I think that is exactly what i said. So we agree. Good.
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Maybe sometimes their response gets read as insincere, because maybe it is insincere and the āpiling onā doesnāt come out of nowhere, but is a response to a pattern of ongoing behavior that maybe youāve missed?
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I also think thereās some degree of this that is a literal part of the way that communicating on a message board works too.
Like multiple people want to say something and start reacting to each other. But the one person is reacting to many people at once.
It is definitely overwhelming sometimes. Because to each individual person it is like a flock of voices in their eyes.
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A part of that issue is the very nature of the forum. It is not discussion in real time. What you post will be read by many different folks over the course of hours or days, and many of us (yes, myself included) donāt finish reading the whole thread before responding to a post that we feel needs pushback. As a consequence, the same post may engender blowback for a very long time. Now, if i find where the poster apologized, i will acknowledge that. But yes, it may look like ongoing pushback, because of time delay.
(Oops, case in point. Ninjaād by @TornPaperNapkin!
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Did they fall on deaf ears or were they just insufficient in some way?
Iāll use the thread that kicked this off as an example again. The āclarificationā was āI just know things.ā Huh? How does that help? Thatās not a clarification, itās bullshit. And it was called out as such.
ETA:
Quoting @TornPaperNapkin
Ime good faith when raising issues about misogynistic speech is never assumed. Same with trans issues and race. Raising these issues with a person is considered de facto not assuming good faith by some even though it is actually a tremendous act of trust in the community.
It took me a while to fully absorb the importance of this point. Itās a risk for someone to challenge microaggressions. It takes courage. And we all risk losing the contributions of the bravest among us when we write their concerns off as misunderstanding or their challenges as āganging up.ā
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And here in lies the problem.
I never said any such thing or agreed or disagreed with it.
I never spoke about animated gifs.
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::sigh:: We sure are spending a lot of time on whether rolling-eye gifs constitute bullying instead of the bigger question of why conversations so often escalate into something ugly. I am not trying to point fingers or unmask these mythical ācliques.ā I am not saying that we shouldnāt push back against bullshit; Iām just saying that sometimes non-bullshit gets caught up in the crossfire, too.
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You can take my snark when you pry it from my cold, dead sense of humorā¦
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If people start trying to dictate that BB is a snark-free environment, then just go ahead and pull the plug now.
Youāre not, but but a nonzero number of those complaining sure seem to be.
Too many people of privilege seem to think this is all some sort of game, whereas those of us who are imperiled see it as yet another example of being marginalized.
Aw thanks, hon; I hope you know that when I go see my brother, I plan to visit you as well.
Shoutout for reposting that. It is foolish to expect that only those who are oppressed and persecuted must hold up their end of āthe social contract.ā
*big sighs
This is about way more than just you and your behavior/commentary. The entire community is made up of more people than just yourself.
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I believe that the clarification was more along the lines of āI know that Iām not the only one who feels this way,ā and the rest of this thread has shown this to be true. Whether and what it means that many members feel this way is up for debate, but it is a point worth making.
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Another perfect example of whatās being discussed.
A poster said I agree with sonething, they mentioned me specifically, I responded by correcting them.
What on earth are you talking about?
Am I not allowed to respond and correct the record when my name is specifically mentioned?
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Duke was speaking about the thread that kicked this off, which was whether or not Michelle Obama was running for president despite Michelle Obama herself repeatedly saying she wasnāt interested or going to. The OP in that thread basically said that āhe knows thingsā
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raises hand
Just this week, in fact, in response to @anon61221983 (so, not someone who is new or has never had a gif response before), and the gif very specifically was a Black woman, which was appropriate to the post I was responding to. And yet, there were multiple flags and it was removed. Who was so ābulliedā by my response to her that my gif had to go? Thatās the clique that negatively affects communication here.
AFAIK, every single member of a minority/disrespected community has voluntarily taken breaks from this forum because the mental work has been too much. Iāve done it twice myself. Thatās bullying, and it works. What is needed is for other people to help by also standing up to the bullies, as (for example) @DukeTrout, @anon29537550, and @chenille have been pointing out.
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Rightā¦ and Iām not saying that sometimes people do apologize and still get piled on sometimesā¦ but the reality is that the ongoing microaggressions are often left to stand, because it comes off as a case of not agreeing that something IS a microaggression. Again, such as giving male presenting posters greater consideration than female presenting onesā¦
Good point!
Iām guessing that both happens at one time or another, but itās not entirely fair to assume that they are all just falling on deaf earsā¦
You DO seem to agree with the general point being made that relates to that kind of communication, though, yeah?
That was the main thing brought up as a specific, concrete problem, thoughā¦ Everything else has been pretty vagueā¦
And in that case, isnāt that ultimately up to the mods to decide?
Iām unsure why snark is real issue, as opposed to some posters being made to regularly feel bad about existing as they are hereā¦
Indeed!
Those of us who grew up without the internet still think of digital life being less real than IRLā¦ but times have changed. Online life is just as real and impactful as the ārealā worldā¦ it is now part of the real social world and we should treat interactions online in that manner.
Case in point! 
But there is still a lack of concrete here, and Iām not sure how stuff can be dealt with unless we have something more substantial hereā¦
Again, do you disagree with the larger point being made that relates to gifs and what they say about interactions, as I asked you before? We ARE having a larger discussion on these issues, and you seemed to have planted your flag on a particular point about all this.
Okay, so here is something concrete.
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Partly because these things most often tend to get eaten in moderation. I recall a particular instance of bullying that got the bullied person banned because they dared defend themselves. That was a sobering moment that made me realize once and for all this is not a place for sharing anything more emotionally sensitive than whether one thinks a taco qualifies as a sandwich. But I canāt point to it because the whole exchange got deleted rather quickly.
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To clarify my point, I was referring to the post that @LutherBlisset was questioning in the General Moderation thread, that was deleted. Luther was lamenting that it just seemed like a miscommunication. @cannibalpeas expanded on that to descibe a āpattern of gang-upsā that involved ādeliberate misreads.ā
The thread that Luther was referring to didnāt go off the rails because of a misunderstanding, though. It went off the rails because of repeated microaggressions that were being challenged by the very people who were affected by those microaggressions. It looks like a āgang-upā because there are several women and POCs who challenged those microaggressions.
The āclarificationā I was referring to, that itself was challenged, was along the lines of āI know people who know things.ā Which didnāt clarify jack shit - it was a dismissal.
ETA: thanks, @anon85524460, you nailed it!
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And yet another example of attempting to put words into a posters post.
Nothing I said in this topic seems to show I agree with what youāre claiming I agree with.
I am agreeing with the OPās original post.
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Cool. So that was the one thing I thought I knew about this clique you are accusing, and instead I know nothing at all about them. That definitely helps.
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This would be communication breakdown.
EDIT:
Guess I should be quiet and just sit here, huh?
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