Oh yeah. “Attack the post” isn’t an order and it’s not best practice. Best practice is to, “Discuss the underlying issue.”
I’m not reading i9t as either personal insults or threadshitting.
Subterraneanus called the thread “pretty fucking dumb”
**BG **replied, (paraphrasing), only the first post is fucking dumb, the rest of the posts show some intelligence.
It looks to me very like he’s defending the thread, not shitting it.
And please explain how come you didn’t moderate **Sub ** who used the phrase first.
Under the rule “attack the post, not the poster,” the “OP is pretty fucking dumb” warning is tenuous given the context. I wouldn’t have issued it.
Under the “don’t be a jerk rule” — which is ostensibly the number one rule of the forum — he had a week’s cool-off period coming.
I like BG, and hope he returns in a better headspace, but his already notable attitude was starting to escalate recently, and a short suspension was absolutely the right call here.
So I take it most people are good with, “The original post has the warm personal charm of a millipede. It looks like it was pulled backward through a knothole. It has less backbone than a chocolate eclair. New highs in lows.” (Note to the new: a post like this would surely receive mod attention in GD, if they learned about it.)
How rough do we want GD language to be and how much gratuitousness should be permitted? Surely wisecracks should be encouraged - but subjected to a hate speech filter perhaps. Should there be an intensity limit, short of vulgarity?
In other threads I’ve discussed best practices. This one is about limits.
Frankly, BG got really lucky that all he got for the second comment was a warning.
If instead of appearing to approve of the burning of Catholic churches and the killing of priests and nuns he’d cheered the destruction of synagogues and the murdering of Rabbis or the burning of black churches and the lynching of Black ministers he’d probably have been nailed for hate speech.
Yep.
Measure for Measure: yeah, in his “zip” comment I am sure he was joking. But it was a pretty nasty sort of joke, leaning toward pedophilia, etc. However given his posting history, his comment about killing Catholics was at least heartfelt.
You guys are just considering 1/3 of what he was suspended for. Honestly, his comment about the churches was hate speech, pure & simple. It was hate speech in 2012, too. It was just wrong. Anyone who defends it is wrong too.
So, I don’t give a rat’s ass about on what side of the line he was or what the fuck he meant about “OP”, wether it was insulting or threadshitting. They could have brought the ban-hammer down for just the church post. The other two were gravy. He’s been on a roll…downhill.
I have been reading this thread as well as some of BG’s posts and frankly I don’t understand any of it. We seem to have gotten so politically correct here that smart-ass remarks are no longer tolerated. I hate to be an old bitch yammering on about the good old days, but in the good old days smacking down rudeness was the job of the other posters and nobody got suspended for being a smart-ass.
But, I am obviously out of touch with the new reality Measure for Measure has so clearly described, so nevermind.
Jonathon Chance spake:
"Gotta admit, it’s pretty damn cheesy to appear to celebrate vast human rights abuses and - even in jest - treat them as a good thing. That appears to be almost trolling for reaction. Don’t do it again. "
So, for instance you’d block Mel Brooks from coming here and posting Springtime For Hitler, right? No, actually you wouldn’t. Plenty of bad taste jokes pass without moderator action. It’s not a crime. *Springtime *is funny, and BG’s joke wasn’t, but that’s not a crime either.
In cumulative calculations across warnings, some kind of weighting strategy should be used regarding Jonathan Chance’s moderator actions to reduce their impact. The guy has not gotten the hang of this thing yet, and his moderation seems to rely more on his personal tastes and editorial preferences than on implementing rules more objectively.
If anyone was attacking him or gloating about the moderation I could see that. We are talking about the reasons behind the moderation and suspension of a long time poster. That is one of the things ATMB is for. If this was a “Ding dong the witch is dead” thread I’m sure it would have been closed quickly.
You’re acting like BG killed and ate your puppy, both here and in your reaction in the thread in question. His comment was quite clearly a joke, albeit an inappropriate one and one he certainly should not have made where and when he did. Your reaction is overboard to the point of absurdity; you’re likening him to a pedophile? I guess in the sense that there are tasteless inappropriate pedophile jokes, sure, such as I like my women like I like my scotch. Twelve years old and mixed up with coke. Somehow I doubt that what you mean by “leaning towards pedophilia” though.
While many of the posts are confined to generic issues, there have been also, in my opinion, a number of digs taken at BG as well
Then I guess you should report them.
Thanks. But, still, I think you may be missing my point (which is not an important one in any case. Better for me just to drop it).
Fair enough. I think I got it. I just don’t think anything quite got to that level yet.
DrDeth: Thanks for addressing my point. I agree with Dissonance that the pedo thing was overdone, but I acknowledge that BG’s joke was inappropriate and furthermore… unsuccessful. I mean, it failed at humor setting aside for a moment its offensiveness.
Ibn Warraq: True, but again there exist asymmetries. Verbally attacking a majority church is simply different than attacking a minority church. That’s the way it is: it’s sort of like kicking somebody when they are down. I have the sense that you are a trans-national so I have no idea how that would play out in your mind though. (I’m not trying to be insulting: if I migrated to Japan or Thailand, learned the language and lived there for a while, I would be in similar shoes, if only roughly. Apologies if I am assuming too much: I don’t know your personal history: I don’t wish to imply anything regarding it.)
Apropos nothing, there are lots of interesting perspectives on this board.
Thank you. It may not have been clear in the OP, but I wasn’t really motivated by BrainGlutton’s punishment, per se. Here’s the thing though: in the good old days (as it were) there was more effective intra-membership policing. Typically, a newbie would say something inappropriate in GQ, get hammered by Manhattan, become utterly bewildered, start a pit thread, and then be pointed and laughed at. A few posters would gently explain to the poor fellow how things worked.
As time as gone on, certain intra-member relationships have ossified and old processes broke down. So mods stepped into the vacuum, with the support of the membership. I try to keep a good distance from the lines so as not to create problems for the mods, so I find all of this more a curiosity than a threat. I agree though that when a member’s behavior changes in response to a partially constructive pitting (constructiveness is at most 10% of the content) it is a good development. This doesn’t occur enough in my view.
Anyway, here’s a proposed guideline:
The twin missions of the SDMB are to fight ignorance and make wisecracks. Posters are permitted to specialize in one or the other. Note though when making wisecracks to stay clear of the hate speech. It falls flat, and tends to receive moderator attention besides.
You know, BG actually had been a pretty OK poster until just recently. Sure, pretty controversial, but hardly a Der Tris.
But his posts have gotten pretty mean and out of line just recently. So, maybe a little time off is best for him. Otherwise, he’d have almost certainly posted something that would end his posting here forever. Think of this as a Good thing.
I’m not sure how the Roman Catholic Church is considered “a majority church” in America, while Judaism is considered “a minority church.” They’re both minority churches which have historically faced discrimination.
That one about no down side was pretty much hate speech. He’s getting off light.
That occurred to me. My take is that a) the Catholic church is a majority church in Spain and much more important b) the Catholic church made its peace with evangelical protestantism in the US decades ago. The pockets of Christian anti-Catholic sentiment have been tiny but not non-existent for decades. They will be attacked by energetic supporters of contraception though. So it’s a mixed bag. Furthermore c) I think anti-Semitism has been declining yet always more intense than anti-Catholic sentiments in the US.
Decades ago I heard a loon rant against Catholics in a subway. So yeah, it happens. I don’t see it too much though.