Which is all the difference and can be anything the third party claims.
That’s why they get paid the big bucks.
I certainly don’t have the time to waste on such a quest, but if you do, by all means, knock yourself out. Should you find any such inconsistency, however, let me know and I’ll happily join you in jointly reporting it to the Internet Department of Consistency Enforcement.
Emphasis added. Since that has nothing to do with the situation at hand–the board has never made any such promise to anyone, in this thread or anywhere else–I don’t know how you can possibly think this is relevant.
It’s relevant because of Miller’s assertion that -
You don’t seem to understand analogies, you don’t seem to understand direct quotes, and you don’t seem to understand my paraphrases, even though they are legitimate. Thus I don’t know how you can possiblly think you have anything to add to the discussion.
Regards,
Shodan
In the full context, Miller makes it clear that those are not 100% hard and fast rules.
This should be obvious to all of us who have been around the board for any length of time – the rules make it very clear that certain forms of repulsive speech can result in immediate banning.
Unless you say you are a Nazi.
Regards,
Shodan
Nope, that’s not enough by itself, as the mods made clear.
The Mods have said several times, in several ways, that this just isn’t true, and explained extensively what they did and why they did it. Does it matter to you at all what they say any more?
How many long standing members have been banned for a single trolling post in the Pit?
Afaik, HH is the first and only - at least in the last few years. So, yes, “unless you’re a nazi” is correct.
Yes, I understand that Miller said,
I understand you paraphrased it as:
Miller explained that, by itself, offensive opinions wouldn’t be enough to get kicked out. You suggest that a person won’t get kicked out, even if their opinions are offensive. Those are two very different ideas.
A little personal there, Shodan. I understand these things just fine; moreover, I’m able to evaluate them. Your analogies here are off-point, your direct quotes don’t say what you believe they say, and as someone who once pitted me because you thought my paraphrase of The Contract With America was insufficiently accurate, you might take a little more care with your own paraphrases.
If you can’t make your point without irrelevant analogies and terrible paraphrases, consider whether it’s a point worth making.
You cannot regulate trolling in a content-neutral way. Yes, there are some content-neutral indications of trolling, such as the failure to reply to substantive questions or abusive language. But at the end of the day the gravamen of trolling is provoking a reaction, so it is necessary to take into account the content of the viewpoint being expressed.
And that’s fine. That’s a necessary consequence of a board trying to enforce an anti-trolling rule. And, really, it’s not even the most speech-censoring aspect of this Board’s moderation. We also regularly discipline so-called “hate speech,” among other phrases and subjects that are verboten even in the Pit. For better or worse, that’s the balance that the Board’s masters have chosen to attempt to strike.
But at least own it! Don’t try to pretend that handing out an insta-ban based in part on the repulsiveness of a poster’s claimed views is completely free of risk or downside for the open expression of controversial opinions. That risk may well be small enough that it’s outweighed by the benefits of an insta-ban.* But that’s the relevant discussion–not some fantasy in which this is a content-neutral decision.
-
- Though I’ve yet to see anyone articulate exactly what is accomplished by banning without giving a single warning, especially in a case in which there’s some room for subjective judgment about a poster’s intentions
Who has that fantasy?
Point of order.
It wasn’t a single trolling post. It was a thread in which he posted 56 times, most of which were trolling.
Take three examples:
“Rap music isn’t music. No, I’m not going to explain why. No, I think the reasons are obvious, and I’m not going to explain them. No, I think you’re stupid for continuing to ask me.”
“The sky is green. No, I’m not going to explain why. No, I think the reasons are obvious, and I’m not going to explain them. No, I think you’re stupid for continuing to ask me.”
“The holocaust is a myth. No, I’m not going to explain why. No, I think the reasons are obvious, and I’m not going to explain them. No, I think you’re stupid for continuing to ask me.”
The first one isn’t trolling, because it’s not an opinion so far out of the mainstream that it appears to be designed to garner a reaction. The second and third one both are trolling, because they are far out of the mainstream, well into fantasy land, and the refusal to explain them are trolling.
So yeah, content is part of the determination of whether something is trolling. But that doesn’t mean it’s content-based censorship in any meaningful sense; it just means that you can’t troll unless you put forth an insane proposition.
Ok.
But the content could be any sort of extremism such as Hitlerism, Stalinism, or Pol Potism. Try HH’s stunt with any of the same and you could get insta-banned.
Similarly, the hot-button issue could be cat-declawing, a recent obituary, or some years back the Apple Mac. It’s not content neutral because inflammatory speech is a necessary though not sufficient aspect. (i.e. you can be an open Nazi, provided you are willing to defend your point without hate speech. Many posters want this board to take a harder line on white supremacy than it does, so there are matters of degree to consider.)
Hm. Ninjad by LHoD.
Well, if we’re going to pick nits, “unless you’re handsomeharry” seems a bit more precise. I don’t think there are any other long-standing members who are self-identified Nazis.
BigT (“So I do not believe any accusation that this is about their views is valid”) and tomndebb (“With all the odd claims that he was banned for his views…”). Probably others. I thought you had argued earlier that the same thing would have happened if the poster had been on about the green sky, suggesting that the Nazism was just incidental here.
By contrast, it seems pretty clear to me from Miller’s post that the poster’s extreme view was a significant (but not sufficient) factor for this banning.
Of course it’s true that there are varying degrees of content-based regulations. Having content as one factor is less bad than having content as the only factor. But it still has the tendency to chill the expression of controversial views, especially when the action we’re talking about is a ban with no warning.
Were the people insulting him and he was replying too trolling as well? I posted in that thread and called him essentially a Nazi sympathizer…was I a troll too? Granted, I only replied once there, but then it wasn’t my thread and I was just doing what folks do in the Pit…at least, what I THOUGHT folks did.
I think your definition of trolling here is pretty fluid and vertically directed. Personally, I think that HH deserved to be heaped with scorn for what he was writing, and hell I think he WAS trolling. But then, I think people who start Pit threads about anti-vaxers are trolling for vaxers, and people who start Pit threads about how bad Republicans/Democrats are kind of are doing the same thing.
To me, the only reason this is on the fence is not that he was trolling all of us…clearly he was. It’s that he revived a 5 year dead thread to do this. I’m unsure if that should be a ban-able offense, but then I don’t get paid the big bucks to make those sorts of calls, and in the end I seriously doubt that HH will be missed. What is concerning to several in this thread and is being handwaved away, IMHO, is the abrupt and seemingly arbitrary nature of how this panned out. THAT is a bit worrying, since if one can blow out in just one thread that means we all don’t have the warning signs for thin ice we all thought we had. I HAVE been warned several times…does that mean that I could fall through the ice any time? I’m not a closet Nazi, but who knows what subjects might be taboo that I could touch on when I’m being my general rancorous self??
Just a suggestion: that maybe it wasn’t so much that he had an extreme view, but that he seemed to only even mention it to wind people up. I mean, he was basically saying “Hey, I’m a Nazi, none of you jerks even know what that is, so PPPPLLLLLPPPTT!” I mean, there wasn’t a whole lot of content there.