You guys, as I made clear, I’m pretty horrified by some of the comments on my last thread. But I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a horror that was developing for some time of the way this kind of conversation goes down on the internet generally.
I want to be clear that I’m writing for myself here, and not on behalf of any of the other Harpies, who obviously have their own views. But I have a few suggestions for how difficult conversations can go a bit better in those instances when we find ourselves in strong disagreements. Since I don’t have the authority to propose them for this site generally, I’m just proposing them for myself in future, and they will give you an idea of how I intend to moderate my threads. I’ll be linking back to this as well as needed to try and gauge my consistency.
There is, currently, no blog I know of that has a 100% success rate in encouraging productive conversations, but let’s aspire to that in future. Think of this as an experiment of mine – if you’re not prepared to indulge it, that’s totally okay and up to you. There are other threads and other websites that won’t ask that you play by these rules.
Before I begin: DO NOT, and I really mean DO NOT, use this thread as a means to rehash what’s going on elsewhere. If you want to talk about the things I’m enunciating below, please do so abstractly, so it doesn’t turn into a clusterfuck. I’m not talking about any particular conversation, and I’m open to adjusting my understandings, but I don’t want to fight. It’s exhausting, it’s personal, and I’m upset for hours afterwards. So let’s not do that.
1. Attack the ideas, NOT the person. This is a hard line to tread, I admit, and one I’m not always successful at. But I think that if one finds oneself tempted to say something about someone’s personal characteristics in a derisive way, it’s best to avoid it. Now this can be tricky. It’s possible the context is necessary to the conversation at hand (i.e. pointing out that a commentary on race was written by a white person). But there’s a difference between using the personal characteristics to deepen and flesh out the conversation, and using them to dismiss the perspective. Let’s try to remain hyper-aware of that difference.
2. Quote, don’t paraphrase. This is one of TNC’s rules that I really like, because often I find myself thinking, “But I didn’t say that,” and it’s a common thread in a lot of discussions I read. It’s a lot easier for me to challenge your interpretation – or, indeed, admit where I’ve been sloppy in wording and/or reasoning my argument – when I know exactly where you’re getting your ideas from.
3. Snark is fun in a snark thread. In a serious thread, it can make you into an asshole awful quick. I admit that I myself have been moving away from snark, but I am not yet a Denbyesque opponent of it. I enjoy vicious wit as much as the next person. But there are conversations where it is appropriate, and conversations where it is not.
4. Assume good faith in all participants. In general, I or one of the other Harpies tend to catch out actual trolls pretty darn quick. So you can assume that if the comments are going through, they are from people who genuinely want to talk about the issues. And as for linked posts and quotes and Feminist Food For Thoughts – again, I think it’s best that we all assume good faith, even if we violently disagree with what’s being said. Have faith that if I am presenting you with something in a thread, I am doing so because I think it has some merit, and I am not interested in just your thumbs up or thumbs down vote on it. Twisty often calls those things “referendums,” which I find to be a useful term – if you disagree that’s great, but state that calmly, then list your reasons.
5. Above all, ALWAYS assume the possibility that you are wrong. I am one of those people who often comes across as thinking she is always right. After a lot of thought, I have found that this is not an aspect of myself I’m particularly fond of. And since I’ve been trying to force myself to be less than 100% certain about everything, I’ve found it a lot easier to talk to people, on the internet and elsewhere. Does this make anything I write less forceful, more equivocal? Yes. Does it also make me a better interlocutor? Also yes.
6. Be forgiving to the extent you can be. I can totally get on board with marginalized groups expressing frustration at 100% volume. I think it behooves the rest of us to swallow initial anger – again, something I’m not always great at – when confronted with perspectives that seem to us to be too strongly stated. I think some people – tea baggers for instance – are assholes. I think the vast majority of people are at their very worst only confused. Confusion should be something we find easy to forgive, and easy not to be nasty about.
Thoughts?
I am one of those people who often comes across as thinking she is always right. After a lot of thought, I have found that this is not an aspect of myself I’m particularly fond of.
I am certainly guilty of this too, and I apologize to Pilgrim Soul and others I offended with my comments. I tend to bitch when I perceive that I’m being attacked. I shouldn’t default to shooting the messenger if I don’t like the message.
But of course you think what you’re currently saying is right. Unless you’re messing with people’s minds, or a pathological liar, why would you say something you think is wrong?
It’s like when someone complains, “you always want things your way.” Uh, who doesn’t, in theory at least, want what they want? Not wanting what you want seems confused at best.
Note how this accusation is rarely applied to men. Women are supposed to couch their statements in “in my opinion” and “I tend to think” and “I could be wrong,” or they’re smacked down as arrogant.
This is of course different from denying where you’ve ever made a mistake, but I think in a lot of cases the accusation is made when a woman uses a simple declarative sentence.
Yeah, oldfeminist, I know what you mean. But when I’m talking about this forum, here, I don’t think it has quite the same silencing/gendering effect if I’m asking it of everyone.
I guess this might be Canadian uptightness, but in many instances my “I tend to think” is about critical self-examination, not apologizing for my presence in the universe, you know? I just think there’s a difference, among friends.
Well my comment seems to have disappeared into the ether. Sigh.
I said something to the effect of—
After yesterday’s post controversy, I was really worried HP would go the way of other blogs in the comments: flamethowing nightmare. But with this post today I take a deep breath and say “let’s get back to the (awesome) business as usual for HP”.
Also, in my experience, if your goal is to persuade people around to your side, rather than score points with an audience, the less than 100% certain approach is simply more effective.
This is one situation where I’ve found in the workplace that the stereotypically masculine way gets men who use it into trouble. The majority of the time, I’ve found that you may win the verbal skirmish with the 100% certain approach, but win or lose, you’ve probably failed to create an ally.
I was shocked at how things went down in that thread and declined to participate, despite being encouraged to, as a not-American reader.
The one thing I know (from personal experience) about feeling angry when someone puts you in a ‘privileged’* group – be it in social conversation, in an academic setting or in an internet discussion, is that the more angry you are, the less examined your privilege is**. This is why we all benefit from the occasional reminder about how to discuss well, especially in fora like this, because who hasn’t used the words of another commenter when fighting the kyriarchy? We MUST look after spaces where ideas can be thrashed out, and then those words and ideas, the good ones, can be our swords and shields in the wider world.
*In quotes as a) problematic term, and b) not in use in the UK anyway.
** horrible grammar – sorry
Psyche, I think you of course have to mediate your approach to conversations by deciding whether you’re out to persuade or not. I mean, sometimes I am, sometimes I’m not. Sometimes I’m venting, and a blog in particular, as a medium, encourages venting, because of the urge to post quickly, and to get ahead of the conversation.
I think what I will try to do is keep my qualifications and hedges from becoming poses, because I don’t want to be insincere, or seem like I’m humouring another perspective but not really listening to it, y’know?
Good points! Like others said above, I really enjoy Harpyness – the posts as well as the discussion in comments – and appreciate the efforts y’all do to moderate the comment sections. I haven’t waded through all the comments in yesterday’s post yet; it was Mardi Gras here and, well, I’m still recovering. But as an American who’s spent several years living in Latin American countries, I’m really interested in the topic and plan to comment soon (if it’s still open).
There was, recently, a whole bunch of snarled up feelings at Stuff White People Do, and this guest post would be a good place to start:
http://stuffwhitepeopledo.blogspot.com/2010/01/offer-white-apologetics-instead-of-just.html
Especially when it comes to apology vs apologetics.
My experience as a (mostly) white woman living in America is that women tend to apologize a LOT- for existing, really- sorry I was standing here, sorry my flesh brushed your flesh, sorry I interrupted you- but it’s kind of a “I’m sorry, ok? Go away,” kind of thing.
One of my biggest projects this year (this life?) is to:
1)stop fake-apologizing all the time when I don’t mean it just to make things fake-happy again [I have already lost a friend to this one- it's not an easy project, to be sure].
2)When I really screw up, apologize for REAL. Not “I’m sorry you took it that way,” or “I’m sorry you’re sensitive,” or even, “I’m sorry that you’re mad at me so can you stop being mad ok” but “I’m sorry I said that awful thing. I know that it was terrible to say it because you are upset.”
Agreed. I think the “assume good faith” is a particularly important point. In the right forum I always try to do this unless someone says something REALLY nuts.
In fact one of the reasons I will occasionally step back from a certain large lady blog is when I find myself assuming BAD faith more often than not.
@bluebears- Agreed. “Assume good faith” has changed the way I post in a lot of places on the internet, and lead me to change or delete dismissive/eye-rolling language right before I post. Now every time I get a reasonable dialog out of that, it drives home how I would’ve been shutting down the conversation if I hadn’t. Humbling when I realize that my default state is kind of “Internet Asshole”.
If you were horrified by some of the comments, is there a reason you didn’t address that sooner? I don’t mean that as a demand on your time or an accusation, but I think it was apparent after several comments that the whole thing was a powder keg.
Of all the criticisms generated by Chally’s post, the one that niggles at me is the complaint about time zones. Sure, it’s unreasonable to demand a response at a time when the blogger is asleep, but a blog that’s focused on a US audience needs moderation during peak posting hours.
Which brings me to my larger point: sometimes, asking for good faith, quoting, and intellectual honesty aren’t enough. Sometimes, a line of discussion just needs to be shut down. Moderation is essential to the health of most online forums, but working it is damn tricky.
As a very lurky person, but most definitely a non-USian who was at first keen to post on that thread, I read your last thread with increasing horror, PS. I like your approach with these tips, and particularly the one about the assumption of good faith.
evil_fizz, I’m very interested to know why you think this blog is focused on a US audience. That had not even crossed my mind until you mentioned it, and I went to check the FAQ just to check my assumption – there’s not comment there about it being US-focused. Are those of us from outside the US actually intended to be semi-excluded, then? Are we, as feminists as well, really not the intended audience? I’m really surprised by that, and disappointed that I may be an afterthought. But considering recent comments, perhaps I should have been thinking in that direction before you put it quite so bluntly.
@evil_fizz – I asked that we not totally rehash the last thread here. But to briefly and abstractly answer your question, moderation is a tricky thing. Shut down something too fast and an avalanche of comments will come in complaining about censorship and how you wont let people discuss things the way they want etc etc. And sometimes you’re looking at shutting down commenters who have been around awhile, which is always difficult to navigate.
@Lex – You aren’t an afterthought to us. At least not to me, and I doubt to the other Harpies.
If you guys want to discuss the time zones thing can you please take it into the other thread?
Sorry if I was unclear: I was referring to Feministe as being US-centered, not Harpyness.
Pilgrim Soul, I’m not seeking to rehash the prior thread, but I think that there’s a lot going on there that has to with moderation and the navigation of interpersonal relationships. It’s not just about good faith and the need to admit that we’re all wrong at times.
I suppose my criticism here is that this kind of approach is ultimately kind of simplistic in the sense that it makes a long series of assumptions about your commentariat. And maybe those assumptions are justified and appropriate here (I am not a sufficiently regular commenter, although I am a regular reader of comment threads), but it seems like this is ultimately an effort to avoid awkward confrontations. Or am I misreading your intentions here?
@evil_fizz, I hope you can appreciate that I cannot simply lay out here my entire thought process without it turning into a clusterfuck, again. While I’d be happy to answer specific questions via email, there are obviously some issues here that I’m not going to discuss publicly.
As I said in the post, these rules are not proposed as only a response to what happened in that thread. Nor are they perfect rules. They are a way to deal with the fact that people are coming here with different perspectives and making it a place where a wider variety of perspectives feel welcome – and in particular, one where commenters in my threads at least do not feel at liberty to simply shout down perspectives they disagree with.
I have no idea what you mean about “assumptions about my commentariat.” Everyone has to make certain assumptions about everything.
@evil_fizz, thanks for the clarification, and sorry if I misread you. I don’t know Feministe well, but it is among several blogs I see as more US-centric than this one – that makes sense.
@PS, thanks, it’s nice to be included
.
Funny to be upset about time zone issues and think it’s a sign of US-centricity. Being on the west coast of the US, I always feel left out. Also, I don’t check here very often.
I read this post and the original after everything was over, pretty much, so I didn’t post either. But I know you didn’t mean for the comments to turn into what they did, PSoul, and I hope you don’t shy away from posts you know might offend people in the future.
@xenu01: this is a great resolution – one I might borrow if that’s okay