harassment

Status
Not open for further replies.
RosaMagika said:
Why the general hostility towars him on the forum?
Because of *his* attitude.
Click to expand...

As I tried to explain it takes two to tango. He is hostile because of reasons I mentioned before. The crowd feeds of this hostility, because that is what crowds do. Things escalate. Brake the circle! Be a good human!

The thing to do is to not feed the evil god of hostility. You don't see me hostile towards him do you? No, I save my hostility for real assholes. Those wankers who really deserve it.

I presume Paul's main interest was in the beginning to discuss science. Of course forum dynamics have sometimes taken him away from this objective. Just like forum dynamics have taken me away from discussing science.

I think I had my first 1000 posts mostly only in the biology subforum. I hardly ever ventured out to places such as freethought, politics or religion. Now I spend most of my time in feedback, about members, SOF and the cesspool. They are rather safe forums with not so much chance of things getting out of hand, since I am bit of a drama queen myself.

In conclusion, the xev thread had nothing to do with how this all started. It was an end result.
 
Spuriousmonkey,


As I tried to explain it takes two to tango. He is hostile because of reasons I mentioned before. The crowd feeds of this hostility, because that is what crowds do. Things escalate. Brake the circle! Be a good human!

The thing to do is to not feed the evil god of hostility. You don't see me hostile towards him do you? No, I save my hostility for real assholes. Those wankers who really deserve it.
Click to expand...

I see your point.

But my policy is this: Once heavy words begin to fall, it makes little or no sense to continue the conversation, as the person who started with the insults or insinuations has thereby shown that they don't wish to keep the communication at a certain level of politeness. Just because someone called me a bad name, I don't think that I should call them a bad name in return; I withdraw. Because if we aren't willing to talk in a polite manner, then there's no point in talking -- this goes esp. for scientific discussions.


I presume Paul's main interest was in the beginning to discuss science. Of course forum dynamics have sometimes taken him away from this objective. Just like forum dynamics have taken me away from discussing science.
Click to expand...

I think that one should be a conscious communicator. This includes not pursuing a line of thought at all costs. When heavy words begin to fall, it is time to think about attitudes, and withdraw, if necessary. As continuing with a bad situation is a matter of clashing egos, not of clashing scientific ideas.


I think I had my first 1000 posts mostly only in the biology subforum. I hardly ever ventured out to places such as freethought, politics or religion. Now I spend most of my time in feedback, about members, SOF and the cesspool. They are rather safe forums with not so much chance of things getting out of hand, since I am bit of a drama queen myself.
Click to expand...

I think that one can find onself a "sewing circle" anywhere. And with these people, it is then fun and beneficient to communicate. Don't give up. :)


In conclusion, the xev thread had nothing to do with how this all started. It was an end result.
Click to expand...

I mentioned this thread as an example.
 
paulsamuel said:
but seriously, spurious has an excellent point that I was trying to subtly reveal to you all, i.e. that this invasion of privacy affects us all, and all of us can feel a little less safe (or free to express ourselves in our posts) thanks to WellCookedFetus
Click to expand...
What the fuck? "That this invasion of privacy affects us all"... did he fucking watch you in the bathroom? Exactly when did you loose privacy which you would have otherwise had? The ONLY outcome of this is that people now know who you are... but that sure as hell isn't the fault of whoever called you.

If it makes you feel less safe, that's because you were naive to begin with. People can easily track you down if you provide the kinds of details you did.

You can post whatever shit you want, but don't cry because of some undemonstrated "invasion of privacy".
 
Persol said:
What the fuck? "That this invasion of privacy affects us all"... did he fucking watch you in the bathroom? Exactly when did you loose privacy which you would have otherwise had? The ONLY outcome of this is that people now know who you are... but that sure as hell isn't the fault of whoever called you.

If it makes you feel less safe, that's because you were naive to begin with. People can easily track you down if you provide the kinds of details you did.

You can post whatever shit you want, but don't cry because of some undemonstrated "invasion of privacy".
Click to expand...
You're missing the point, John. There isn't an "ONLY outcome." There are more.

Since I was called at work, now that's 2 outcomes, which could possibly lead to more outcomes.

It's NOT my fault that he called me. I didn't tell him to call me, I didn't permit him to call me, I didn't force him to call me.

If one were to draw your conclusion out, then crime can be blamed on the naivete of the victims. That's pretty thin logic, John.
 
And nobody said that he can't call you.

Hell, I'm going to call you tommorrow... just to chat.
 
Zero said:
Good grief. The drama is still going on. :rolleyes:

paulsamuel, either take legal action or shut up.
Click to expand...
Other than the original post, I am merely responding, I am not perpetuating the thread. Please read the thread before accusing me.
 
I find it quite astounding that most of the responses to this incident have been to blame the victim.

Somebody said something along the lines of "A couple of phone calls isn't harassment". Sorry, but legally it is. Harassment is any unwanted attention from somebody who you'd rather not have contact with. The intention of the harasser does not matter, from a legal point of view - it is how the behaviour is perceived by the receiver of it that matters. If the behaviour is not wanted, but continues anyway, it is harassment, and it is legally actionable.

Is 2 phone calls enough? Well, generally the law says that the receiver of the calls should tell the person calling in clear terms that they do not wish to receive any more calls or other attention from the caller. Once the caller has been informed that their attention is unwanted, then if they persist in trying to make contact they are clearly harassing the person.

Would the behaviour that is the subject of this thread be legally actionable? Probably not, unless it occurs again.

But another question is: is this behaviour morally repugnant? Forget the legal status for a minute and think about it. How would you feel if you were called out of the blue by somebody on the forum who had taken a dislike to you in print but whom you had never met and knew only by a nickname? How would you feel if that person refused to identify himself (yes, it's almost always a male who does this kind of thing)?

paulsamuel may have been stupid to post personal details on the forum, but that in no way excuses this behaviour. Nobody deserves harassment. Nobody asks for it. Personally, I don't care how much you don't like another member of the forum. You have NO excuse for harassing them in "real life".

Anybody who thinks otherwise has rocks in their head.
 
paulsamuel said:
are you calling to harass me, John?
Click to expand...
Nope, just calling to say 'hello there... how are you today'.

I see you know how to search registries. Notice the rest of the info in there.... take note.
Once the caller has been informed that their attention is unwanted, then if they persist in trying to make contact they are clearly harassing the person.
Click to expand...
Well, that's the point. The person calling didn't seem to do anything 'bad', and wasn't told to stop calling. It wasn't unsolicited, as a previous relationship seems to have existed (even though we aren't 100% sure who it was).
ow would you feel if you were called out of the blue by somebody on the forum
Click to expand...
Who gives a shit? If you aren't going to stand by your words you shouldn't be making your identity known. If they refuse to identify themselves, tell them not to call again and hang up.

After that it would be harrassment... but that isn't what appears to have happened here.
 
Persol said:
Nope, just calling to say 'hello there... how are you today'.
Click to expand...
John, don't ever call me.

Persol said:
If they refuse to identify themselves, tell them not to call again and hang up.
After that it would be harrassment...
Click to expand...
John, please take note of that statement.

Persol said:
I see you know how to search registries. Notice the rest of the info in there.... take note.
Click to expand...
Now you're threatening me, John.

Persol said:
It wasn't unsolicited,
Click to expand...
You ought to look up in a dictionary 'unsolicited,' because it appears you don't know what it means.
 
paulsamuel said:
Now you're threatening me, John.
Click to expand...
Lol, how i that a threat? Are you loopy or something? I'm pointing out that the rest of the entries say something along the lines of 'private', and that you should take note of that.

Poor fella. If you ever feel like it, give me a call. I'll most likely hang up on you... but that's ok.
 
John this, John that, John, John, John -- this is getting so personal.
Paulsamuel, you must have warm feelings for John, aren't you?

Sheesh.
 
PaulSamuel,

I think what you should do since the continued attention is persisting is get a Premium rate number (like the XXX numbers etc), continue the thread and repost your new data to include the Premium number.

Then when they call to harass you in some form you can makes some money out of it on the side.

Perhaps Sciforums should start a "Voice sample" thread with users asking "Are you from the sciforums.com forums?" then you can eliminate those that don't match your memory from the enquiry.
(And while you at it, it might seem an nice advertising gimmick for the forums too.)
 
Well, ya. I fish... and bass are pretty dumb fish.

What's wrong with that?

For only $0.35/minute you too can learn the secrets of catching bass.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top