But you can bet tom is going to zero in on that “appeared” weasel-word he so carefully planted there.
No offense, but I invite you to use that argument when you post a “fact” in any other forum here except for the Pit.
I really don’t get the modding on this one. The premise of the OP is that Jews could have avoided the Holocaust through assimilation. But that seems to be why Chronos finally closed it.
The question was supposedly about whether the Jews could have avoided the Holocaust through assimilation, but it became rather evident that the OP was actually saying that the Jews should have avoided the Holocaust through assimilation. He wasn’t asking a factual question-he was pushing a very questionable “fact”.
Outside of a confession, how do propose moderators prove a poster is a troll? You’ve been here a while, do you remember many people being banned after some lengthy showing of facts?
You have polled every poster on the SDMB and have received unanimous agreement? Or you have a series of calls for punishment from the same small collection of stone throwers?
Prove? Perhaps not. However, actual evidence, rather than waving torches and pitchforks would be nice.
It was submitted as a question, not as a debatable assertion. Moving it could be an option. Another option would be to provide clear factual responses to the question and moving it if the OP insisting it be debated. That might have happened if, overall, the posters had chosen to respond with facts rather than accusations, getting the thing closed. (I acknowledge and appreciate that some posters responded with facts.)
You may not be, but other participants in this thread are. As to erring on the right, please re-read my longer post. The poster could have been corrected without any flaming or banning and your response assumes that you have definite knowledge of the offending poster’s mindset as well as knowing exactly what is “right.”
As to irritating and ignorant, there are a number of posters whom the majority of Left leaning other posters consider irritating and ignorant. There are Left leaning posters whom a number of Right leaning posters consider irritating and ignorant. I have no way to make them less so. It is part of life.
They do not “fight back against it.” They simply choose to express emotional reactions to their perceptions. Fighting back in a discussion thread would mean pointing out clear factual errors and poorly reasoned conclusions. It could even point out the anti-semitic (or whatever) nature of the points expressed. Attacking the poster with name-calling does not refute the posters’ positions.
My assertion was that the poster in question was in the habit of posting odd, irritating things on a wide variety of topics, not that they were persistently bigoted.
Attacking the poster does nothing to rectify that situation.
Despite the claims of a couple of folks, we are not protecting bad ideas. We are insisting that bad ideas be treated the same way in all cases, whether it is Nazi bullshit or moon hoax claims or a belief in crystals. Making exceptions to permit personal attacks on Nazis opens us to the movement toward personal attacks on people expressing questions or claims about gender or sexism or politics, depending on what gets deemed “correct” among a certain population of the board.
No. If we look at the bigger picture, we have a poster asking dumb and easily refuted speculation in the educational forum while various posters ignore the educational opportunity in order to make personal attacks (while others took the time to demonstrate the errors). If the personal attacks were permitted to continue, a new poster could come to the conclusion that the person making such comments might be correct, but that the hive mind would not permit them to ask their questions or make their points.
No one has ever been admonished or punished for providing valid refutations of such nonsense. The only prohibition is against personal attacks. If every bigot was met with clear, factual refutations, I see no reason why any other bigot would choose to come to this board. If they were all mocked in discussion fora, they would be more likely to come trolling.
I am not aware that the poster under discussion repeatedly posts bigoted nonsense. My experience has been that he simply posts dumb stuff regardless of the topic.
Could be. There is even a possibility that his overall behavior is being looked at in the Mod loop. However, this thread was begun as a complaint that we were not permitting personal attacks on people regarded as “bad” and my points in this thread have been an attempt to show why we focus on behavior and not on some posters’ desire to abuse posters they do not like or with whom they disagree.
n=3
You, Cronos, me.
Good enough for government work and since you agree why are we discussing this?
My proof is the title: He said (just the title; not reading that again) “During the holocausts, weren’t the “Jews” being murdered the distant relatives of the Germans?”
How are we even discussing this?
The well was poisoned beyond recognition. To characterize this as a question is IMO dishonest.
I don’t have to know his mindset. I have his post and that definitely ain’t right.
As to what ís right: Let me go out on a limb here and say anti-semitism is wrong?
And the evidence that this is anti-semitism? I have this handy quote from a (quite condescending) authority on the subject, According to this source the very title is anti-semitic.
What are you even arguing about?
We seem to agree on every point:
The very title of the OP is anti-semitic. [check]
(Actual evidence of anti-semitism provided by yourself.)
We should be allowed to call that shit what it is [check]
FTR you called him irritating, ignorant, stupid, racist, anti-feminist, religiously bigoted, naïve, an actual racist, extremely ignorant, his posts poorly expressed and having poorly reasoned conclusions – You really don’t like that guy do you?
(I’m going with Colibri’s ideas of what constitutes an insult here: a vague implication suffices)
Actually, I noted that some of his posts have been several of those things. I have not called the poster stupid, racist, anti-feminist, religiously bigoted, or an actual racist. Please stick to what I have said, not what others have said or what you have chosen to infer.
Ignorance I have ascribed to him and he is clearly irritating.
As to the titles and text, note that ignorance could account for everything you have further inferred. Whether it is ignorance/naïveté or malice, those words do not indicate. That they are racist is true, but that does not indicate that they were posted with malice. Further posts in that thread have fleshed out the poster’s apparent motives, but those remarks had not been posted when this thread was submitted.
Asking other posters to refrain from personal comments in GQ, GD, or Elections is not defending bad ideas; it is a request that the ideas be challenged without either starting feuds or making martyrs of posters with bad ideas.
By the definition put forth by Colibri in the mod notes that got my heckles up, you most certainly did.
Let me re-iterate:
“Okay, so you found a way to blame Jews for the Holocaust. Oddly enough, I am not surprised.”
and
“I wouldn’t dignify it as a “thought”.”
Seem oddly innocent when looked at through the lens of these remarks:
“an extremely ignorant (rather than stupid) human with a poor grasp of logic.”
“a racist idea,”<< the offending post I presume.
“the OP has a history of irritating other posters with questions or remarks that appeared racist, anti-feminist, religiously bigoted, etc.” << I know it says “appeared” but from context I can only interpret that as “are clearly so”, the common British usage.
You keep proving my point: One cannot challenge antisemitic ideas without, at least, calling them antisemitic and ignorant. It is not name-calling, it is identifying.
If “antisemitic” is on the list of words you cannot say (or imply!) on television. Then the OP(ost) should have been cornfielded.
(I double-dog dare you to make a fair summation of that post without “blaming the Jews for the Holocaust” or something along those lines)
You cannot have your cake and eat it to.
(You can, I will just be whining that it’s unfair;))
How do you call a troll a troll?
With the report button and/or in the Pit.
Same thing here.
Yes.
I’m not the one proposing to “challenge ideas”. I’m the one that found it alarming that the mod’s attention was on a couple of posts that could, with a bit of effort, be construed as insulting. All while ignoring the OP (that without any effort at all can be seen as hate speech). I thought the contrast jarring.
I didn’t report anything because I assumed that after posting 3 times in that thread Colibri had read the OP (I really hope I was wrong about that).
I’m not sure that I agree with the mods that the posts mentioned were against the person and not the post, but I am sure that I don’t want random Dopers allowed to just decide on their own that the rules don’t apply.
I fully agree.
I just think that moderating hate speech should come before moderating implied slights. (especially when those are open to interpretation) This is where the “erring” comes in.
(I would have been fine with the mod notes if some “love” was given to the OP)
Please note that the Notes, not Warnings, were intended to get the heat of the thread ratcheted down before anything worse happened. They were also issued prior to SamuelA going off the rails in temperament in that thread.
Note also that my remarks were posted in ATMB (with slightly different protocol) in a discussion of SamuelA’s actions and not in a thread in GQ, GD, or Elections. I have also declined to name those I regard as of like mind with you raher than attempting to draw them into the discussion.
There is no prohibition against using the word anti-semitic. There is a prohibition outside The BBQ Pit against accusing a poster of being an anti-semite .
On the contrary, one need not identify a person as anti-semitic; one need only point out that their expressed ideas are anti-semitic. (In a discussion forum; do what you feel is necessary in The BBQ Pit._)
I’m too dumb to see the difference between what you are saying vs. what I said.
You start a sentence with “on the contrary” and then completely agree.
I give up.
The whole thing is moot anyway. Nobody ever disagreed. The only thing that went wrong is a lack of communication about the impending suspension.
I’m actually going to go ahead and refute tom’s post to me.
False. No name calling occurred. Emiliana (rudely, I’ll admit) pointed out that the poster was in fact blaming the Jews for the Holocaust. panache argued that what the poster said did not qualify as a “thought.” These are both of the noted posts in the thread (at the time of the OP), and neither contained anyone calling the poster a name.
I never at any point said that we had to allow namecalling. You have created a strawman.
Misleading. What you claimed was “Further, the OP has a history of irritating other posters with questions or remarks that appeared racist, anti-feminist, religiously bigoted, etc”
Your claim was that the poster is repeatedly making posts that appear bigoted in various ways. Where there is smoke, there is fire. People don’t accidentally stumble upon bigoted things over and over. Right there was the evidence you asked for.
Both a strawman and false.
Strawman: I never said “bad ideas,” and neither have the other posters who have agreed with my viewpoint. We have always specifically named BIGOTRY as the issue. This is a common technique to minimize issues of bigotry.
False: The bad idea that women are in part responsible for their own rape is considered a Warnable offense. Arguing that Jews “should have assimilated” was declared by Chronos to not be allowed on the SDMB. These are merely two ideas which are not treated equal to other “bad ideas” on this board.
False. This is the slippery slope fallacy. The mods deciding to move Nazi-supporting threads to the Pit (what I actually argued) does not in any way obligate them to do so with any of these other things.
I also do not appeal to the opinions of other posters. I am arguing that which is accepted as true by the majority of society. So such an argument is a red herring.
That said, your post carries an unstated premise: that having OUR board reflect the belief of OUR posters is a bad thing. All message board ultimately do this. Why did you start making this message board more woman-friendly? Because the people on this message board wanted you to.
I and those like me want the same for bigotry. This place should strive to be welcoming to people of color, same as women.
False. While Emiliana’s post can be characterized as a personal attack (unlike panache’s, which attacks the post), she was still being educational by saying that the OP was in fact blaming the Jews for the Holocaust. And, as you admit, this did not prevent other people from making factual refutations. No opportunity was lost.
And the vast majority of new posters would already know that Nazism is wrong. The problem is not that they will fall for Nazism. It is that Nazis will see a place where they are allowed to put forth their ideas.
Okay, your first statement is true. Unfortunately it is ultimately irrelevant, because refuting posts does not keep bigots away. There are several posters who are regularly refuted but it does not discourage them. There are posters who even make bigoted remarks, and are told they are wrong, but it does not discourage them. Posters who get really upset about them are told instead to ignore them (pushing valuable anti-racist posters away from the board).
And trolls don’t flock to a place because some posters were mocked. Trolls come because a place looks easily trolled. When people talk about why the SDMB gets more trolls than expected, the argument is always that we’re too accommodating of them. We respond to them like we don’t know they’re trolling. We can’t warn other posters, unless they hang out in the Pit. And the mods are slow to ban trolls.
I again quote you. “Further, the OP has a history of irritating other posters with questions or remarks that appeared racist, anti-feminist, religiously bigoted, etc”
So the majority of your response to me were using false facts (i.e., those I labeled “False.”) Some were misleading, built on logical fallacies easily refuted. A few were just issues where my opinion is that you are wrong, but a whole lot of them were counterfactuals. I find this extremely frustrating. Debating opinions is one thing, but facts, especially those about the text of this message board, are absolute. They are not debatable.
And that is why, instead of letting this post go like I normally would (since the poster was suspended and the thread closed) I decided to come in. I’d go through other posts, but this was exhausting.
The above said, I do want to show my appreciation of the mods for their decision. You did realize the poster was trolling, and you did say things about certain things being over the line. You shut down the thread, rather than warn posters for their perfectly normal and human reactions to antisemitism.
While the reaction was slower than I’d have liked, you ultimately did punish the guy putting forth Nazi ideologies.
I will continue to argue that we should prioritize being a welcoming place for diversity, not for bigotry. And I will continue to argue that moderating bigotry is a good way to do that. Exactly where the line is it up for debate, but there should be one.
It’s the same argument for making this place more welcoming to women. And notice how it didn’t mean that every single possible sexist post is moderated, or that we should name call bigots. It just means that threads like the one mentioned in the OP should be shut down or moved to the Pit, rather than trying to keep the thread “civil.”
He’s just giving the traditional “insult the post, not the poster” thing. There’s an old guard here that basically think a Queensberry rules type thing is sufficient for guiding a fun debate.
This is a general issue that is part of the long-standing Moderate/poster disagreement. Your post appeared to be part of the longstanding disagreement. I made no claim that Emiliana was involved with name-calling, so invoking her name to “refute” my statement is silly.
More silliness. It is very possible to use bigoted language without actually holding explicitly bigoted views. I know a number of people who do so. In every case, it is a case of ignorant people not understanding the reality of their own behavior. And the fact that other posters make a claim about a poster does not make their assessments correct. Further, I did not say that the poster was repeatedly making the offensive posts. I said that the poster had a history of irritating other posters with remarks that they considered in those terms. We have several posters who have a history of irritating other posters with the way that they approach various topics, sometimes with accusations of bigotry when there is no factual basis for the accusation. This board has a lot of posters who enjoy being irritated and I am not inclined to take actions against a poster simply because that poster’s opponents are irritated. (Having just read his quotes in the recent thread in The BBQ Pit, I would now agree with those assessments of that poster, but the poster in question does not post in all the fora and I am among several of the Mods who have indicated that they were unaware of his overall behavior. Dealing with that poster is outside my specific discussion of permitting insults.)
It may be true that YOUR complaints have always been in regard to bigotry, but in the overall longer discussion of letting posters hurl insults in GD and Elections, there have been any number of accusations that were not necessarily accusations of bigotry. Rather than look up and enumerate every one, I used the generic “bad ideas.”
What are you on about? Moving something to The BBQ Pit does not prevent (under your plan) all sorts of insults before the thread is discovered and moved. It is not a slippery slope to note that allowing personal attacks in GD or Elections should be OK just because there is a probability that the thread will be moved later. And why would you wish to move only Nazi threads and not all the other offensive statements? Are you OK with attacks based on other forms of intolerance?
But you want to permit the hurling of insults in discussion fora if you decide that the target is on your list of unacceptable beliefs. Sorry. That will not work.
Your opinions about what draws posters is interesting. I doubt you are correct. As opinions, they are not facts.
Most of your “facts” were wrong. Your opinions are nice (if one begins with your premises) but I do not find them persuasive (being grounded in opinion, not fact).
I find your effort to divide hostile posts between those of Nazis and others to be troubling. Are you arguing that we have a special rule that allows the insulting of Nazis, but not others?
This says it all, folks.