2016 Championship Harassment Survey

[CalTran]

Originally Posted by marshall

I didn't see it in St Louis but I had a long chat with our district director about the clothespin problem that I've seen happen at some events. Students will take to putting clothespins on other students in some sort of ritual tag game, which is fine if those students know each other. It's when they don't that I have a problem with it. Putting them on strangers is not acceptable and it's going to lead to a more serious problem down the road if nothing is done about it.

It's an issue and I've had more than one student feel harassed because of it. In all cases for my team it has been female students who felt harassed for having the clothespins placed on them by male students from other teams. I'm tired of dealing with it year after year personally and I plan on making a big point of it so it stops. It's unacceptable.

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

Also, I agree with marshall on this clothespin tag game.

1) I don't get it, am I out of touch with the youth already?
2) I do see kids targeting girls a lot and I find it rather annoying knowing that a student of mine may be attracting unwanted physical interaction
3) The fact that they usually sneak up on other students just seems creepy to me.

Mentors - if you see your kids doing this, kindly ask them to stop tagging strangers. If not, I will gladly break their clothespins in front of them.

Thanks,
Akash

Originally Posted by Michael Corsetto

I had never heard of the game until you posted this, but I did see students throwing clothespins into other teams pits when they weren't around. Seemed odd to me.

-Mike

It's not just pinning students, but Rick Snyder's Security(?) got tagged too. Additionally, there's a weirdly defensive justification over the practice. I never understood it as a student, and I still don't understand it as a mentor. Perhaps there's only a short period before people start putting clothes pins on paper airplanes

[dag0620]

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

Can the folks suggesting a checkbox format just PM Kevin with a list of suggested Checkboxes? That might help him out more.

Thanks for putting this together, I feel this is a great step in the right direction.

Also, I agree with marshall on this clothespin tag game.

1) I don't get it, am I out of touch with the youth already?
2) I do see kids targeting girls a lot and I find it rather annoying knowing that a student of mine may be attracting unwanted physical interaction
3) The fact that they usually sneak up on other students just seems creepy to me.

Mentors - if you see your kids doing this, kindly ask them to stop tagging strangers. If not, I will gladly break their clothespins in front of them.

Thanks,
Akash

Not only does this happen among students, but several volunteers including myself end up getting tagged. Personally, I'm never thrilled when I get tagged. It's a little creepy, and I don't want the tags on me.

So mentors, let's please STOP this behavior from happening.

[BeardyMentor]

Thanks for tracking this. I would love to see the results with team number/identifying information removed.

[Alan Anderson]

Lots of students enjoy the clothespin tagging game, on both the tagger and taggee sides. I don't want to participate, but I also don't want to ruin the game for the willing participants. Asking for consent spoils the fun. So how about explicitly identifying the tag targets? People who are happy to get pins clipped to them could wear a distinctive sash or wristband. Anyone not displaying the "target consent" item would be out of bounds.

[marshall]

Originally Posted by Tartan47

2481 has a standard practice with the students that any clothespins they find are taken to the pit crew for distruction/disposal. Should any other teams participating at the same event wish to drop clothespins off at the 2481 pit I'm sure the pit captain would be happy to oblige

Some of our students did that one year at some event... I feel like it just brought more of them out though.

[rant]
I am just sick of dealing with this though. I have to take time away from my own students and go track down the other team involved, find a reasonably astute student or an adult, explain to them that they need to stop it while holding some level of self-control so I don't scream at them to stop perpetuating a culture of invading the personal space of others. Meanwhile my students felt threatened, intimidated, and I'm sure a little embarrassed that they have a mentor having these conversations. And then after I've done it, I have to deal with the eye rolling... yeah, I'm the guy in zebra-striped pajama pants and grease covered hands who just told your team to stop harassing my students!!!! It irritates the crap out of me!!!! #TSINMFD
[/rant]

If I had to guess it started because some team brought in clothespins as their team giveaway/button substitute and then boredom took over and now we have a lame tradition that shows no respect for personal space.

[cadandcookies]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

Lots of students enjoy the clothespin tagging game, on both the tagger and taggee sides. I don't want to participate, but I also don't want to ruin the game for the willing participants. Asking for consent spoils the fun. So how about explicitly identifying the tag targets? People who are happy to get pins clipped to them could wear a distinctive sash or wristband. Anyone not displaying the "target consent" item would be out of bounds.

I really like this idea. Needs some thought, but you could probably wrap the target identifier into a team giveaway or something.

In the original vein of this thread, I really like this idea, Kevin. Hopefully the results of this survey can be leveraged into meaningful change.

[scca229]

Originally Posted by marshall

If I had to guess it started because some team brought in clothespins as their team giveaway/button substitute and then boredom took over and now we have a lame tradition that shows no respect for personal space.

I hadn't heard/seen this "game" before (haven't been to Champs yet either) and I was curious, so did some digging as I tend to do. I found a couple of links talking about it, one from 2011 as a family game that apparently the blogger remembers being played for years and another from Vex Champs in 2013.

https://shanehalbach.com/2011/12/08/...othespin-game/

https://www.facebook.com/events/439479122807499/

Like many activities, this probably started out as the innocent thing between people that know each other/family and has now spread out. With the current environment, this sounds like it is approaching (or already has with some of the posts here) the mascot "hugging" level (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...71#post1386771). I'm easily imagining a clothes-pinning attempt not going well and the "victim" being creeped out by it something fierce. It would really suck to find out that is why someone decided to stop participating in this life-directing program when it didn't need to happen at all.

Paired up with the Making STEM a better place for women (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...01#post1571301) thread, we probably need to work on making sure the environment stays safe, inviting, and comfortable for all participants.

[BeardyMentor]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

Lots of students enjoy the clothespin tagging game, on both the tagger and taggee sides. I don't want to participate, but I also don't want to ruin the game for the willing participants. Asking for consent spoils the fun. So how about explicitly identifying the tag targets? People who are happy to get pins clipped to them could wear a distinctive sash or wristband. Anyone not displaying the "target consent" item would be out of bounds.

This is a good compromise provided that people know and follow it. A simple thing I thought about was having a clothespin on the upper, front part of your torso. It would be very difficult to get that on someone without their knowledge and easy to see for other willing participants.

[wazateer1]

Our team participates in the clothspin game, but we hardly ever actually need to establish any rules about it. They are simply non-verbally understood to be something along the lines of:
1) If you know the person, and the person is not offended by the act, it is OK.
2) If the person is wearing large amounts of spirit wear (our team wears fluffy white YETI hats, I have seen other people wearing capes and fedoras) it is probably okay to pin to that (I have walked around the pits for hours without noticing clothespins sticking straight up from my YETIs ears)
3) If the person has clothspinned you or your friends while walking past your pit, it is DEFINETLY okay to walk by their pit and go for a targeted stealth pinning.

Originally Posted by Akash Rastogi

2) I do see kids targeting girls a lot and I find it rather annoying knowing that a student of mine may be attracting unwanted physical interaction

You make some other points about how it is a non-consensual act, and I agree in a perfect world we should all agree about how we treat each other, but I have never observed this specifically. This is partly because the clothspinner is trying to not be noticed. People can really only be pinned on spirit wear or the ends of very long clothing without the person clearly overstepping their boundries (If a person can not understand that walking up to a stranger and pinching tight clothing to put a clothespin on is inappropriate, we need to take more then just clothespins away from them). If the person feels violated afterwards, then the person doing the clipping already violated how close the clippee like to be within people. What I am saying is not that clipping is an okay substitute for direct inappropriate touching, but that clipping should be treated like a direct touch. I have had my YETI hat pet more times then I probably know about it, and I am okay with that. I have also been hugged more times then I have wanted (usually by team members, but I still am not a hugging person and "did not consent/reciprocate"), and that is okay.

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

Lots of students enjoy the clothespin tagging game, on both the tagger and taggee sides. I don't want to participate, but I also don't want to ruin the game for the willing participants. Asking for consent spoils the fun. So how about explicitly identifying the tag targets? People who are happy to get pins clipped to them could wear a distinctive sash or wristband. Anyone not displaying the "target consent" item would be out of bounds.

I would just like to remind you that physical contact is not even required to make someone feel uncomfortable. (Noting that this situation is gender neutral, because this applies to everybody) A stranger trying to start a conversation with you may be absolutely fine, because you love to talk, or terrifying. But either way, we do not consider this stranger with good intentions rude. It is only if they continue their social interaction past the point where it should be understood that they should stop talking and leave that they are rude.

For better or worse: We do not require people to wear "I am comfortable with spontaneous social interaction" signs

[BrendanB]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

Lots of students enjoy the clothespin tagging game, on both the tagger and taggee sides. I don't want to participate, but I also don't want to ruin the game for the willing participants. Asking for consent spoils the fun. So how about explicitly identifying the tag targets? People who are happy to get pins clipped to them could wear a distinctive sash or wristband. Anyone not displaying the "target consent" item would be out of bounds.

Its an utterly pointless thing to do at events and if you started to ask around you'll have more people against clothespins than for them. It adds a little humor but mostly annoyance or discomfort.

Teams have been asked not to bring certain giveaways with them before I see no reason why they can't extend into clothespins.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by BrendanB

Teams have been asked not to bring certain giveaways with them before I see no reason why they can't extend into clothespins.

The difference between clothespins and something like noisemakers is that pinning someone is a one-on-one action. It does not affect anyone who doesn't get pinned. When respecting personal space can be made part of the culture, banning an item entirely is an overreaction. Instead of outlawing the entire clothespinning game, it would be good for all involved to actually embrace the game and set clear guidelines for its players.

And once the "explicit consent" idea is made part of the game, it can then be institutionalized and extended to other personal-space actions: mascot hugs, shoulder rubs, hair touching, etc.

[OccamzRazor]

Someone across from our pit brought an entire kit tote full of clothespins and made a game with twitter out of it - it probably weighed 30 pounds. We were so close in proximity that we got tagged more than a hundred times easily. I have to agree that it is obnoxious when not moderated and that my team will never bring pegs to competition but I do not think we will go as far as dismantling them since I do see some kids having harmless fun with them.

I think 1v1 student confrontation over them is a problem if the students who are tagging have questionable character and behave inappropriately with them because most of the time it is harmless. The mistakes of a few ruin it for all.

I would not be opposed to a collective ban on them at competitions because there are other ways to have fun at the events. Seating harassment was way worse this year but since the venues will shrink next year the problem will hopefully shrink along with it.

[leon r]

I do not get it, why is anyone offended by the pins? Seems like a harmless game (which my team didn't partake in).

[BBray_T1296]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

The difference between clothespins and something like noisemakers is that pinning someone is a one-on-one action. It does not affect anyone who doesn't get pinned. When respecting personal space can be made part of the culture, banning an item entirely is an overreaction. Instead of outlawing the entire clothespinning game, it would be good for all involved to actually embrace the game and set clear guidelines for its players.

And once the "explicit consent" idea is made part of the game, it can then be institutionalized and extended to other personal-space actions: mascot hugs, shoulder rubs, hair touching, etc.

This could only work if it were in any way enforcable. If you tagged someone who did not consent, how would you be punished or for that matter get caught. I think this solution would actually make a meta-game about who can tag the most non-consenting people and get away with it. Frankly I think it would hurt more than help.

[ATannahill]

Originally Posted by leon r

I do not get it, why is anyone offended by the pins? Seems like a harmless game (which my team didn't partake in).

For me, it's the fact that I am helping to make a robotics event happen and teams to perform their best and I do not want to distracted by someone putting a clothespin on me. I also agree with the points on personal space.