Harass
From Barbelith
A Working Definition of Harassment
Plus, a recommended course of action
An important thing to note about harassment is that it is not the intent that matters but the effect. So, if you are feeling harassed, it doesn't actually matter whether the intent is to harass. One proviso on that is the nebulous qualification of "a resonable person" - a reasonable person would have to understand why the behaviour was interpretable as harassing. That means that in most contexts, for example, offering a hand for a handshake could not be harassment, whether or not the recipient of the offer felt harassed - unless, say, that person belonged to a religious or cultural group that cannot touch other people or similar. Even then, the offer could not be seen as harassing unless the other party had been made aware of the situation, as no reasonable person (in US or UK business culture) would see the offer of a handshake to somebody not identified as not willing to shake hands as harassing in any way.
So. How does this affect us here? If the PMs from one user to another are to be seen as harassing, then first they have to be interpreted as having had a harassing effect. That's fair. The next step ought to be, if we follow best practice, that the person who feels harassed makes it clear to the other party that their behaviour is making them feel harassed, and that they would like it to stop. The other party can deny that any reasonable person would interpret this as harassing, and that would have to go to wider arbitration. Or, the other party can accept the impact of their behaviour, regardless of its intent, and cease. Or the other party can carry on, in which case the injured party can make the behaviour public, making it clear that the person was privately asked to desist and did not.
How I deal with what I feel to be harassing behaviour by PM is to tell the other party that I feel that harassing behaviour is taking place. I ask therefore that PM correspondence ceases, and stipulate that if the other party continues PM correspondence they will by doing so agree that the content of the entire PM exchange can be placed on the open board as part of a discussion of whether it is reasonable to feel harassed. That usually works quite well, since one of the problems of the PM system is that the expectation of privacy allows for bad behaviour. Obviously, if the other person is simply mental, it doesn't work, but at least it clears one's conscience on publishing their private messages.
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