Posted by Emme on August 31, 2004, at 12:26:40
In reply to The real world vs. the uncivilised world, posted by partlycloudy on August 31, 2004, at 9:34:33
Hmm....at the risk of I don't know what, I think I'll go ahead and be honest. I like the warm and caring support here and I'd like to see more of it IRL. People here are very kind. I like giving people the benefit of the doubt and trying to help people in pain. I see it here and try to do it IRL. I also like the concept of steppping back from a confrontational situation and trying to move it to a more neutral place and to reach out to an angry person.
However...I have limits. I'm not talking about someone who has a moment of grouchy frustration. I mean when someone is being extremely and consistently unkind and combative, or repeatedly posting things that go beyond debate into hurtful.
The civility rules are fine most of the time. But occasionally I think they hinder us. There are times (rare) when treating someone too gently allows them to walk all over us. There are times when the "I" statements just don't reflect what's happening and I'd like to be able be more direct and say "YOU are being mean. What you're doing is completely unacceptable." Not brutal, just direct. I think that would be appropriate, but I know I can't do it and I know Dr.B would disagree with me. One could say that he's taking care of that by giving out PBCs and blocks. But I still feel frustrated.
I also think that often the best options is to simply walk away and ignore the situation so that it fades away. We've all got enough stress and pain in our lives that it's in our best interests to remove ourselves form an intense situation. I really hate to see the good folks here getting flamed.
Maybe I should have put this on admin. Not sure. I tried not to be unkind in this post and hope I didn't offent anyone. (Despite reading the civility guidelines several times and having been on this board for a while, sometimes I really don't know what's Dr. Bob considers okay and what's not.)
Emme
BTW, I've never actually known what the letters PBC stand for.
poster:Emme
thread:384648
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20040830/msgs/384760.html