
Taking Someone Aside (2018) - luu
https://www.jefftk.com/p/taking-someone-aside
======
andreareina
A talk on the same by Deviant Ollam:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVTcifBspRc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVTcifBspRc)

------
leftyted
> "several people have come up to us to say that you keep asking them to dance
> after they told you to stop asking them"

I wonder if there's a better way to do this. It seems to me that you should
avoid bringing up -- even anonymously -- the existence of wronged parties who
have complained.

~~~
saagarjha
How else do you convey the fact that what they did was not appreciated by
others?

~~~
leftyted
That's what I'm asking.

By mentioning "people who have complained," you're putting those people on the
spot. The offender now probably knows who complained.

I bring this up because I read a NYT article [0] yesterday. A highschooler was
uncomfortable with the behavior of her classmates. She complained to her
parents, who went to the principal. The principal dealt with it but, in the
course of doing so, it became clear who had complained. This led to an even
worse situation and she had to leave the school.

Maybe it's unavoidable to mention that "people have complained" but I wouldn't
lead with that. I think it's better for the authority figure to say "I noticed
you were doing X" and take that on themselves, at least to start with.

[0] [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/nyregion/new-jersey-
antis...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/nyregion/new-jersey-antisemitism-
high-school.html)

~~~
Zhyl
Another option (if possible) is to take the burden yourself. "I've seen when
you've been behaving in this way and I don't feel that this is appropriate for
the club". Rather than the implication of "someone has complained and I am
following this through" it becomes "I, on behalf of the organisation, feel
that this behaviour is inappropriate. If you're going to take an issue with
that, you take it up with me first and foremost."

In the case of the Higheschooler you mentioned, this is less possible due to
the parents obviously being told by the daughter and obviously not being party
to the grievances. In this situation your options are more limited.

~~~
jlokier
It was less possible for the parents to protect their daughter's identity, but
it was eminently possible for the _principal_ , who even went to the beach to
see for himself. The photo was circulated to a large group after all.

The principle had more than enough visibility on the harrassment and hostile
environment, to apply discipline without identifying any particular target of
hostility, and anyway it should have been treated as unacceptable behaviour
regardless of whether there was anyone in particular targeted.

There was certainly no need to identify the daughter, who was essentially a
whistleblower. Now the school is being sued for failing to protect her
identity, rightly in my view.

------
svnpenn
This is great advice.

As an example of the opposite, with GitHub if your account is flagged
(banned), it happens without warning or explanation. Its up to you to contact
them to request reinstatement and/or an explanation.

Then I have found they often dont reply even after repeated request via both
the website and different support emails. If you try to post something about
it on the GitHub forums, they will lock the thread as well.

------
mlang23
This article is missing a crucial outcome. Likely it ignores it on purpose.
The person accused of cdong something might turn out not being wrong. Wrong
accusations happen. You shouldn't assume just because an organizer team has
detected a problem, that it really _is_ a problem.

~~~
brookside
Indeed. The first paragraph jumps straight to "and now it's time to talk to
the person in question to get them to stop".

If you get a complaint about somebody somebody in your organization, the first
thing it is time to do is listen to both sides with your best critical
thinking hat on. Going into a conversation with the accused party with the
intention of getting them to do anything, before hearing their side, is an
injustice.

~~~
jefftk
This post is trying to give details on "if I've decided that taking someone
aside for a warning is the right next step, how do I do it?"

There are cases where a warning would be a bad first step: perhaps you've only
heard a report from one person, or it's not clear what happened, or you think
there may be a misunderstanding. Then an opening more like "I saw some of what
happened back there, can you help me figure out what was going on?" could be
good, with more of a "let's find out" than a "let's change behavior" approach.

The cases that prompted me to write this post, however, were ones where a
dancer had been doing a minorly harmful thing for a long time. It was very
clear that they were doing the thing, and we had dozens of people who had seen
them do it, including several organizers.

