This thread shows why “hate speech” is such a stupid concept.
Just allow all speech in the pit. Let the racists and bigots demonstrate their idiocy. Let people make jokes that mention ethnicities or sexualities. The sensitive people need to get the fuck out of the pit anyway.
An enduring memory of my time in England is signs in the shop windows prohibiting “van dwellers” from entering the premises.
The first thing that comes to my mind when I hear the term “white trash” is trailor dwellers and poverty, and having lived in a trailor myself for 5 years and raised in poverty with 7 siblings, I’m offended. So often now that I’ve learned to just live with the slur.
Lib, I’m glad you brought this up. The whole idea of constructing criteria to decide who is and who isn’t protected from derogatory and/or “hate” speech only increases the offense on those who are deemed fair game.
I haven’t been this impressed since November 4. Tip o’ the hat to you, sir.
A pleasure, I hope I can say the same about you one day.
Nice to know someone’s always got my back.
I don’t understand why we’re even silencing hate speech. It’s still speech. Where it might make sense to go to such a drastic measure is when hate has the power and its targets are do not. Umm… that’s not how it is here. The people who would be racist on these boards are in the extreme minority, and are powerless against all the liberal posters here. They don’t pose any sort of threat. No threat == no need for authorities to suppress them.
That I’ll agree with. This asinine trend toward making everything politically correct is annoying. People are going to say things that are derogatory toward others based on some grouping or another, and nothing is ever going to stop it.
I think you’ve gotten to the heart of it for me and changed my mind about what should and shouldn’t be permitted. I don’t admit to that on a regular basis. I still object to lies though.
There was never “this asinine trend” toward being PC here, clothahump. There has been an effort to be sensitive on some issues of consequence. Some groupings have histories and traditions that need to be considered. The idea was to keep people from being hurt. Sorry that you are annoyed by that. Honest. That defeats the purpose.
Who knows? Maybe TPTB will ease up on the rules. Is there one you particularly want to break?
I’ve many times pointed out that they’re not in the extreme minority here when it comes to the Arabs. Many extremely prejudiced comments against them don’t get a reaction from “all the liberal posters”.
Ooh, a slap fight with the boss. I feel special.
Ed, all snarkiness aside, I respect your public apology. This is exactly what this board is often short on. You screw up, I screw up a hundred times. The difference is that when I screw up nobody cares/notices but when you screw up everybody notices. It sucks for you but that is the way the cookie crumbles, and acknowledging your errors goes a long way to create a healthy environment.
Although I have almost always worked in super regulated industries, I really liked the “don’t be a jerk, we call them as we see them” original rule and resent asterisks and fine prints. As we say in Spanish, “el que explica enreda” (when one explains, one confuses).
It seems to me that in the last months or so, you have been more present in the boards that you used to (or at least more visibly so) and your style tends to micromanagement. Having you double as a mod further adds to this.
This has resulted in some seriously ill starred rules that although I know won’t be ever enforced, I am afraid they will just sit there in a shadow until some enterprising mod with an agenda decides to spring it on someone s/he has a hard on for.
Here is hoping that in some rainy Saturday of boredom you will take a look at the rules and decide to simplify them and get rid of the chaff.
My unsolicited and probably not welcome two cents.
As a rule the Pit, like the SDMB as a whole, is self-regulating, and there’s no question racist and other objectionable remarks are usually shot down pretty quickly. For that reason the hate speech rule, which has been around for many years, is rarely invoked, and I’ll certainly be a little more circumspect about using it in the future. That said, there are limits even in the Pit, and the rules are simply an effort to stake these out.
He can also take Paddy; he’s causing a right nuisance in the pool room.