Talk:Bullying

Victims, not bullies lack social skills and are often loners.

"Students who are victims of bullying are typically anxious, insecure, cautious, and suffer from low self-esteem, rarely defending themselves or retaliating when confronted by students who bully them. They may lack social skills and friends, and they are often socially isolated. Victims tend to be close to their parents and may have parents who can be described as overprotective."

The source is http://www.nldontheweb.org/Banks_1.htm

Aren't there a few POV statements here?

I think we have POV problems the last paragraph in the Locations of Bullying section: "Bullying in the military can occur when a superior misuses their power to get subordinates to do whatever they want including sexual favours. However the excuse for this sort of behaviour is that the military is not subject to normal civilian laws so they should be allowed to do what they want. This can lead to a high number of sucides [sic] and mysterious deaths of subordinates which are not investigated openly. Deepcut Barracks in the UK is one example of this where the UK government refuses to do a full public enquiry."

My main problems with this paragraph is the sweeping, unsupported comment about the acceptance of bullying in the military; it relies completely on generalization. Any idea on how to incorporate specifics into this paragraph, or should I just delete the part about "normal civilian laws"?

-Throbblefoot

I don't like the bit about "so they should be allowed to do what they want" but it is true that the military is not subject to normal civilian laws. - 67.172.124.99 07:19, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

-- I agree that there is POV in that bit. I'm changing the style but not the content. Rebekah Zinn 04:13, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Looks much better - thanks, Rebekah Zinn! -Throbblefoot 19:11, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

I just reverted changes to the military section as they were capricious and uncited. I may disagree with what's here now, but the later version is no improvement. Thanks - Throbblefoot 06:09, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

The purpose of bullying and how to stop it

Bullying is a form of aggression. Aggression has helped man fight predators and now agression is part of his genes. Bullying is fun because it lets you express your (agressive) genes. The way to stop bulling is by both by making the bully understand that he is acting like a caveman and by countering the fun he had bullying with a larger punishment. - fvdham

Whoops

I accidentally erased most of the article. Can someone revert it?

Bullying, is there an answer?

IS there?

Unclear

I deleted the following:

     It is argued that without an antagonist figure that could be plausibly defeated (as opposed to a father bullying his child, who could never defeat him physically and would have a hard time to legally).

on the grounds that it is not a sentence and it is unclear what the writer was trying to express.

--Vorpalbla

huh?

Some refutations on alleged bullying. The whole section seems like total BS to me. Can anyone offer a reson why this section should be retained in the article?

I agree. I deleted it. While I believe that many cases of bullying may be overblown, and a few may even unfounded, the section was unscholarly at best. Its main points, that "being bullied is good for you" and "bullies are victims", certainly isn't mainstream. If someone has some references to cite on this, go ahead and add it. --A D Monroe III 09:21, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Hold on a second. "Getting a victim into trouble with authority" is bullying?

I don't think that "getting a victim into trouble with authority" is bullying. If someone has done something wrong, they asked to get into trouble. I think that getting bullies into trouble with authority is the only way to stop bullies. I think that "getting a victim into trouble with authority" should be removed from the list of bullying actions, since it is just and a possible way to STOP bullying.

I agree that reporting a bully to an authority is an effective and just way to stop bullying. However, I believe that reporting someone to an authority can be, in itself, a form of bullying sometimes. Realistically, everyone occasionally breaks the rules in every environment. Repeatedly reporting someone's minor infractions with the intention of harming the victim can be a form of bullying. For example, a bully could make a point of reporting a victim every time the victim whispers to a classmate, passes a note, doodles on a page, or surreptitiously chews gum. I'm not making the case that one should never report another to an authority, but it is certainly possible to bully someone in this manner. TomTheHand 17:41, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

I question the assumption that the person being reported actually broke a rule. A bully can get an innocent person in trouble by pinning blame on him or reporting incidents that didn't happen. We certainly shouldn't remove the text, but perhaps it can be reworded to cover the points TomTheHand and I raise. Throbblefoot 19:05, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree with the second and third comments. Also, the article does state that it means the bully getting someone in trouble for an event either not committed at all, or exagerated by the bully. --Bear Eagleson 15:40, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

"Bullycide" rant

I'm aware that "bullycide" is a term used by the mainstream media to describe a suicide in reaction to bullying. I'm not suggesting that it be removed from the article, but I wanted to rant: "bullycide" is a stupid, stupid word. The prefix indicates who has been killed: therefore, bullycide is killing a bully. Again, just a rant. TomTheHand 22:02, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

---

I don't think it's the most elegant word, but what's your rationale in stating "the prefix indicates who has been killed?" Suicide means "death caused by oneself," homicide means "death caused by another," so why wouldn't bullycide mean "death caused by a bully?"

Also, "bullycide" does not mean "suicide in reaction to a bullying," but refers to all types of death caused by bullying -- including suicide, homicide, and accident. Rebekah Zinn 23:08, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

The prefix refers to who has been killed, not who caused the death. Two examples: regicide means king-killing, and fratricide means brother-killing. Suicide means self-killing and homicide means person-killing (the most general of the terms). Use of the word "bullycide" to refer to a death caused by bullying, whether a suicide or a bully-perpetrated homicide, is silly. TomTheHand 01:13, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

How about pesticide instead?  ;) At least it's a real word. "Bullycide" is a confusing neologism; it needs to go. --A D Monroe III 19:32, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm not trying to say that it needs to go. It seems to be a "real" word, actually used by the media and by "bullying experts." I feel it does belong in the article, but I just wanted to rant that these "bullying experts" probably didn't pay enough attention in English and/or Latin class ;-) TomTheHand 01:37, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

I'll conceed that the word is ill-constructed. BTW, it was coined in the book "Bullycide: Death at Playtime," [1] which uses the term to describe suicide caused by bullying. When others started using the word, it's meaning expanded to include homicides and accidents caused by bullies. --Rebekah Zinn 20:39, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Bullying & Employment Discrimination

Does anyone have a source to back up this statement: "Bullying is behind most claims of discrimination in the workplace." Most claims? Really? I've studied a bit of American employment discrimination law. In my observation, bullying is not a factor in a great deal of these claims, especially in the numerous failure-to-hire cases. Rebekah Zinn 23:22, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Benefits of Bullying

A few months ago, a woman (a sociologist, I believe. I can't think of her name off hand though) came on the Daily Show as one of Jon's guests stating that there were in fact, some benefits of bullying. She mainly argued that school based anti-bully initiatives would have the detrimental effect of not honing a child's competition skills. She pointed to one school district which banned the game of tag in favor of a new game called "Circle of Friends." Anyway, if anybody knows more about this, I think it could be a useful addition to the article.--Jsonitsac 06:12, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Upon further research I found her name was Christina Hoff Sommers--Jsonitsac 06:28, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Temporarily commenting out Ways to prevent/stop bullying and strategic methods.

On November 23, 2005, User:205.188.116.73 (an AOL proxy server IP) added a section on 'Ways to prevent/stop bullying and strategic methods.' The section needs major clean-up to its spelling and grammar, and lacks citation. As has been pointed out to me, it may be original research. Rather that delete the changes, I propose that the section be commented out until someone has the time to research and copy edit it. I'll go ahead and make the change. Thanks, Throbblefoot 21:27, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Rogue work-bully-support group link

I have deleted the external link to http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/work-bully-support as it is a rogue group. The original true group is at http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/workbully-support/

The group "workbully-support" was founded in 2000 by Andy whose website http://www.workplacebullying.co.uk has a link to this group. He has been owner of this group for most of that time. However recently things got out of control and one of the five moderators, due to hypervigilance thought he was doing everyone a favour by deleting the group completely. He thought there was problem with the group administration that didnt exist. He deleted the group without permission or knowledge of the other four moderators or the group owner. He intended to immediately recreate the group with himself as the owner but Yahoo does not allow recreation of groups at short notice. He then started a new group with a similar name "work-bully-support" and made out that it was really just the old group implying that it had to be restarted afresh because of a technical reason.

Six years of posts were lost and I have now managed to recreate the original "workbully-support" group from scratch.

--Penbat 16:02, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

american culture

bullying is part of the american culture and that you can't deny. americans are taught to make fun and be agressive in the process, that is reflected everywhere including the humor, see things like encyclopedia dramatica or uncyclopedia or the way americans talk about foreigners. it's going to be pretty hard to fight bullying at schools if the bullies go home and see the whole nation, from the politicians and parents to the ones trying to be funny stepping on those they don't like and feeling good/having fun about it, attacking things that didn't do anything to deserve it instead of existing.

Removed unreferenced section

I have removed the following section, in the absence of any verifiable cites given for its contents:

The bully is generally a coward, or, at any rate, will typically be found to be behaving in a cowardly manner. Typically, the bully will only pick conflicts which he knows in advance he can win (where the victim is weaker than the bully; or the victim will be outnumbered by the bully and his pals; or the method used will avoid the victim being able to fight back). The bully avoids fair fights.

Although this is a comforting stereotype ("stand up to them, and they will crumble") is there any verifiable evidence available that supports this view? I have certainly encountered bullies who were not cowards. -- The Anome 21:30, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

NPOV

This article is becoming a polemic against bullying. This is meant to be an encyclopedia article, not an op-ed piece. According to its NPOV policy, Wikipedia should report points of view, rather than express them. (By the way, for the avoidance of doubt, I do think bullying is a bad thing.) -- The Anome 21:37, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Any idea that bullying is anything other than bad is simply a myth propogated by bullies to justify their actions. It doesn't stand up to any kind of scrutiny. --Penbat 09:51, 25 April 2006 (UTC)