Linda Gilbert said “ I don’t think that racism and sexism in birding should
be discussed on OBOL.”
I think it’s fine if they are not discussed. However, they should not be
tolerated, as nothing will lose a diverse (esp non-white cis male) audience
more quickly.
In other groups that I’m in, we’ve found that a position statement about
not allowing bullying/racism/sexism/anti LGBTQ sentiments had been
sufficient. If there are problems, users can be referred back to group
agreements for participation.
I really liked the suggestion in this thread to pose newbie-friendly
questions periodically to the list. My only early comments to OBOL were
quickly shut down and I left, experiencing it as a series of monologues,
rather than a conversation.
On Thu, Feb 25, 2021 at 9:58 AM Linda Gilbert <oregonjunco@xxxxxxx> wrote:
A few issues:--
I see OBOL as serving two purposes. One is general bird discussion and
the other is alerting people to rare birds in the state. The e-bird alert
for the state includes a lot of local rarities. I would suggest that the
rare bird function move to WhatsApp. That is what we have been doing in
Lane County and it seems to work, although some people don’t understand the
rules and post birds on WhatsApp that are just FOS, not true rarities or
they just get sidetracked into discussion. I read OBOL through ABA or the
Freelists Archive. Many times I am just checking for rarities and then get
sucked in (my fault) to reading a bunch of negative posts that are mixed in
with rarity reports.
Since most OBOL members are not OBA members, I would suggest that OBA
communicate with their members directly by e-mail concerning policy
statements and the like. Maybe they could have their own blog or group for
this. I don’t fault them for posting their statement this time since they
sponsor OBOL.
I think that too many people like OBOL to abolish it, though that was
my first impulse when this latest issue happened. Moving this discussion to
BOO was a good idea. I don’t think that racism and sexism in birding should
be discussed on OBOL.
Linda Gilbert
Eugene
Sent from Mail <https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986> for
Windows 10
