Subject:
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I think we stepped in something.
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.admin.general
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Date:
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Tue, 7 Aug 2001 00:35:05 GMT
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G'day folks,
Note 1: I decided to compose this post because of the events
of late concerning Jesse Alan Long. If you don't want to read
something that will make your head hurt, skip this ;]
Note 2: I am not arguing with any actions that have been
or will be taken by LUGNET Admin against JAL. As Todd said
himself during the Moulton Affair(tm):
[paraphrasing, I couldn't find the post] "This is not a debate".
'Nuff said.
Note 3: This post is not about Jesse. Unfortunately, however,
I will be using him as an example. I apologize to Jesse to
this.
Note 4: I put this in this newsgroup because that's where I
feel it belongs. It's about LUGNET. If you think it should
be in off-topic.debate, you're missing the point :]
Note 5: My opinion since the first week of JAL's posts to LUGNET
were that we were being attacked by yet another "social engineer",
perhaps Moulton again. Like Selcuk, I too noticed too much
duplicity in JAL's posting style. Perhaps the real JAL was being
spoofed somehow. At any rate, I'm going to assume for this post
that my conispiracy theories are completely *false*.
On with the program...
~~~~~~~
Is it possible for people with "special needs" to be welcomed
into, and co-exist peacefully with, the LUGNET user community?
~~~~~~~
Loaded question, eh? ;]
When Jesse's first posts arrived, I thought he could be in one
of three categories:
1) He's a "troll", "social engineer", whetever.
2) He's a kid, telling a few fibs on the internet.
3) He has some behaviorial difficulties owing to a medical
condition.
Unfortunately I chose the "guilty-until-proven-innocent"
assumption: number 1).
Because of this I myself took part a little bit in some of
the fun made at Jesse's expense. Since that meant I was
violating my "don't-feed-the-trolls rule", I tried to keep it
to a minimum and drop it quickly.
I did however spend a lot of time early on laughing my butt off
over the exchanges between Jesse and others. I thought some of
them were absolutely hilarious. After a while though it became
very tiresome, mostly as the tone of the exchanges evolved for
the worse.
In the back of my mind a little voice was nagging me. It was
telling me that categories 2) and 3) above were still very
real possibilites. And probably more likely than assumption 1),
which I took.
I see a very key difference between category 1) and 2/3). The
first one is someone who is being disruptive by *intent*. It's
pre-meditated. The latter 2 cases are not. Whether that person
is being clueless, annoying, or even breaking some rules, it
represents the limits of behaviour that that person is able to
achieve currently in their life. While they may be able to
improve their behaviour to something a little more agreeable to
the rest of us, that change takes (relatively-speaking) a very
long time. Category 2 means the kid needs to continue maturing,
which obviously takes time. Category 3 means that person's
behaviour is decoupled from their age---their character may not
evolve at the same rate as the kid in 2. They may never attain
behavioural patterns that the rest of us find tolerable.
Had people on LUGNET assumed Jesse was in category 2, they probably
would have just ignored him if they weren't interested in
communicating with a kid, and likely wouldn't have made (as much)
fun at his expense. If his behaviour was still unacceptable, I'm
sure some off-line activity would take place. I believe those
under a certain age require parental consent to post here. Those
parents could be contacted in such a case.
But what of someone in category 3? If the person is left on
their own, well, we've seen what happens. Many of us have
variously categorized Jesse with degrees of "badness", assuming
that his "disruptions" were willful, and that he wasn't interested
in taking anyone's advice.
Well what if he *can't*? Maybe it's simply an unfortunate
truth for him. But it is not *intentional*, he just can't help it.
This has been bugging me for some time. And I do feel really
bad about the way things have gone down. I felt like saying to
a few people off-line, "hey, did you ever think that maybe...?",
but I chose to stay out of it.
I think many of us who frequent LUGNET are more than capable of
spotting someone who seems "different" somehow. We figure they
may be in one of the 3 categories above, but we just don't know
which one. Individually we all form different theories. And
that's where trouble starts.
I would like to see LUGNETers toss out some ideas about how
this could be handled in the future. Perhaps LUGNET Admin could
develop some SOPs (standard operating procedures <G>) for
"debugging" rare cases such as this. Contacting the poster
off-line, asking some questions, feeling them out to try to
assess which category they may be in. Perhaps move on to
requesting communication with a parent, etc. Communication like
that could very quickly flush out what the issue is. And
then the other LUGNET users could be made aware of this somehow,
and tactfully, such that they exercise a little more patience
and tolerance in that special user's regard. I dunno, maybe
they even have a little brick appear next to their name on
posts (web-interface only, I know), or whatever. Just something
that hopefully would make difference.
I would hate to think that LUGNET, a site devoted to a bunch of
people who like LEGO, could end up being accused of not being
tolerant and understanding of those with special needs. Remember,
in written communication the poster can conceal every single
difference that may bring prejudice from others except
one: their mind, with its various limitations.
I look forward to hearing comments.
Peace,
KDJ
_______________________________________
LUGNETer #203, Windsor, Ontario, Canada
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Message has 3 Replies:
 | | Re: I think we stepped in something.
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| (...) You bring up a very interesting question. Online situations unfortunately have an serious handicap in human relations in that you don't get any visual or verbal clues. In another online forum, which is an adjunct to a face-to-face forum, I am (...) (23 years ago, 7-Aug-01, to lugnet.admin.general)
| | | Re: I think we stepped in something.
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| In lugnet.admin.general, Kyle D. Jackson writes: <snipped for brevity, not for quality> (...) <more snippage, but still good stuff...go read it> (...) Kyle, You bring up some good, thought-provoking points here. I can tell you really have been (...) (23 years ago, 7-Aug-01, to lugnet.admin.general)
| | | Re: I think we stepped in something.
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| I'll reply to this, but really without considering Jesse at *all*. I agree that this should be an issue, on some level... (...) You could say so, yes... (...) Right. I think one of the three applies to every single case I can think of (which aren't (...) (23 years ago, 7-Aug-01, to lugnet.admin.general)
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