I usually don't comment on the complaint threads, but I'd like to put on a hat different from what I usually do. I'm head of an organization with a volunteer staff of 7 (and growing) that is active in running two support groups in two states, and tend to find myself in the role of consultant for all the new groups that pop up in the DC/MD/NoVA area. And when I say "all," I do mean literally every single one that has started in the last two years. So I'd like to don my support group organizer/adviser hat for a moment and talk about how support groups work and try to apply that to a big site like this. I hope I can make this pretty generic and hopefully not overstep . . . I'm going to try.
Quote from: Jill F on March 04, 2014, 03:35:23 PM
Being transgender is one of the toughest obstacles anyone can face. We are prone to anxiety, depression and a suicide rate that is off the chart. There is a large segment of the population that would like to see us dismissed and marginalized, and another segment that would take it even further than that. Sometimes these ignorami turn out to be completely entwined within our lives, and because of that, there are some of us rely on this place for therapeutic healing, love, support, a break from a horrible reality or a shoulder to cry on. For me, it is mostly fear of the unknown that brings me here. The uncharted waters of transitioning and the feeling of flying blind can be a bit unnerving. I don't know what lies ahead for me, and flying by the seat of my pants is something I only have done on a guitar thus far. Transition can be scary, and hearing from people who have been there and done that can really help settle my nerves.
Lately I have noticed a change of atmosphere here that I have found unsettling. We've lost a lot of good people lately to the negativity, and I don't like the way things have been going either. I personally think this place should be kept positive, safe and always make you feel better when you leave.
I agree with you that this place should be safe. As you discuss very eloquently in your opening paragraph, trans* people are prone to depression, anxiety, suicide and a host of other maladies. They need a place to put those things, to talk about them, to think through them with the help of others, and just to be able to feel it without being alone. Sometimes there are losses and there is just a need to cry. When you have that going on, it is not realistic to think that the space will always be positive or always make you feel better when you leave. For that reason, I disagree that this place should always be positive and make you feel better. The fact that one can come here and sometimes almost hear the tears in people's voices when you read their writing means it's working. And because it's working, you can't always expect to leave feeling better.
It's also to be expected that people come and go. One of the big problems I see in the local support groups is that they are populated by people who come and who have been coming for years and years and years. As a result, they are closely knit circles that don't do very well at taking in newcomers. And they don't really do support anymore either. They are more like social clubs. If you want to go have a good time, go to those groups. They are kind of recreational. If you need a shoulder to cry on, or you are suicidal, or you just don't know what to do, then come to the ones my org runs. We do support instead of recreation. It's not very good recreation as a rule. And when people don't need us anymore, they tend to move on. And that's good.
Quote from: Jill F on March 04, 2014, 03:35:23 PM
Lately it has had mostly the opposite effect on me. Too often I find myself more wound up, sad and angry because of just a handful of you who like to stir things up, bicker and one-up each other. Sadly, I have even found myself viewing the fray and being so flabbergasted that I even found the need to chime in a few times. There are plenty of places on the internet to do this, and I'd prefer this place to be somewhere where one can take a breather from that sort of thing. We need to stick together for a big group hug here, not become more polarized and divided over crap like politics, religion or even whom is more trans*. Again, there's plenty of places to be a fanatic on the internet and I feel this really should not be one of them.
This, however, is a problem because it violates the "safe" part above. And it's a serious problem.
I do know what you mean. I seem to have my own person who likes to get not-so-subtle digs in at me whenever possible and I have had some experience with the bullies too. As a consequence. I don't feel safe to talk about my own issues anymore and many of the topics I started that people seem to most appreciate are topics that I genuinely regret having started at all. I haven't posted a thread in quite a while now and it's not because I have nothing I'd like to put forward for discussion. It's because I'm pretty committed to opening my vulnerable sides up as little as possible. But yet the bullies need support and space too.
At the end of the day, in a support space, protecting the safety of the space has to be paramount. Balancing that with the need to provide safe space to everyone who needs it can be a facilitator's nightmare. People often act out because they need the support, and you can't make the need and desire to obtain support into a bad thing. But at the same time, if someone is being disruptive and damaging the safe space for everyone else, that person is a threat to the integrity of the entire space. So you try to solve the problem in a way that is as gentle as possible.
Quote from: Jill F on March 04, 2014, 03:35:23 PM
We do have a few really good moderators here, mind you, but clearly there are not enough of them to go around.
I think this site has some of the better moderation that I've seen, but yes there are too few. I suspect that the moderators know that. It takes an awful lot of people to moderate a site this big. And keeping them all uniform in their understanding of how to moderate is difficult. For example, the fact that Susan's has numerous rules makes it complicated to keep track of what the rules are. If I could offer two suggestions for addressing this, I think they would be:
(1) Simplify. The rules are very complicated and some of them don't even appear to be written, which makes it hard for people to know about them and follow them. But if you make it simple and easy to know the rules, then that can make a moderator's job easier and a single moderator can cover more ground.
(2) Don't be afraid to ask for help. As far as I can see, all the staff positions at Susan's require a person to apply for them. That's fine. But if the staff sees someone who would be a good moderator/links administrator/whatever else, then talk about it among yourselves and ask them! This may, of course already be happening without me knowing.
Quote from: Jill F on March 04, 2014, 03:35:23 PM
My last issue I will bring up is the +/- reputation system. It means different things to different people here and it never seems to be used consistently. For this reason, I believe it to be de facto meaningless and even potentially dangerous. Because of that I have never once hit up or down to anyone. Were there posts that I found helpful or meaningful? Absolutely. Hundreds, in fact. Were there posts I found insulting, offensive or just plain wrong? You bet. I shoot from the hip, I tell it like it is, and if you like it, great, if you don't, well, hit the -1 on me. It means nothing to me in the end. I have developed a pretty thick skin over my lifetime, and I am thankfully still here because I was able to summon that strength. What I fear is that due to the fact so many of us are very fragile, on the brink of ending it all and even already completely broken, a -1 could someday be the last straw that leads to a suicide. I would really hate to see someone silenced forever over flak from an ill-conceived post. I could also start using the system to illustrate how farcical it can be.
As my signature block makes clear, I do not like the reputation system. I have two different feelings about it. On the one hand, it's a silly little thumbs up or thumbs down thing that is annoying in the way that an insect buzzing around my ear is annoying. But not a big deal.
But looking at this from a support and safe space perspective, I think it is a very big deal. One big thing about safety is creating a space that is free of judgment. I can find no other way to interpret the reputation system than a system of judgment. If a person is raising a question that is meaningful and touches on things you care about, give them a +1. If a person raises an issue that you don't think is important, then no matter how important that issue is to the person, you can just give them a -1. If someone states an opinion that you disagree with, give them a -1. If someone tells a truth you don't want to hear, give them a -1. Basically we complain a lot about judgmental people, but we set up a system specifically for being judgmental. The reputation system is wholly incompatible with safe space and being judgment free. In that way, it is a really big deal in a bad way.
I cannot think of any sort of positive for the system.
And I'm a person with a lot of +'s compared to my number of totals. And I know I'd have a lot more if not for my signature block. But that's okay. My words can speak for me. I don't need someone else to + me. If what I have to say is at all useful, then people will figure it out soon enough on their own.
Quote from: Jill F on March 04, 2014, 03:35:23 PM
TL;DR I want to exchange warm fuzzies here, not cold pricklies. If things continue like they are, I'm going to need to pack it up and go. There are many of you whom I will miss dearly, but if the negativity outweighs the positive, I cannot in good conscience hang around much longer.
For what it's worth, Susan's is the best trans* support site that I know of. It has room for improvement. So do all places. So do the support groups I'm involved in running. That's okay. I hope that I've done a bit to offer some ways in which improvement could happen so that we can take that step from discussing a problem to finding a solution. In that respect I hope I've been helpful.
