Recognizing and refraining from Interpersonal Disputes

[Theresa Tennyson]

11 hours ago, Sam1 Bellisserian said:

I think many times people forget that others are allowed to have an opinion and not be told it's wrong.  Much like feelings.

-Someone can be religiously and morally against abortion yet still support the freedom of others to do what they wish to their bodies.  

-Someone can believe that it's wrong for anyone to be anything other than male or female and still be opposed to those that have differing views being discriminated against, excluded or have hate crimes thrust upon them. They can accept your choices and still believe it's wrong.

What if the opinion is based and dependent on a statement of fact, which is incorrect?

[Love Zhaoying]

@Theresa Tennyson, you didn't ask me so I didn't quote you (to avoid common confusion). Aren't disagreements over "facts" vs. "opinions" a major source of conflicts (and potential cause of disputes)?

[Theresa Tennyson]

Just now, Love Zhaoying said:

@Theresa Tennyson, you didn't ask me so I didn't quote you (to avoid common confusion). Aren't disagreements over "facts" vs. "opinions" a major source of conflicts (and potential cause of disputes)?

Indeed.

People should also bear in mind that there's another level of "not having to reply to a post." You don't have to make a post that someone may reply to at all. I find it curious when people say, "I'm entitled to my opinion," but then they leave their opinions lying out for everyone and then get surprised when they get damaged.

[Love Zhaoying]

3 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

"I'm entitled to my opinion,"

The emphasized bit, even out of context, is gold!

[Theresa Tennyson]

3 hours ago, JuliaFina said:

If someone has the opinion I'm doing bad things and am a bad person for example, they are not allowed to post opinions like that on the forums here. It is against the TOS. (It's also defamation of character in rl and you can be sued for it)

 

And here's where you start getting the problems. Because that isn't defamation of character.

https://www.alllaw.com/articles/nolo/civil-litigation/defamation-character.html

[Rowan Amore]

There's this little arrow on quotes in the upper right corner (not screenshots btw) where anyone can go back and see what the quote was in response to.  Quite handy.  

So unless the person has gone back and edited the post the quote is responding to, one should be able to follow the conversation.  

[Silent Mistwalker]

4 hours ago, JuliaFina said:

Yes true. It's so sad what has happened to some young people bullied online. I think it's worse for some of the people with millions of followers. Those stories often end in a very bad way. I don't think young people can deal with the bullying like older people may be able to. 

I don't deal with it any better now than I did in grammar school. I'm the kid everyone bullied.

[Kalegthepsionicist]

5 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

CCC? Can you please tell what that means?

Che Guevara, Celine Dione, Cameron Diaz? 

cool, calm, and confident

 

https://lisamschabooks.com/books/cool-calm-and-confident/#:~:text=Cool%2C Calm%2C and Confident helps to stop the,and gives them the confidence to follow through.

Edited April 24, 2022 by Kalegthepsionicist

[Coffee Pancake]

1 hour ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

I don't deal with it any better now than I did in grammar school. I'm the kid everyone bullied.

Yeah .. being the kid that ended up terrified to go to school and leave school because there would be a gang waiting. staff knew. parents knew. 

"Toughen up and hit them back"

Turns out what doesn't kill you doesn't make you stronger, it leaves you scared for life.

[Luna Bliss]

7 hours ago, AnthonyJoanne said:

If you really want to understand a complex or important issue, you are going to have to do your own research. But very few people seem willing to do so these days.

As a result, I believe, we see people adopt positions which they cannot defend because they are actually uninformed on the subject at hand, and therefore their only option for response is personal attack.

And that is why, I think, we are seeing an increase in interpersonal disputes.

I agree, many are uninformed and don't see the complexity of issues as they fight on social media, but taking this a step further I don't believe they really want to be informed. They want something more important to them -- to be part of a tribe, and to be on the winning side. This strong desire causes them to filter any information that might lend nuance to the issue and causes them to choose the opinion of their tribe over any new information that might counter it. Their purpose on social media is not to be informed, but to experience the satisfaction of being on a winning side, to be victorious against 'the bad people' they blame for all their woes in life. It's really not much different than playing a video game for them.

I don't think this is a recent problem as history is full of battles between people who believe there must be winning sides, who believe that some have the right to dominate others and diversity be damned.

The hope for Democracy is very recent, if we're talking about the Western World. The pull is to return to the time of Kings, be it with crowns adorning their heads or money in place of them. We are ruled by oligarchs now, and our attempt to free ourselves from this unjust system is sinking fast.
Democracy is messy, very difficult to sort out who gets what. Much easier to believe you're on the winning side and follow the edicts of the strongman.

[Luna Bliss]

6 hours ago, AnthonyJoanne said:

7 hours ago, JuliaFina said:

No one should ever feel bullied on a forum anywhere.

I guess the problem is 'feel'. It seems that we (collectively, as a society) are spending more and more time worrying about people who 'feel' things ... regardless of whether or not it's rational for them to feel that.

I don't believe 'feeling' in and of itself is the problem.  How someone feels about a situation is just a way to say how someone is experiencing the situation, and the components of emotion and cognition are both a part of their assessment. Feelings inform cognition and are valuable in assessing any situation -- a problem only ensues when feelings are absent from cognition entirely, or when cognition has disappeared from feelings entirely, or when these two vital ways we apprehend reality are severely imbalanced.

Rather than 'feeling' per se being the problem, the trouble lies in the belief that how one experiences or feels about a situation is automatically right. It might be right, it might be wrong, but one always has to consider the experience of another when two are involved in a conflict.

Edited April 24, 2022 by Luna Bliss

[Orwar]

9 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

"Toughen up and hit them back"

   Never was a trouble when others bullied me. But when I hit back, suddenly there was a problem. 

[Luna Bliss]

7 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

There is a difference between "feeling" bullied (perception that someone is bullying you) and "being" bullied (someone deliberately intended to bully you).

There is the technical definition of bullying:
"Bullying is a subcategory of aggressive behavior characterized by the following three criteria: (1) hostile intent, (2) imbalance of power, and (3) repetition over a period of time.[2] Bullying is the activity of repeated, aggressive behavior intended to hurt another individual, physically, mentally, or emotionally".

But what most people mean when they say someone is bullying them is that they believe the other person is coming on too strong, being too forceful.
Barring extreme examples that are easier to define it's simply not easy to sort out, as what is "too strong" for one person is not so for another. And someone who has a blunt and/or assertive personality can easily be seen as coming on too strong and forceful.

[Fluffy Sharkfin]

20 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Yeah .. being the kid that ended up terrified to go to school and leave school because there would be a gang waiting. staff knew. parents knew. 

"Toughen up and hit them back"

Turns out what doesn't kill you doesn't make you stronger, it leaves you scared for life.

Children can be remarkably cruel, then they grow up and learn subtlety.  

[Kathlen Onyx]

7 hours ago, JuliaFina said:

Depends what the opinion is. If someone has the opinion I'm doing bad things and am a bad person for example, they are not allowed to post opinions like that on the forums here. It is against the TOS. (It's also defamation of character in rl and you can be sued for it)

I absolutely agree with you.  The same as if someone went to a club, dressed in lingerie and started spreading rumors in others IM's that someone was bullying them on a forum that they probably have no idea even exists.  I would definitely say that is defamation of character and against the TOS.  The only difference is that if that person were to sue them they could subpoena the chat records to prove such defamation actually happened unlike here where it's against the TOS to post chat logs.

[JuliaFina]

4 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

And here's where you start getting the problems. Because that isn't defamation of character.

https://www.alllaw.com/articles/nolo/civil-litigation/defamation-character.html

From the web site you linked:

"Defamation is typically defined as a false statement someone makes about you, which they publish as a statement of fact, and which harms your personal and/or professional reputation or causes you other damages, including financial loss and emotional distress.

Like posting someone did something which they did not do. 

[StarlanderGoods]

Just now, JuliaFina said:

From the web site you linked:

"Defamation is typically defined as a false statement someone makes about you, which they publish as a statement of fact, and which harms your personal and/or professional reputation or causes you other damages, including financial loss and emotional distress.

Like posting someone did something which they did not do. 

You have to prove damages.

[Rowan Amore]

2 minutes ago, StarlanderGoods said:

You have to prove damages.

You also have to prove they SAID what you're claiming is defamation.  Posting quotes of what was said is not that.  

Some people just get salty when they've said something then someone quotes it so they can't go back, edit it and say they never said it.

[Kathlen Onyx]

1 minute ago, Rowan Amore said:

You also have to prove they SAID what you're claiming is defamation. 

Wouldn't that be stupid to claim something happened if there was no way to prove it, whether proving it would be against the TOS or not?  I think so.

[Silent Mistwalker]

40 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Yeah .. being the kid that ended up terrified to go to school and leave school because there would be a gang waiting. staff knew. parents knew. 

"Toughen up and hit them back"

Turns out what doesn't kill you doesn't make you stronger, it leaves you scared for life.

Yeah right. Hit them back and guess who is the one that gets into trouble if you manage to survive the beating from the bullies. I grew up living with a bully.

Not only does it leave you scarred for life, it destroys all trust in other humans.

[JuliaFina]

As the mods posted several times "Just to reinforce (the) message, interpersonal disputes should not be conducted in these forums.  Take it to IMs or something." That's the adult thing to do. Get in IM's and work it out like the mods suggested. Talking it out is always the best option. I had someone mad at me once and we talked it out and are now best friends!

Edited April 24, 2022 by JuliaFina

[Luna Bliss]

In my experience some people deserve the ire they've drawn to them, yet they claim they are victims.

It's a terrible pattern. And does make disputes on forums so hard to manage.

[Rowan Amore]

 

8 minutes ago, Sam1 Bellisserian said:

Wouldn't that be stupid to claim something happened if there was no way to prove it, whether proving it would be against the TOS or not?  I think so.

Posting it in the forums, yes.  That would be against ToS.  However, reporting it to LL or taking it to RL court?  They'd still need to prove what was actually said, not what they inferred from a post.

[Kathlen Onyx]

9 hours ago, JuliaFina said:

Totally changed the meaning and intent of what was posted by showing only the response and not what was being responded to.

 

28 minutes ago, Sam1 Bellisserian said:

I absolutely agree with you.  The same as if someone went to a club, dressed in lingerie and started spreading rumors in others IM's that someone was bullying them on a forum that they probably have no idea even exists.  I would definitely say that is defamation of character and against the TOS.  The only difference is that if that person were to sue them they could subpoena the chat records to prove such defamation actually happened unlike here where it's against the TOS to post chat logs.

15 minutes ago, JuliaFina said:

Yea as the mods posted several times "Just to reinforce (the) message, interpersonal disputes should not be conducted in these forums.  Take it to IMs or something." That's the adult thing to do. Get in IM's and work it out like the mods suggested. Talking it out is always the best option. I had someone mad at me once and we talked it out and are now best friends!

Yes, you can't complain that other people take posts out of content and then turn around and do the same thing yourself.

 

Edited April 24, 2022 by Sam1 Bellisserian

[JuliaFina]

  Personal disputes should be taken to IM's not posted in forums imho. But I'm beating a dead horse now lol. 

Edited April 24, 2022 by JuliaFina