np NP: Wednesday, May 25, 2016

[The Old Hack 2,448]

25 minutes ago, Cpt. Obvious said:

 One problem is that triggers are highly personal, so less common trigger subjects are easy to stumble on. When that happens I don't know anything better than take notes and try to avoid being an ass.

We have that much in common, then. This is really all about being considerate, and for me at least that often involves a certain amount of trial and error. :/

[hkmaly 490]

19 minutes ago, Scotty said:

38 minutes ago, Cpt. Obvious said:

(and I'm writing this blind as my broswer thinks white on white is perfectly fine when editing a post...)

It's not just you, I think it's the forums itself that's doing that, switching to source lets you see the text but you also see all the coding as well.

It's not the forum itself. It's whoever tried to make this forum have better than default color scheme. Now the colors looks better, but "few" thinks are hard to read. Simplest workaround is to edit the posts in source form - that one is not white on white.

Already complained in We Begin Anew topic, and not only me, but no reply yet.

[Matoyak 51]

2 hours ago, Cpt. Obvious said:

You cherry picked that a bit. The full text read:

The key parts here is "I usually don't do trigger warnings, but then I'm usually not discussing the most common trigger subjects." and "If I'm posting here though, you are not likely to find a trigger warning unless it's in a thread where some one expressively asked for it."

There were also the "I do also try to adapt to the local customs" which includes reading the forum rules and observing and learning from other posters and the moderators.

The way you worded that sentence meant it stood alone (and actually in contrast to the previous statements), and it came after talking about local customs. I assumed this meant you were unaware of the requirements on this forum.

[CritterKeeper 1,102]

On May 30, 2016 at 2:39 PM, Scotty said:

If someone doesn't want to go into details about a traumatic experience, I have no problem with it. But something as simple as "I've been through similar and so I don't enjoy this at all." is a lot easier to believe as genuine than "You suck for bringing up this subject matter!"

That's the whole point of trigger warnings, really -- to allow people to discuss sensitive subjects, yet provide a layer of protection for people who might be harmed by those discussions.  The alternatives would either be total censorship, not allowing discussion of those topics at all, or having discussions come up without any warning, potentially causing severe harm to people who have already been severely traumatized.  They're the opposite of saying you shouldn't bring up a subject!

On May 30, 2016 at 2:39 PM, Scotty said:

So basically whenever stuff like this appears on social media, I'm left wondering "are these people genuinely affected by this, or are they being trolls" and more often then not, I'm thinking that those that are vocal about something in this manner are all trolls and the ones that are truely affected by these issues are afraid to say anything out of fear they get lumped in with the trolls, which yes, I guess that does sound like I'm saying "trolls until proven not trolls", but it can be really difficult for me to see it any other way sometimes, and it does bother me that it's difficult.

There's an old and cynical saying, "Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity."  The version that would apply here is, perhaps, "Never attribute to malice what could be adequately explained by people genuinely needing protection."  Give people the benefit of the doubt.  You'll find you're living in a better world when you see it from that perspective.