Thank you Mary, for this very constructive essay. These couple of sentences
really cut to the heart of the problem:
"So the question is: what is bullying in the context of OBOL? Maybe we could
agree on what the most egregious behaviors are and work from there. "
I looked up the Wikipedia page as you suggested, and found this definition:
"Bullying is a subcategory of aggressive behavior characterized by the
following three criteria: (1) hostile intent, (2) imbalance of power, and (3)
repetition over a period of time. Bullying is the activity of repeated,
aggressive behavior intended to hurt another individual, physically, mentally,
or emotionally."
Trying to apply this standard in practice seems like it might be difficult.
Looking at the most recent example on OBOL that prompted this discussion, we
had the following sequence:
(1) The OFO board issued a statement on sexual assault and sexual harassment,
then one board member gave a personal clarification of the context.
(2) A prominent birder stated an opinion that could most charitably be
described as "socially tone-deaf," appearing to question the motives of the
victim of an alleged sexual assault.
(3) He was quickly denounced by multiple birders (I count 6 separate postings
on OBOL, plus apparently more messages that were sent to him privately).
(4) He became defensive, doubled down on his very unpopular views, adding a few
more socially inappropriate remarks aimed at those who were denouncing him.
(5) More people joined in the argument, with the denunciations, hashtags, and
words like "libel" flying in all directions, until finally Treesa shut the
thread down.
While I found his initial statement (in step 2) offensive, I'm not sure it
meets the above definition of bullying. It was just a one-off, offensive
statement not directed at anyone in particular. On the other hand, some of what
followed in step 3 could fit under this category of bullying:
[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobbing ;| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobbing ;
]
"Mobbing, as a sociological term, means bullying of an individual by a group,
in any context, such as a family, peer group, school, workplace, neighborhood,
community, or online. When it occurs as physical and emotional abuse in the
workplace, such as 'ganging up' by co-workers, subordinates or superiors, to
force someone out of the workplace through rumor, innuendo, intimidation,
humiliation, discrediting, and isolation, it is also referred to as malicious,
nonsexual, non-racial/racial, general harassment."
There was a previous incident where an individual who happens to hold deeply
unpopular views on homosexuality was "called out" on OBOL for attempting to
give anti-gay literature to a gay couple, at an Audubon-sanctioned event. This
was offensive behavior in my view, and completely unacceptable for an
Audubon-sanctioned event. I supported the steps that were taken by Audubon in
response to that behavior. However was it appropriate for him to be hounded by
dozens of birders for weeks afterward, to the point where he had to change his
e-mail service and leave OBOL to avoid continued harassment? That seems like
"mobbing" to me. Perhaps some of those individuals should have been sanctioned
as well.
It may seem easy to identify bullying behavior in cases where the perceived
bully holds a minority viewpoint, but maybe much more difficult when the
majority are ganging up to harass an individual with unpopular views. For a
moderator to be able to implement an anti-bullying policy in a fair way, there
need to be objective standards, independent of the popularity or unpopularity
of a given viewpoint.
I guess that's what Mary was getting at: How do we define objectively which
behaviors are egregious, in a way that's fair to all?
All the best,
Joel
From: "Mary Garrard" <springazure1@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "boo" <boo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, February 26, 2021 8:32:40 AM
Subject: [boo] Re: A few things--definition of bullying
Hi all, thanks for a most productive and thought-provoking thread.
What is bullying? Here is the Wikipedia page. [
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullying ;| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullying ;
]
This points out that bullying is distinct from conflict. One of the factors
involved in distinguishing bullying from conflict is imbalance in power. One of
the factors in power imbalance is styles of communication that come from
culture or gender. Speaking to gender as the one I’m most familiar with, there
is a lot of research about the ways in which women and men communicate and how
that affects interpersonal and social relationships. Specifically, the
masculine style of communication is to to dominate conversations, saying more,
expecting to be the authority, interrupting more, being less likely to listen.
The feminine style tends to be concerned with equalizing input, listening more
carefully, moving communication along, gaining understanding. OF course these
are generalizations— "these are cultural norms based on research that showed
that a large majority of men and women display some of these characteristics”
quoting one of my sources.
It’s especially tricky when communication is online because as is obvious we
don’t have visual cues for assessing someone’s intent and the kindness or . I
think that’s why emojis evolved because it gives us a substitute for body and
facial language.
So the question is: what is bullying in the context of OBOL? Maybe we could
agree on what the most egregious behaviors are and work from there. Also,
perhaps we could benefit from some thinking about how to handle potential
conflict by seeking clarification of someone’s meaning before firing off a
response.
I am really sorry that people have dropped off OBOL because of the behavior of
others. I have almost dropped off once or twice myself, both because I was sick
of the snarky, mean, personal attacks, and also because of being mansplained
several times by someone who doesn’t know me and made assumptions. Some of
those people no longer post, so they may have left OBOL or just stopped
posting.
In any case, I hope that OBOL will continue because it is valuable to me for a
variety of reasons.
Finally, I agree that OBOL shouldn’t be responsible for regulating off-list
behavior.
Happy spring birding, everyone!
Mary
On Feb 26, 2021, at 4:12 AM, Teresa Hertzel < [ mailto:teresa.hertzel@xxxxxxxxx ;
| teresa.hertzel@xxxxxxxxx ] > wrote:
Be sure to REPLY ALL when you want to say something.
If you have joined this discussion more recently, you can read all the posts
from before you joined here:
[ https://www.freelists.org/archive/boo/02-2021 ;|
https://www.freelists.org/archive/boo/02-2021 ] ;
Kevin S alerted me to the fact that the BOO list is not shown on the OBA
website, so he was unaware of its existence. I'll leave it up to the Board
whether or not they want to add it, but in the meantime if you know of someone
you would like to have join our discussion, let them know about it.
So far, I think we all agree that the guidelines for OBOL should include a "no
bullying" policy, BUT what one person perceives as bullying, six other people
say it's not. People get their feelings hurt and unsubscribe all the time and
no one else even seems to have noticed anything untoward. For example, the
person I said would be a good "test case" yesterday, the woman who joined,
posted twice, got her feelings hurt, and quit. Is she spreading the word that
we were unwelcoming? Were we? What should we do? How do I (we) constantly
monitor everyone's feelings and constantly determine whether or not there was
"actual" bullying?
One more thing. I don't think we are responsible for someone contacting someone
else privately, off list. We cannot monitor or take responsibility for private
conversations. Maybe some attorneys on this list could weigh in on this.
Treesa
