RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: I feel that this needs saying.
YES.
And some people are attacked for bad reasoning. Lots of people you guys didn't even take the time to get to know, you just attacked them. Jam, for example. From what I hear (and my own experiences), I understand that pretty much everybody who talked to her outside of the forums and knew her liked her. On the boards, though, she got a lot of crap from people. Whether her avatar was actually her or not, people KEPT harassing her about it for the longest time. She was a pretty cool kid, and not just another dumb newb or something. Now she's gone, and I'm pretty sure it's because of all the harassment she got.
Some people just don't know how to respond to things. For example, kids who get bullied at school. I got made fun of some when I was a kid. People always made fun of my name. For a long time, I had NO idea how to handle it other than to whine and tell them that no, I didn't have an ark. Eventually I realized that to deal with people mocking me I should just ignore them and they'll realize it's not much fun. However, in high school I've seen kids who STILL HAVEN'T FIGURED THAT OUT. People mock them and tease them just to get a response, and the kid just doesn't know to ignore the bullies. Can we blame that bullying on the dorky kid who just doesn't know how to respond? No. It's not the geeky kid's fault that other people are jerks to him.
We (I do it, too, sometimes. We all do here and there) bully newcomers way too often. Some of them understand how to take it and stay until they're a regular and everybody knows them. Others are scared or hurt by it and leave. And yet more are scared or hurt but stay anyway to try and rough it out, but they never learn to cope with our bullying. I think we should be more sympathetic to people who OBVIOUSLY don't know how to handle the bullying. Eventually they'll get the hang of how we roll by observing what we say to each other, and may be they will pick it up and bully fellow members themselves and receive some friendly bullying of their own. But until we know somebody is comfortable and able to handle themselves here, may be we should lay off a bit.
I mean, if one of the regulars made a stupid topic about "omfgosh is the chat broken or full?" I would FULLY SUPPORT that we all tear into them like crazy, because they should know better. The newbs however, need reminding of the rules, and harassment and bullying is not a positive way to make them learn.
Warnings should be handed out if we troll a topic too much.
And some people are attacked for bad reasoning. Lots of people you guys didn't even take the time to get to know, you just attacked them. Jam, for example. From what I hear (and my own experiences), I understand that pretty much everybody who talked to her outside of the forums and knew her liked her. On the boards, though, she got a lot of crap from people. Whether her avatar was actually her or not, people KEPT harassing her about it for the longest time. She was a pretty cool kid, and not just another dumb newb or something. Now she's gone, and I'm pretty sure it's because of all the harassment she got.
Some people just don't know how to respond to things. For example, kids who get bullied at school. I got made fun of some when I was a kid. People always made fun of my name. For a long time, I had NO idea how to handle it other than to whine and tell them that no, I didn't have an ark. Eventually I realized that to deal with people mocking me I should just ignore them and they'll realize it's not much fun. However, in high school I've seen kids who STILL HAVEN'T FIGURED THAT OUT. People mock them and tease them just to get a response, and the kid just doesn't know to ignore the bullies. Can we blame that bullying on the dorky kid who just doesn't know how to respond? No. It's not the geeky kid's fault that other people are jerks to him.
We (I do it, too, sometimes. We all do here and there) bully newcomers way too often. Some of them understand how to take it and stay until they're a regular and everybody knows them. Others are scared or hurt by it and leave. And yet more are scared or hurt but stay anyway to try and rough it out, but they never learn to cope with our bullying. I think we should be more sympathetic to people who OBVIOUSLY don't know how to handle the bullying. Eventually they'll get the hang of how we roll by observing what we say to each other, and may be they will pick it up and bully fellow members themselves and receive some friendly bullying of their own. But until we know somebody is comfortable and able to handle themselves here, may be we should lay off a bit.
I mean, if one of the regulars made a stupid topic about "omfgosh is the chat broken or full?" I would FULLY SUPPORT that we all tear into them like crazy, because they should know better. The newbs however, need reminding of the rules, and harassment and bullying is not a positive way to make them learn.
Comment