In BBQ, why mod a hint at a racist joke but not an actual racial slur?

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122

“Someone” is very different from the angry PoCs you initially conjured with your “people expressing anger at dealing with personal or systematic racism”

I don’t give a hoot if White people were using it to refer to themselves. That’s not the issue, and also nothing that’s going to make you look like an asshole for modding.

But other than Huey Freeman, I can’t recall any PoCs going off on the kind of slur-spree your imagination seems to have conjured up. And you had no problem modding the fuck out of him.

ETA: I see your last post, but this all still stands as a comment on the previous one, so I’m leaving it as-is. But kudos for the rethink. And good luck with the vaccination!

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Not to take away from you praising LHOD, but that’s a point I already made in the OP:

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I missed, that, mea culpa. :man_facepalming:

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That’s a great site. Some of the examples are hilarious. Too bad the neguswhoread site is down, I would have liked to get a look at that.

Your avatar makes you look part pink/part black so you should be black enough.

Can you give us an example? If the rule is no racial slurs, no matter how mild, how would you break that in spirit? How would a racial slur ever be benign behavior?

I would guess the vast majority of people get thru the day without using racial slurs, I don’t think it’s too much to ask that they do the same thing for the couple hours they may spend on a message board. Not having a bright line rule is what leads to loopholes and rules lawyering. It’s also necessary that all the mods are on the same page, and enforce the rule the same across the board.

But it is racist. It depends totally on the person being white. Blacks, Hispanics and Asians are never called crackers or hillbillies because they lack the main trait of being called a cracker, which is being white.

I should have known it popped up somewhere. At least in the context of that thread it was historical in nature. A bright line rule would have ruled it out at no loss really. I guess if you wanted to allow that stuff from an informative “look how bad stuff was back then” thread you could mandate a very clear thread title and specify a 2 click rule like we have for porn.

No, I don’t think anyone thought you were being racist. In the context of the thread it fit right in with the current rules.

Thanks for thinking this over. If you come to the wrong conclusion, we’ll let you know. :slightly_smiling_face:

Good luck with the shot, fingers crossed for no complications.

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Well, I’ve seen one angry Black man do pretty much that on a different site. Admittedly, he was pissed off not only at the racist posters he was insulting, but also that the moderation on that site was painfully slow, so racist comments hung around for quite a while.

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That’s simple. If there was a bright line rule that you can’t write racial slurs, then breaking it in spirit could be something like posting an image with the slur written on it. Or post a picture of a man in blackface. Or quote someone from another thread who had made the slur, and then state that you didn’t write it, you were just quoting someone who wrote it, and therefore you didn’t break the rule. Say, you write, “You are such a dumb” then quote the slur. By a bright line rule you did nothing wrong. Those are the kinds of shenanigans you open yourself up to.

As far as benign use of racial slurs, this very thread is full of them. Even the n-word is written a few times. They aren’t being employed against anyone, but if your rule is that you can’t even write them down, then you are forced to take action when someone does. Hence why these rules are not always (and not usually) a great idea.

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The use/mention distinction is valuable.

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I found the ones about white people do not season their food but wypipo must be vegans, eat only organic and gluten free food, or the one that white people can’t dance but wypipo dance everywhere especially nonsensical.

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Thanks, that’s a good read. :grinning:

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By bright line rule, all of those are against the rule. The rule is no racial slurs. Not no racial slurs that you personally write. Your examples are just mods not enforcing the rule.

No, nobody in this thread is even attempting to use these words as slurs. Discussing slurs is not the same as using a slur against someone. Two totally different things.

Either I’m being whooshed mightily, or you don’t understand that wypipo does not mean white people. They are two separate groups.

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I don’t think you understand what “bright line rule” means. Wikipedia has a pretty good definition (though it references the US Constitution, it applies to just about any usage of the term). It means that the rule must be strictly enforced as written. So it depends on how the rule is written.

When you say “the rule is no racial slurs”, is that a rule you’re proposing? Because that’s not the rule in the BBQ Pit currently. The rule currently is:

If you say hateful and/or racist things, you may get warned or banned. Some slurs are likely to be viewed as hate speech when used as insults, some aren’t. No, we aren’t going to give you a list. Our goal is not to restrict any and all speech which could be viewed by someone as offensive, but simply keep a modicum of decency, even here.

So you are proposing a new rule simply called “no racial slurs” with no other definitions? That’s vague enough that it might be meaningless as a “bright line” rule, because there is no definition of what a racial slur is, or what is considered a slur, or what makes it racial, or even what “no” means. No discussing slurs? No using slurs? No oblique reference to a slur without mentioning what it is? It’s not much more useful than “don’t be a jerk” if you intended to make that the “bright line”.

That’s a meaningless statement. Again, it depends on how exactly you write the rule. Based on what you are proposing those could absolutely be violations.

I’ve dealt with bright line rules before, the easiest one to bring to mind from Wikipedia is the “Three Revert Rule”. You cannot make three reverts (undoing someone else’s edit to an article) in a row without some kind of intervening edit between them. They could be seconds apart or days apart. Two reverts is okay. But once you make the 3rd, administrators are supposed to block you. This is ostensibly to prevent an edit war from breaking out (where two or more people are undoing each others’ edits without discussion). But I’ve seen all kinds of attempts to game the rule. I’ve blocked many people while enforcing that over the years, and I’ve sometimes disliked doing it; I have seen where the person being blocked is clearly the one in the right, but I have to block them based on a technicality because it’s the rule.

Another one is “no legal threats”. If you threaten to sue another editor on Wikipedia or the project itself you get blocked indefinitely unless you retract the threat. That is to prevent what is called a “chilling effect”. I have even blocked a celebrity in one case who was threatening legal action. I’ve found that to be a good bright line rule in my experience. So sometimes they work.

The way that this board is, I don’t see how bright line rules will improve the place. I think the moderators do well enough using their judgement, and the rules that are in place leave enough room for interpretation that they don’t need to be defined more. Moderators do occasionally get things wrong but there is nothing you can do to prevent that because they are human. (As far as we know.)

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I would classify what you are suggesting as a hyper-literal reading of bright line rules.

It would be like a cop writing me a speeding ticket when I am parked by saying that I am actually travelling at 67,000 miles per hour because that is the speed the earth is going around the sun.

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I feel I should clarify too, I’m not trying to suggest you are absolutely wrong about the need for a bright line rule. It might help. (That’s why I mentioned how I had great experiences with one such rule.) I’m just pointing out the risks of them and why I believe they’ve been avoided so far on the SDMB.

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Did you read to the end? You’re supposed to find it nonsensical:

(emphasis added)

And sorry for just repeating what you’d said in the OP, MrDibble–I think I read, then did some work, then came back and posted, and forgot what I’d read.

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They are meant to be taken literally with little-to-no interpretation, that’s what differentiates them from other rules.

That would be an insane way to enforce the rule unless that’s how it was written. In which case the rule itself was insane to start with.

One of the big dangers of a bright line is that now that there is a line, and it’s very clear (hence the name), basically anything you do up to that line (even if just barely from it) is allowed. And anything that crosses the line, regardless of circumstances, will result in enforcement. There are no grey areas.

If you set the precedent that the earth’s rotation or revolution around the sun or whatever was a moving violation that could lead to a ticket you have a real problem with your law. :slight_smile:

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But not overly literally. Most people can understand meaning and context. If there was a rule that said you may not use racial slurs, I think that any reasonable person would understand that to mean that you may not implement them against others.

If we are having a discussion about the slave trade, for example, and someone quotes an auctioneer from 1787 making a statement that contained a racial slur, again, I don’t think anyone would believe that the rule covered that.

ETA: And like anything, there may be some hard cases around the edges or in hypotheticals, but it at least gives posters something to ground themselves on instead of “whatever an individual mod decides.” Under that scenario, a post may be within the rules one day and against them the next. Those aren’t rules at all.

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I know what a bright line is. We already have a bright line for this in all the other forums that seems to work pretty well. Just extend it to the Pit, get the mods to acknowledge cracker etc. are racial slurs, then enforce the rule. It doesn’t matter what the Pit rule now is, that’s what we are trying to change. Just say "No racial slur against anyone on or off the board. " Then enforce it.

I think we already have a good start on this because most posters don’t want to use that kind of language anyway. Every one that reads here often could probably name the people who use or would use racial slurs. It’s just the board has been loathe to moderate them . Look how long @ChiefPedant and @Chen019 posted their scientific racism with no blowback. The guy in the OP is just the 2020 version of them, and goes almost totally unchecked.

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We don’t. We don’t have any bright line rules on SDMB. Bright line rules aren’t open for interpretation or debate. They’ve very well-defined rules. “No racial slurs” is by definition not a bright line rule because it’s vague. The line is fuzzy and indistinct, and that’s perfectly fine.

In your opinion, what creates a bright line? I don’t think I understand what you’re asking for.

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We do have a few bright line rules:

  • threaten legal action - banned.
  • use the n-word as a slur, even in the Pit - heavy mod action
  • operate a sock puppet - gone.

Sure, there can always be a question whether something is in fact a racial slur, as the discussion of “cracker” in this thread demonstrates. Some people may not see something as a slur, depending on their personal background. (I couldn’t believe it when I saw posters on this board using the word “Paki”; the Commonwealth posters all had a viscereal reaction to it, that US posters were not aware of.)

But once a consensus emerges (WP:Talk :wink: ) as to whether something is racial slur, it can then be enforced.

And yes, there is a distinction between use and discussion of a word, as this thread demonstrates.

Finally, that “we won’t give you a list” is bogus. There is a list; to my knowledge, it contains the n-word and harpy, when either is used as a slur. It may not be a closed list, but it’s a list of words that trigger moderation or banning, even when not directed at a poster but at some person in the news (e.g. - “Regards”).

Words can be added to the list and posters know where they stand, which is the purpose of good moderation.

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Crom strike me dead! I totally agree with @UltraVires. Seriously, if this board can’t come together enough to set a rule about no using racial slurs, we should stop using the smartest, hippest on the internets stuff, and just admit we are the morons.

If you think that’s too confusing for people, you are one of the rules lawyering folks. This is not a lawyer in court thing, this is a message board. If you can’t understand the spirit or intent of “No racial slurs”, how about “no racial slurs directed at anyone on or off the board.” Is that also too fuzzy?
I mean, come on here, we are supposed to be adults here. If you (not you personally) look at rules and immediately try to think of ways to get around them rather than following them, you are the problem, not the rules.