Posted by larry hoover on August 4, 2013, at 10:39:46
In reply to Re: Trying to practice what I've been preaching, posted by Dr. Bob on July 2, 2013, at 23:32:50
> Lou has serious and grave misgivings about psychiatric drugs, and some posters have serious and grave misgivings about Lou.
So this is what you reduced the debate to, Bob? This is the best example of the logical fallacy reductio ad adsurdum that I have seen in a very long time. The issue is unrestrained incivility in posting draining the resources of the community. It's not about Lou's rights, it's about community standards of civility. Do you think that all these fine posters' energy is being spent on this because we're happy? I'll return to the issue of community in a moment, as it is a key concept in attempting to resolve this once and for all.
> Posters have to deal with Lou's misgivings, and I have to deal with the misgivings of posters.
And this, Bob, is a non sequitur. It does not follow, unless you also hold to the unstated premise that doing nothing is the solution.
For a community to be successful, it depends on a collective will to abide by certain standards of organization and control.
First, there must be clear leadership. Ignoring how often you simply disappear, I do not sense leadership from you, at this time. Frankly, I am struggling to obtain a clear concept of your policy, and how you wish to apply it. Admonishing us all by asking us to try harder to tolerate each other more is not leadership. It is condescension, and trivializes the clearly expressed discontent I read in great volume on this board. Many eleoquent and passionate voices expressing that discontent are being ignored.
Second, a community needs clear guidelines of acceptable conduct. Of all the places I've ever been, this place has gone through some of the weirdest experiments of just what that is. Incivility wasn't always something that you could describe, Bob, but somehow, you knew it when you saw it. I can see a clear concensus on what standards of civility are being requested of you, Bob. Just read your own FAQ. But just as a reminder, over-generalization and over-exaggeration are listed examples of incivility.
Third, you need enforcement. Consistent enforcement. Equal enforcement. I am not asking for a return to the days when you tossed out bans like they were candy, but you have let the pendulum swing too far in the other direction. That is on your shoulders, Bob, as you did not create an alternative enforcement policy. You abdicated your resonsibility to us, as the only leader we had. And it is not the community members' responsibility to fix it. It may be humiliating to you to have to fix your problem, but asking us to grow into tolerance is offensive. If I tolerate behaviour that I consider to violate community standards, I am worse than the perpetrator, because I'm letting my community down. Listen, Bob, to the voices of community members asking you to restore THEIR community's standards of civility. A healthy community's leader is a servant to the people within it.
Fourth, there must be consequences. I don't want to see anything like those mathematically formulated bans that bounced people like alex for a year at a time. That was abusive. But that does not mean that you must abandon disciplinary acts altogether. Some people just don't abide by community standards without a little disciplinary response.
Bob, what I think you're asking for, in your quoted statements at the opening of this response, is for something that we're telling you that we don't want to do. The community is powerless to self-manage, under points 2, 3, and 4, as I've laid them out. And the reason for that is point 1.
The buck stops at the top, Bob. I moderate other boards. Sometimes you have to do things that are emotionally hard to do. Time to man up, Bob. Doing the right thing now, even when it clearly should have been done some time in the past, is still doing the right thing.
I can't even believe I posted this. I had a very sleepless night, so I thought that I might as well talk about why that was. I was at Babblefest 2006. I met members of this community. With others, my close relationships were all online. And seeing where this place has gone had me in tears last night. Notwithstanding the excessive discipline that once characterized this place, I prefer that to what is currently revealed to me.
Bob has created a straw-man argument, invoking a false dichotomy between two alternatives, when the truth is that other choices exist. If only he would listen to the community.
Lar
poster:larry hoover
thread:1046098
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20130702/msgs/1048271.html