Ethics

[Aliasi Stonebender]

Actually it's quite simple to reduce the proportion of personal attacks. Reducing these attacks is actually up to the person who is being attacked, not the one who does the attacking. All the target needs to do is to acknowledge to herself that the words of the attacker do not describe her. That simple acknowledgement and refusal to accept someone else's definition of one's "personhood" is all it takes for one to be able to simply ignore gratuitous personal attacks, especially in forum postings. And there is nothing more effective at killing a nasty thread than a complete lack of responses. After all, to have any kind of dispute you need two sides, eh?

I agree entirely with Cindy on this. The ONLY way to defeat trolling on any public forum is to ignore the troll. Fortunately, we have many channels of communication which we can use to maintain our web of community, so despite assertions to the contrary, a trolling post DOES NOT need to be responded to in order to maintain ones honor and integrity. As Cindy points out, the fastest way to de-effectualize a trolling post is if there is utterly no response.

I don't entirely agree, based on my own long experience. In principle, it would be nice if it worked that way... but then you have folks like Anonymous, of /b/ fame. Folks who, if you ignore them, simply seek to make a bigger noise.

[Cindy Ecksol]

Actually it's quite simple to reduce the proportion of personal attacks. Reducing these attacks is actually up to the person who is being attacked, not the one who does the attacking. All the target needs to do is to acknowledge to herself that the words of the attacker do not describe her. That simple acknowledgement and refusal to accept someone else's definition of one's "personhood" is all it takes for one to be able to simply ignore gratuitous personal attacks, especially in forum postings. And there is nothing more effective at killing a nasty thread than a complete lack of responses. After all, to have any kind of dispute you need two sides, eh?

I agree entirely with Cindy on this. The ONLY way to defeat trolling on any public forum is to ignore the troll. Fortunately, we have many channels of communication which we can use to maintain our web of community, so despite assertions to the contrary, a trolling post DOES NOT need to be responded to in order to maintain ones honor and integrity. As Cindy points out, the fastest way to de-effectualize a trolling post is if there is utterly no response.

I don't entirely agree, based on my own long experience. In principle, it would be nice if it worked that way... but then you have folks like Anonymous, of /b/ fame. Folks who, if you ignore them, simply seek to make a bigger noise.

On these forums no one is anonymous, so that ought not to be an issue. At the very least we could significantly improve the quality of our conversations here by staying centered on what we know is the truth and ignoring those who are trying to goad us into defending ourselves from some ridiculous allegation or other.

CIndy

[Rose Springvale]

This thread has veered far and wide from the subject matter that was the point of the RA directive. That point was to clarify conflict of interest and violation of ethical rules so that there is an objective community understanding of what those are. WHEN is there a conflict of interest, and what ethics apply?

For example, I've personally been accused many times in the past weeks of being "impolite" ...which frankly feels sexist to me. Having battled that particular dog in real life for more years than I'm going to share with this forum, i will simply remind you all that there are cultural differences of what "manners" are and when they are appropriate. The same "courtesy" that applies to a dinner party has no place in professional conversations. Classifying people as "ladies" or "gentlemen" is offensive and in my opinion very much out of place in our discussions. Finally, your country's understanding of appropriate behavior may not be the same as mine, and while I won't presume that "mine" are better, you should not expect me to treat "yours" as better either. Part of this experiment is learning to work together outside of cultural differences, and it takes all of us to tolerate those differences. And i'm pretty sure NO one will respond well to negative labels.

Conflict of interest is a legal term of art. To see what constitutes a conflict of interest, I'll direct you to whatever traditional definitional sources you think appropriate. Or you can read the officially adopted conflicts policy of VDI. But what is NOT a conflict of interest is having someone in a CDS job that you don't like. This is a democracy, and all of us are equal under the law, per the UDHR. When you try to carve out exceptions to that, you need to be able to prove actual conflict, not just sling mud. And bringing up a perceived conflict "after the fact" smacks of sour grapes, regardless of who the target is.

Ethics are something that lawyers, yes, U.S. lawyers, take very seriously. It's very popular among some people to bad-mouth lawyers based on some supposed experience they've had, or worse "heard" about. Are some lawyers unethical? sure. So are some doctors, teachers, priests and babysitters. It doesn't speak well for our community to let such generalizations, which are clearly not applicable to the majority of ANY profession, go undefended on these official forums.

I have trouble coming up with something truly unethical that can apply to CDS politics. So I challenge you to come up with clear, objective standards and illustrate clear objective application of those standards. Reputations of communities and individuals should be based on facts, not innuendo.

Disagree? let's discuss the idea. But this gossipy discussion of who said what to whom, who lied, who called who names... etc.etc. etc., does an injustice to our whole community.

[Arias Ahren]

Fortunately it is very easy to document things in Second Life. All that it takes is the courage and ethical fortitude to allow the things we have said to be posted and scrutinized. Ethics has many elements. One of them should be honesty.

[Rose Springvale]

Fortunately, what is said to individuals in private conversations, or not, as the case may be, is not the basis for policy in the CDS. All conversations have context, all conversations have background and undertones that are not part of the public domain. And EXACTLY the kind of gossip and innuendo that has no place in this discussion.

Welcome back Arias.

[Arias Ahren]

Rose, I am not really back. I am no longer attempting to build or develop my dreams in CDS. I have been reading these posts. I do think there are a number of good honest people in CDS. I care about them. I will never believe that truth equates with gossip and innuendo. There are many methods to establish truth. One of them, on a personal level, is to simply step forth and tell it.

[Rose Springvale]

i agree Arias. But really, it isn't about your opinion or my opinion. It is about OBJECTIVE rules that anyone can apply.

You are welcome in CDS, you have many friends here.

[Arias Ahren]

The real problem in CDS is getting anything done. After making the decision to try and resurrect Locus Amoenus one of my first resolves was to try and finish the walkways. About six weeks ago one of the older more knowledgeable citizens of CDS said they would help me do that. They said that they would go to the Guild and get the textures and ask for some guidelines. Despite my follow up inquiry that was the last I ever heard from them. In the early stages of developing the University I wrote to Moon, Sonja, and Arria with a general outline of my plan and asked that each provide some feedback. Both Sonja and Arria answered in detail. Moon replied that she would need a little time to give my plan some thought and would get back to me with details. That was four of five months ago and was the last time I heard from Moon. Unfortunately I believe that CDS is nurturing a number of dead ends right now.

[Rose Springvale]

This is appropriate forum material Arias, but will get more attention if you open a thread that deals with the subject matter. The moderators used to move these automatically, perhaps they will handle that for you. One thing that is often said is that democracy takes time. Group ownership is not the most efficient, but that's the essence of CDS and most of us are here for that shared experience.

[Arias Ahren]

I seriously doubt that any of these problems have anything to do with democracy or politics. Perhaps they do, but I suspect it is simply people not following through with the things that they say they are going to do. The bigger problem for me is when individuals of questionable character, having nothing to do with any electoral process or covenants are allowed to make determinations of appropriateness in a system where due process is non existent.