You misunderstood me. What I was saying was, if you don’t think it’s a parody, than feel free to act as if the original post was honest. If enough people agree with you – the parody is at fault. Again, I’m able to recognize a parody by the rising tide of absurdities. Knowing the original material makes it funnier of course. You can appreciate Mad Magazine without having seen all those movies, I do hope.
Check out Salon’s parodies, they have a tiny text flag that notifies the attentive, but of course, the inattentive miss that too! Here’s a couple that fooled me at first:
I guess I did misunderstand you, then - sorry about that. We agree, then.
The difference between parodies here and those in Mad are that even if you haven’t seen the movie being parodied in Mad, you know it’s a parody of something. After all, that’s what they do.
Just to add my reaction to the rules and this thread:
It is a good idea that the rules are more formally set forth for our newer members.
The well reasoned and articulated agruments and observations show why this is such as great forum.
If you are going to formalize the hate speech prohibition, make sure you apply it 100% of the time. The All ______'s (nationality, religous group, ethnicity, gender) are _______ (stereotype or hateful personal “insight”) gets a person Banned. Apply the rule evenly and firmly.
While I find the “pulling up a chair” posts to be childish and attention-starved, a prohibit seems extreme. But if we are in the practice of regulating annoying posts which add nothing and waste server space how about my peeves-- Band Name posts -- .
Agree on the ignore list prohibition.
Thanks Lynn for taking the time to start and read these threads.
A question about the ignore list rule (which I understand and agree with). The following hypothetical has bothered me a bit, and maybe I could get a ruling on it here.
Jonesee, not on your ignore list, posts the following:
Lynn, could you please respond to Smithee? She’s asked you twice now why you believe in the Zeta Theory.
Smithee is on your ignore list, and the whole purpose of ignoring her was to avoid dealing with her based on a long history of futility and conflict. How do you respond to Jonesee?
Lib - before the advent of the ignore list, I’d see people post things like ‘in the past, I’ve found that when I’ve attempted to address so and so’s responses, it’s resulted in a hijack, so I’d prefer not to, thanks.’. would that work?
Works for me, Wring, and that’s the kind of thing I was thinking of, too. Unfortunately, if a standard response is used, it could be identified and interpreted as an implication of Ignore, which is expressly forbidden by the rule.
Dan, that doesn’t solve the problem in the case of others becoming curious as well, when you not only don’t respond to Smithee, but you don’t respond to Jonesee either (instead, you sent e-mail). You know how pile-ons can snow-ball around here.
By the way, it might not be a bad idea to discourage pile-ons.
I don’t think that’s an actual problem - do you? Does it really matter if people are curious about something that doesn’t particularly concern them, and you don’t publicly address it?
If you have someone on your ignore list, you’ve put them there for a reason - usually because you simply don’t want to see or respond to anything they’ve written.
No one’s forcing you to respond to the person asking why you’re not responding. If you simply email them, you’re able to keep it from being a public thing (which, presumably, was your intent in the first place) while still letting the second person know why you’ve chosen not to respond. It’s a win/win.
Well, gee, let’s just get rid of the Pit altogether. And, really, all we’re doing is wasting the Chicago Reader’s precious bandwidth - let’s just do away with the SDMB entirely.
I understand rules. I encourage some. Let’s not overdo it.
I think the Ignore List is the coward’s way out. The “la-la-la-la, I am not listening to you” way out. I’ll never use it.
I can think of a poster who I’d imagine has a good, long list of people on his/hers. And I have no doubt that his/her list members all have opposing ideologies and a nasty habit of calling him/her on bullshit.
This poster was using the ignore function before there was an ignore function.
This is a good thing, how? I guess if it helps him/her to sleep at night.
I have a little different view than most on the hate-speech provision, as well.
As prejudice is the height of ignorance, I think it’s more constructive - and entertaining - to have the hate-spewer diced, sliced and julienned. Let the poster defend their “logic.”
Unless of course it is prejudice spouted only to elicit a strong, emotional response from everybody, and nothing more. Then it’s trolling, and should be banned as such.
Dan, it is a hypothetical. Do you understand what that means? It means that there might likely be circumstances that you have not predicted, despite that you imagine having tied up everything with a neat little bow. My concern is for the unfortunate person who finds himself faced with being asked why he ignored someone. Your solution, to nag the administration with e-mail requests, seems neanderthal in its conception. The persons’ problem is not solved.
No clue. Why don’t you be a good little boy and look it up in the dictionary for me?
And next time, please don’t be so patronizing. This is a reasonable discussion, despite its forum.
Well put, particularly the neanderthal part. Really.
First of all, I don’t think it’s “nagging.” There’s nothing wrong with emailing an administrator or a moderator regarding problems with this message board. None at all. That’s one of the reasons we have moderators and adminstrators in the first place.
Good heavens, I’m not advocating whining to the powers that be that so-and-so is ignoring so-and-so. Common sense dictates that if you feel the need to use the function, please use it; if someone unknowingly draws attention to it, then it is your responsibility to make sure it doesn’t go any further, which is when you might need to email the person.
Now, I’ll consider your hypothetical as if I were the person faced with that situation. If I had someone on ignore and was asked why, I would (surprise) ignore the request. Sorry, it’s no one business but mine - and, as noted in the very first post in this thread, it’s also against the rules. Okay, so you’re talking about someone pointing it out unknowingly. There’s nothing wrong with not responding. Let them think what they will - again, it’s not their concern, and it’s not their business at all. If they have a serious issue over it, then let them email me themselves.
The funny thing is, this thread has really evolved into a Great Debate, rather than a flame war. Up until your post, I really admired the way folks were stating their views respectfully.
I’m just not sure where your attitude in that particular post came from.
[As a side note, I’ve never used the function - or the buddy function. I assumed that like many of the “extras” on this message board, it had been turned off because people abused it.]
Count me in as supporting a simple “No hate speech” rule, without further explanation.
I sympathize somewhat with those who argue (1) that it doesn’t provide adequate warning, so will act as a prior restraint, or (2) that its enforcement is likely to be arbitrary.
On a private board whose members cannot see one anothers’ facial expressions, and whose dialogue moves very quickly, both prior restraint and arbitrary enforcement are devoutly to be wished. They are essential to keep a community a community.
There will be unfairnesses. Tough.
If you don’t think you can get away with it, don’t post it. You don’t need the SDMB to express yourself: there are lots of other fora where there’s no moderation and few rules (if any). Knock yourself out. Just not here.
So, oxyMoron, on what basis do we decide which are the unfairnesses against which we need to act, and which are the ones at which we simply shrug our shoulders and say, “You don’t need to be treated fairly - there are lots of other messageboards”.
Which are the favored groups that can expect fair treatment, and which those who can safely be ignored? The ones with which you agree? The ones with which I agree? The ones with which the moderator agrees?
What about black fundamentalists? Can they be safely insulted because of their religion, or are they sacrosanct because of their race?
Hopefully a message board that advertises itself as fighting ignorance can explain these things to us.
You wanna post a set of rules, fine. Stick to them, and you will have my respect, and my concurrence as long as I choose to remain a member. If you are going to sometimes apply and sometimes ignore them, the SDMB will wind up like the Ms. Messageboards, where the rules as stated and the rules as applied bear almost no relation to each other - and the caliber of the debate suffers accordingly.
Rule No. 1 - Don’t be a jerk. Corollary No. 1 - Turning a blind eye to violations of Rule No. 1 because you dislike the subject of the abuse is being a jerk.
(Insert obligatory obscenity here, to be sure my post is taken seriously.)
I’m a little disappointed that the innocuous if tired “lawnchair” posts are now verboten, but the far more insidious DNFTT posts continue unchallenged. Those are annoying for so many more reasons: they have the silent smugness of a :rolleyes:, they’re a blatant violation of the board-wide “don’t call each other trolls” policy, and using a board-specific acronym to insult newbies doesn’t do wonders for dispelling the “SDMB Clique” rumors. And on top of all that, it comes across as condescending. If I’m arguing with somebody, it’s probably because I don’t think he’s a troll. You may disagree, but unless you’ve got ADMINISTATOR or MODERATOR under your name, your opinion doesn’t much matter.
I agree with the reasoning behind the Ignore rule, but if having the Ignore option activated means creating a new bannable offense, I say turn it back off.
I agree with those posters who feel a “hate speech” rule is unnecesary. This is a self-correcting problem, and people who don’t learn from the repeated pile-ons are soon banned for trolling. Posting a rule is only going to cause a bunch of fights over what is and isn’t hate speech. Already in this thread, someone has confused any name-calling at all with “hate speech.” I forsee a large number of “Poster X called me an asshole. Why isn’t he banned for hate speech?” threads in the future.
The “parody” rule, too, is unnecessary. Putting a link to the subject of the parody is a good idea, but something about legislating good ideas makes my skin crawl. If you don’t put the link in, people are going to miss all the hard work you put into creating the parody, they’re going to think you’re the asshole, not you’re target, and likely as not, a mod is going to lock the whole thing up as a hopeless muddle and waste of time. Since no one likes they’re threads to end up like that, the would-be parodists are either going to learn to link or give up in disgust.
I get a kick out of the lawnchair posts, because they’re a reminder that this is just a message board, just an argument; it’s not a serious part of your life, and if you feel it is, you need to back slloooowwwwlly away from the keyboard and go get an ice cream or something.
I’d like to either see “hate speech” defined, or have it enforced evenly. If the familiar “kike-nigger-faggot” words are verboten–as they should be, then why do we allow the use of “white trash” and “fundie”? How is “white trash” less offensive than “nigger” or “fundie” less offensive than “kike”?
The ignore list and parody rules I don’t care about one way or the other.
Lib, if you think it would cross the line, don’t post it. It doesn’t matter what I think. Ideally, it won’t matter what Lynn thinks either - because you’ll have engaged in a most welcome act of self-censorship. (I don’t mean that “most welcome” against you personally, Lib, ;), it just strikes me that this board could use it in general.)
Yes, that puts the burden on the poster. Which is exactly as it should be, since it’s the poster who knows what his or her intentions are, and can control what he or she writes.