"instead of contacting me he had chosen to stalk Diana about me"
Le sigh. I didn't want to respond, but I have to, since EN has chosen to violate the confidentiality of a conversation I had with her, attempting to forestall just this.
EN utterly mischaracterizes our private conversation, including what I felt I could tell her of my private discussions with Dr.K. And I'm very pissed that she brought it up at all, here and elsewhere, since we were having what
I expressly and unequivocally told her was a PRIVATE, CONFIDENTIAL conversation, which will end our friendship if she posted anything about it. Now I feel I have to discuss things I did not want to discuss publicly, while I worked behind the scenes to fix some problems that have arisen, which EN seems to think are all about her - they are not.
Dr.K and I have a long history of communications on a wide variety of topics, including collaborating on a number of things for the purpose of benefiting DS patients. We recently began discussing bullying on the internets, in particular on patient-run DS message boards, which includes ALL of them - this place, the dozens of FB groups, OH, etc. He is considering limiting the sites to which he provides links on his under-reconstruction DSFacts site, to exclude places where what HE considers bullying is permitted. I am engaged in trying to dissuade him from attempting to moderate boards that are not his in this manner.
I am not a member of Dr.K's board, never have been, never will be. It would interfere with my ability to be as frank and open with him as I want to be. I also am not and have never been in any way, in any capacity, an owner, mod or admin of any DS or bariatric surgery board (I own a couple of family Facebook pages, that's it). Over the years, Dr.K has received complaints - presumably either on his FB page, or by other communications, about MY postings, EN's postings and numerous others as well. He opened the conversation with me by asking me to consider acting more professionally (because I'm a lawyer and a scientist) on the message boards. I politely told him no.
Dr.K feels very strongly -
and I think wrongly - that bullying is a big problem on some of these message boards. He also has a very different definition of "bullying" than I do, though I suppose the distinction between "tough love" and "bullying" get a little fuzzy at the margins. (He also has concerns about patients making medical recommendations as well, but that's a WHOLE nother topic.) He is concerned in addition about his personal integrity (based on his personal beliefs about this kind of behavior) and potential legal liability if he links to places where bullying takes place. The former is his prerogative, and he's certainly entitled to boot anyone off of his own Facebook page who posts in a manner he finds offensive. (Though why he allows GodLuvsMe and PedoBear on his board is beyond me.) But I think he is just plain wrong about the legal liability - a simple disclaimer will solve that issue.
Nevertheless, Dr.K rather naively would like to see more civility on all the message boards. He not only asked me to rein myself in, but also suggested that I should take it upon myself to ask others to behave with more decorum, and to consider more carefully the effect of our bullying on fragile newbies in particular. Again, I told him I don't control anyone else's behavior, I don't run any message boards - but, just to prove a point, I raised the issue on another board and asked people who were members of Dr.K's board to post "seriously annoying things to the Terminally Offended on Dr. K's group
in persistent yet respectful terms, challenging them on fine points of errors they are making." in order to "make a point with Dr. K about how difficult it is to moderate a FB or other message board, and to figure out WHOM to shut up when the stupid gets thick, and the vets are giving good advice -
even insufferably but persistently nicely delivered."
Well, clearly EN and I (and Dr.K) do not have the same idea about what is meant by "persistent yet respectful." because EN posted something on his board that pissed him (and presumably his mods) off enough that they banned her - and I don't blame them. Dr.K sent me a copy of her last post as a demonstration of the kind of over-the-top behavior he would not tolerate, and while it was not bullying, I agree that it was rude in the extreme. I think EN would have banned anyone who acted like she did from her own FB group in a NY minute.
Dr.K is not on the rampage against EN - his issue is bullying in general, and rudeness and incivility, and she is merely an extreme and blatant example of the type of behavior he thinks is counterproductive. I think he has a fanciful view of how the internets work, and I'm trying to patiently explain that to him, and get him to MHOB. In particular, I would like him to understand that all social media sites have some sort of blocking capability that allows the Terminally Offended to live in peace from the Big Bad Bullies. I think I'm making some headway.
But threads like this and the other one EN posted are not helpful. And I deeply resent that she violated my confidential discussion with her and posted what she did. And without any discussion about this between us, it is my impression that Dr.K does not have the slightest bit of interest in speaking with EN at all, ever. I have no idea how she can imagine that he "owes" her a phone call or any other contact. I certainly hope she does not make good on her threat to call him, either. Because that's just obnoxious, counterproductive, and utterly inappropriate.
