Nice work Teresa. What a great way to resolve things and I like your
idea that it is on all of us to speak up if we see a problem. Judy in
Bend
Jmeredit@xxxxxxxxxxx
On 2021-02-27 11:58, Teresa Hertzel wrote:
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.
