Hi Travis, On 2014-11-14, Travis Scrimshaw <tsc...@ucdavis.edu> wrote: > To give a counterpoint to Simon's analogy, we agree that bullying is > bad, but by the rules, we can tell bullies explicitly what their doing is > wrong, why we can't push the bullies down, and explain what will happen if > the behavior escalates. Bullying can get so bad that the teachers need to > step in and enact the correct punishment.
In my experience, it is often the *teachers* who are bullying, in the sense that bullying pupils are just the teacher's tools to destroy pupils they don't like. But school aside. If person A verbally attacks person B, I still think it does not help to show a *disapproving* reaction towards person A, because then A may feel attacked, which may make his/her behaviour even worse, and which wouldn't help B at all. Instead, I suggest to show a *supporting* reaction towards person B, in order to make B stronger and prevent damage. As it has been said by (IIRC) Jan, it is important that authorities set a good example. It may not always help with any individual, but is the best way to keep a communicative environment healthy. And concerning those individuals for which a good example isn't good enough, I'd prefer to see a "don't feed the troll" policy. If person A realises that his/her stampede ended in a vacuum, then s/he will usually stop. And if there was harm done to B on the way towards the vacuum, then helping B has priority over banning A. Best regards, Simon -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sage-devel" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to sage-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
