Let's Talk Bullying

[SendenHorse]

@Denali6298

I’m going to stick up for Manni here. Two threads, one she was seller the other she started was dragged up in the NP thread. What that has to do with NP is beyond me. Then two posters were the most prominate in that conversation. Further more one of those posters bumped up the blue saddle thread. That, in my opinion is going out of your way to be mean to another poster. Now that in and of itself isn’t bullying, but dragging Manni into threads and chiming in on hers just to be snarky is borderline. I am amazed Manni has such an impact on people who live in Colorado and Canada from her farm in Florida.

First, get facts straight. Manni has been just as responsible in this forum as any of us.

I told you it was an ACCIDENT that I bumped that thread up. Big Mamma referenced the thread (not me!) so the link was there.
Manni also got three threads (?) of Nick’s locked, and was a huge proponent of his, so that is why many people refer to her when discussing such things.

I know at least 5 people who got so sick of things they stopped. I stay because of lack of other options. If you can’t understand how damaging one person can be than I can’t say anymore. I mean, look at these threads lately.

We had much much much better content 10 yrs ago. Perhaps some went to facebook, sure. Of course, I saw manni’s posts more and prob should have ignored them, but sometimes you just can’t let it go for the sake of the big picture.

Gee, I miss the good old days. I keep hoping we kick back to that. Dang. Inertia?

[Denali6298]

@SendenHorse

First, get facts straight. Manni has been just as responsible in this forum as any of us.

I told you it was an ACCIDENT that I bumped that thread up. Big Mamma referenced the thread (not me!) so the link was there.
Manni also got three threads (?) of Nick’s locked, and was a huge proponent of his, so that is why many people refer to her when discussing such things.

I know at least 5 people who got so sick of things they stopped. I stay because of lack of other options. If you can’t understand how damaging one person can be than I can’t say anymore. I mean, look at these threads lately.

We had much much much better content 10 yrs ago. Perhaps some went to facebook, sure. Of course, I saw manni’s posts more and prob should have ignored them, but sometimes you just can’t let it go for the sake of the big picture.

Gee, I miss the good old days. I keep hoping we kick back to that. Dang. Inertia?

I totally agree with you about 10 years ago. I was agreeing with Manni’s point. I don’t look at who makes the point unless I reference it like I did. I don’t pay that close attention. I also don’t get not avoiding posters you don’t like. Eventually, if no one responds they will go away.

[sammy14]

The op seemed concerned about being perceived as a bully, and mentioned ‘‘placing a thumb down/dislike on a social media or YouTube video…’’ in the OP
I was trying to be discreet (and also don’t know who is doing it,but I imagine hosting stolen and slam videos might constitute bullying as far as You Tube is concerned also)
As far as i’m concerned, being involved in a group that goes so far as to contact someones daughter,a child ! would be considered bullying.I think it goes without saying that members of that group have LEAPT over the line between fair comment and outright harassment.
As far as ‘‘people who are unable to change’’ you can’t declare someone deluded, and so on, and fail to see that by attracting all this negative attention that there is something going on with them. Something not quite right.That sort of disordered person is not going to change because you keep pointing out how bad they are.
After how many pages is it enough and how many times do people need to be warned? It looks like too much nasty fun for the participants for it to be a public service now
As to personal snipes against a poster who has been ‘‘outed’’ by anonymous others, it does seem off to me, and I really don’t believe it’s accidental.
I might delete this after I consider it for a while as I don’t want to bully anyone myself, but wanted to answer your question.
I’m not too bothered by it, but that’s what I think it is.

[Scribbler]

@sammy14

The op seemed concerned about being perceived as a bully, and mentioned ‘‘placing a thumb down/dislike on a social media or YouTube video…’’ in the OP
I was trying to be discreet (and also don’t know who is doing it,but I imagine hosting stolen and slam videos might constitute bullying as far as You Tube is concerned also)
As far as i’m concerned, being involved in a group that goes so far as to contact someones daughter,a child ! would be considered bullying.I think it goes without saying that members of that group have LEAPT over the line between fair comment and outright harassment.
As far as ‘‘people who are unable to change’’ you can’t declare someone deluded, and so on, and fail to see that by attracting all this negative attention that there is something going on with them. Something not quite right.That sort of disordered person is not going to change because you keep pointing out how bad they are.
After how many pages is it enough and how many times do people need to be warned? It looks like too much nasty fun for the participants for it to be a public service now
As to personal snipes against a poster who has been ‘‘outed’’ by anonymous others, it does seem off to me, and I really don’t believe it’s accidental.
I might delete this after I consider it for a while as I don’t want to bully anyone myself, but wanted to answer your question.
I’m not too bothered by it, but that’s what I think it is.

Is this all meant to be in reference to the NP maestro thread? Or what?

[sammy14]

WXWatcher the OP of this thread ,(most of whoms posts are in the NP thread) wrote the below, it may be part of the reason they are concerned about being perceived as a bully ? My response is directed at that poster who seems from the below to be part of an anonymous group keen on making PSA’s about NP . I’m sure you can figure it out yourself.

quote WXWatcher ‘’ I will say that several of us do, or did rather, know of a few that made contact with his daughter to ask her about how she felt about what he was doing; that was early on when he first sprang into view back in what now, early 2014?. When we found out we shut that activity down immediately and reiterated that the kids were 100% off limits unless or until they came of age and directly involved themselves.

To our knowledge, the restriction we all agreed upon has been maintained. If the daughter is still being contacted, we have no knowledge of it and I will reiterate here, if anyone is still making contact with the daughter to ask about him (which I doubt), please don’t…the kids have nothing to do with his, uhm, activities.’’

[Manni01]

Thank you Sammy14, thats exactly how I read your post!!!

[WXWatcher]

This particular thread is not about NP but with the general idea of what bullying is and when it is correctly or incorrectly perceived as such.

People of all ages say “bully” and the general reaction in society is to crowd around the accuser, pat the head and make soothing noises. The accused, even if later proven innocent, is always looked on with the suspicion and the accuser may walk arpund calling themselves a victim and going with the “everyone hates me, they don’t care…look what they let X get away with” attitude and then they complain when people avoid them out of fear of being reported for a perceived bullying word/action by the accuser.

This in no way is meant to belittle people who report true bullying. Yes, agreed, report it absolutely, but let the facts stand. However, when someone calls bullying when in fact no bullying exists, that also needs to be addressed. I’ve seen it both ways.

As for the group, the connection beteeen the members started as a result of the original CoTH thread. While the group does talk about NP, that is not the sole, be all end all issue as it is still a dressage riding discussion page. It came to our attention that people from outside the group made contact with the daughter, which we immediately called out with the request to stop.

The group has never made anything up, but does discuss the words and actions NP himself has posted, despite his claims of anyone doing otherwise. We can’t control the actions of others.

[x-halt-salute]

@sammy14

WXWatcher the OP of this thread ,(most of whoms posts are in the NP thread) wrote the below, it may be part of the reason they are concerned about being perceived as a bully ? My response is directed at that poster who seems from the below to be part of an anonymous group keen on making PSA’s about NP . I’m sure you can figure it out yourself.

quote WXWatcher ‘’ I will say that several of us do, or did rather, know of a few that made contact with his daughter to ask her about how she felt about what he was doing; that was early on when he first sprang into view back in what now, early 2014?. When we found out we shut that activity down immediately and reiterated that the kids were 100% off limits unless or until they came of age and directly involved themselves.

To our knowledge, the restriction we all agreed upon has been maintained. If the daughter is still being contacted, we have no knowledge of it and I will reiterate here, if anyone is still making contact with the daughter to ask about him (which I doubt), please don’t…the kids have nothing to do with his, uhm, activities.’’

I don’t know anything about this anonymous group, but it sounds like @WXWatcher was one of the people who tried to put an end to inappropriate real-life contact with a family member. That is, OP of this thread took action to prevent others from crossing the line to harassment or possibly ‘bullying’.

Speaking of things that verge on ad hominem territory, you might want to look up the ‘guilt by association’ fallacy before you tar and feather every poster who has ever commented in one of the NP threads for the behavior of a small number of bad actors in some other group.

[sascha]

Damn lol I thought this was where we were going to talk about aggressive horses that can be bullies. I was all excited because I thought a whole bunch of people had the same problem as I do and maybe there were going to be some really good ideas on how to work through it when the problem arises.

[KBC]

@sascha

Damn lol I thought this was where we were going to talk about aggressive horses that can be bullies. I was all excited because I thought a whole bunch of people had the same problem as I do and maybe there were going to be some really good ideas on how to work through it when the problem arises.

Cut off their internet access?

[sascha]

@KBC

Cut off their internet access?

:lol:

[WXWatcher]

@sascha

Damn lol I thought this was where we were going to talk about aggressive horses that can be bullies. I was all excited because I thought a whole bunch of people had the same problem as I do and maybe there were going to be some really good ideas on how to work through it when the problem arises.

I’ll break the thread topic for a minute :). Had a pushy TB who insisted on walking ahead of me and even cutting me off. At first I was gentle and then I finally put my head mare hat on and we had a meeting of the minds…or rather, he had a meeting of hooves walking backwards, stepping smartly, from the barn to the top of the driveway, a distance of about 200 ft. Funny, he never went past my shoulder after that.

[sascha]

I wish it were that easy. Sadly, the behaviour only comes out when new things crop up in training. Then it doesn’t matter who you are or how many times you’ve given the don’t you dare speech (and followed through on the consequences), you are getting the I’M GOING FORWARD NOW AND I AM DOING IT MY WAY COME HELL OR HIGH WATER. Forward is good, I like forward horses. Bullies can be exasperating sometimes. Good news is that once a lesson is learned, the attitude goes away, but, it can take a while and that is frustrating.

Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled programming

[sammy14]

@x-halt-salute

I don’t know anything about this anonymous group, but it sounds like @WXWatcher was one of the people who tried to put an end to inappropriate real-life contact with a family member. That is, OP of this thread took action to prevent others from crossing the line to harassment or possibly ‘bullying’.

Speaking of things that verge on ad hominem territory, you might want to look up the ‘guilt by association’ fallacy before you tar and feather every poster who has ever commented in one of the NP threads for the behavior of a small number of bad actors in some other group.

[sammy14]

You may want to look at why you feel so defensive.

[Scribbler]

@WXWatcher

This particular thread is not about NP but with the general idea of what bullying is and when it is correctly or incorrectly perceived as such.

People of all ages say “bully” and the general reaction in society is to crowd around the accuser, pat the head and make soothing noises. The accused, even if later proven innocent, is always looked on with the suspicion and the accuser may walk arpund calling themselves a victim and going with the “everyone hates me, they don’t care…look what they let X get away with” attitude and then they complain when people avoid them out of fear of being reported for a perceived bullying word/action by the accuser.

This in no way is meant to belittle people who report true bullying. Yes, agreed, report it absolutely, but let the facts stand. However, when someone calls bullying when in fact no bullying exists, that also needs to be addressed. I’ve seen it both ways.

As for the group, the connection beteeen the members started as a result of the original CoTH thread. While the group does talk about NP, that is not the sole, be all end all issue as it is still a dressage riding discussion page. It came to our attention that people from outside the group made contact with the daughter, which we immediately called out with the request to stop.

The group has never made anything up, but does discuss the words and actions NP himself has posted, despite his claims of anyone doing otherwise. We can’t control the actions of others.

Ok so is this thread about bullying in general, or is it a coded discussion to bring up and condem specific things that happened outside the COTH chat group but maybe had some tangential connection?

Is there an actual NP chat group outside the COTH threads, that is feeding into the COTH threads?

If the you are talking in coded terms about the actions of something off COTH then most of us have no idea what you are talking about and this thread feels a bit opaque.

I’d add that the term bullying is a fairly blunt instrument with which to describe the many forms of online ugliness which can run from criminal harassment, blackmail, libel and slander at one end, down to merely obsessiveness, malicious gossip, schadenfreude and tackiness at the other. The more serious actions harm the target. The less serious actions only harm the speakers.

[x-halt-salute]

@sammy14

You may want to look at why you feel so defensive.

I’m happy to engage in rational discussion with you if you feel like rising to the occasion. But if you use fallacious arguments to wag a finger at other posters it might be in your interest to stop the finger pointing when you get called out on it.

As for bullying (which is what we’re here to discuss) and the question of how off-forum events relate to this thread, I think the idea that inspired the thread is that ‘bullying’ has been decried by multiple public figures in dressage recently (R. Dover, notably, but also Dressage Hub and N. Peronace), but each of these figures has invoked the term to describe very different things.

I can only guess that OP broached the topic in terms of a general discussion of what ‘bullying’ means in equestrian sports, rather than linking to these various public postings, in order to have a discussion about whether some of these uses of the term trivialize a real problem in equestrianism without that abstract question getting lost in the three ring circus that tends to pop up any time certain figures are mentioned.

[sammy14]

Fair enough Scribbler,lets leave it then.
x-halt-sallute you said this ‘‘Speaking of things that verge on ad hominem territory, you might want to look up the ‘guilt by association’ fallacy before you tar and feather every poster who has ever commented in one of the NP threads for the behavior of a small number of bad actors in some other group.’’
(I am not tar and feathering etc lol.That over reaction makes me think what I said re defensiveness. Some of the NP thread is funny and some I agree with,I just feel it’s gone too far, that is ALL.)
In fact by some peoples logic it is not even possible to bully someone online with just words. Hence my response.Maybe I misinterpreted the OP in thinking that her posting history indicated a concern about being seen as a bully rather than an interest in bullying generally. Sorry if that’s the case.

[CRDaemon13]

The group, WTHF Dressage, is no longer a thing. The creator of the group even specified that on the BTA thread about it. The group disbanded after they found out some snakes in the group it was no longer safe to talk about anything.

I can’t upload the photo I took so here’s a link to the BTA thread.

https://m.facebook.com/groups/156996780994152?view=permalink&id=1944668208893658

[WXWatcher]

@sammy14

Fair enough Scribbler,lets leave it then.
Maybe I misinterpreted the OP in thinking that her posting history indicated a concern about being seen as a bully rather than an interest in bullying generally. Sorry if that’s the case.

Bullying and the definition/action of in general, prompted by the speech by RD.