What Makes a Healthy Community and How to Deal When it Isn't

[IoleRae]

I mean, honestly right now I’m so furious I’m seeing white; I recognize it for what it is though, and clearly I’m engaging in civil fashion – because nobody participating in this discussion is responsible for it. But I’m a damn superhuman to begin with, and knowing how this feels and why it feels that way, I know how damaging calls for civility in the face of abuse CAN be.

I know not everyone experiences things the same way, but I can recognize that other people DO, and make sure room is kept for them. I can learn how other people cope, and make sure that space is kept, too. Hearing @shit-piss-love mention the hypervigilance thing, I now know that it’s IMPORTANT to take care with my engagement there, so I’m gonna do my best to respect that. It’s ugly and messy, but all of this shit is.

[shit-piss-love]

@IoleRae said in What Makes a Healthy Community and How to Deal When it Isn't:

It’s ugly and messy, but all of this shit is.

Church. I appreciate you.

[Mourne]

On the civility front, I call bullshit.

We’re not Vulcans. We have unlocked emotions. They run free sometimes and they should especially in the face of outrage.

The idea that everyone needs to be ‘civil’ needs to go diaf because someone can and should be upset about certain events, and guess what, that is a necessary thing. It could be necessary for their healing process, if they can heal to begin with but the biggest thing to remember for all the people crying for civility 100% of the time?

It.

Is.

Not.

About.

You.

[Testament]

@Mourne I get what you’re sometimes, but I think you need to have a perception of what situation you’re walking into where you need to consider where civility or emotion is the route one should be going with. Especially if you want people to actually listen to what you have to say and not just brush you off because “oh, they’re just being dramatic”. No, they have something important to say. I think there’s a certain level of nuance involved to when and where civility or emotion is required.

[shit-piss-love]

@Testament said in What Makes a Healthy Community and How to Deal When it Isn't:

@Mourne I get what you’re sometimes, but I think you need to have a perception of what situation you’re walking into where you need to consider where civility or emotion is the route one should be going with.

Right. I want to be civil around people in my safe spaces, people who are vulnerable, or those I know have actual real, visceral reactions to being party to negative emotional charge.

I want Nazi punks to fuck off and I’ll fuck them off with a sharp tongue real fast.

Context matters.

[mietze]

@shit-piss-love as you said though that can be really dependent upon the life experience one has.

I can assure you that though when I am at my best I try to be calm and de-escalating when trying to unwind a current situation that an environment where there is an expectation that no negative emotions are allowed to be expressed and people especially women are expected to be polite and respectful and sweet and considerate of the person they are trying to communicate hurt them lest it make others uncomfortable is an environment that is inherently dangerous to me, also as someone who experienced significant abuse in my family of origin, faith community, and early partner relationships.

Making sure one suppresses all expression of emotion except when one can maximize the comfort of the person who is being told how their actions have impacted them, with a disdain either unspoken or outright who cannot always be calm in the face of it, and the dismissal of upset as “too sensitive” were used as tools to force submission and acceptance of just about every kind of abuse that there can be during my growing up and young adulthood years until I got out.

And while decades of therapy, for the most part breaking the cycle with my own family, and having a reasonably successful and rewarding life since means I don’t have to even think about stuff like that every day, the scars run deep and I will never, ever be comfortable taking up space, unless its temporarily as an advocate or mediator (and that’s a different sort of space).

While I agree that putting boundaries as far as permissible behavior is a good thing and necessary thing in any community space, not allowing for negative emotion or shaming it or labeling it as something that should be hidden pings all my danger senses.

[IoleRae]

@shit-piss-love said in What Makes a Healthy Community and How to Deal When it Isn't:

I want to be civil around people in my safe spaces, people who are vulnerable, or those I know have actual real, visceral reactions to being party to negative emotional charge.

I want to be civil, too. I want to be kind and gentle and soft to people who are vulnerable while they are hurting, and give them every bit of space that they need to scream profanities and bloody nonsense if they need to. And I want those people to give me that space and gentleness and kindness when I am the one hurting, letting me be just as terrible as I need to until I can breathe again.

[IoleRae]

@IoleRae

I want my friend to be able to say bad things to me because he is out of his mind with grief, and to know that the base relationship is strong enough that when the dust settles and I find out what was going on, we…get over it, and move forward. Stronger.

(sorry for doublepost, I have a lot to say about this topic)

[Herja]

Who even gets to define what is ‘civil’ or not? According to old white men, if I dare to complain about being marginalized in any but the most self-effacing of ways, I’m not being civil. According to my ex husband, if I rightly demand that he takes responsibility for the two children he helped create in any but the most non-angry and non-confrontational way possible, I’m not being civil. According to the MSB crew, if I drop a cuss word while explaining my point, I’m not being civil.

Civility is a code for ‘don’t make a fuss because I don’t want to really have to consider your emotional state’. I am usually pretty considerate of the emotional state of others but I am done putting other people’s feelings over my own. If someone wants to stop listening to me because I cuss and my vocal tone is upset, then the likelihood is that they were never going to listen to me in the place.

I’m not the sort to relentlessly attack or be ‘uncivil’ to anyone that I just don’t like. If I don’t like you, I’m just going to ignore you. But if I am dealing with someone who is abusive or a subject that I care a whole lot about? Damn right that I cuss and get expressive.

[mietze]

I do think though that in difference spaces and community gathering spaces that it is really good to have clear, enforced boundaries. I believe that places that try to be all things to all people tend to be the ones most vulnerable to causing harm even though the intention is the opposite.

So what is important in my observation is not so much the wishes of what we should be and do at our best, but the vision if the people who own/manage that space, putting into place policies and actions that facilitate that, and constant maintenence. I think the wider community of mushers makes that so difficult because it is an intimate community in many respects and a lot of the policy and moderation techniques that can be effectively used in larger but diverse and passionate hobby communities just are harder to put into place with mushers because there’s a high degree of personal crossover and contact.

[shit-piss-love]

@IoleRae said in What Makes a Healthy Community and How to Deal When it Isn't:

I want to be civil, too. I want to be kind and gentle and soft to people who are vulnerable while they are hurting, and give them every bit of space that they need to scream profanities and bloody nonsense if they need to. And I want those people to give me that space and gentleness and kindness when I am the one hurting, letting me be just as terrible as I need to until I can breathe again.

Super good point. I am now the kind of person who uh, speaks their mind, and I found it incredibly helpful to seize the ability to be uncivil. When I first moved, from the place where anyone being uncivil around me made me incredibly anxious or full-on triggered, to the place where I could take my emotions and express them outward in exactly the way they felt, it was game-changing. It just took a real long while to get there and before I did get there, I definitely made choices about which groups I could and couldn’t be around because they were or weren’t safe spaces for someone that was traumatized by hurtful speech.

Edit: I just made a realization about how my mom’s obsession with literally beating out of me any kind of deviation from accepted social norms may be rooted in her own reactions to being forced into civility as a woman growing up in the 60s. Gonna unpack that thing in therapy.

[farfalla]

I think that to really go anywhere we need to acknowledge that the Hog Pit didn’t exist just to protect against jerks and predators. Sometimes you just wanna rant about a peeve. Sometimes you really need to tell someone they’re wrong about something. Sometimes you wanna make memes about something negative that happened, so you can laugh about it. Sometimes it’s just fun to argue. I do not believe this makes the people engaged in that cruel or mean or bullying. I would argue that the majority of the hog pit was that kind of thing, but the things we remember are the big blow ups.

It’s extremely normal to want to talk about our shared hobby, and it’s extremely normal to have complaints about things in the hobby, and it’s extremely normal to sometimes complain or rant about it. If you’ve never complained to your friends about the guy in tabletop who’s always in his phone (I’m that guy), or gotten pissed off by all the messages about buying gold on an mmo - well I commend your inner zen. But it’s not a terrible thing to discuss something including negative aspects.

As for how to navigate where those discussions cross the line, idk man. Try not to type things you’d regret in the morning, I guess, but that does depend on a certain level of self-awareness and self-control.

I don’t think everyone is entitled to my civility, kindness, or respect - though I try to start from there. But there’s a bug gulf between that and cruelty or intentionally hurting people. We can try and live there, when we get to levels of disagreement that verge from ideas into fundamentals, as others have discussed.

I forget my point but my point is we can allow that most mu* forum engagement is just because it’s enjoyable. It doesn’t need to have a higher moral purpose.

[jujube]

I think the answer is very straight forward.

What is the key to a healthy community?

R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

I’ve been surprised by the callout posts about people. Yes, sometimes people suck. But does someone need to lambast them on a community forum?

Lambasting others who are part of a community in a community forum does not make for a healthy community.

There is a clear difference in criticism for an action (When so-and-so does blah, it produces these types of consequences), then there’s the ad hominem attacks (So and so is a filthy bitchass stalker).

Remember, we are MUers. We’ve ALL done shitty things. So just remember that when criticizing others, cause someone else might have receipts on you.

[Testament]

I don’t associate using cuss words as not being civil, I liken it to be emphatic, using stronger words to deliver a message that has meaning behind it. Civility is treating the person you’re talking to with respect, and that can take a lot of different forms, but I don’t believe there needs to be a certain ‘tone’ or words used to be looked upon or seen as ‘civil’. I can be swearing up a storm and that doesn’t mean I’m verbally deriding you(general you)as a person, that might just be how I talk(read: it is how I talk). The difference to is the moment you drop that respect, it changes the discussion, the dialogue. There’s a difference between energetic arguing and the combativeness of debate, and outright hostility and mockery. There’s a certain measure of respect with the former, and a particular lack with the latter.

But I suppose this is different for everyone, even if I believe some will use the terminology to want to be civil as a way to control the flow of the argument or narrative their own ends, and not because both parties want to have an honest dialogue. It’s those kind of things I think people should be more aware of, as we’re no doubt seeing now.

At the same time, I don’t have a problem with someone being taken to task publicly for something that’s seen as a wrong, especially if the majority of the community sees it as such. In my eyes it’s way to keep each other accountable, because hell, that’s kind of the only way you can sometimes.

[GF]

I think, if I had a brass lamp and a genie popped out who could grant me one wish but only as regards people who use the word ‘civility,’ I would, after I’m done being confused by how weirdly specific this genie’s remit is, ask that people replace the word ‘civility’ with ‘vulnerability.’

Because that is what I understand a call for civility to be: a command that the person speaking make themself vulnerable, sometimes in material ways but mostly just emotionally, expecting them to shoulder not just the burden of their feelings but the audience’s as if the audience aren’t also fucking adults who should be responsible for their own behavior. If someone wants me to be vulnerable, sometimes I am willing to be the one who offers vulnerability first; but most times, especially when commanded to be vulnerable by someone else, I am going to need the other person to offer some to me as a sign of good faith.

Then the genie will say “I really didn’t need all the explanation, you could have just made the wish. But thanks for the speech, I guess,” and we’ll see if my ideal world is any better than the one prior.

[mietze]

while I know this is somewhat enshrined in what people really like about a community board here, I think a lot of “venting” leads to bad blood and hurt feelings, even when it’s unintended. At worst, it is a passive aggressive way of giving someone the finger or criticizing them in a way that lingers /forever/ and can be stumbled upon days/weeks/months later in a way that is often quite jarring/hurtful in a larger way than the person peeving felt at the time (otherwise they might have said something directly). Saying something privately to friends as a vent means that it dissipates a lot of the time. Writing it on a message board enshrines it. But even unintentionally it can have a big impact. I’m thinking of the times when someone expresses frustration or disappointment in the moment with a specific event/scene, and it really hurts the scene runner/storyteller because they’re seeing it in the middle or right after putting all that work in. I don’t think that /ever/ benefits anyone in any way. Most of the time it’s just an off hand momentary comment–but then because of timing or a number of things it can really cause a blowup that has ripple effects beyond that slowly builds over time. Or quickly.

That’s different than a general discussion about mush culture/what one prefers (do you page a group before joining in on RP that is happening in a publicly accessible area? is it okay to metapose/how should one do that? ect). Or speaking to a larger issue on a game like a pattern of a staffer being rude on channel, ect. (and also those larger issues aren’t specific-but-not-named, they’re usually quite named, with logs or specific, detailed incidents that are spoken about).

While I do think the occasional big blowouts obviously can be harmful to a community, I personally think that a lot of the low grade stuff that is definitely talking about you know who or that is posted in the moment of high annoyance do the most damage over time. People don’t forget it. I’ve talked to many people over the years that jumped in and were happily engaging with the community and one day out of curiousity they looked back/searched and it felt like a punch to the face and even though the person who was talking about how dumb they were or how stupid their prp was or how annoying they were had moved on and was once more happily engaging with them, now they had the experience of knowing was said publicly but never privately and the worry begins. In my experience the “record” of all the annoyances (vs. documenting significant behavior) is pretty much never helpful, or healthy in the long run.

And while it would be relatively easy for people to decide to just wait to pose about an active situation publicly for like…I don’t know. A couple of days or a week or whatever, people just usually don’t do that. But I do wish posting about annoyances was done more thoughtfully in general–because there is just something super impactful about seeing someone not liking you in that moment in print that is powerful.

[shit-piss-love]

@mietze said in What Makes a Healthy Community and How to Deal When it Isn't:

While I do think the occasional big blowouts obviously can be harmful to a community, I personally think that a lot of the low grade stuff that is definitely talking about you know who or that is posted in the moment of high annoyance do the most damage over time. People don’t forget it. I’ve talked to many people over the years that jumped in and were happily engaging with the community and one day out of curiousity they looked back/searched and it felt like a punch to the face and even though the person who was talking about how dumb they were or how stupid their prp was or how annoying they were had moved on and was once more happily engaging with them, now they had the experience of knowing was said publicly but never privately and the worry begins. In my experience the “record” of all the annoyances (vs. documenting significant behavior) is pretty much never helpful, or healthy in the long run.

This was what I was actually trying to post about on MSB. My only past information about MSB/Hog Pit was MU* friends on some discords expressing that they were really hurt by things that were being said about them over there. Not stuff like “this person is dangerous” or even “this person did something creepy”. It was people openly celebrating about IC bad stuff that happened to them. Just like “I bet this didn’t work out like they thought it was going to. Get rekt. I hate this person’s stupid face.” It killed their interest in continuing to play the characters, the game, or the hobby entire.

[mietze]

@shit-piss-love yes. The vast majority of hurt that has happened on the boards in the past is via stuff like that. Not because people in the community are more terrible, just that there is always going to be a greater volume of mild annoyances to major problems.

But putting it in public print for lack of a better term not only escalates that but also makes it a permanent mark instead of temporary. Not that anyone usually ever intends to do that, they don’t. They blow off steam and move on (this is good) but that snapshot moment is there forever and when that person sees it (or someone unkindly tells them about it and sends link) now it flickers to life and probably worse.

But I don’t know the solution to it is. There probably isn’t one.

[Testament]

@mietze said in What Makes a Healthy Community and How to Deal When it Isn't:

And while it would be relatively easy for people to decide to just wait to pose about an active situation publicly for like…I don’t know. A couple of days or a week or whatever, people just usually don’t do that. But I do wish posting about annoyances was done more thoughtfully in general–because there is just something super impactful about seeing someone not liking you in that moment in print that is powerful.

I don’t know if it’s ‘not liking someone’, when one is, in that particular moment, venting about something someone said or did. I don’t think the person venting is looking at the totality of a person and thinking this vent in regards to them is going to sum up their entire character. I don’t think that’s what you’re saying, but it was something that stuck out to me.

But I agree there is something visceral about seeing something said about you by someone during some time in the past. I don’t know if there is any way to lessen that blow. Perhaps that thought should go more to the idea you need to be willing to live with what you have posted. Because the internet doesn’t forget.

And if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go delete my LiveJournal from 2006.

[blu]

@Tat said in What Makes a Healthy Community and How to Deal When it Isn't:

I’d love to have it as a TRUE resource of different viewpoints and experiences, rather than one where said differences frequently end in a shouting match .

Here, here.

@IoleRae said in What Makes a Healthy Community and How to Deal When it Isn't:

The need for “civility” is used to silence abuse victims, particularly in relation to their abuser and the accusations. I’ll leave it at that.

I admit that the word “civility” has been tarnished lately, particularly as I listen to the hubby having to deal with people at school board meetings. They call for civility because they don’t want to be aggressively attacked being bigots, racists, so on and so forth; they want to say their not-so-cleverly-cloaked bigoted statements and then rear-up in emotional outrage that someone called them out for being a bigot. The Civility Pledge has been used as a method to protect bad actors.

@Roz said in What Makes a Healthy Community and How to Deal When it Isn't:

Personally, I really try to maintain a certain amount of – I don’t know that I’d call it civility, but etiquette? Respectability? When I’m posting about conflicts, because I know it’ll go farther with others in the conversation. Not because we should not be allowed our rage and emotion in situations that warrant it; I’m just trying really hard to not give other people space to just dismiss me for being too ROWDY.

I think we all know what we are trying to label, but labels are hard. What we’re really pinpointing is kinda like that one porn quote—we know it when we see it.

@Herja said in What Makes a Healthy Community and How to Deal When it Isn't:

Who even gets to define what is ‘civil’ or not?

And whoever defines it, we’re all going to squinty-eye at anyway.