I have sent a message to the OBA Board, suggesting that they start an email
listserv (or a Whatsapp or whatever format suits them best) for their own
OBA members. They can use it to communicate to their members about upcoming
events, field trips, policies, and anything else they wish to share with
their members. A Board meeting is scheduled for next week and I hope they
will consider this.
Meanwhile, Jeff Gilligan and Linda Fink have been friends for a long time
and have discovered that there was a misinterpretation and misunderstanding
between them, based on Linda's not knowing that Jeff was the person who was
being accused of bullying because she had not been reading OBOL for awhile.
I hope both of them will post here and explain it. Jeff's knee-jerk
reaction to the perceived betrayal by a friend was inappropriate and I'm
sure he will acknowledge that.
Here is an idea I had last night for helping control any future problems on
OBOL (which of course will never happen, right?):
If YOU perceive someone being unwelcoming or condescending to a newbie, or
if you perceive someone bullying someone else, or behaving in a degrading
way to another member, immediately forward that message to me with your
thoughts, even just one sentence about what you see. This should only take
you a few seconds, so it's not labor intensive for you. If at least 10 (?
not sure of the threshhold) people forward such a message to me, I will
immediately put that poster on Moderated Post and send him or her a private
message, and also write to the bullied one. That way, we have a more
democratic process, with everyone getting heard instead of just
unsubscribing in disgust. That way, all members also have more control and
don't have to feel helpless. I believe over time we can make newbies feel
more welcome and control the bullying and misogyny. This is just an idea,
but thought I'd put it out there for comment.
