Re:“We have decided to disable IMDb's message boards”
by anigbrowl on Sunday February 05, 2017 @05:38PM
(#13575115)
Pointing to the existence of unpleasant things in life is very different from just shrugging them off. If you're really concerned, do something about changing the behavior of the antagonist instead of worrying that you might be 'coddling' the victims.
Re:“We have decided to disable IMDb's message boards”
by cookiecaper on Monday February 06, 2017 @03:18PM
(#13583435)
Most places do have rules designed to remove trolls. Like everything else in life, a balance is needed; focusing solely on either end of the interaction is not productive. Both sides need to be addressed.
If aggressive trolling is occurring, the trolls should be punished appropriately, but in the meantime, the intended targets should do what they can to prevent escalation.
Re:“We have decided to disable IMDb's message boards”
by anigbrowl on Monday February 06, 2017 @03:42PM
(#13583667)
Yeah but the targets already know that advice. It's like telling a rape victim 'stay away from creepy men.' That's not helpful advice in most cases, and it's doubly annoying when the advice-giver isn't obviously making any effort to confront the bad actors, but handwaving about the existence of rules or laws. It's not enough to just put a rule in place, bad actors need to be confronted and attacked for the bad behavior they engage in.
Re:“We have decided to disable IMDb's message boards”
by forgottenpass on Monday February 06, 2017 @09:44AM
(#13579813)
If you're really concerned, do something about changing the behavior of the antagonist
Once you suggest a mitigation strategy that doesn't have laughably bad cost/benefit in comparison to teaching coping mechanisms, I'm all ears.
Until then: stop telling me to "do something." I can't figure out how to fix the world for you, rise to the occasion yourself. If you do find it, it'll be easy to convince me to join.
Re:“We have decided to disable IMDb's message boards”
by bshanks on Sunday February 05, 2017 @05:14PM
(#13574985)
Yes, one should help the targets of bullies to be resilient. In addition to that, one should make it clear that bullying is unacceptable.
And, perhaps, depending on the forum and the degree of confidence that you have the whole story, one should take action against the bullies.
No, it's equivalent to giving them a toolset to make many attempts at injuring them unsuccessful.
I'll be the first to admit that "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me" is a porous filter. But removing it because it's not perfect only makes people more vulnerable. Rather than finding a way to address things that make it through that first-pass filter, now the new solution has to fix everything at once. (As we've seen, you've already established that partial fixes are unacceptable.) Good luck finding a solution.
> Telling people to just ignore [...] is an implicit endorsement of the idea that aggressively trolling other people is basically acceptable.
Telling someone that life involves exposure to things they might not like and they're going to have to find ways to deal with it, is in no way an endorsement of those things. All it is, is not coddling.