. It died down after some discussion. The relevant post Lula was referencing, by .trampetunia, was in the Burning Down the Haus thread, which spread to Barbequotes. (With ongoing discussion by Lady, somewhere in the Conversation, but I can't find where at present.)

Then, .trampetunia posted to the miserable thread about it, as you can see. I was alerted to this by Lula via PM, as a heads-up, because she had responded by saying Haus and I should be asked to explain ourselves. To be honest, I experienced this as a gesture aimed at inflaming and prolonging the discussion, which by that stage I thought had ended. So talk went on in the miserable thread, until we were asked to move it here.
 
 
Disco is My Class War
12:15 / 03.11.06
And I too am interested in the dynamic of this discussion, because it definitely does feel like there's more ressentiment in the air than usual. Myself included.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
12:48 / 03.11.06
Tom, I'm afraid you've missed the point. The intention here is not to get Lula to admit that she was wrong. She's already stated, pretty much, that she isn't going to do that, and nor should she be expected to.

There's no point trying to make the other person understand your side, because that's all they're doing too. I think it just makes for endless misery.

So I can't and won't do that fighty thing you do, where you quote lots of bits which prove the other poster is being a prat, because I don't think I am being one.

That is, neither appeal to the emotions or appeal to the content of posts is useful.

The aim is in the first instance to set up the questions that might actually be being asked here - about the concept of "acceptability" and the interaction of newer and older members. In the second instance, it is to try to highlight for future use some of the mistakes made on all sides in the conduct of the argument. Thirdly, it is to communicate that, as Duncan has said, that the person who gets their accusations in first is not the only one who gets to feel upset. Fourth, it is to highlight the dangers of a feeling of blank-cheque justification in the name of fairness or rightness for any action. And finally, it is to remind the reader that you are responsible for what you say, whether you choose to accept the worth of reminders that you said it or not.

Honestly, PMing MD, in particular in the context of Lula's first post to the Miserable Thread, seems like active seeking of conflict, and the tone of the posts in the Miserable thread does nothing to remove this suspicion. This thread, however, is about airing and resolving conflicts, and I have proposed a) some ways to resolve this conflict and b) some ways to avoid this sort of conflict recurring. I'm not sure how much more we can do here.
 
 
grant
13:13 / 03.11.06
What a strange thing to wake up to after the night I've just had (science fair day, step-son tragically underprepared).

One observation:
In the meantime, I'm interested in how this particular fight escalated into the Policy like this. Did people try the private message route first? Did everything happen in thread and then end up here?

Having gone back to The miserable thread, it seems to me that it wound up in Policy to keep a Conversation thread from going off-topic. Which is a little strange, but also, from within that discussion, looks like it was the rational thing to do at the time.

It might be best if people didn't think of this as OoooOOooo Gone to the Policy! Must be BIG trouble! and more as a simple functional thing that belongs in the Policy because it's a disagreement rooted in differing understandings of board policy.
 
 
grant
13:14 / 03.11.06
In other words, it might have been better placed in a thread about acceptable/unacceptable comments than in a thread about personal conflict.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
13:17 / 03.11.06
In which case, I think we've pretty much answered the Policy question - .trampetunia's post about sexy bear fighting was not generally seen as either acceptable or unacceptable in terms of board policy. If we conclude that it is the same thing as Mister Disco's post, and if we want our members to be consistent in their response, then we should press id entity and some other people for their explanation of why they did not object to Mister Disco's comment as they did to .trampetunia's.
 
 
Ticker
13:49 / 03.11.06
Having gone back to The miserable thread, it seems to me that it wound up in Policy to keep a Conversation thread from going off-topic. Which is a little strange, but also, from within that discussion, looks like it was the rational thing to do at the time.

yes I asked for (and appreciated) the topic being taken to Policy because I was worried crossposts might make matters worse. The miserable thread is a great place for catharsis and commiseration and I believe people use it very well for those purposes. As a heart mentioned in it recently, people know what it is about when they read it.
It is very different IMO than the Barbannoy thread where occassionally these discussions surface based on someone venting and being responded to directly.

Do we have a process map for conflict resolution between members? Some in-thread discussion is valuable as many of us bystanders get to learn a great deal from the points debated and I'd hate to see it get all pushed to PM-land.
 
 
Olulabelle
14:22 / 03.11.06
Here is the full content of my first PM to Mr Disco. I was not deliberately inflaming things and in fact I was trying to do the exact opposite.

I really, really resent that I am being told I was, but I'm not suprised because it fits with the aggressive fight starting behaviour that is being ascribed to me.

PM Content

Title: Heads up about trampetunia

> Trampetunia is feeling bad here about MDsexygate and so I thought, since I had replied talking specifically about you, that it was only fair to let you know.
>
> In peace
>
> Isabella.

Dous that sound like trying to start a fight because I don't think it does. I actually think the reply was pretty inflamatory myself.

Haus, I did read the threads, I quickly looked at the main one as soon as I found out where the stuff had been posted. (Barbequotes). But you're not going to believe me so what's the point? The only bit I haven't read is the Flowers bit, which happened elsewhere, policy I think and which I again cannot find. I'm sure you can.

I'm sorry for saying: "You even made a reference to it in a totally irrelevant thread, bringing it up to discredit Trampetunia's comments on a completely different matter, but I guess we won't be linked to that." I should have said 'the original thread that trampetunia posted the comment in, but not as part of that direct conversation.'

I still think that you brought it up randomly again to discredit what trampetunia was saying because you said "Well, that's your right. On the other hand, no offence intended but we did just spend a page in Barbequotes talking about a post of yours which was if not homophobic in intent certainly remarkably open to being read as informed by homophobia, so I think we can also agree that one's own reading of text may not be the only available reading."

That's how it feels to me.

When you ask me questions like, 'define what you mean by harsh?' I freqently don't answer because I feel that any attempt to explain my feelings leads me to places like here and I don't want to be in them. But you read that as something else, I don't know what. Refusal to answer because it is you?

But I don't see how this is helping. I am being forced to find quotes and answer questions that are just going to make things worse, because you will say something back and it will go round and round. I don't want to argue with anyone, especially not you.

I mean, do you feel better by doing this? I certainly don't. I posted in this thread to find a way that there could be less conflict. Not to have to have more.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
14:50 / 03.11.06
That's how it feels to me.

Yes, but I think we can also agree that one's own reading of text may not be the only available reading. Trampetunia felt the same way, mainly over whether my represenation of the post as remarkably open to being read as homophobic" was more or less suggestive of actual homophobia than his representation as easily able to be read as homophobic, or something to that effect - which I still find a tricky distinction to draw, but am happy to acknowledge his subjectivity in. If you read on, you'll find that we talk about that, I criticise my wisdom in bringing it up, and we sort it all out.

Quick question, incidentally, back on the original topic - do you mean that you read the Barbequotes and Burning Down the Haus threads between this post and this post? This is relevant, and the timeline is confusing the heck out of me. My assumption was that you hadn't, because your statements were still highly schematic, hence my request that you do so. If that was not the case, I apologise for what might have seemed evasive or dismissive behaviour. However, I am then confused by:

I did look it up in the thread you referenced, but unfortunately you didn't reference the rest, the really important bits until after I had commented.

Clever, that.

That was posted at 1:37, and I have no idea what it means, if you saw my directions and read the threads at 00:49. Since I provided link to the threads at 1:15, I assume you mean that I cunningly delayed linking to the threads until it was too late for... well, for something. Butbut - all I did there was link to the same threads I mentioned in the ORG thread. I just don't understand where you feel the clever trick was, if you had already read the threads. I simply don't follow what cunning plan I am being accused of hatching.


Also, on harsh response - the reason why I asked you what you felt was a harsh response was because I could not see anything harsh about the response you got. I'm still bewildered about what you thought was harsh, which makes me nervous, because I am usually quite conscious of when I am being harsh, and largely conversant with what other people would be likely to find harsh. Given that Glandmaster pretty much exploded in response to what seemed a fairly comprehensive and responsive answer to his posts, I was worried that that calibration was off.
 
 
HCE
15:38 / 03.11.06
Just a quick note about what it was in MD's comments to glandmaster that I thought made them substantially different from the comments previously questioned, despite the general aura of sexiness:

MD made a reference to specific language in glandmaster's post -- "Passionate yet safe" -- which could've come straight off a bottle of lube.

MD made his joke downthread from where he had seriously, and very politely, engaged glandmaster about the topic, rather than dropping into the conversation with a one-liner.

As I understood them, MD's comments are so different from the ones to which they're being compared that it makes me feel frustrated and upset to hear the comparison made.

Having read as much of the scattered conversation about this topic as I could find, I am no longer as certain as I was at first that I remember how the original incident played out, who was involved, or which comments Lula was referring to, so I will go back re-read the sources. Apologies in advance for misrepresentations of what others have said -- I am trying to add another voice here so that this does not become any more of a Side A vs Side B battle.
 
 
Olulabelle
16:18 / 03.11.06
Fred, thank you for outlining what the difference is for you. I can see where you are coming from with that and although I am not sure I agree, it does help me understand how it can be read differently to the way I felt it read and that helps.

I did actually try and explain to trampetunia in the miserable thread how my reading of Mr Disco's comments came about.

Haus, I read the barbequotes thread as soon as you told me about it. I don't keep a stopwatch running whilst I type or read. I have no idea at what time I did what thing, but if it floats your boat to make lists of times of posts and compare them for god knows what reason, then go ahead. As far as I can see you are just wishing to carry on arguing and not at any point interesting in sorting anything out. I have no idea why you want to do that, but I don't.

Is the only way to stop this from going on and on endlessly for me to say I shouldn't have said anything?Because if it is, then I'll say it to avoid all these examination of every last little detail.

Then, as usual all the feelings of conflict are just being brushed under the carpet until the next thing flares up, perhaps because of unresolved tensions?

Why is it not possible to try and fix the problem rather than carrying on and on arguing like a dog worrying a bone?
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
16:27 / 03.11.06
Maybe I am trying to fix the problem, Olulabelle, by attempting to work out what went on through this process. I realise that you have already stated that you are not actually interested in looking at what you said when, but I hope you will humour me when I try to relate actions on Barbelith to actions on Barbelith, and I would be happier if you were less insulting while I did it. I advise that you read back over your last post and see if there is anything in it which you think might possibly give the impression that trying to resolve this conflict is not actually uppermost in your motivations. As far as I can see, you are insulting and/or defensive in pretty much every sentence.

There is a mod edit in the queue for that post to expand on the timing question. However, if you can do it with an ounce of civility, please do feel free to tell me how you would propose "fixing the problem" int he meantime. And, if you'll take a little advice, do it without simile or metaphor. Cheers.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
17:36 / 03.11.06
Actually, you got under my skin a bit there - please ignore that previous message. In a period of relative calm, I offer this:

The reason for the timing question was because there was something that was confusing me:

Haus, I read the barbequotes thread as soon as you told me about it.

That was 13:39 barbetime, 30th October - here. At 00:38 barbetime on the 3 November you say of the discussion of .trampetunia's sexy bears:

But is not that I 'can't be bothered' to link to this discussion Mister Disco, but I have searched and searched and I can't find it. I don't file everything in order to refer back to it.

Now, since I had already pointed you to Barbequotes some days earlier and you had apparently read it then, I think you might be referring to a thread in the Policy about this which, I think, you have actually imagined - as far as I know, the discussion is limited pretty much totally to Barbequotes and latterly Burning down the Haus. I think this may be problem the first. There was no such animal, I believe - what I have linked you to is pretty much what you get - Flowers and .trampetunia both make their comments in "Burning Down the Haus 2". The "irrelevant link" you thought took place in another thread actually took place there, in the same thread - this was not a boardwide thing. So, I think part one of this - the historical part - could do with recognition that there is not another thread in the Policy where the discussion continues - the only mention of bears and .trampetunia in Policy according to Google is here.

So, that would be my first point. My second point would be that I think I have already said that significant parts of the difference inhered in the use of the phrase "safe and passionate", and the fact that Mister D was trying to interact with GlandMaster and was being ignored in favour of pursuing the argument with me. Refs:

Me:
With MD - well, to a degree it was the banal thing, possibly, but in this case it was also that the metaphor was apparently not inaccurate - Glandmaster had indeed stopped apparently responding to anyone but me, and he had indeed just expressed a wish for a "safe but passionate" encounter with me. At that point, honestly, and combined with the fact that Glandmaster had already shown little respect for his interlocutors, that didn't seem like an unreasonable pisstake.

Mordant says something similar, actually, and MD hints at it with his mention of slashpatrol with reference to "safe yet passionate".

I think it might be worth thinking about why you hear and respond to this when Fred says it, but not when I say it. Is it the phrasing? Or is it something else? I think we are getting to a point here where we might be getting down to some of the deeper issues here, rather than the thing that set off this particular instance. I realise that you see this as nitpicking or pulling apart or whatever, but analysis of the actual text - of what was said when - is now giving us some really useful information. For example, what you said and when you said it suggest that you are or were under the impression that there was a policy thread in which much more and much worse was said, perhaps, which as far as I can tell does not actually exist. How is that affecting your feelings about .trampetunia's persecution? Only, one problem I have with the section in the Miserable thread is that Mister Disco is being made to explain his conduct in a situation he didn't even know existed, and the fact that my issue was with the inaccuracy of the metaphor primarily rather than its use of bear genitals is equally avoided, whereas Mordant Carnival and id entity, who _did_ participate in the thread, are not finding themselves on the end of this.

So, there's a conversation about when something can or cannot be decided to be "acceptable" on Barbelith, and there are other conversations, such as whether older members get unfair protection, but I think the conversation right here is probably about why this conflict has been constructed in such a ... faith-based way, for want of a better term. I mean, you must have known from the start that I wasn't going to lie down on this one, Lula - I can't let my affection for you get in the way of trying to stop bad arguments about board policy being put together or misrepresentations of my actions being publicised; it just wouldn't make sense. And you must have known that I was going to reference what you had said, what other people had said, what had happened with trampetunia... all that stuff. I don't know if you were intentionally going for the insults, or whether that's just a defence mechanism, but they, too, seemed to be pointing in a particular direction.

So, let's see if we can defuse this bomb.

a) Posit - you see Mister Disco's speech act to Glandmaster as a near equivalent of .trampetunia's speech act to me. Others disagree, and you understand that they may have a point.

b) Posit - you have seen the discussion about .trampetunia's action as leading to the conclusion that such an action is unacceptable on Barbelith, and thus were frustrated at seeing at apparently not being policed. This thought may have been inspiored by a misremembering of something to that effect being said in Policy, which others have no recollection of.

c) You feel that the failure to enforce this unacceptable status is due to MD's seniority, and an instantiation of inequality between older and newer posters. However, you understand that you have to be right about both (a) and (b) for the need for a cause even to exist.

Now, with that in mind I think it would be a very good idea if you walked away from this specific fight, which is not making you happy and seems actually started to make you feel unhappy, and maybe start threads on general issues about how, hypothetically, one could try to commit to not favouring older members and ensuring that there was clarity in what was and was not acceptable on Barbelith. Because right now I don't think you're doing something good for you or, really, for Barbelith, and I am calm enough now to want to walk away from it myself in the knowledge that if you're not going to change your mind, the effects of that can still be contained and perhaps profitably redirected.

Phew. That was a _lot_ longer than I intended, but has had the effect of a soothing jog around the block.
 
 
HCE
21:10 / 03.11.06
I think it might be worth thinking about why you hear and respond to this when Fred says it, but not when I say it. Is it the phrasing? Or is it something else?

Haus, it may help for you to know that in addition to my post here, I communicated with Lula privately to try to make clear that my post was not intended to be hostile to her, just in case it sounded that way. I can't speak for Lula, though, and indeed she may not have checked her PMs yet.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
22:22 / 03.11.06
Dude, totally. And possibly that's it - that you're outside the situation and as such clearly not hostile. Personally, I feel quite agonised that I was hostile, whatever the provocation - it wasn't productive and I am truly sorry for it. Maybe it would have been better to have taken a day off and seen how it went. I'm feeling quite zen but also rather guilty about the whole thing, and I was, initially at least, just a bystander. I'm hoping there is a lesson for us all in this.
 
 
Disco is My Class War
00:14 / 04.11.06
Lula --

Does that sound like trying to start a fight because I don't think it does. I actually think the reply was pretty inflamatory myself.

It's not the content of what was said that made me feel you were being inflammatory. It's that you picked up on what trampetunia's expressions of confusion. Instead of trying to explain to trampetunia yourself, you basically called out Haus and I to 'explain ourselves'. And then you made darn sure that we knew about it.

Lula, you have consistently avoided taking responsibility for any of your utterances thus far. You don't bother to actually read the threads you refer to. You have never said, straight out, that you think what I said was offensive -- all you've said is that you didn't think it was fair that I shouldn't be told off. Presumably other people were supposed to do the telling-off: when they didn't, you complained further. Consistently, when people ask you questions, such as "Why didn't you read the threads before making assertions about the content of those threads?" you've avoided answering them by claiming that everyone is being too mean and nasty. Is it mean and nasty to ask simple questions and to treat you as an adult human being who is responsible for her behaviour?

Lula, how is it possible that you imagine your actions have not been read as hostile, here? How can you be so incredibly un-selfaware as to imagine that you aren't responsible for any of the bad feeling this whole thing has created?

Tom is right to point out that this is not about winning or losing, and I wish I could stop feeling angry enough to let this go. But I think it's understandable that I've been on the defensive throughout this thing. And while not wanting to speak for Haus, I think it's also understandable that he has continued attempts to get clarity, or also felt defensive. It's been making me feel crazy.

I have one final question for Lula: what do you want to get out of this? What do you need, for this to be resolved? Specifically, what would you need me to say, to feel satisfied?
 
 
Olulabelle
10:15 / 04.11.06
Instead of trying to explain to trampetunia yourself, you basically called out Haus and I to 'explain ourselves'. And then you made darn sure that we knew about it.

I think I should repost my second post to the Miserable thread here rather than restate it again. I said:

Trampetunia, I've been thinking about what you said. I hesitate to post this because lately I've been feeling that whenever I disagree with the majority rule it leads to me having to explain myself for about a decade afterwards, but it's been bothering me and I think it's important for you so I'd like to try and explain why I think you were pulled up and Mr Disco wasn't.

The only explanation I can come up with is that if you are a long-standing consistent poster who says clever, insightful things and is generally empathic with any minority group position and can argue politically as Mr Disco does and can, then if you say something weird it is easier to overlook and people probably will because, you know, it's Mr Disco.

If you're a newer poster with less of a track record you're more likely to be pulled up on it because otherwise it might set a precendent for okayness or for accepted jocularity which the board, (or at least key members of the board) does not wish to cultivate.

Broadly this is probably the right thing to do because Mr Disco clearly isn't someone who is going to use homoeroticism as a way to attack people. Whilst you clearly are not either, the board's other long-standing or regular posters know you less well and so perhaps feel they have to give out the guidelines for acceptable posting.

I challenged Mr Disco on what he said because I have an overdeveloped sense of fairness which stems deeply from childhood and is a whole other story. If I were less aware and obsessed with what is 'fair' and what is not then I probably wouldn't have said anything, but I am what I am and so I did.

Does that help at all?

So you see, I think I did do those things that you say I didn't. I think I wasn't attacking. I think that post was considering rather than accusing.

I am sorry you feel that PM'ing you was wrong. You say I made darn sure that we knew about it. I have, in the past seen people ask if their name is being referenced and also I feel that I would like to know. It was not a fight-starting gesture, it was meant openly and honestly. Your comments always seem to be telling me I have done the opposite of what I actually have done. 'I didn't read the thread, I was inflamatory in PM-ing you.' In the past, 'I can't be bothered to look things up' for example.

I don't know why you keep saying I didn't read the threads when actually I did but that's another example of why I may respond with hostility. I feel attacked by you. You say things about me that aren't true and they make me feel upset.

I have tried to avoid this conflict with you. About a month ago I spent quite a while looking incense recipes up for you for a Temple question you had. I thought that would be a helpful thing to do to show you I wasn't hostile towards you, because I really am not.

I wish you could understand that I was not just asking this question because I have some kind of weird grudge against you. All your posts seem to point towards you feeling like I do, but I really, really don't.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
10:36 / 04.11.06
So, let's see if we can defuse this bomb.

a) Posit - you see Mister Disco's speech act to Glandmaster as a near equivalent of .trampetunia's speech act to me. Others disagree, and you understand that they may have a point.

b) Posit - you have seen the discussion about .trampetunia's action as leading to the conclusion that such an action is unacceptable on Barbelith, and thus were frustrated at seeing at apparently not being policed. This thought may have been inspiored by a misremembering of something to that effect being said in Policy, which others have no recollection of.

c) You feel that the failure to enforce this unacceptable status is due to MD's seniority, and an instantiation of inequality between older and newer posters. However, you understand that you have to be right about both (a) and (b) for the need for a cause even to exist.

Now, with that in mind I think it would be a very good idea if you walked away from this specific fight, which is not making you happy and seems actually started by you with the specific intention to make you feel unhappy, and maybe start threads on general issues about how, hypothetically, one could try to commit to not favouring older members and ensuring that there was clarity in what was and was not acceptable on Barbelith. Because right now I don't think you're doing something good for you or, really, for Barbelith, and I am calm enough now to want to walk away from it myself in the knowledge that if you're not going to change your mind, the effects of that can still be contained and perhaps profitably redirected.
 
 
Olulabelle
11:31 / 04.11.06
I saw that Haus, I think most of it is a fair summisation of what has happened and that is why I did not post anything after, although I do think Mr Disco has been unfair in his criticsms of me and that has not been included in your overview. Part of the reason for this becoming such an issue is that it appears to be OK for him to constantly accuse me of picking on him. However, as I say, I didn't post becasue what you said was correct, it isn't helping me at all and probably not Barbelith much either.

But then Mr Disco posted, so what I am supposed to do? Ignore Mr Disco's direct question? Would you have preferred that? I feel upset that I am being told by you to walk away, but Mr Disco is not told that anywhere. Why is it apparently OK for him to post the rubbish he has just posted about me, that I haven't read threads which I have and that I didn't try and address the issue myself when I clearly did?

Why is it me you are telling to stop and not him? It feels like persecution, it feels horrible. I am not arguing by myself.

I would like someone to actually believe me that I did not bring this up to get at Mr Disco, preferably Mr Disco. I would like for Mr Disco not to keep saying trhings about me that aren't true.

I would like a resolution, but the situation I have just experienced, whereby last night you tell me to walk away, then don't respond to Mr Disco when he posts after you, but instantly jump on me makes me feel pretty gutted. That basically says, "I condone what Mr Disco has just said" to me. Is that what you meant to suggest?
 
 
Olulabelle
11:34 / 04.11.06
And this: which is not making you happy and seems actually started by you with the specific intention to make you feel unhappy is rubbish. I have hundreds of better things to do with my time than start fights on the internets to make myself feel bad. What you call starting a fight, I call asking a series of questions and I did that initially because I was confused and subesequently because someone else was feeling bad and I was trying to help them not feel so bad.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
12:05 / 04.11.06
Might I suggest, then, that you don't do that? Only, now you appear to have succeeded in making yourself, Mister Disco and me feel bad. It's possible that, from a utilitarian point of view, the best way you can help in that situation is not to help. Especially not if your idea of helping employs t3h barb3l1t3 handholds like:

whenever I disagree with the majority rule

So, to recap. You said:

The only explanation I can come up with was x. That is, it turns out, not the only explanation possible. Other explanations have gone back further and questioned whether a) trampetunia's action and Mister Disco's action were identical (I, Mister Disco, Mordant Carnival, Fred and in fact pretty much everyone who has so far expressed an opinion think that they are not) and b) whether it had been decided that what .trampetunia had done was, in Barbelith terms, "unacceptable" (again, nobody else that I can see expressing an opinion thinks that it was, although at the time some people did explain why they were not happy with it, for reasons personal, ideoogical and functional).

So, essentially, I'm saying that the only conclusion that you were able to reach was not the only conclusion that could be reached, and that the premises on which you decided that this was the only conclusion that you could reach were unsound. This is the bit which I think you're having trouble getting the hang of.

As such, if I were you, I would acknowledge that you didn't look closely enough at your premises, and therefore that there were in fact reasons why Mister Disco and .trampetunia were not reacted to in the same way - to whit, because they were doing different things - that you had not considered, and that your belief that .trampetunia's bear metaphor a) was pulled up harshly (said before you re-read the threads) and b) was adjudged to be exemplary of behaviour unacceptable on Barbelith was not in fact supported by the discussion, and that your apparent belief that there was a thread in Policy in which there was greater harshness and a decision that the behaviour _was_ unacceptable was erroneous.

The next step from there is acknowledging that in your desire for fairness you actually were unfair to Mister Disco - that is, that your awareness of what is fair was off - and that subsequently you were also unfair to me in the ongoing discussion. I won't even ask you to apologise for that, because it's more important to move forwards, I think.

Then, if you feel that, notwithstanding this particular instance, you think that there are issues about the treatment of newer and older members and the clarity with which things are defined as acceptable or unacceptable on Barbelith, you can start threads in the Policy about these issues.

Or, you can carry on flagellating yourself while shouting "please, senior members of Barbelith, stop flagellating me!" But I don't think that would be fair. Frankly, the best way to stop Mister Disco from telling you that you are picking on him is to walk away. Since you started this, in the ORG thread, and then carried it on, in the Miserable thread, you have given the impression that you are perpetuating it. If you stop doing that, and Mister Disco continues to attempt to continue the engagement beyond what is proftiable, then I will tell him to stop.

However, you are going to have to let go of the idea that the only interpretation that seemed possible to you was the only possible interpretation, and admit that it would unfair to insist that everyone behaved as if it was, and that it would be unfair then to say that you were being persecuted when they did not. You don't have to do it here, but you do have to do it.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
12:11 / 04.11.06
Oh, and - posted originally to the wrong thread, but:

But then Mr Disco posted, so what I am supposed to do? Ignore Mr Disco's direct question?

You did ignore Mister Disco's direct question. He asked:

I have one final question for Lula: what do you want to get out of this? What do you need, for this to be resolved? Specifically, what would you need me to say, to feel satisfied?

You could state that now, if you wanted, and that could lead on to a discussion of whether this particular conflict can be wound down by agreeing a form of words.
 
 
Olulabelle
12:44 / 04.11.06
Look, with regard to MDSexygate: when a person says 'the only explanation I can come up with', they do not mean that is the only explanation. They mean that is the only one they can think of at the time. Subesquently several people have explained why there are others, including you and Mr Disco so now it is not the only one I can come up with.

I concurr that some people feel Mr Disco was saying something different to trampetunia. As I say, I origninally asked about it because I was confused about it. Then I tried to explain why I thought it had happened to trampetunia because I do feel that they were very similar things. I have the right to that opinion. I hear and understand everyone else's opinion, and respect those opinions. I do not have to agree with them to do that, just as you do not have to agree with me to respect mine.

My interpretation here appears to differ to most other people's. I am not deliberately maintaining my position to get at anyone, I can't help that I still feel the same way I wish I was convinced another way and could say that. Perhaps that might make Mr Disco feel less picked on?

I am not insisting that anyone else should agree with me.

With regard to this thread and the conflict between posters:

It is perhaps wrong of me to say that anyone is 'making me' feel anything. I am the only person who is able to 'make me' feel anything, I alone am responsible for my feelings so if I have said that elsewhere then I apologise. As a result of that I cannot be 'making you' or Mr Disco feel miserable, but you may be feeling so anyway.

It is impossible for this to be all my fault or all in my head. I feel that I am being unfairly criticsed. When other people say I don't read things and I am picking on them, I imagine everyone else reading it. I feel compelled to defend myself; I don't want everyone to be going, "Aha! Lula doesn't read things!" and stroking their chins, knowingly. I also don't want a reputation as someone who picks on people, and so I will also defend myself against that allegation and I respectfully request that this stops. I'm very sorry Mr Disco that you feel picked on. I am not picking on anyone. I'm just not. The assumption that because I disagree with what a person has said I must somehow therefore have it in for them, hurts.

Haus, I'm sorry you feel miserable about being involved and that in places you feel I have misquoted you. This is not deliberate, and what looks for you to be one way is to me quite another.

Now I am worn out with this so I'm going to go. I feel that I did answer Mr Disco's final question with my response at the end of my post which began "I wish you could understand". I thought this thread might help. I thought it was to try and resolve conflict, not to carry it on.

I still feel upset and hurt and I don't think anything has been solved. Mr Disco will presumably still feel I pick on him whatever I say, you presumably still feel miserable about having to be writing all this. None of this acknowledgement has made me feel any better, because no-one else is doing any acknowledging and as far as I understand it no-one else feels they need to, even though I feel they do. However, I hope that at least my words have helped you and Mr Disco.
 
 
Lurid Archive
13:18 / 04.11.06
Lula: So some of what is going on here is to do with status, and the lack of status that you feel. I think this is, partly, why you frame things in ways that suggest Barbelith is working in unison and you are on the outside. Thing is, I'm part of Barbelith too and I don't acknowledge Barbelith decisions you allude to, except in a few well known cases, and even then there is often room for debate. So I think when you use the phrase "majority rule" it doesn't really work, and some people might be annoyed by it.

Added to that, I think it is reasonably clear that you are far less comfortable with the sort of debating style used on Barbelith than others (correct me if I'm wrong), and you act as if you are intimidated at challenges. I don't think the challenges are meant to intimidate, however, more than explain and argue a position of disagreement. (This is complex, however, and one could argue that Haus accusation of "lies" was a kind of intimidation, albeit one that he could defend as a factual claim if need be. And I do have sympathy for you here because, not knowing *how* to argue with Haus, the emotional upshot is probably like being constantly poked without feeling you have any way to poke back.)

Anyway, this makes it tough, I think, since you feel you have a point but also feel prevented from making it. Equally, how can someone disagree with your take on events without asking you to evidence claims, refer to threads and so on?

My advice would be to take things slowly and cautiously. You can ask people, via PM maybe, what they think about an issue. You can phrase claims more like questions, and ask for clarification instead of making assertions. Thats all a bit hesitant, I realise, but thats what I would do in a situation where I didn't feel like I knew how to interact. Also, reflecting on possibly contentious points might show that there is a lot more diverse opinion than might at first appear.

For instance, let me tell you what I think about the issue that sparked this off. First, it didn't seem to me that trumpetunia got that much grief at all, but I also didn't personally find the post that objectionable. I can see how one might object, but it seems a marginal thing to me. So my position is at variance with id's post, though I acknowledge the point to a small extent. Equally, I can see how one might criticise Mr Disco's post, but I wouldn't want to take it too far, and wouldn't do it at all myself. And I honestly don't know what Mr Disco's take on the issue would be, so I think that claims of double standards are premature. That said, it is probably true that long standing members get an easier time than newer ones, as a function of normal social interaction though, rather than because the rules change.
 
 
Tom Coates
22:10 / 04.11.06
Can I ask how this conversation is expected to progress? It seems to me that if anyone's satisfactory conclusion on this matter comes down to a total admission of fault from another person then it's not going to happen, and—from outside—that's probably a good thing. Rather than trying to establish the granular detail, wouldn't it be reasonable at this point in the spirit of truth and reconciliation to try and find a way to progress elsewhere? Can we in fact ignore the specific circumstances of this particular fight, refocus the debate around a particular question and explore that instead?

One core part of the debate seems to me to be actually the one that Lula brought up originally - that newer members may get leapt upon with more savagery than older members because the rest of the board knows and trusts that they do not mean what they say. This mirrors my experience quite closely, and again I understand why it happens and in some ways it's quite reasonable that it should. But there is also something quite unsavoury about it. So what's to be done?
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
22:32 / 04.11.06
Haus, I'm sorry you feel miserable about being involved and that in places you feel I have misquoted you. This is not deliberate, and what looks for you to be one way is to me quite another.

OK. This is quite a crux issue, I think. That's a faith-based statement. I believe x, you believe y, there is no point in trying to work out what is true, because it's all about opinion and "feeling". I don't "feel" you've misquoted me, Lula. You have, as a matter of simple fact, said things that have no relation to anything that has actually happened or that I have said. Some of these are arguably matters of opinion. For example:

Perhaps you ought to ask Mr Disco and Haus, since Mr Disco made the comment and Haus didn't seem to want to engage with me when I asked him what he thought.

That's not true, and is clearly not borne out by what actually happened, but you could just about construct an argument, albeit one that would not be convincing to many people. But:

Lots of that conversation is NOT actually in the thread you suggested, because it went elsewhere in policy. Now I can't find it. You even made a reference to it in a totally irrelevant thread, bringing it up to discredit Trampetunia's comments on a completely different matter, but I guess we won't be linked to that.

is simply not true - it refers to a discussion that you have made up, and to another discussion that is there, in black on blue, and which bears little resemblance to your gloss on it, since you say a) that I made a reference to it in a "totally irrelevant thread" - which is not true - and b) that I was attempting to discredit trampetunia's comments on a completely different matter, which is also not true. Given that you now claim that you read the threads when I first told you where they were, three days before you claimed the above, you should have been aware that these things were not true, because you should have read the actual conversation, which took place in the same thread where the comments were originally made. If not, an awareness of the facts now should be enough for you to overcome your feeling that things that did not happen happened.

This is not stuff about "I feel". I feel statements are for emotions, which are owned. If you say "I feel sad", then you own that and nobody can contradict it. If you say, "I feel x happened", all that means is that you believe x happened. This belief is not internal, it is not personal and it is not protected. And, if you can't process that, you should really think about whether it is a good idea to talk about things that you feel have happened previously on Barbelith, because you are making anyone who tells you what actually did happen responsible for your emotional state, and not simply for correcting factual errors. And that is, simply, not fair.

I think Lurid has offered you some very good advice for the next time you feel like battling what you see as unfairness on Barbelith. If you can't find what you want to reference, ask. If you don't understand what happened, ask. If you can't see a difference between situation x and situation y, but see them being reacted to differently, ask people why they think this has happened. If you don't want people to think you don't read things, make it clear in your posts and your behaviour that you read things. This, I think, would go a long way to avoiding situations like this.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
22:33 / 04.11.06
Tom:

So what's to be done?

New thread, I think.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
22:45 / 04.11.06
Incidentally, Tom, I think you should probably try to avoid emotive language like "leap on" and "savagery" in any examination of this question.

In terms of how one might wish to proceed - well, we've already seen the problems inherent in saying that [thing which member since 2002 did] and [thing which member since 2006] did are exactly the same, and therefore that anyone who fails to act in exactly the same way in both cases is favouring the older member because they are the older member - although by that logic we would have seen castigation of Mordant Carnival and id entity, which has not been forthhcoming, in this case, strictly speaking. As such, I think one would have to either proceed on a hypothetical basis or find a comparison which one really found convincing and the relevance of which one was prepared to defend.

Now, if this posit mirrors your experience closely, you presumably have such comparisons in mind, which we could look at. If not, perhaps we could look rather at ways in which we could try to ensure that this does not happen, if it should not, or to what extent it should be allowed to happen - that is, what is reasonable and what is unsavoury.

However, I think new thread would probably be a good idea.
 
 
Disco is My Class War
02:35 / 05.11.06
I'm definitely ready for this to end, and am taking whatever dispute I still feel is happening with Lula -- questions she put to me, etc -- to PM.

I don't know how I can usefully contribute to a thread about newer members being treated 'worse' than older members, since I'm not sure this has happened here. But I'll have a go.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
08:47 / 05.11.06
Likewise.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
14:57 / 05.11.06
Last word on this, because I think that I deserve closure - I've been thinking about the whole thing, and I think that what really saddens me is that my action, the action that got me dragged in as one of the bad guys, was simply to tell Lula where the threads, the location of which she had already said she could not remember and the content of which she had already misremembered, were.

Ah, well. I think .trampetunia's response to the original sexy bear issue, here, is useful reading if we want to take this as a bridge into "what's unacceptable on Barbelith", a new thread I just started.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
10:15 / 16.10.07
Wasn't sure where else to put this, but I want to avoid rotting this thread any further.

Nick, please extend to me the same courtesy I have extended you by backing up accusatory generalisations like Usually when you talk about it you sound as if you're intending to go round to the castles of the wealthy with pitchforks and burning torches with linked references to things I have actually said. I'll help you out, with regard to a different accusation regarding which you do give one specific instance: here is where I clarified what I was saying as regards statements that were crazy and mallets breaking fingers, etc.

To clarify, I never said that I consider discussions that involve you on Barbelith to be collegial discussion and friendly interaction - we are not friends, colleagues or fellow students. I said that Everything I've ever written in response to things you've written on Barbelith has been in response to the content of things you've written here, and I maintain that: if it has seemed hostile, that was because what you have said inspired a hostile response; if it has seemed mocking, that was because I judged what you have said to warrant mockery. In contrast, you admit I usually ignore everything you say - so I'm not sure where we proceed from here. You're not likely to get much from Barbelith if you carry on ignoring the content of people's posts and basing your responses to them on preconceptions which you cannot substantiate, Nick.
 
 
Spaniel
11:00 / 16.10.07
I've never really understood the conflict between you guys. Perhaps I've been reading the wrong posts, but Nick has always struck me as thoughtful, considerate, difficult to rile, and quite a caring individual - things I tend to value in people. Sure, I don't always agree with the stuff he posts, but I tend to feel it comes from a good place, even if it occasionally rankles.

Be interested to know if I've been missing something.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
17:51 / 16.10.07
I don't really want to waste more of my precious and dwindling life getting into this, but I'd like to register my bewilderment and disappointment at the random lobbing in of a shot at me in you seem - as Haus does on occasion - to be more interested in ripping into what I say than you are in seeing whether we have common ground or whether a synthesis of ideas might make a more sustainable and fair model to the above. I don't see it as interesting, justified or productive, but I don't feel much like feeding the drama furnaces.
 
  

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