To their credit, all three of the mods of Great Debates have responded, two with their mod hats on.
But there’s no warning, much less a banning.
I know that we’ve had this discussion before: SDMB allows racist views so they can be fought. But dehumanizing racist nastiness like this doesn’t permit civil conversation. Folks who post this sort of nonsense should be one-shot banned.
I’ve linked before to this op-ed by the moderators of a history subReddit. Once again I’ll ask our mods and admins to consider whether taking such a soft stance against virulent racism leads to better discussions than a hard stance would.
It is an ugly way to refer to demographics as destiny. Analogous in tone if not perceived severity as the oft-expressed fond wish for old white males to die off.
Given the History of Britain and all of the various ‘races’ (Read: Ethnic Groups) that have lived there and intermixed, especially within the last century or two, the entire Nativism thing is kind of stupid.
It’s kind of like claiming that you’re “pure Italian” without a whiff of awareness of how many different tribes and peoples moved into Italy through the Roman period and afterwards.
Which is a nice theory, but doesn’t work. Allowing such rhetoric normalizes and spreads it, no matter how much effort is put into fighting it. Allowing it to be debated it puts it into the socially acceptable category of “things a reasonable person can debate over”.
OTOH, not allowing it to be debated pushes it underground where people become more radicalized. “Look at these immigrants, breeding like rabbits, who have taken over the whole country so much that we aren’t even allowed to say anything bad about them! It’s time to take back our country! Who has the pipe bomb?”
It is one thing for fire fighters to lecture careless campers after putting out a fire that has gone out of control, but it is another to put out the word that arsonists are welcome because fire fighters need the practice.
back in 1722, when my first known ancestor came to these shores, now the USA, they were indeed very prolific. and so were their kids and grandkids. I have jokingly referred to them as breeding like rabbits, now I guess I need to be careful.
It doesn’t get pushed underground any longer. Plenty of media sources and political entities encourage and manipulate those prone to these views. And those who espouse those views are very seldom willing to be convinced otherwise. They’re here to spout off.
I wouldn’t mind seeing them banned (after a warning)from every board except the Pit, so their only chance to spread their filth would be in a place where a) they’re not given a public voice and b) others here can tell them bluntly how messed up the are.
Given the number of attacks at mosques, synagogues, and traditionally black churches lately, I think the bigots are already radicalized and violent. In fact, right-wing terrorist attacks have risen considerably in the last few years. Most likely, the tolerance like that shown by UltraVires has them bolder.
I think Der Trihs is closer to the right of it - it’s better to let people know their views are not acceptable, deplatform them, make it harder for them to find their fellows. Drive them underground, and then stop those who attempt/commit violence acts despite the social pressure.
Bigotry such as malcalypse’s is not acceptable in a civilization, and such clear and plain hate speech should not be tolerated on the grounds of faux civility.
That only works if we’re straight-up allowed to call racists racists when they’re [del]racisting[/del]being racist. Tip-toeing around the issue in GD threads is not very antiseptic.
If it doesn’t go on his permanent record, it might as well have been written on air.
There’s an interesting line to define as a moderator. We need to encourage people to post, yes. But we need to encourage people to post in the right way. Anytime there are value judgments like that being made I find that it’s best to give people some leash to define a pattern of behavior before anything final is done.
It does mean a bit of work on our end. It means discussion and sometimes it means different mods will fall on different sides of whatever line is drawn. In this case I went with a sharply worded note to - hopefully - catch his attention. His earlier and later posts in that thread were harsh but not really actionable. They’re the sort of posts I expect Dopers can swing back at and make a difference in the minds of the readers.
I also, having experienced this a few thousand times now, foresaw a pretty decent chance that such would not be back. Indeed, he’s not been back since his posting spree. But I like to give people the opportunity to learn and mend their ways. Our habits here on the SDMB are so different from so many other, harsher places on the Internet that sometimes it can take people a while to adjust. They should have that opportunity.
As for those who advocate for instant bannings for speech with which they disagree? I’d say most of such should be happy we don’t. Based on reports we get every day most posters in GD and Elections would be banned within a week under such a regime. It’d just be Polycarp’s ghost poking around wondering where everyone had gone.
Agreed, I read that as a soft warning or a mod note, which is probably appropriate for a noob. “Immigrants breeding like rats” is clearly offensive, but he might not have intended it to be quite as offensive as some of us have taken it. It needs to be called out and he needs to know it’s not appropriate, but it’s not like he’s engaging in over-the-top racism.
It’s convenient to straw-man things, but it doesn’t help the discussion whatsoever. What would help is a little bit of shame for having done so, an apology, and a genuine effort to engage the question, as the mods of the history subReddit did, instead of glib dismissals of concerns about enabling Nazis.
This is an asked and answered question, LHoD. And you knew that from the very beginning. Asking again is very unlikely to result in anything new occurring. Because of that, I feel very little need to enter into a discussion the results of which seem predictable.
And I’m not straw manning, there. Many of our posters on both sides of the aisle have, from time to time, wandered into territory that could be considered hate speech toward their debate opponents. Were we to insta-ban for such the place would certainly be calmer, if nothing else.