Not sure where else to put this.

Yeah, I see where you're coming from with that; I just see it used really frequently to dodge responsibility.

I think it's definitely better in vent threads than in, say, the middle of a race-focused discussion in tumblr.txt. Personally, I tend to take it on kind of as case by case thing; I can believe there are situations where people genuinely need that reassurance, and still acknowledge that racism white privilege exists and be aware of that. I get a lot less sympathetic at posts that sound a lot like "Black activists are so mean and aggressive and made a joke about seasoning food :("...basically, posts that put responsibility on poc for those issues.

 

Yeah, that's fair! I will say that systemic racism in the US can't go POC towards white people, but that doesn't mean certain things can't be prejudiced. But also, that's definitely a case by case basis and if someone is being a jerk to me because I am white it's a lot easier for me to step away from them.

 

This is exactly what I mean by "prioritizing white mental health over the mental health of people of color."
Yes, this involves scrupulosity, and yes that is a legitimate mental health concern, but scrupulosity or not its' going to present the same way and have the same mental health impacts on a person of color with triggers or baggage around white guilt.
Conflicting mental health needs aren't pretty, and there is rarely a good solution, but I feel confident saying that a solution that consistently prioritizes and addresses the (legitimate!) mental health needs of white people over the equally legitimate needs of people of color is a pretty bad solution.

 

...but I'm talking about vent threads. Which are for people to vent in and sling around stuff that would be otherwise triggering on other parts of the site. When people talk about triggering things for me in their vent threads, I avoid those threads. I don't understand how going 'hmmm, maybe this should be kept to vent threads because this seems legitimately triggering' is me prioritizing white mental health over the mental health of people of color?? Because it's me going 'yeah, people need to be considerate and not derail conversations about race with this whether or not they're experiencing intrusive thoughts'.

In what you quoted I even said

I wasn't justifying the effect that has just because it's coming from a place of mental illness and good intentions. Shit hurts!

Edited to condense into one post.

 

ah, didn't catch that you were talking solely about vent threads, i was reading "vent threads are better but sometimes someone just has a mental health crisis all over a race discussion and needs help there"
I was gonna add a thing about vent threads being a more appropriate space but decided not to because a) length and
b) i'm still concerned that even in vent threads this could wind up in a lot of "white people being reassured it's okay to be white," like @local troublemaker said, in a way that reinforces white fragility and white guilt spirals rather than trying to get people to a place that they can engage in or receive racial critique without breaking down
the latter may not be possible without professional help, but I don't think it's unreasonable to worry about reinforcing a pattern of "fragile feeling of it being okay to be white/any discussion of race or racism breaks that/white guilt spiral/reassurances that reestablish fragile feeling of it being okay to be white (if you're not called on to think too much about race)"
that is not strictly "prioritizing the mental health of white people over the mental health of people of color," though, it's a different problem

 

Yeah. I was just a bit upset bc I'm pretty sure we're agreeing about this so I was confused as to where we weren't agreeing. If someone is having a mental health crisis they should get the help they need somewhere where it isn't going to be derailing and triggering.

 

@Wiwaxia Low on spoons, but I just wanna say you're phrasing this really well and agreed.

 

YES. THIS. this is exactly what I'm saying. there's a problem and there's a reasonable solution: the line needs to be drawn when the person has asked everyone to stop and that's been ignored. that's when a mod needs to lock the thread. maybe not a permanent lock, but putting a hold on the conversation so that the person who is distressed can take time for self-care w/o having to worry about what's being said about them in that argument thread in their absence.

also, about the racial stuff, it's kinda glaringly obvious that it just isn't discussed much outside of tumblr.txt and even then it's only to make fun of something someone said, rather than to actually engage w the issue. and I get that that's the point of tumblr.txt, but the fact that that's one of the few places the topic comes up at all is kinda concerning. and I get that I'm kinda weird in my own experience of race (so white I glow in the dark, but once I do something Jewish suddenly I'm not? even tho my parents converted and my ancestry is as white as mayo on white bread) but not having the discussion at all is weird and all kinds of unhealthy

 

YES. If there was a discussion that caused the meltdown, people can come back to that later. There is literally no point in trying to Logic at someone when they're having a screaming breakdown.

I feel like a Lot of the conversation about racism here happens in tumblr.txt and it's screenshots of white people jokes and people being angry (dare I say, venting...) It ends up coming off...badly, to say the least.

 

I know that locking threads temporarily was suggested for people having trouble before. I think it was generally agreed on as a good idea, but I don't remember the thread it was in, and can't check to know for sure, but it has been discussed before. We also discussed adding more mods in that thread, because the issues prompting it happened during a blank space in mod coverage.

 

Expanding mod team might be helpful there, if mods agree that thread-locking is a good approach; I don't think we could really make A Rule that you have to stop responding if people are distressed, but I think it would be good to keep discussing that as an approach.

 

The problem with the thread locking solution is that if people really want to go at it, they will start new threads. And, if the problem happens in a general-purpose thread, then folks who hang out in that thread posting on other topics no longer can post.

What you will create is a milieu where people will ride the report button in order to silence others with whom they disagree. This is a consistent pattern.

 

in theory, this would only happen in argument island threads, bc those are the ones that are most likely to end in meltdowns. in reality, the mods will have to exercise discretion in figuring out if a thread needs to be locked no matter where it is. but then, they already do that, we just don't notice it bc threads generally only get locked when they hit 1000 pages. so the guideline I'm asking for here isn't actually a new thing, it's just a clarification of existing procedure

also, I'm calling bad logic on this, rigs. if your reason for not doing a thing is "assholes might abuse this," well, a sufficiently motivated asshole will abuse any system. that's not the system's fault, that's the asshole's

 

I have yet to see people circumvent a thread lock on here. I recognize it's possible but like grim said, that's an asshole move and unlikely anyway.

 

Like @thegrimsqueaker and @prismaticvoid have said, I don't really see this applying outside of TCHGB. So far, I don't think I've seen anyone here make a new thread to continue argument after a thread has been locked; if someone did try to continue argument after thread locking, which is a strong signal of "drop the discussion", it would be pretty clearly antagonistic and would likely result in either social pressure to stop, more thread locking or (likely temporary) account freezing as mods have done before for accounts made to circumvent moderation.

 

Freezing threads isn't a shutdown for assholes.

It is a minor speedbump that slightly delays the continuation of the conversation. The extra 15 seconds of creating a new thread and giving it a title are enough for some of us to go "oh, wait, it's frozen for a reason, to give us the chance to cool down, and come to think if it I also agree with that reason, how about I just don't make this thread right now."

 

Apparently my username is accurate now.

 

Ehh, the trouble was already there. Better to brush off the hiding mud and point at it then let it fester.