Harm/emotional discourse 

Something I've noticed a lot lately is that there's been a lot of folks navigating harm (to them) who are themselves causing harm as they navigate it

I hope awoo is a good place for this - but the latest thing that happened has left me questioning and wanting to do better

But y'all- and not just awoo.space- let's do good to try to recognize when someone is harmed even if it's bc of their subjective experience and not your fault- and help em heal if we can

This is actually kind of important to me, friends - if you have the spoons I would appreciate the read

Build the world you want to live in, right?

@vahnj I read it, and I was going to ask if there was a specific instance that happened with which somebody needed help. Then I figured that if you wanted to highlight specifics, you would have, so I... just sort of processed this as "uh-oh, something bad happened and I really hope everybody's okay, but I've clearly missed something bad and somebody's probably hurting right now."

@literorrery it's been more than one and I tried to let folks cool a little before trying to jump right into it

Harm/emotional discourse 

@vahnj I'm not sure how I can help with this since I can't think of instances where I've seen this occur...

Harm/emotional discourse 

@PaulFerence don't worry - it's just something to consider, is all

Harm/emotional discourse 

@vahnj What form does it take? Is it lashing out or not using a content warning or something else? What should I do if I see it done?

Harm/emotional discourse 

@PaulFerence say for instance person A reacts really strongly over something person B says, even if A put it behind a CW

user B might cause problems for user A, or do something administrative to take action against user A

now, other folks jump on user A bc they went too far

who's in the wrong here? who harmed whom?

it's important to recognize B's stuff might not be objectively harmful- and that it may have been them navigating their personal harm - and (1/2)

Harm/emotional discourse 

@PaulFerence user A's reaction similarly may be coming from a place of harm as well- their reaction is due to something done to them in the past

it's important to acknowledge willful harm vs. the harm of existing/communicating

even if everybody can't get along- we can at least try to peaceably navigate this, and individuals may end up being harmful if there's no solution- which is OK. but at least boundaries are navigated and respected

Harm/emotional discourse 

@vahnj *nods* Okay, I think I understand now. Thanks for explaining.

Harm/emotional discourse 

@vahnj you do a staggering amount of emotional labor here and I really see and appreciate it. It makes this place wonderful for me.

Harm/emotional discourse 

@vahnj This is an important but difficult topic. I've recently been badly burned from a similar situation. >..<

When one party is harmed by another unintentionally and lashes out at them as though that harm were intentional, you end up with two hurt parties, a lot of blame being assigned, and few paths to resolution.

I think the solution to that problem is a well established path for authoritative mediation, but that requires full cooperation & trust from both parties.

Harm/emotional discourse 

@mawr it also requires a community that's open to navigating harm- which is super hard to do, because publicly admitting harm historically leads to more harm from others, which has been especially true on twitter (a similar format to here)

so like- i get that this is hard- but i want us to at least think about it, and try

Harm/emotional discourse 

@vahnj @mawr The larger a community gets, the harder this becomes. Sometimes, people need space from those who have harmed them, intentionally or not. I think that's one of the upsides of mastadon, is that we can have separated communities. These little microcommunities are vital to feeling free to navigate harm safely, I feel

Harm/emotional discourse 

@vahnj Fully agreed on all fronts.

The best thing I can offer as advice here is to establish that as a firm guideline/policy and set it as a clear expectation so that later attempts to guide those situations into mediation aren't seen as potentially acting in bad faith.

Speaking from personal experience.

Harm/emotional discourse 

@mawr well- that's exactly the kind of thing our CoC is set up to do :)

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