Well, I've read the initial OBOL posts, and the Boo posts up to 10:36 PM
Thurs.
I commend Teresa for her wisdom, cool head, kindness, and patience in the
face of many challenges. I hope she gets some good ideas from this
"Discussion."
When I came to birding in 1978 I learned by trying to match the birds I saw
with the pictures in your bird book and by going on field trips with
leaders. ONE met people and got to know them. People in person are
generally amiable, sociable, considerate, helpful. You saw faces and body
language.
If you wanted to reach beyond your local area, there were "site guides" in
Oregon Birds and whole books on places to go.
Those who wanted to know about notable sightings could sign up for a "phone
tree." You had 4 people as contacts; if one of them called you, you were
pledged to call the other 3. You got to talk to the birder or a family
member and you knew them. You knew if Kim or Pat was a male or a female.
If you chased rare birds you got to know the other active "birders" in the
area. I've met a great many Oregon birders in person over the years.
Then we got OBOL and we weren't face to face. Plain text doesn't convey
facial cues and body language. If something rubbed you wrong, you composed
a "zinger" reply, polished it to really make your point, and sent it off.
The response was a contentious escalation.
We heard from people who didn't want to chase birds and SEE BIRDS. They
wanted to DISCUSS BIRDS. Some wanted to scold "birders" or photographers
for getting too close, burning fossil fuels, etc. There was a good bit of
sanctimony in that. "I'm not a birder; I'm a conservationist."
Living with each other over time we've mellowed; some rough edges have worn
off. We've learned to live with the person who wants X, preaches Y, hates
Z.
But were not to kumbaya yet. The "Oregon birding community" is a fractious
lot. We need to learn to let people with other ideas about birds have their
place. There's quite a list of aspects of bird watching/birding that I am
not interested in, but I keep my mouth shut and let others enjoy their
enthusiasm.
At the same time I do speak up to push back on the idea that the definition
of birding is being able to run with the "big dogs." I try to say, "It's OK
not to know/care about all the minutiae. You can still be one of us." It's
that thing about welcoming new people, not driving them away.
A number of prominent personalities on OBOL are bird nerds. That is, they
are laymen whose day job isn't birds, but they are very, very knowledgeable
about birds. But they aren't necessarily socially adept. Some do not like
people, or women, or __________. Some don't have good social skills, some
are terse, some verbose, some want you to know how smart they are, etc.
Some are painfully shy.
So we get the "old boy" crowd who are impatient with the beginner, rude to
women, and clueless. We get nasty emails.
They, sadly, aren't part of this conversation we're having on BOO. They
walked away from the recent OBOL dust-up convinced that they were right and
they were the victim. They didn't get the message about correcting their
behavior.
I see Oregon bird enthusiasts as a small town. It's grown from 200, to 400,
800, 1600, 2000. That's still small. I see OBOL as a small town
newspaper. Not all the writing is great. Some letters to the editor are
from coarse voices, some preachy, some savvy, some thoughtful, some
informative, some arcane, some kind. I advocate for kindness.
The OBA board was right to declare a policy of the organization. I've seen
birding organizations in other states, Portland Audubon, and National
Audubon take similar stands. I agree with all of that. I think it was
appropriate for the board to post it to OBOL, to declare this is what we
stand for. (I'm thinking WE = OBA = OBOL, but as Mike P and Teresa have
noted, that's not true.)
Unfortunately, predictably, what happened happened. Teresa stopped it.
Now we need to figure out how to go forward. I favor keeping OBOL with more
kindness in the recipe. If there were a format where subjects could be
sorted, like Russ suggested, that might help. Those who wanted to read the
funnies and the sports page and the science section could skip the business
and weddings and the celebrity scandal pages. Of course, there's the delete
key, but that doesn't work if you're reading OBOL on the ABA or similar
websites.
I wish you Good Birding, whatever that means to you,
Paul Sullivan
