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alias_sqbrDisclaimer: I am sick today. This may be utter crap. But my muse was awoken by this discussion and it Will Not Be Silenced! Anyway, I may suck at replying to comments, since I plan to spend the next day and a half napping.
Also: as per the terms of service, I would like it if you read the whole post and all the comments before making your own. I have no way to enforce this community norm except asking nicely :)
So.
There's been a of of discussion on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
metafandom recently about the use of "dog-piling" (or, less pejoratively, "piling-on"), when someone posts something other people don't like (either for shallow reasons like personal taste or due to serious issues like racism etc) and they get inundated with negative replies, and you get a huge swathe of people posting about it on their personal ljs, etc. See for example Why Is There Not More Shunning? and nice is different than good.
Now overall there are pros and cons to this behaviour, like a lot of people I think it's sometimes justifiable (or even necessary) but other times is over-the-top and a bit mob-mentality-ish. It depends on the context, and the manner in which people "pile on".
Personal posts inspired by a big blow up like this can have several purposes, two common ones being simple venting or using this single incident to illustrate a more general problem. But something which has been brought up a bunch of times is "policing of community norms", and I was struck today by how the way "piling on" often works isn't always conducive to this, as the original transgression becomes so magnified in the purple-monkey-dishwasher of people writing posts based on other peoples outraged posts (not reading the original source) that the "community norm" that gets enforced ends up being something really bland and obvious rather than the more complex issue that started it all. Yet it feels like the only people who complain about this are trying to defend the pile-on-ees feelings/honour etc, rather than caring about the social value of truth per se.
I'm going to use the "Open Source Boob Project" as an example since I got kind of involved and it illustrates my point well. A lot of the posts about the OSBP didn't bother to go into the details of what happened, but were mostly just venting the frustration caused by years of crap from the icky badness of fandom (or society in general). Which is absolutely understandable and a valid thing to do. When other people complained that they were misrepresenting what happened the response was mostly "Sure, you may have had nice rules on paper, but this is what it really meant underneath/what you did at the beginning/what would have happened eventually", and I can certainly see that argument. The fact that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
theferrett's original post gave entirely the wrong impression didn't help matters.
But... then a second group of people read those posts and made other posts along the lines of "If they had not have made it part of the con signup process/let women wearing green badges say no/had it be run by women/groped men's asses too/etc then it would have been fine, but as it is it's disgusting". One can imagine such people theoretically starting a similar idea at a con where it wasn't part of the con signup process, women wearing green badges could say no etc and considering themselves much more enlightened ..except that's exactly what the OSBP did. So what did that second group of people learn, exactly? That it's not ok for men to explicitly expect random women to let them touch their boobs? I'm pretty sure most people knew that already, includingtheferrett etc. The community norm being policed is more subtle and complex than that.
EDIT: If you don't have a problem with the OSBP then the argument above won't mean much to you, so imagine I'm talking about some other situation where someone did something you think is really bad, and then they got misrepresented as being even worse than that.
I've seen similar issues with the way history is taught: for example, I always got the impression that 19th Century british colonialists were 100% after money and power etc, and had absolutely no concern for the africans. "Well", I can think to myself "Hasn't society progressed". But learning more about history I discover that the english public was actually quite concerned about african welfare (in a paternalistic, racist sort of way) and that even the most violent, cruel colonialist regime sold themselves to shareholders etc as philanthropic gestures of education and improvement. Kind of like they do now. Which is a lot scarier, and actually makes me think.
So how to combat this? Well, I say: if you are genuinely interested in policing community norms, don't demonise the people you're criticising. Not just because it's kind of mean (although imo that should play some part in it too) but because if you tell people "Don't act like this totally evil, moustache twirling villain" they won't feel any need to critically self-examine their behavior, because they know they're *not* totally evil, moustache twirling villains.
And if you're venting, or going off on a tangent etc, then maybe consider adding a disclaimer, like "This is just a rough description, *insert link here* has a more in depth description of what actually happened" etc. Though I agree that one can't be held entirely responsible for people mistaking a rant for a reliable source of unbiased information.
And, most importantly, as much as possible don't base you opinions on second hand reports, especially if you're passing judgement on someone. I also think people should read all the comments on an offending post (or at least the whole post itself!) before ranting at the OP, in case they've recanted or clarified somewhere, but I realise this does involve a LOT of effort once the pile-on gets going(*). And don't be too quick to pigeonhole people who get dog-piled as stock, totally evil, moustache twirling villains, instead look at what really happened, and why they did what they did, and why it's bad, and really ask yourself whether or not it's something you might have done in similar circumstances, and if you'd have known it was bad without having everyone point it out to you. Sorry if this sounds a bit condescending, I get very tactless when I'm sick! And it's easy for me to judge, since my main flaw is not being critical enough.
None of this is to argue against pile-ons per se, or that they can't help people understand what is and isn't acceptable behaviour (individually or as a community) I'm just pointing out an unfortunate flaw that I hadn't seen addressed.
I'd probably have something to say about how this relates to fandom_wank if I read it :)
EDIT: Two things that struck me later.
1)Beyond defining what is and is not acceptable, it is sometimes good to create a general environment of not fear exactly, but one in which people are aware that they can't get away with doing stupid crap, and to this end the exact limits of what counts as "stupid crap" is less important. For example, most people in fanfic fandom would agree, in principle, that racism is bad, but I think it took a whole bunch of people piling-on against individual racist actions to (start to) create a general sense that racism is bad and you shouldn't expect to get away with it, and that criticising things for being racist is a normal and acceptable thing to do.
2)I've ignored the possibility that, eg, the people who misunderstood the OSBP had, in fact, read the original post, and maybe even some of the more detailed and accurate discussion, and managed to still misunderstand the situation all on their own :)
(*)I realise this is veering more into "Don't demonise people because it's mean" rather than my main point of "Don't demonise people because it muddies the message", but I still think it deserves saying.
Also: as per the terms of service, I would like it if you read the whole post and all the comments before making your own. I have no way to enforce this community norm except asking nicely :)
So.
There's been a of of discussion on
metafandom recently about the use of "dog-piling" (or, less pejoratively, "piling-on"), when someone posts something other people don't like (either for shallow reasons like personal taste or due to serious issues like racism etc) and they get inundated with negative replies, and you get a huge swathe of people posting about it on their personal ljs, etc. See for example Why Is There Not More Shunning? and nice is different than good.Now overall there are pros and cons to this behaviour, like a lot of people I think it's sometimes justifiable (or even necessary) but other times is over-the-top and a bit mob-mentality-ish. It depends on the context, and the manner in which people "pile on".
Personal posts inspired by a big blow up like this can have several purposes, two common ones being simple venting or using this single incident to illustrate a more general problem. But something which has been brought up a bunch of times is "policing of community norms", and I was struck today by how the way "piling on" often works isn't always conducive to this, as the original transgression becomes so magnified in the purple-monkey-dishwasher of people writing posts based on other peoples outraged posts (not reading the original source) that the "community norm" that gets enforced ends up being something really bland and obvious rather than the more complex issue that started it all. Yet it feels like the only people who complain about this are trying to defend the pile-on-ees feelings/honour etc, rather than caring about the social value of truth per se.
I'm going to use the "Open Source Boob Project" as an example since I got kind of involved and it illustrates my point well. A lot of the posts about the OSBP didn't bother to go into the details of what happened, but were mostly just venting the frustration caused by years of crap from the icky badness of fandom (or society in general). Which is absolutely understandable and a valid thing to do. When other people complained that they were misrepresenting what happened the response was mostly "Sure, you may have had nice rules on paper, but this is what it really meant underneath/what you did at the beginning/what would have happened eventually", and I can certainly see that argument. The fact that
theferrett's original post gave entirely the wrong impression didn't help matters.But... then a second group of people read those posts and made other posts along the lines of "If they had not have made it part of the con signup process/let women wearing green badges say no/had it be run by women/groped men's asses too/etc then it would have been fine, but as it is it's disgusting". One can imagine such people theoretically starting a similar idea at a con where it wasn't part of the con signup process, women wearing green badges could say no etc and considering themselves much more enlightened ..except that's exactly what the OSBP did. So what did that second group of people learn, exactly? That it's not ok for men to explicitly expect random women to let them touch their boobs? I'm pretty sure most people knew that already, including
theferrett etc. The community norm being policed is more subtle and complex than that. EDIT: If you don't have a problem with the OSBP then the argument above won't mean much to you, so imagine I'm talking about some other situation where someone did something you think is really bad, and then they got misrepresented as being even worse than that.
I've seen similar issues with the way history is taught: for example, I always got the impression that 19th Century british colonialists were 100% after money and power etc, and had absolutely no concern for the africans. "Well", I can think to myself "Hasn't society progressed". But learning more about history I discover that the english public was actually quite concerned about african welfare (in a paternalistic, racist sort of way) and that even the most violent, cruel colonialist regime sold themselves to shareholders etc as philanthropic gestures of education and improvement. Kind of like they do now. Which is a lot scarier, and actually makes me think.
So how to combat this? Well, I say: if you are genuinely interested in policing community norms, don't demonise the people you're criticising. Not just because it's kind of mean (although imo that should play some part in it too) but because if you tell people "Don't act like this totally evil, moustache twirling villain" they won't feel any need to critically self-examine their behavior, because they know they're *not* totally evil, moustache twirling villains.
And if you're venting, or going off on a tangent etc, then maybe consider adding a disclaimer, like "This is just a rough description, *insert link here* has a more in depth description of what actually happened" etc. Though I agree that one can't be held entirely responsible for people mistaking a rant for a reliable source of unbiased information.
And, most importantly, as much as possible don't base you opinions on second hand reports, especially if you're passing judgement on someone. I also think people should read all the comments on an offending post (or at least the whole post itself!) before ranting at the OP, in case they've recanted or clarified somewhere, but I realise this does involve a LOT of effort once the pile-on gets going(*). And don't be too quick to pigeonhole people who get dog-piled as stock, totally evil, moustache twirling villains, instead look at what really happened, and why they did what they did, and why it's bad, and really ask yourself whether or not it's something you might have done in similar circumstances, and if you'd have known it was bad without having everyone point it out to you. Sorry if this sounds a bit condescending, I get very tactless when I'm sick! And it's easy for me to judge, since my main flaw is not being critical enough.
None of this is to argue against pile-ons per se, or that they can't help people understand what is and isn't acceptable behaviour (individually or as a community) I'm just pointing out an unfortunate flaw that I hadn't seen addressed.
I'd probably have something to say about how this relates to fandom_wank if I read it :)
EDIT: Two things that struck me later.
1)Beyond defining what is and is not acceptable, it is sometimes good to create a general environment of not fear exactly, but one in which people are aware that they can't get away with doing stupid crap, and to this end the exact limits of what counts as "stupid crap" is less important. For example, most people in fanfic fandom would agree, in principle, that racism is bad, but I think it took a whole bunch of people piling-on against individual racist actions to (start to) create a general sense that racism is bad and you shouldn't expect to get away with it, and that criticising things for being racist is a normal and acceptable thing to do.
2)I've ignored the possibility that, eg, the people who misunderstood the OSBP had, in fact, read the original post, and maybe even some of the more detailed and accurate discussion, and managed to still misunderstand the situation all on their own :)
(*)I realise this is veering more into "Don't demonise people because it's mean" rather than my main point of "Don't demonise people because it muddies the message", but I still think it deserves saying.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-15 06:27 am (UTC)Furthermore, it boogled my mind that this caused so much outrage, when, for years I worked in a place where women (including myself) were sexually harassed, touched, pinched, kissed, stalked, with no help or support from anyone including management.
I agree that that sort of thing is horrible (people suck :( ), and that comparatively speaking the OSBP was nowhere near as bad. If there was a huge social movement to fight things like the OSBP and noone was trying to combat more serious sexual harrassment then I would be pretty upset.
But I am loathe to tell people they shouldn't be outraged at something because it's too minor, especially if I don't know them. Since
a) We all feel the need to fight different injustices, and can't fix everything that's wrong in the world at once. That leads to the "Well, it's better here than in Saudi Arabia/there's starving children in africa/etc so stop whining" argument against all social justice/feminism etc.
b) People are going to be inclined to try to fix problems in their local community, in this case fandom.
c) For all I know these people also work to fight against other sorts of injustice. For example,
no subject
Date: 2008-05-15 12:05 pm (UTC)1. There was a lot of outrage on my flist. I didn't see too much positive, but I'm sure in the wide world of the internet, I missed a lot too.
2. I have never been to a con. I admit there are things that might be particular to the environment of cons that I would be completely missing.
I do have objections to the OSPB, mainly that it furthers the objectification of women. I have, however, seen this "project" described as being akin to rape and its creator (and participates) as equal to rapists. (This usually follows the argument that this takes "choice" away from women, which I don't see. Women may hate to be put "on the spot" and I could sympathize, but they aren't being "forced" to do anything.)
I have no problem with objections and discussions large or small. But that is going way to far and way too personal.
And I know I have my own personal outrage going on about working at a place where women employees were sexually harassed in public (by members of the public) with no recourse other that quiting their job, which wasn't always an option. I know that kind of stuff happens to women everyday in public places and isn't addressed.
here from metafandom
Date: 2008-05-15 06:28 pm (UTC)But I think that the outrage about OSBP was precisely because of its minor size and import. I'll bet you that a lot of the women who were venting were doing so because they are in the real-life situation that you've just described-- forced to put up with harassment in a job situation. None of us exist only on the internet, after all. It's a tough thing to talk about, and hateful to have to admit to. OSBP served as a safety valve for women who do not feel they can confront this topic in real life.
Re: here from metafandom
Date: 2008-05-17 06:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-17 06:31 am (UTC)I've recently decided to try to be more pro-active in combatting things like harassment, I'm starting with people I know and fandom, because that's where I mostly encounter it, and where I feel (relatively) safe expressing myself, but I agree that it would be wrong to stop there completely, it's too easy to only care about the suffering experienced by ones own group.
Ah, yes, I think we had different experience of the OSBP and so brought out different messages about the mistakes made.
My flist (and I) were mostly inspired to write general discussions of sexual harassment/touching etc at cons/in fandom with the OSBP as example or inspiration. We're mostly con-going fans, and the local con has a lot of skeezy guys who behave in unscrupulous ways which Ferrett's spiel resembled (ie lots of "friendly" pressure to have back rubs and other "platonic" touching)
I did encounter some of the more intense ranting etc, but mostly on
Yeah, I have mixed feelings about the use of the word "rape" being extended to cover any situation remotely resembling a sexualised experience which isn't 100% pro-actively voluntary. I do think our society is way too accepting of these sorts of dubious-consent issues, but it's a continuum, and acting like it's a dichotomy ignores the fact that peer pressure to touch boobs /= forced sex, from the POV of both victim and aggressor (of course, a lot of people act like it's a dichotomy with everything but actual rape on the side of "Totally ok touching", which is worse imo) Maybe this just goes to show I haven't been sufficiently
brainwashedenlightened by my feminist readings :DThe personal attacks were pretty creepy, while I personally think the main thrust of the pile-on was ok, some of the extreme edges were unjustifiably nasty.