Well, you’re pretty much just a nice guy so that makes sense. I assume that you don’t hate much of anything or anyone but there are a lot of people who hate anything they can’t get a handle on or excel at and those people always out themselves eventually.
Someone in the Pit told me that I’d actively cooperated in the molestation of my own children. Not like “you’d molest your own kids, you pervert,” but in a thread where my actual children had been mentioned, and a relatively non-controversial aspect aspect of their upbringing discussed, so their reality was not in doubt. He said that I’d personally “performatively” cooperated in the actual sexual molestation of my own children.
This poster said it, and meant it.
Can you imagine a worse thing to say to a parent? A more evil, horrible thing?
I flagged it. I told the mod about circumstances in my family, and how my children came to be my children, and how this was an especially unforgiveable accusation. And it was an accusation, to the point where, if this poster hadn’t been the type who thrives on anonymity, who can only display his true self in the dark, I would have had to take legal action. Especially given the circumstances of my family. I could not allow that kind of accusation to stand. It would have had to be refuted. I would have gone into debt to pay the lawyers. Whatever it took.
The mod didn’t think this was a violation of the “don’t be a jerk” rule (a rule he’s enforced before). Or the rule about personal trauma, I guess. Even knowing the circumstances.
I’d butted heads with this mod (as a poster, not a mod) in the thread before. I think I was quite reasonable (as did a surprising number of posters in the thread). He felt differently. So be it.
But I’ve backed off a lot here at SDMB after that. Obviously I can never mention my children here again, and that kind of sucks. I mean, I could have a cute story to tell, or a parenting question for those with more experience. But I can’t.
And, less importantly, I’ve put a poster on ignore for the first time in twenty years.
We don’t need the Pit, at least not as it exists and is run now. There is such a thing as going too far. And there is such a thing as mods letting it go too far, whether or not they have personal involvement in in a thread.
That kind of sucks.
I quote WC Fields:
“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it.”
Now, I’m not calling you a damn fool, but I do suggest that you realize that this is one battle you’re just not going to win, and quit tilting at this particular windmill.
That is fucking grotesque. As I’ve said before, I really think that comments like this–that use a person’s personal life as a vehicle for attack–should be beyond the pale. Some personal comments, especially when a person brings stuff up themselves, aren’t out of bounds–but shit like that should be.
While “Saintly Loser” is your real name?
I was under the impression we already a rule about attacking Dopers’ families that would have made such out of line, even without considering the vileness of the comment. I seem to remember that someone got a Warning for going after @iiandyiiii’s family in some way. And I seem to remember a note about keeping the focus on @DrDeth and not his father.
I would have reported such a post for trolling myself. I’d suggest such a vile comment crosses that line, even in the Pit, in the same way certain other posts have been so considered.
If this is not against the rules, then I definitely think it should be something added to the upcoming personal trauma rule (which I do not believe has dropped yet).
And, no, I don’t think is something someone should have had to have been told was out of line, just like attacking a poster using their mental illness or some trauma in their life.
I find it odd that some people don’t see a clear line between angrily posting at a poster, with some personal attacks thrown in, and vileness like this.
Agreed. Making accusations like the one levelled at you should have resulted in an instant suspension of that poster, pending investigation to decide if a permanent ban was appropriate.
I also think the Pit Mod(s) shouldn’t be able to contribute as general posters in Pit threads - and especially not if they’re engaging in a pile-on or attacking another poster in any way.
FWIW, that wasn’t an accurate description of the exchange. Saintly_Loser was accused of being reckless by leaving his kids alone with a Catholic priest. Nobody said he was actively cooperating in abusing them.
You may find it relevant, then, that Saintly_Loser brought up the fact that he trusts his kids with a priest specifically in the context of a discussion about child abuse by the Catholic clergy, to rebut the argument that priests aren’t trustworthy.
The whole thing was in this thread., if you want to slog through it for the full context.
It was perfectly clear what that poster was saying. And you know why I found that particularly over the line.
Yes, I brought up the fact that I trust my kids with a priest (in fact, I believe I mentioned a couple of priests). That poster responded as he did.
You want to minimize it? Say it’s fine because he left himself a little wiggle room? Was a bit ambiguous? Okay. Nothing I can do about it.
I just read everything starting from where you linked, and I gotta say I think Saintly_Loser is correctly interpreting. The first thing that got him up in arms was a link to Leviticus 18:21: “You shall not give any of your children to sacrifice to Molech.” The only way that quote makes any sense in context is to suggest that he’s sacrificing his children to his religion. ZS then goes on to say that SL is “performatively handing his kids over to Catholic priests to prove his loyalty to the group.” Again, I don’t see how that can be read other than that he’s giving his children to sacrifice to the Church.
It seems a pretty straightforward reading, and incredibly vicious. If there’s another way to interpret that, I’m not seeing it.
No of course not. It’s an old nickname, used by a few people IRL (and has nothing to do with religion, or my abysmal record at Belmont).
But I don’t say stuff like that to people. Ever. Online, or IRL.
Sure, I might call someone a jerk, or even an asshole, in the Pit (although fairly recently I made a resolution to not do that even in the Pit).
But I don’t attack people’s relationship with their children. I don’t pick up on details of personal lives and use that to hurt, in the Pit, in other forums, in real life.
When cutting personal insults are allowed, it seems a bit nit-picky to try to draw lines about how deeply those insults can cut. For example:
- “Soandso is a fuxking cxnt!” – Hey! Don’t be a jerk by using words like fuxk and cxnt!
- “Soandso can only have sex by getting passed out drunk and getting taken advantage by a rapist!” – Hey! Don’t be a jerk by saying Soandso was asking for it!
- “Soandso is a fetid, shit-filled fatberg held together by old cum socks thrown in the sewer by homeless drug addicts!” – Perfect! And if Soandso is offended, then they should just get the stick out of their stuck up ass and stay out of the Pit!
I know we’ve gone round and round over this here and in multiple other threads, but it seems like the board should either fully embrace deeply offensive personal insults or prohibit them.
And like other people have said, I think it’s weird expecting the board to be both be a caring, safe place for discussing personal issues and a place where offensive personal insults are allowed. The intersection of those two groups of people is not very large. Either be a place where people are expected to be respectful everywhere or say that people can be as offensive as they want.
I strenuously disagree. The reason the Pit allows insults is because they are essentially avoidable for its primary purpose, which is to vent at other posters. You can’t really let out your anger without sometimes being insulting. This is as true in real life as it is here.
Yet, in real life, all of these things we are describing are clearly out of line. No amount of anger makes it okay to say the n-word or other hate speech. No amount of anger makes it okay to attack someone for their illness or to bring up their trauma, as that retraumatize them. No amount of anger makes it okay to attack someone’s family or children.
It’s not like we’re making new lines. We’re describing the lines that have always existed. Even in cases where you are allowed to be insulting, these things are considered beyond the pale.
It seems to me that a handful of Dopers just really can’t see the difference between these levels, or just don’t understand why the Pit exists. It’s not an insult war, where you try to come up with the most hateful thing you can. Trolling is still prohibited in teh Pit. Since day 1 the rule has always been that the Pit is not a free-for-all, and that the mods can decide something is too far.
The only reason to say that all of this is allowed is if we were actually doing what people like @DrDeth or @mordecaiB accuses us of. It’s not a forum where you just go to gratuitously insult and bully people. If people ever get piled on, it’s because they respond and act like assholes.
What’s being described here is not remotely nitpicking. It’s just the standards that decent people hold themselves to. Decent people may sometimes insult people when appropriate. But there are certain lines they do not cross, and the ones being described here are them.
Nitpicking would mean that there was little actual difference, and there very much is a huge difference.
Your option 1 is borderline, as “cunt” is considered a slur against women in the US, but not elsewhere. I don’t know if @Miller would consider it hate speech or not.
Your option 2 is indeed accusing someone of wanting to be raped, which is categorically worse than either option. Someone who would post that doesn’t appear to know that rape is wrong and thus is digusting human being the world would be better off without.
Option 3, while vile, is not remotely as bad as 2, and, if we assume that number 1 is bigoted, then it is not remotely as bad as number 1. I agree it probably wouldn’t be considered against the rules. But no one would say the poster was not being a jerk, or that the target had no right to be offended, as offense is obviously what was intended. And the line about “homeless drug addicts” would probably devolve into talking about how the poster was so bigoted that they thought such a line was okay.
If you can’t tell that #2 is by far the worst thing said there, then I’d say that’s a problem you need correct. It’s not in any way nitpicking to say that you don’t get to make fun of rape or imply someone is asking to be raped.
I consider that word hate speech, regardless of what Great Britain thinks.
And, even without the Bible verse, @ZosterSandstorm had made it clear by that point that he thought letting any priest be alone with your children was allowing them to be molested.
Sure, he didn’t say all of it in one post, but the meaning of his statement was indeed clear. @ZosterSandstorm accused @Saintly_Loser of turning over his children to a priest to be molested for performative religious reasons.
For me, there’s a chasm between:
- “You’re a fool if you let a priest be alone with your children,” and
- “You’re deliberately–performatively–letting your children be alone with a priest to show your loyalty to the church.”
The first accuses someone of foolishness. The second accuses them of deliberately sacrificing their children to a sexual predator. The second is orders of magnitude worse.
Which sounds like he was accusing him of enabling abuse of a child, along with a healthy dose of anti-Catholic bigotry.
You aren’t making this sound better.
Has it never once occurred to you that other people might disagree with you? That you could, in fact, be wrong? You announce your judgement of which insults are perfectly fine, and which are unacceptable like it’s been handed down on fucking stone tablets. In real life, you don’t get to call a friend, acquaintance or stranger into a room and rant about how they’re bigoted/annoying/not conversing in your preferred manner, with added insults. What the hell kind of social circles do you move in that you think this is remotely acceptable behaviour?
In reality, you don’t know what insult is going to be most hurtful or triggering for any given person, which is why it’s futile and hypocritical to pretend there’s a category of ‘okay’, harmless insults and a separate category of terrible, unacceptable insults. It’s all a matter of degree, and of people’s unique experiences.
Getting angry isn’t a pass for insulting other people.
AIUI, the distinction that’s usually made is between slurs that are intrinsically denigrating an entire group of people, and personal insults that target only the individual.
Sure, in the case of, say, any individual Jewish person, you can’t know for sure whether they personally will find it more hurtful to be called a “greedy kike” or a “featherbrained shitsucker”. But you CAN know, and you do, that the former insult is also hurtful to Jews as a group, while the latter insult is not.
So that’s why there’s not actually anything “futile” or “hypocritical” about decreeing that, for example, in a flame forum it’s okay to call somebody a “featherbrained shitsucker” but not a “greedy kike”. Same for outlawing any other kind of insult based on ethnicity and other hate-speech categories, mental illnesses, family members, etc.
There’s a perfectly rational basis for making that kind of distinction between different types of insults, and it doesn’t require knowing anything about any particular insultee’s “unique experiences”.