Speaking Up for Once

Difficult to draw a line in the sand. Where does passion stop and trolling begin? Personally, if I disagreed passionately or vehemently, I would criticise the subject not the person. Following this simple guideline, I would support your right to free speech, no matter what your opinion is...

Melissa asks:

Have you personally ever felt belittled here? ~yes~
Have you ever felt your opinion to be discounted because your belief system happens to be in the minority? ~yes~
Have you ever considered blasting someone for their blatant insensitivity and then resisted it as not worth the effort, knowing it would only inflame things more? ~yes~

... which is why I only sporadically frequent this tribe these days ... sometimes it depends on the feel of the question and how the responses are going ... but really, I'm not in here much anymore ...

Have you personally ever felt belittled here? no. even if that was the intention

Have you ever felt your opinion to be discounted because your belief system happens to be in the minority? sure

Have you ever considered blasting someone for their blatant insensitivity and then resisted it as not worth the effort, knowing it would only inflame things more? sure again

contention isn't really all that sexy, imo

I regularly feel that I am ridiculed here, more than on any other tribe I belong to and certainly more than I ever am in "real life" even when I'm among people who heartily disagree with my views. Online people accuse me of all sorts of emotions and aggressions that it would be obvious I am not displaying were we face-to-face. It's easy to dismiss people and their opinions when they aren't standing in front of you.

I think anyone can say they felt offended and also be told they too have offended and marginalized people. I actually see some posters on this thread who fit that description and they probably think I do as well. I just don't take it personally anymore unless its obvious I'm personally being targeted. If its about the issue, its not about me. If someone starts making blatant assaults on my character, that's a different story.

There is no limit on the subject matter to be discussed in either tribe, so I'm not sure what the deal is with that issue.

if someone feels strongly enough about this to be up front with a post, my guess is that there is some work that needs to be done. This has always in my experience been a well-moderated tribe, but no moderator is online 100% of the time, and everyone in the tribe should make sure they are sticking within the guidelines set - they are pretty straightforward. a lot of the recent topics haven't caught my interest, so I haven't been reading through them, and may have missed a lot of what this is about.

The only thing I'm not fond of is the "winning makes it right" debate style. You see it not so much here. But here a little, too, I suppose. I've seen college professors do it. It's aim is not to consider or understand another's viewpoint, but to denigrate it in any way possible in order to advance one's own. Sometimes martial metaphors are used, so that you can't tell if you're observing a conversation or an old-timey midievil jousting tourney.

Not to be confused with the "devil's advocate" school, which is sort of like the court-appointed attourney of lost causes, but still usually pretty bland and genial.

Or the pessimistic school, which when faced with any decision or issue asks questions like, "why won't it work?" or , "what's the worst that could happen?"

One of the first problems with free speech is folks labor under the belief that they have the right not to be offended. There is no such right.

The placing of excessive rules can have a chill effect on discussion, so if we wish to have a free flow of ideas and discussion then we also have to take a good dose of noise along with it.

Miele wrote:
>"If I wanted to hear religion bashing, I would go to a tribe specifically designed for that. If I wanted to hear George Bush or Hilary Clinton slammed, I would visit a politics tribe. If I wanted to view ass-to-mouth bukkake porn, I would search it out myself, not look for a link here."

If ya look at the title of the tribe you will find the word *anything* guess what Ass to mouth bukkake porn falls under that as does religion bashing and politics.

The problem becomes who's pet peeves get the axe. You could extend the examples to everyone's pet irritations like perhaps as a reader I don't want to hear about motherhood, children, judeo Xian religions... ad nauseum So where do ya draw the line... Too many lines ya have a dead tribe.

JSin

Gawdammmiitt, Miele.... why do you have to be so effing right all the time!? Sheesh, I'm so sick of it, just spouting off and going on like that. Ladies, are you gettin' a load of what she's spewing here? See how she is?? Remember back when I told you all she'd get like this... Am I right or Am I right, hmmm? Ugh, makes me wanna throw up a little. See, I told you!

LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

Oh Miele my dear..... I love how you expressed this. And if you have experienced this, then it needed to be said, as a reminder to all of us.

I have not been slammed personally, but many of my friends have. My tendency is to back out and just Not Contribute to the drama but unfortunately that spills over into avoiding it altogether and sometimes results in not interacting with others much at all for fear of the drama bubbling up. I have had urges to blast someone, but I'd probably flub it as this is not my nature. Instead yes I usually try to ignore it and use my energy somewhere else with a more positive return on investment.

And btw, the effort it took to comment on this thread is yielding some nice energy. >;))

I have been thinking about this. I wanted to sort some things out for myself and read through everything and let it sit for a bit. I still have more sorting to do but Here is what I'm thinking about right now maybe I'll give something you guys can think about and you guys will give me some stuff to think about more too.

first it occurred to me that this happens every time I let a bunch of people into the tribe...and maybe that explains part of why I hate going in and dealing with the requests to join. But it does, every time I go in there and let a bunch of people in it is like a current of cold water running into our warm little pool. and then after awhile it stabilizes again. We get to know the new people and get their vibe better, we express and model the kind of communication we want and things settle back down with some new energy and new contributions. I just let like 80 people or something in a week or week and a half ago. I have that many left in the requests to join right now that I need to deal with...but I'm thinking I'd like to let things settle down first.

Also I think that while sometimes there is someone who needs to be removed but generally that is someone who is trolling or who makes the women in here uncomfortable and unsafe. Creepy. Though I do care about the people in here feeling safe to express themselves without having someone make them feel attacked or put down about their feelings. I want to know when people are not feeling safe and I want to make it better. People feeling safe to express themselves is one of my Top priorities in here. It can be a hard thing to manage when people feel unsafe to express themselves because of other people's passion on a subject as opposed to someone being abusive. That is just the hardest line I can think of to try to police.

I always like to try to make changes in here by having the amazing people in here be the change they want to see. If you would like more topics that are less explicit then post some. If you would like people to be respectful then be respectful. If you would like more silly then take things less seriously and bring more silly. In the end this tribe is my garden. I'm not mother nature and I don't even really choose what seeds get planted in here I can only pull weeds occasionally and try to feed and water things I'd like to grow. I invite you all to plant what you'd like to grow. It won't all work, but in planting it and feeding what you'd like to grow the garden will end up as a reflection of the people who feed it.

I kind of miss the more personal questions. Like real issues someone is dealing with. But I think some of us are kind of jaded and respond so much with "it's all individual" in such a strong way that people don't r