Ideological bias... Again.

About This Message Board
#1

So I got a warning in a thread where I am making some controversial statements about the role of culture in racial disparity. This was in response to statements that all (or almost all) racial disparity was the result of racism and injustice.

https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/private.php?do=showpm&pmid=404426

At this point, the moderation is becoming an exercise in mind reading with benefit of the doubt going toward whoever is on the PC side of the debate.

I appreciate that this bias may not be deliberate but it is common enough that it is something the moderators should be sensitive to considering the downward trajectory of this site as it becomes more and more of a liberal bubble that shouts down, excludes and outright banishes dissenting voices.

#2

If i’d replied to that post with

you think I wouldn’t have been modded for calling you an idiot and trying to be surreptitious about it?

#3

Your link does not work for me

#4

This post.

#5

I haven’t read the thread, yet, but based just on what you felt able to quote here, it would appear you just called somebody a racist- and assuming the original was not in the Pit, I would call that warnable :dubious:

#6

Two things.

  1. I’m out the door for clients at the moment and will address specifics later.

  2. Damuri Ajashi and MrDibble. I think we’re all aware you two don’t really care for each other. But carrying that through to this thread is inappropriate. Feel free to participate but don’t make it personal or vitriolic.

#7

FWIW, I’m way more on MrDibble’s side than on Damuri’s; I find his arguments to be specious nitpickery for the most part. I think he mischaracterized Dibble’s motives, and “Perhaps it racism” is just a crappy sentence all round.

But I don’t think it deserves a note, much less a warning. And the idea that promulgating racist ideas is acceptable, but identifying those ideas as racism is taboo, is the single biggest problem with Great Debates, IMO.

Dibble’s ideas aren’t racist ideas, and calling them racist is IMO laughably absurd–but the response to such a silly charge is either to refute it, or to laugh it off. It’s not a personal attack to say that some ideas a person holds are racist, any more than it’s a personal attack to say some of their ideas are dumb or illogical or invalid or pernicious.

#8

I agree completely.

But the rule is on the books, so to speak, and has been waved in my face often enough in my once-frequent trips to ATMB to complain about hate speech posing as scientific racist threads. So I, for one, am happy it’s at least being enforced evenly.

He* didn’t say the ideas* were racist. He said it was (“perhaps”) my racism that made me have the ideas. Important distinction, IMO.

Especially since recently I’ve frequently been accused of anti-White racism. Which my White wife finds completely hilarious, BTW.

#9

“Perhaps it racism” doesn’t give us a whole lot to work with. What’s the antecedent to “it”?

My best guess is that the intended antecedent is the “why” in “why you are trying to tear down Asian success and excuse the lack of success in the black community.” That is, “Perhaps it racism” means “Perhaps your motive racism.” Which isn’t precisely an attack on an idea, but isn’t precisely an attack on you, either.

I mean, you’re right–if the board is going to continue forbidding the identification of ideas as racist, then at least enforcing this taboo evenly is good. But I’d rather this taboo be dropped.

#10

I don’t see how it isn’t precisely that last one.

#11

‘Your motive (is) racism’ is personal, but “This kind of contempt that you continuously demonstrate sickens me” isn’t.

:shrugs:

Regards,
Shodan

#12

The mods have repeatedly declined to warn folks for impugning poor motives to one another. “You just want to score points” and its ilk shows up repeatedly and is rarely modded. That’s different from “You’re a jerk,” which is attacking the essence of a person.

#13

I don’t have many feelings one way or the other for Mr. Dibble, I don’t think he posts that much and I don’t think we have ever gotten into an extended back and forth that I recall.

I think I was accused of racism by most of PC patrol in that thread but I don’t think anyone else got a warning except someone who explicitly called someone a troll.

This board is dying anyway so I don’t really care about the warning so much as I care about what the warning represents. If I combed through that thread, I can point to half a dozen thinly veiled personal attacks and insults where you similarly cannot escape the conclusion that the comment is a derogatory personal comment against me.

It should not matter if my position is unpopular, impolitic or even flat out wrong. moderation should be administered evenhandedly. There has been a “ties go to the liberal” rule in effect for years now and the SDMB has started to become a liberal echo chamber. I don’t mean to pick on Jonathan Chance who is part of the moderator crew that has made SDMB one of the few places on the internet where debates are more than two sides flinging shit at each other but it is becoming a less intellectually honest place.

#14

Did you report any of them?

#15

That’s because “You’re a point-scorer” is not the direct insult that “you’re a racist” is, I would think.

#16

No I didn’t because I didn’t think accusations of racism was moddable. Are you saying that I wasn’t accused of racism? Do you need quotes:

Like I said, bias in moderation. Liberals calling people racists is OK. People calling liberals racist is moddable.

"Your contempt for the black community is no more valid now than Bull Connor and his allies was in the 60s. "

“please don’t shit on millions of decent black people in every thread even slightly related to AA or racism), is contemptuous nonsense”

“You keep arguing that white liberals are racist while discounting the racism in your own assumptions”

The thread is littered with shit like that.

#17

You’ve been here for 12 years and you don’t know accusations of racism in GD are moddable? :dubious:

No, I’m saying *your *own accusation of racism *was *reported.

#18

I believe you are suffering from confirmation bias. Several liberals here have been complaining for years about being mod’ed for calling someone racist.

The most likely reason that a post is not mod’ed when it clearly breaks a rule is that it wasn’t reported.

#19

If I understand the rules correctly, saying that someone has contempt, or that a post is contemptuous, or that someone shouldn’t shit on people, doesn’t break any rules.

#20

Did you read the post that triggered the warning?

I’m struggling to see how that is any more pointed or personal than the stuff you said.

I have been on great debates on both side of the ideological divide. There is significantly more cheerleading from the peanut gallery when you are a liberal here. Liberals idiots abound on this site while conservative idiots get shouted down pretty hard. And I have seen accusations of racism quite a bit without any modding. perhaps people just don’t bother reporting it.

This place is like Arrakis for conservatives. Only the strong survive. Its like disneyland for liberals. You can’t say “fuck” but otherwise its a fairly hospitable environment.

And the modding adds to this disparity.