Yup, it was. And the situation definitely should be investigated in depth, and the culture changed, such as similar things don’t happen in the future.
I just want to draw attention to the fact, that dating culture is very different in the UK/US and, for example Italy or India. And I think the culture you are born into, not EA membership is a primary factor shaping human romantic and sexual behavior, so the EA dating culture varies heavily between the countries. I think that “finding a way of preventing sexual misconduct” is overall a god damn responsibility of every community builder, but, seriously it is because it was always important to prevent such things, not because of recent events.
Now, what happened can be probably a good feedback or wake up call. But:
It is a good feedback for everybody involved in the UK/US community, as it is the culture which allowed such events.
It should be a good wake up call for everybody outside those countries, who so far didn’t think about prevention measures...
...but those prevention measures should be adjusted to your culture and needs of your community members. Solving local problem using remedies coming from entirely other culture (i.e. Anglo- Saxon culture) and shaming people for not liking those remedies will just cause problems, and, let’s say it gently—we have some very visible examples of serious fuck-ups which such approach caused in the past.
Also, if we focus on “EA culture” instead of “EA Anglo-Saxon culture” here, we end up ignoring some serious nuances I think.
I’m not convinced I blame any sort of “culture” for at least some of the high profile events. Putting too much attention on culture really shifts blame away from individual responsibility. Shouldn’t we place the blame squarely on perpetrators and not on those who had nothing to do with the incident but supposedly “failed to think of prevention measures”? I’m not even clear what those measures could be.
Yup, it was. And the situation definitely should be investigated in depth, and the culture changed, such as similar things don’t happen in the future.
I just want to draw attention to the fact, that dating culture is very different in the UK/US and, for example Italy or India. And I think the culture you are born into, not EA membership is a primary factor shaping human romantic and sexual behavior, so the EA dating culture varies heavily between the countries. I think that “finding a way of preventing sexual misconduct” is overall a god damn responsibility of every community builder, but, seriously it is because it was always important to prevent such things, not because of recent events.
Now, what happened can be probably a good feedback or wake up call. But:
It is a good feedback for everybody involved in the UK/US community, as it is the culture which allowed such events.
It should be a good wake up call for everybody outside those countries, who so far didn’t think about prevention measures...
...but those prevention measures should be adjusted to your culture and needs of your community members. Solving local problem using remedies coming from entirely other culture (i.e. Anglo- Saxon culture) and shaming people for not liking those remedies will just cause problems, and, let’s say it gently—we have some very visible examples of serious fuck-ups which such approach caused in the past.
Also, if we focus on “EA culture” instead of “EA Anglo-Saxon culture” here, we end up ignoring some serious nuances I think.
I’m not convinced I blame any sort of “culture” for at least some of the high profile events. Putting too much attention on culture really shifts blame away from individual responsibility. Shouldn’t we place the blame squarely on perpetrators and not on those who had nothing to do with the incident but supposedly “failed to think of prevention measures”? I’m not even clear what those measures could be.