197 upvotes, 9 direct replies (showing 9)
View submission: Let's talk content. AMA.
[deleted]
Comment by allnose at 16/07/2015 at 20:38 UTC
9 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Honestly? Because if you give a hard definition of something, you get people who live right past the edge of the definition, but still harass. They're leaving themselves a window to deal with situations like that by not having an absolute "you will be banned [only] if you do this." threshold.
Bit off-topic, but Massachusetts takes a similar position with a lot of their laws. There's a saying "Nothing is illegal in Massachusetts, as long as you have a permit," because so many things are written in such a way that you need to have some sort of higher body's sign-off, and judges are given more latitude when it comes to things like definitions. I don't know if familiarity with that system is why the "reasonable person" standard doesn't seem alien to me.
Comment by Warlizard at 16/07/2015 at 20:23 UTC
198 upvotes, 16 direct replies
Ellen Pao defined it earlier as anything that a reasonable person would construe as intent to bully or silence (I'm paraphrasing).
I'd like to know who the "reasonable" people are who get to make that decision.
Comment by UPBOAT_FORTRESS_2 at 16/07/2015 at 20:44 UTC
6 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Because a clear line in the sand makes it extremely easy to utterly flaunt the stated goals of the policy, tiptoe right up to that bright line, and be flagrantly offensive without crossing the line. If you take a moment for critical thinking, you'll know when you're abusing someone -- and if it's extremely forceful, it might be enough to get you banned.
Comment by SirTrey at 16/07/2015 at 20:38 UTC*
5 upvotes, 0 direct replies
They're not defining it because that would turn into a never ending storm of "but what about [insert specific case here]". I'm gonna assume most of you have a base level awareness of what those terms (bullying, harassment, abuse) mean.
But, like with any rule, context and degree matters. In our legal system, that's why we have judges: breaking a law doesn't automatically return with one set punishment all of the time, despite written language, because that's simply impossible to implement. Again, context and degree always matter because in human conduct damn near nothing is 100% objective and 100% the same in all occurrences, and that's just with one person, less known with millions.
So, there has to be some leeway, because the alternative is constantly changing the policy when it becomes clear that it doesn't include XYZ circumstance, and no one wants that either.
Comment by SimplyQuid at 16/07/2015 at 20:33 UTC
18 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Because "harassment" is going to become a catch-all term for whatever the admins don't like, don't agree with or don't feel like putting up with on any particular day.
Comment by [deleted] at 16/07/2015 at 21:30 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
There's a phrase being used a lot "the difference is hard to define, but you know it when you see it."
There's just so much nuance with some things that drawing a line in the sand is basically impossible. What you're asking for would probably take the form of an academic paper of philosophy, psychology, linguistics and sociology with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of identifying characteristics. Even then you're gonna have cases which may have many of the characteristics but are not harassment and cases with not many that are clearly harassment.
Fact is, unless someone has a social development disorder they will intrinsically have a good idea of what is and isn't harassment. Even then, if you are "kicked off the site" through an act of honest ignorance, well, this is reddit. A new account takes about as long to make as reading this sentence and offers nothing less than what a 10 years old, high karma account offers.
Comment by helix19 at 16/07/2015 at 21:52 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
We'll know when they post the official rules, they're not finalized yet. Maybe the point of the AMA was to see what the community thought?
Comment by AmnesiaCane at 17/07/2015 at 00:08 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
To be fair, it's not really something easy to define. It's always going to ultimately come down to a judgment call on an admin's part.
Comment by recycled_ideas at 17/07/2015 at 11:03 UTC
0 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Realistically you should know way before you get to that point. It's really not that difficult.