True true. I have been on for about that long too. thanks beth for giving me somerthing more to ponder..... Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device from U.S. Cellular
-----Original Message----- From: Beth Benoit <[email protected]> Date: Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:06:51 To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)<[email protected]> Subject: Re: [tips] Reclaiming TIPS John, I appreciate your Zen wisdom, and can appreciate the next-year-it-may-be-someone-else concept, but since 1993 (my first year on TIPS), no one on TIPS has *ever* made the suggestion that someone be removed. I think that's a pretty good record of tolerance. Beth Benoit Granite State College Plymouth State University New Hampshire On Wed, Oct 21, 2009 at 1:00 PM, John Kulig <[email protected]> wrote: > > Claudia .. thanks, you inspired me to throw in $.02 > > I'm only an amateur when it comes to social psychology, but I am pretty > sure scapegoating always happens in groups sooner or later. When you study > scapegoating (e.g. the French anthropologist Rene Girard) you realize > scapegoats usually bring it on themselves (more or less), they are never > randomly drawn from the population ... so the group is also a participant. > > While I understand the desire to "vote" on whether one person should be > excluded, I will not do it. It feels too ugly to me. ALL groups end up with > someone who we think deserves to be kicked out, but I would rather try to > buck Girard-like "human nature" and fill posts with other threads. I think > it's a signal-to-noise ratio issue. I do not want to start a tradition of > voting on exclusion. I think it is a bad road to start down. Also, the > internet is inherently open and that will not change unless TIPs becomes a > gated community which I would oppose. That being said, most posters on ANY > group will tick others off sooner or later, and some people will routinely > tick off most everyone. It's the nature of the medium. > > FINALLY, let's take advantage of social diffusion. An email stares at YOU > in the face, but it is actually directed at no one person in particular, it > is - electronically - diffused across all members of the group. Remember the > old zen habit of visualizing a person's comments as an arrow that may be > aimed at you, but then flies past you. One more finally: maybe there is > something in human nature that always itches for a fight. I am (half) > mystified why people cannot resisting responding to posts they want > extinguished. If one person is voted on, there may be another next year and > that's not a tradition I want to see started. > > > -------------------------- > John W. Kulig > Professor of Psychology > Plymouth State University > Plymouth NH 03264 > -------------------------- > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Claudia Stanny" <[email protected]> > To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)" < > [email protected]> > Sent: Wednesday, October 21, 2009 10:58:28 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern > Subject: [tips] Reclaiming TIPS > > > > > > > > > > I am violating my policy of refusing to respond to any post initiated in > response to an inappropriate off-topic post or posts that use offensive > language. > > > > I am saddened that TIPS has devolved into a sandbox of abusive and > semi-abusive posts. > > I am offended by the posts that initiate these threads. > > I am ashamed of the manner in which some members respond to these threads. > > I have been ashamed of some of my own responses to these threads. > > I may yet regret this response. > > > > However, if it serves to assist Bill in his efforts to restore civility and > purpose to the culture of this list, I will take this risk. > > > > Thanks, Bill, for all you have done to create this community. It has been a > beneficial component of my scholarly community over the years. If I can help > contribute to sustaining that community, I will do what I can. > > > > At present, I’ve adopted silence as my strategy, but I realize that this > strategy also creates some unpleasant unintended consequences. > > > > Claudia J. Stanny, Ph.D. > > Director, Center for University Teaching, Learning, and Assessment > > Associate Professor, Psychology > > University of West Florida > > Pensacola, FL 32514 – 5751 > > > > Phone: (850) 857-6355 or 473-7435 > > e-mail: [email protected] > > > > CUTLA Web Site: http://uwf.edu/cutla/ > > Personal Web Pages: http://uwf.edu/cstanny/website/index.htm > > > --- > To make changes to your subscription contact: > > Bill Southerly ([email protected]) > > --- > To make changes to your subscription contact: > > Bill Southerly ([email protected]) > --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected]) --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
