I’m confused about the definition of trolling. I thought it was when you, say, went on Planned Parenthood’s website chat room (if there is such a thing) and even though you were pro-choice or really didn’t even care about abortion and you start calling them baby killers or some other invective simply to cause problems and get a rise out of them.
I thought that if, in the above example, that you were pro-life and you really did think of abortion as baby killing, then your post on that board would not be trolling. Am I mistaken?
Satire? No. A thousand times no. If you are capable of imagining that these statements as written can be construed as satire, you should never be moderating satire in the real world.
It’s possible that you are using these as examples as statements that will never stand up to a satire defense. If so, you failed at communicating that as well because no literate English-speaker could ever make that mistake.
Here’s a helping hand. I’ll be your satire-whisperer. If you are asked to judge whether something is legitimate satire or not, ask me before making a ruling and I’ll sort them out for you.
After Bone’s post above, I need yet another clarification. My understanding is that hate speech is banned on the board. I agree. But there is no rule against typing the word “nigger” per se, correct?
And if I said something like, “This nigger moved in next door to me” then boom, warning, obvious hate speech. But if I said something like, “It is deplorable that some white people still call black people ‘niggers’ in this day and time” that would be all good.
But if I say, “So and so (white politician) probably believes that all niggers should know their own place” where does that fall? Hate speech? Not really. I didn’t denigrate the race, I am imputing it to others. Trolling? Again, not if I really believe that is (white politician’s) goal.
So it seems to be some sort of ill-defined hybrid that has not been properly explained, hence the reason for this thread. And this thread takes it a step further as the word “negro” was used instead. If instead of “negro” asahi’s said “the blacks” or “blacks” would that have saved him from the moderation?
I’m not trying to rules lawyer. I think that clear guidance is necessary.
I guess I suffer from the same defect. Take one of Bone’s examples:
“Leftists are in favor of Affirmative Action because they are paternal racists trying to help the negros.”
I can see how that could be satire. The poster is arguing paternal racism and emphasizing it with the use of the word “negro.” In essence, he is saying that the left views black people in an antiquated way in that they need help and cannot excel without help.
Now, as I said originally, I think that there should be a new rule prohibiting that (not the word, the sentiment) because such discourse does not help free and open debate. It turns the debate into who is the most racist instead of arguing about what policies are good and what are bad. But the rule would be new. I don’t see any existing rule that covers it.
Then help a fellow doper out here. I thought that, by definition, trolling had to be insincere. If I really believe X, even though it is highly offensive to some and causes harsh reaction, then saying that I believe X is not trolling. It is my position.
Maybe it violates some other board rule, but not trolling.
I don’t take it to be irony if the poster actually believes what they are posting. I believe that asahi thinks what he wrote is true, about Northam’s thoughts and, as I said, likely about all whites. Not irony. We differ on this.
My suggestions were meant to support the question: if it is crystal clear that a poster is putting thoughts into another person’s head and then sharing them for the purpose of making an argument, is that ok?
No, I don’t agree. I think that effective satire and inflammatory speech are in tension, so it’s always going to be a question of probative-prejudicial type balance. In order for satire to be effective it must always be somewhat edgy. So there will always be a question of just how far you should go with satire. In mocking an old white man from the south, it seems to me that use of the anachronism “negro” could make for effective satire, if used appropriately; use of the taboo n-word would always be excessively inflammatory.
I guess I just think if it’s really ambiguous, it should be Noted; and if someone repeatedly makes ambiguous posts trying to pass of racist epithets as satire it will be obvious.
It seems to me that you’re essentially arguing to expand the list of words that are completely taboo. If the POC on here were to say that seeing “negro” is so triggering/offensive that it’s appropriate to make it taboo even in satire, that would be another matter. But I don’t accept the argument that we should narrow the range of permitted speech just because it’s difficult for mods to differentiate satirical mocking of bigotry from actual bigotry.
I don’t think asahi was using so-called hate speech and I definitely don’t think he was trolling. If he’s guilty of anything it is writing in a style that went unappreciated by some and now he has another warning that is being defended with some rather tortuous reasoning. The word is not a slur. It’s relatively anachronistic and was used to parody the governor. This warning isn’t quite the straw-grasper that Huey’s banning is but it’s in the ballpark.
I get what you are saying Bone that you find that particular construction to be potentially problematic if used liberally. However, if you read through the forums many potentially inflammatory words, phrases, and ideas are said all the time. Is it really the goal going forward to have an offense free, which is impossible and undesirable outcome, forum? What’s the test here? Person x is inflamed therefore poster y must be trolling?
Inflammatory is always in the eye of the beholder. What makes asahi’s post effective at capturing the voice of an old-fashioned, paternalistic racist is precisely “the negro.”
From what you cited, the better way to say it is that “Expressing an unpopular, but honestly held, opinion forcefully enough can be misconstrued or misinterpreted as trolling, but because the mods don’t have a mind reading device, and we have to rule one way or another, you may get modded anyways.”
I have no problem with that rule. But I think everyone agrees that this was asahi’s honestly held opinion, and I believe that by definition it cannot be seen as trolling.
Suppose that a poster sincerely believes that pro-choicers are complicit in murdering babies. How many times could he append baby-killer to posters’ names before he becomes a troll?
Baby-killer PosterA and baby-killer PosterB don’t have valid opinions because they kill babies!
There is a prominent libertarian on our board who posts things he genuinely believes, but almost always does so as cryptic, contemptuous one-liners that mock those he disagrees with. The main reason he posts appears to be to get a rise out of folks who find his genuine beliefs to be outrageous.
We differ because you’re introducing ridiculous confusion by conflating the rhetorical technique of being ironically non-literal with underlying insincerity.
I’m not saying the board should not stop the “baby-killing” descriptors. What I am saying is that, by definition, a poster is not trolling if he sincerely believes what he is saying.
The rule you cited confirms that, however it merely states the obvious fact that a moderator cannot tell if a person is positing a sincerely held belief or if he is just fucking around and trying to get a rise out of people. The first is not trolling, the latter is.
As I said before and other posters agreed, it would be a new rule to ban this type of stuff when everyone believes that the poster is indeed without a doubt sincere in his thoughts. We can have better discourse without “baby killer” or “he has always protected Negroes” or similar language.
Argue the point and not the personal motivations of the speaker. Argue against abortion without calling people baby killers. Argue that Gov. Northram believes that his last 30 years of service outweighs his posing in a picture without imputing that he believes that he has been a servant of shiftless blacks. No need for either of the two. But don’t change the definition of trolling to suit a mod action.
I stand to be corrected, but my understanding is that “sincere trolling” is an oxymoron. If I believe that aliens took over Nancy Pelosi’s body last year and she is merely parroting commands to cause our takeover by hostile interplanetary forces, then that is not trolling. It is stupid as hell, but not trolling.
The issue is that you don’t know me and I don’t know you. If you were a mod, you would have every reason to think that I really don’t believe that and I am just shitting all over the board. And the rule that was cited basically says that. I might get modded for trolling because of the mistaken thought that I really don’t believe that about Pelosi.
But nobody has said that asahi did not believe what he said. It is therefore not trolling. If there is a new definition of trolling that I have missed, I welcome the correction.
I mean, why would the n-word be excessively inflammatory in mocking an old white man from the south? Seems right in line with the that line of thinking.
It appears you view it as a spectrum. Where satire in an inflammatory way can be okay, or not okay, depending on the degree of the rhetoric. And in this case, you think the rhetoric not sufficient to warrant a warning. In this regard, I’m not sure why the fact that it was satire is relevant then. Wouldn’t this same spectrum exist sans the element of satire? Or do you think satire shifts to a more expansive view of what is acceptable?
Look at the examples I gave. I guarantee you those are the types of statements that would be made with regularity. Notwithstanding the offer to be a satire whisperer from Exapno Mapcase, and not getting into a discussion on the merits, but many people on the right view those policies and practices as super racist. That’s where this path leads.
In any event, given the recent posting pattern, it did strike me as primarily an effort to be inflammatory. This was a key consideration and why the warning was for trolling. I’m definitely in the minority view on that, if we go by this thread. I’ll think on it.
If a belief is not held sincerely, anywhere you post it is trolling.
If a belief is held sincerely, but is something you know may antagonize people, then you still have a duty to be judicious. There is no obligation never to offend people, but you should restrict expression of such views to where they are on-topic. If you keep on about it all the time, and keep derailing threads with it, or in some sense post principally to antagonize people rather than make a relevant point, it’s still trolling even if the view is sincerely held.