Polyglot conference: the mind boggles...!

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Cainntear
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Re: Polyglot conference: the mind boggles...!

Postby Cainntear » Mon May 15, 2023 12:53 pm

Sae wrote:What I got from the two videos was less people connecting over shared interests and hooking up but more a guy hitting on women who did not want to be hit on and not taking 'no' for an answer, which does fit within sexual harassment,

Absolutely, and I don't have any objection to that. She was harrassed, and she has every right to talk about that. Criticising how she chooses to talk about it isn't criticising her for talking about it.
even if it's not a 'professional' setting, it wasn't one where dating was a premise either

debatable, but...
and 'no' means 'no'.
Absolutely.
The former is more like how two friends of mine met, who're now married, as they met at a convention & sparked,

Exactly why I say "debatable". Conventions are places where lots of folk meet. Coupling up is essentially a social function of conferences even if that's not a spoken thing.
but the latter are still frowned upon at things like conventions and sounds like against the conduct of that conference.
Hmmm... if by "the latter" you mean "harrassment", that also goes for singles clubs.

As I feel like if the former, it wouldn't call for an organiser to emphasise a rule they have for conduct or for a woman to say she felt harassed even after communicating she was uncomfortable, getting further advances and finding it happened to other women too.

Exactly. Coupling up is the unspoken social function and not to be taken for granted or expected uncritically.

I feel, yes, maybe naivity on it being a 'professional' environment. I've never been (plus I don't think I am good enough to call myself a polyglot), but from the sounds of it, it's more for ethusiasts, hence 'polyglot', than for professionals, but I will give some benefit of the doubt that 'conference' denotes a more formal function, whereas it sounds more like a convention to me.

That's exactly it -- it's a convention. Maybe I should have said that instead of using the term "pretend conference"...!
Though I still wouldn't expect harassment in either case.

Absolutely. And to make it absolutely clear, I'm definitely not defending the guy who she was talking about there.

And from the sounds of it, she's not calling out the organisers or discouraging people going to the event and sounds like she had a great time, made friends and intends to return.

...and yet, the video is called What REALLY happened at the Polyglot Conference.. and the thumbnail is a shot that doesn't appear to have been taken in the same spot as the video, labelled with Cholula 2022 and "polyglot drama", with what is either a still from a totally different video or her striking a pose, either way chosen for dramatic effect.

There's so much wrapped round YouTube stuff that it's actually quite difficult to take the message outside of the content.

It sounds more like calling out bad behaviour and the organisers trying to emphasise it's inappropriate and her suggesting how their rules of conduct could be more visisble, but ultimately something like sexual harassment should just be common sense...but at least more visibility accounts for where it isn't.
All of which I agree with.

However, in fairness, I am taking it at impressions, the organiser's PSA and taking her at her word & experience and it sounds like you're coming from your own experience at these sorts of things and taking it less at face value in that it might not be as bad as presented.

And there's the thing: YouTube makes things seem bigger than they are.
But if dude was harassing her and other women trying to pick them up when they're not wanting it, then obviously, I don't think that's welcome anywhere.
[/quote]
...and you finish with that, but she finished with a drunken fight in a restaurant.

And that's the thing. Putting those two things in the same video was a bad step. She could have talked about her personal feeling about being pestered by a stranger in a video all on its own. But she didn't. By putting two unrelated incidents together, it became a criticism of the overarching event. In fact, by finishing off with something that didn't happen to her, she made it a lot easier for people to see her as making a big thing over nothing.

And in fact she even made lots of clearly judgemental statements that would bias the listener. She talked about the "playful banter", suggesting there wasn't an argument, and even presented the younger guy trying to take the platter as though it was a joke. She comments on the young guys having ordered first, but didn't bother to say whether the time difference was just the waiter going down the table in order of seats or more substantial than that. She comments on his age rather vaguely, she talks about "bottles" of Bacardi in an unspecified number then revises to two, but doesn't really clarify what size of bottles she's talking about

Like, having said something that really is inarguable -- sexual harrassment is certainly never acceptable -- she then went on to say stuff that was very much arguable, and into which she had clearly pushed judgements that were genuinely questionable.

This presents a particular problem: conflating the two makes it very difficult for people to distinguish between them. Some people will take her word on the second incident because she was the victim in the secondfirst incident; others will see that her judgement was biased in the second incident and then use that to justify not believing her account of the first incident.

And it all feeds back into the problem of the clickbait title and thumbnail, because it creates an impression that the problem is the event, not the individuals involved. You say that's not what she's saying, and it sort of isn't, but it's what a lot of people will hear.
Last edited by Cainntear on Mon May 15, 2023 3:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Polyglot conference: the mind boggles...!

Postby Sae » Mon May 15, 2023 1:28 pm

I didn't really get into the drunken fight thing as I figured the emphasis in the thread was on the other thing, so I didn't actually watch that part of the video.

But it does seem we're mostly of the same mind.

Cainntear wrote:..and yet, the video is called What REALLY happened at the Polyglot Conference.. and the thumbnail is a shot that doesn't appear to have been taken in the same spot as the video, labelled with Cholula 2022 and "polyglot drama", with what is either a still from a totally different video or her striking a pose, either way chosen for dramatic effect.

There's so much wrapped round YouTube stuff that it's actually quite difficult to take the message outside of the content.


I think I have become immune to this on YouTube by now, because I tend to ignore it and focus on the content, given clickbait is seemingly everywhere now. But I do agree and I don't like that YouTubers and influencers do this, because it feels disingenuine, some are worse than others for it. But it is also what gets clicks for the algorithm to work and if you're trying to make money from YouTube, you do what you know gets clicks.

It's why I also hate what Xiaomanyc does when actually some of his videos have good content and wish he focused more on that, but he definitely does ride the clickbaity titles and videos like "white guy shocks locals with..."

And you do make a fair point about the clickbait, it communicates the wrong impression because it sounded like throughout the video, she had a good relationship with the event & organisers and that they responded well to her and she had no ill feeling towards them or the event, which was otherwise fantastic & she loved it.

But it's also the same sort of reason why I sometimes tell people to read past the headline of any news article, because they often are not representative of the content of the article and you see it in reactions to articles posted on things like Facebook, you can always tell who hasn't read the article. And sometimes it is intentionally misleading.
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Re: Polyglot conference: the mind boggles...!

Postby Cainntear » Mon May 15, 2023 3:27 pm

Sae wrote:I didn't really get into the drunken fight thing as I figured the emphasis in the thread was on the other thing, so I didn't actually watch that part of the video.

Except that that "shock quote" to get people to stick around was about the bottle incident, so people were actively encouraged to keep watching for something that wasn't about her sexual harrassment, essentially kicking the thing that you saw as being the main thing into a supporting role. She chose to place emphasis on the drunken fight. I think it's pretty reasonable that people watching it get distracted by that.

But it does seem we're mostly of the same mind.

Yes, and thank you for making that clear.

Cainntear wrote:..and yet, the video is called What REALLY happened at the Polyglot Conference.. and the thumbnail is a shot that doesn't appear to have been taken in the same spot as the video, labelled with Cholula 2022 and "polyglot drama", with what is either a still from a totally different video or her striking a pose, either way chosen for dramatic effect.

There's so much wrapped round YouTube stuff that it's actually quite difficult to take the message outside of the content.


I think I have become immune to this on YouTube by now,

I have become less succeptible to it, but I am very, very aware of it and of how it affects other people. I think my biggest problem recently is the number of people calling me out for being picky and justifying that by saying I understand what they mean anyway (side note: this isn't always the case -- I am fairly often mislead myself) and ignoring my point that other people's reactions are understandable.
because I tend to ignore it and focus on the content, given clickbait is seemingly everywhere now. But I do agree and I don't like that YouTubers and influencers do this, because it feels disingenuine, some are worse than others for it. But it is also what gets clicks for the algorithm to work and if you're trying to make money from YouTube, you do what you know gets clicks.

Yes, and when it comes down to it, it's YouTube's policies that lead to a race-to-the-bottom. They won't take responsibility for it, preferring to stick their hands up and say "just a platform", but they reward shock value videos that evoke reactions that are often far from fair. YouTube keeps letting creators push the boundaries and it doesn't really matter to them how many creators end up on the wrong side of a defamation suit as there's enough other wannabes to take their place. YouTube is on the cusp of being unwatchable now.

And you do make a fair point about the clickbait, it communicates the wrong impression because it sounded like throughout the video, she had a good relationship with the event & organisers and that they responded well to her and she had no ill feeling towards them or the event, which was otherwise fantastic & she loved it.

But it's also the same sort of reason why I sometimes tell people to read past the headline of any news article, because they often are not representative of the content of the article and you see it in reactions to articles posted on things like Facebook, you can always tell who hasn't read the article. And sometimes it is intentionally misleading.

Yes, and the increasing clickbaitiness of newspaper headlines is just them trying to compete with the clickbaity amateurs on social media. Clickbait is just a race to the bottom, because it drags everyone into a vicious spiral.
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Re: Polyglot conference: the mind boggles...!

Postby Cainntear » Mon May 15, 2023 3:35 pm

Oh wait, she actually says "it's a conference, it's not a convention, you know?" I think that probably triggered my "pretend conference" jab before...
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Re: Polyglot conference: the mind boggles...!

Postby Sae » Mon May 15, 2023 4:42 pm

Cainntear wrote:*snip*


Yeah, YouTube has some pretty bad policies for creators and the algorithm sucks and YouTube pretty much has a monopoly for the space.

And it ends up a mixed bag, there's great channels that become successful without bad click bait, some I've seen resort to it and then some i just see screwed by YouTube's bad policies and how their algorithm works. And then you get the stupidest stuff explode. I have signed up to Patreon before where I've seen good quality creators struggle.

Cainntear wrote:I have become less succeptible to it, but I am very, very aware of it and of how it affects other people. I think my biggest problem recently is the number of people calling me out for being picky and justifying that by saying I understand what they mean anyway (side note: this isn't always the case -- I am fairly often mislead myself) and ignoring my point that other people's reactions are understandable.


I getcha. In your case, I'll try to give the benefit of the doubt if it sounds like you've got the wrong idea, because I might not have articulated it well or given the right impression. Heck I might get the wrong idea myself.

But, in the context here of headlines and YouTube video titles/thumbnails, clarity would be better else expect misunderstandings, I don't think it's always intentional, but I think something definitely to be conscious of.

And some publications I definitely think realise this and word their headlines specifically to give the impression they intend knowing that either it'll influence how people read the content or know they won't read past the headline, even if the content doesn't really back up the claim. And usually it'll be to fuel some kind of outrage or push misinformation. Misinformation may fuel certain ulterior motives and outrage is easy interaction, clicks and readers.
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Re: Polyglot conference: the mind boggles...!

Postby Le Baron » Tue May 16, 2023 1:48 pm

Cainntear wrote:polyglottery is not exaclty a profession, is it?

It isn't. not a real one anyway, but it doesn't stop those swindlers who live off YT revenue.

At the two (only two) Esperanto congresses I've been to lots of knocking shop activity went on, after some boozing. Peace and love man.
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