MY PERSONAL STANCE ON SOME (LIMITED) RED BUBBLE POLICY
Firstly, I wish to apologise to you, my friends, for not keeping up with your comments on my work and replying to you as I would normally try to do. Unfortunately, my attention has been dragged away from the ‘art’ part of the community here at RB, to more of a ‘huge family blow-up explosion’....
I am also very tired as I slept extremely little last night. I am also aware that Peter the Administrator must be in a very similar state, as he was also up extremely late last night.
I hope many of you are aware of the incident that has provoked this. Helen Bascom has – in the time I have been here on RB – come to be my friend. My very good friend. What happened to her has upset me greatly. I did not sleep much last night.
But – for me – there is an even larger issue at stake here than the summary deletion of Helen’s account from Red Bubble, without her having the chance to put her version of events.
The issue at stake here is that Helen’s account was deleted summarily – with as far as I have been able to ascertain – NO INVESTIGATION of the circumstances – solely on the basis of a ‘report as inappropriate / personally abusive’ made by a third party who had absolutely NO direct involvement in the events or comments he / she was reporting!
This reflects an ‘apparent’ zero tolerance’ policy here at RB for ‘personal abuse’...
Yes, I agree, this sounds very good. Personal abuse should not be tolerated.
However – this incident clearly highlights that – unlike some issues such as the potential for child pornography, where it is very easy to draw a straight line in the sand regarding who, at what age is or is not a ‘child’, the definition of what is considered ‘personal abuse’ vs the definition of describing someone’s creative work as personally offensive may NOT be so clearly defined.
In this case, neither the person who made the original comment on Helen’s journal, nor Helen herself, felt the need to ‘report to RB’. Yes, RB DOES tell us to ‘report’ – do NOT go getting mixed up in arguments yourself – but – to my knowledge this issue was ended! Neither Helen, nor miron, had continued any form of offensive behaviour toward each other regarding this particular exchange.
In the past, I myself have reported private bmails sent to me using the exact same words Helen wrote in her thread. The RB response to my complaint at the time was along the lines of “this appears to be dying down – let it be – if there’s any more report again and we’ll act”. At the time I was extremely upset. However, now, in retrospect, I can see that this response was correct! The matter DID end there of it’s own accord.
The matter between Helen and miron may also most likely have ended right there of it’s own accord, and there would now be NO pages and pages of forum arguments that have gone WAY out of control, there would be no people favouriting any and all Tees with statements of F#$ You an dF#$% Off they can find, there would be no people removing all of their works for sale on RB, there would be no people deleting their accounts at RB and leaving in anger and disgust that Helen was given no chance to defend herself against this report by AN UNKNOWN AND UNNAMED THIRD PARTY WHO – for whatever personal reasons of their own, REINFLAMED a probably dead issue for their own personal reasons!
In the 9-10 months I have been a member of Red Bubble I have come to greatly respect the motives and capacities of the RB management and staff team.
Firstly, when I joined, this was my very first step back into a world from which I had been a virtual recluse for 7-8 years. I was very scared. It was things such as RB’s firm NSFW filter policy, which protected me from having to unintentionally view work I could have found extremely distressing, as well as their firm ‘play nice’ policy which enabled me to feel ‘safe enough’ to finally build up the nerve to join and take my first steps back into the world. I am, and will remain, incredibly grateful to Red Bubble, it’s management and members, for welcoming me – safely – here.
Red Bubble has – since that time, provided me with the most wonderfully supportive community – as well as the opportunity of for the first time in my life ever making FRIENDS! This personal and emotional development and strengthening has also allowed in me a development and strengthening of my art, and my sense and confidence in myself as an artist. For this I also am, and will always remain incredibly grateful.
I was extremely happy and proud of Peter (and the whole management team’s) response to the great outpourings of emotion over the issue of ‘porn’ on RB some months ago. They took a firm stance that in my eyes was fair, and manageable to police fairly.
Peter has stated in one of the forum threads earlier today that the team needs a chance to assess what has happened and formulate a response – maybe even a change in policy – as it is appropriate.
I agree they need the time and opportunity to do this.
I hope that, in assessing these events, they will manage to see that such a punitive ‘zero tolerance’ policy on an issue that is NOT clearly black and white, that has MANY areas of grey in the HUGE domain between an artwork I may find personally offensive, and the aims of the person who created the work in either deliberately personally offending me or not – or the other way around…
An artwork I may create to express an emotion or concept extremely close and important to me may, without any prior knowledge or intention on my part, clearly inflame another member. We may exchange our views rather forcefully in a comment thread. WE may – between ourselves, be totally satisfied that each has had his / her say – the matter is now closed.
Current RB policy allows – in any such situation – to ANY member of RB – the same result as happened to Helen Bascom. The immediate FULL DELETION of her account solely on the report of a third party with no examination of what their personal agenda may be in the making of a report about an incident that does not concern them.
Any policy that allows such a punitive response to any third party report – with no investigation and NO opportunity for those actually involved in the event to explain themselves and the context in which the reported event took place is totally open to manipulation by anyone with an underlying malignant agenda against any of the participants to act out their own ‘vengeance’ with no fear of assessment of whether their complaint is fair and just.
I stand by my assessment that such policy – totally open to such malignant manipulation (whether that occurred in this particular case or not!) is BAD policy.
Peter – and all your team – I have grown to respect you all and the true motives you have in creating this COMMUNITY in this time I have been here. You have shown that you ARE capable of taking the hard decisions that must inevitably arise in managing a community as diverse as this.
I will continue to actively take part in the ‘artists’ community’ aspect of this site, as I believe your motives for establishing it have been good, and I have great respect for what you have achieved. Also – I have to justify to myself why I am not taking the complete and final step of deleting my own account here in support of my friend, as others of Helen’s and my friends have done. I will miss them greatly here, though I am sure we will not lose contact in ‘the world’.
I truly hope that, when given the time and opportunity to calmly analyse what has occurred you will be able to enstate a policy that calls for mandatory review of the details of instances such as this reported to management in this way.
I also truly hope I will not be even more hurt and disappointed than I already have been this past day…... You have not given me reason to believe I would be….
Kallena xx
Clare Colins
Wow! Kallena, you write so eloquently and leave no stone unturned. I think you have written on behalf of many. There is nothing I could add to such a beautifully ‘penned’ letter. I thank you for being such a fabulous ‘voice’ in this community. Love, Clare x
DragonFlyer replied
Thanks friend – this is tough…..
shanghaiwu
Having been suspended from REDBUBBLE for a short period I will remain close lipped …....
I thought I had been badly wronged BUT actually did me good to get thrown into the sin bin for a while
DragonFlyer replied
At least in your case it was only ‘for a while’...
Jessica Walker
Did you read about any of the drama I was experiencing recently here about the deletion of my work in the name of censorship? Or about how I was suspended for a week, unable to access my account, because I used the word “assholes” in a journal? Or about how on both of these occasions, RB failed to accurately notify me with specific details as to what was going on?
Here’s what’s really going on and I now know this from talking with one of the Admins here. There are some unsolved issues between staff. I can’t go into details. But I have experienced and witnessed some unbelievable hypocricy. It’s messed up. But what I was told, is that RB is a fairly new site still… and they are not 100% on having their act together when it comes to disciplinary actions. They have a lot of work to do, especially on figuring out what the hell kind of policies they want to keep or want to remove. Their rules are still not solid and they are very misleading. I’m sorry about what happened to your friend. I’d contact Paul Vanzella and ask him for further help in the situation. He is the one who helped me. He’s a very sincere and understanding co-founder of RB.
DragonFlyer replied
Yes, I sure did Jessica -and I was incredibly pleased to see that you ‘took it’ and came back….
In several of those forum threads I have raised the issue here that there has been considerable inconsistency recently in application of ‘guidelines’ – some issues with many reports in the past couple of weeks that I know of get no response – here there is 1 3rd party resport and Helen is DELETED?????
It reads to me like a overstressed and understaffed and unable to consistently apply our own standards situation and I have stated that in the threads. Thank you for telling me this – I don’t know Paul well but we have watchlisted each other and commented on each other’s work.
K xx
RPGesus
@Jessica: I remember you freaking out about that a while back, whatever actually happened in resolution? (BM me so we don’t hijack Kallena’s journal post)
DragonFlyer replied
;)))
Jessica Walker
I agree with you… it’s completely inconsistent. And I don’t think that’s acceptable if people are on here, selling their work, trying to establish a portfolio for themselves. It’s like it’s a game that they’re not taking seriously enough. Now I’ve said it before, it’s not that I don’t dislike or distrust the staff. In fact a lot of them, most of them.. are helpful and understanding. And that’s why I can’t figure out what’s causing the inconsistency. It just leads me to assume there’s some turmoil going on under the surface that we’re not aware of.
DragonFlyer replied
Yes, that is my reading of this situation too.
Juilee Pryor
good journal post dragonflyer…. this has obviously upset so many people that it’s good to let it out in a journal post like this…. particularly as the forum thread has be taken over by competeing egos…. Jessica’s comments make a lot of sense as well….. a one week suspention would have been appropriate for both the parties in this case…... now it’s so out of hand it’s not funny
DragonFlyer replied
Exactly Juilee…. I have been surprised that the further 2 forums were not shut down this afternoon actually – my greatest hope is that Peter and all RB management were no longer watching but sitting and discussing how to find a sensible way out of this mess for themselves…..
peter
Thanks for posting – I’m doing my best to keep abreast of the wide range of views being expressed – and we have already started the review process to ensure that we learn from the experience (and improve).
DragonFlyer replied
O – thank you Peter – I saw your post int he forum that you were starting a review – and that is what is essential. You still continue to amaze me by your ability to handle the most difficult and inflammatory of situations…. I hope you are able to find a response that will ensure that this kind of an event can not be so easily repeated…
Kallena
Col Finnie
Hmm…this smells awful bad to me. My personal opinion is the RB management need to toughen up. I believe its naive to think that a place of artistic expression can be a place where “playing nice” can be interpreted in the same context as a fuckin’ kindergarten. Big people play here. A bit of verbal biffo is what big people take on the chin. Cutting someone off at the knees because of third party complaints about a bit of biffo, in my opinion, creates far more complications for management than letting the biffo take its natural course; it leaves way too much scope for suspicions of ulterior motives. Hmm…Helen Bascom, political artistic activist, and from what I’ve seen an artist who puts conservatives on edge…she gets summarily banned for an exchange that neither party to the exchange bothered to complain about….very, very quizzical….hmmm.
DragonFlyer replied
Yes. Not a good smell left at all Col… And – I was rather closely involved with much of Helen’s presence on this site the past few days – those ‘few biffo words’ (which really WERE biffo words) on Helen’s journal were certainly not the only exchanges that took place in other forums on this site…
raymondoantonio
TOTALLY SUPPORT WHAT YOU ARE SAYING DRAGONFLYER!! I INTEND STAYING AND STILL SUPPORTING HELEN AND ALL THE GOOD WORK SHE HAS DONE ON THIS SITE TO EXPOSE THE LIES AND HATE OF RIGHT-WING, NEO-FASCISTS!!YOU HAVE MY SYMPATHY AND SUPPORT ALSO AND I HOPE THIS ISSUE CAN BE RESOLVED!!
DragonFlyer replied
Thank you Raymondo – I really struggled for a while too of whether to leave as some of both Helen’s and my friends have done, but I too decided in the end that in staying I could accomplish more (I hope ;)
K xx
Matt Penfold
Great Journal Kallena, I fully endorse your comments,
I too hope that the review of the rules will make things clearer for all, I’m sure RB management would rather not be in the position they are in and I hope they can find a compromise that will allow Helen to return. I think this was an overreaction that in hindsight could have been handled very differently. Then again maybe I’m just dreaming that they have a heart…
DragonFlyer replied
Thank you Matt – I totally agree that I’m sure RB management do not like being in the situation that they find themselves in now – they certainly have to find some solution, and I too hope that that may involve and apology and allowing Helen to return… Some issues, such as this one, CANNOT be managed appropriately by a straight down the line, black and white policy.
K xx
Bob Bremner
Wow its that easy to change anything without emotion. I don’t know what to say just blew me away.
DragonFlyer replied
Yes. Blew me away too Bob…
Rosemary Scott
Well, no-one can accuse you of not being good with words! You’ve made your point so well!
As you know I seem to be the only person in RB who missed all of this, but it’s wonderful to see that people like yourself are prepared to speak up in the cause of justice & fairness.
Here’s hoping that with a little RB brainstorming the rules in question will become a little clearer for us all :))
DragonFlyer replied
Thank you Rosemary – I truly hope so.
Though – I can assure you you are not the only person on RB who ‘missed this’ – I’ve had a few other bmails too asking what on earth is going on…...
K xx
Crowmanic
As an outspoken Australian on Aboriginal issues and an a Rb’er who has had a couple of minor run ins with “political correctness” judgements… plus one hell of a big loss and kafuffle when the Aboriginal art group was taken-off this site (do a search, there is not one Group that is specifically for Aboriginal (indigenous) art or artists — I kinda sense what is and isn’t with regards “censorship” ... my years on the frontline of bigotry, racism, conservatism, position of privilege behaviour towards difference and diversity and similar fixated matters of modern day life, has ensured that I learn the “rules” of engagement, an the possibilities of entanglement.
Let’s trust that such scenarios and mistreatment of “rights” and lack of “fair-play” is not so entrenched within the psyche and attitude of those “in charge” as given for too much longer, be it within RB, or elsewhere in other contexts at every level of contemporary human affairs. That would be a shame for all humans, if we can no longer vent or express in transparent manner.
Thanks for your efforts and your sharing re this matter, and your well-written and pointed perspective and rationale.
DragonFlyer replied
Thank you for your very heartfelt comment friend – yes – I WAS aware that the only group specific to Aboriginal issues and art had disappeared from RB. That was a very sad day…
I still hope there can (at least on RB if not elsewhere) be some formulation of formal policy that will not allow this kind of incident to happen again… I have sensed in this incident some similarity to longer term issues in much wider Australian politics (which I described in one of the forums yesterday)...
K xx
Anna Larson
I’m sorry for what happened, I wasn’t aware… After what we went though with someone, and my bmail is still public, I can’t understand this… Great job of stepping up…:)
DragonFlyer replied
Thanks Anna – exactly. The inconsistencies? I’m sure you noted one of the comments above ;)))
K xx
Sally Omar
Awesome Journal…I stand by Helen!!!!! oxooxox
DragonFlyer replied
Thanks Sally – me too! I know of no other person with a stronger sense of morality, ethics and fairness than her and I respect and admire her very much for that
K xx
frogster
Nice job DF, as Peter said last nite they are looking into the matter, and as I said things were said that shouldn’t have been, but it takes two to tango. Let Helen back and RB should get with both of them and hear it out.
DragonFlyer replied
Thanks frogster, and – yes
K xx
funkyfacestudio
I agree with you DF.
These aren’t the usual circumstances we see day in and day out so it shouldn’t be treated as such. There are people that will typically run around here after drinking wanting to cause trouble, people with a pattern of unprovoked abuse towards other members….....those people should be dealt with swiftly. There was a history between these two and I simply can’t view it in the same light. Helen should still be here. There is no reason to amend anything if the wrong isn’t made right by having her back. Thanks for putting up this journal :)
DragonFlyer replied
Thank you L… I also agree that the ‘wrong must be made right’... and there should be a formal apology for the wrong having been allowed to happen in the first place.
If they make their policy clear, then no-one else can suffer the same total loss of rights and indignity that Helen has been forced to endure. There ARE some situations that CANNOT be dealt with by a ‘straight down the line, black and white policy’ – the issue of ‘what is personal abuse’ on an art site is one of them IMO
K xx
Gregory John O...
The RB agreement says that you have the right to arbitration before an account is deleted !!!
I had all my work deleted and I was suspended for complaining about a raceist remark made by a moderator to one of my poems…
Where is RBs ethics or consistancy
DragonFlyer replied
O Greg…... ‘consistency’ seems to be the super BIG issue here! I am so so sorry that happened to you!!!
Kallena x
Anna Larson
Let me know if I can help in anyway…Yeah I noticed that took a lot of nerve after how you were treated, But you handled it great, trust me you made your point…:)
DragonFlyer replied
Thanks lots Anna – and this isn’t the only place in my work….. I have a new ‘fan’ it appears…. (quite sickening really). It’s ok – I’m doing fine, I think… though – if I suddenly ‘disappear’ from RB with no notice, then I’m sure I won’t be ok any more ;))) (Though – seriously – I do NOT think I’m at any serious risk of ‘disappearing’)
K xx
Anna Larson
Wonder what thats all about, Well anyway your capable of dealing with that person, yeah it would make me sick also, but I haven’t had anymore issues (as of yet) Don’t worry the only thing that you have done is stand up for what you believe in…:)
Wendy Slee
Kallena, you have said it all so well. I have written several journals like yours in the last 12 hours and not quite felt them right to publish, it has been an emotional and disturbing time. I have spent a sleepless night and several days over the screen so caught up in this whole situation. Helen is my friend too, and I feel gutted that she has been deleted without any recourse, and for something which I think many of us would have said or done if we had been so provoked. After all, this was to someone who came into her journal, her story, and continued his history of provocation there before her watchers….
Like you, I have always loved being a part of RB and admired the admin who provide us with this “space” but now I am concerned that they have truly caused themselves and Rb a lot of damage over this incident. I hope they rethink, re-evaluate this situation, and give Helen her site back, and if they wish to punish rule breakers, start looking at what provokes people in the first place. For starters, an “ignore” or “block” facility should be the first thing we have the option to use.
Thanks again for a great journal…...!!
DragonFlyer replied
Thanks Wendy! I really appreciate your support here! Have to admit though, at the time, I really had to think and force myself to remember that I DO owe RB a LOT… That the site and management HAVE, over the time I’ve been a member, been extremely good to me, and HAVE shown themselves able to manage appropriately the ‘tougher issues’... was hard to remember all this when I was so upset I was shaking so much I could hardly type…
Kallena xx
Wendy Slee
It takes great strength of character (and spirit) to step back from a situation, and take a breath (or two) and see the bigger picture…
and I know! Not always easy when you are shaking with rage or crying in pain…..
DragonFlyer replied
That’s so so true Wendy… but I honestly believe that of all people, Helen would have hoped we could manage that most of all….
Kallena xx