Bad example. Sarbanes-Oxley was a hideous overreaction which has cost US businesses gazillions of unnecessary expenditure. There again, maybe it is a perfect parallel with what is going on on this board.
Personally, I will not be affected by the new rules because I don’t break them anyway. I don’t see any reason to use language that is offensive to some or to be gratuitously insulting or abusive (I forget which one is now banned). However, it is clearly a big deal for many of the posters, and I would hate to lose their contributions to this board. Hence I wish the new policy could be rescinded.
This is mostly a repeat for me from another thread but …
Safety valve is a good analogy perhaps, but to be dismissive of the importance of safety valves is a mistake I think. I can’t get excited about this in an abstract, don’t understand why so many are so excited, but if the safety valve functionality is significantly diminished then I’d be worried about the board’s whole tone.
These MBs have worked well because the Pit allows that steam to be blown off before it builds up too much pressure. Snark is released and mostly contained in a place where we can play with it when we want to and can avoid it when we want to.
Good safety valves that are utilized frequently are to be blocked up with great trepidation.
Yes, even in the Pit there need to be limits on how big of a jerk you can be, but to focus on creating precise rules of which words are verboten is silliness.
Indeed they could. Rabelais could have written Gargantua and Pantagruel without a single swear word or reference to bodily functions, but then the less Rabelais he.
And the less Pit.
It diminishes the forum, sanitizes it, makes it ‘safe’, removes its balls.
I don’t know, perhaps this was inevitable in a board based in the Mid-West of America, but I’d always thought that the Dope was above this.
Just make the Pit invisible unless you opt in. I don’t know for a fact that vBulletin allows this, but I’d be surprised if it didn’t. That’ll fix any issues with advertisers taking a quick peek.
This makes sense, but doesn’t solve the problem of Ed’s major malfunction: he just doesn’t like the word “cunt,” and anything he has to do to discourage its use, including flushing this MB down the toilet, he will do. He’s got a million votes, you know.
Yes, and it’s SOOOOOOOOOO very vital that we retain the ability to use that term, isn’t it? :rolleyes:
As for the issue of “workability” to the new rule(s):
While I have opined that the standard originally espoused (no abuse) by Ed was one that would be difficult to implement, it seems to me that the main people who will be discomfited by such a difficult to parse rule would be the moderators charged with enforcing it. Most of what Dead Badger has opined about the difficulty of enforcing the vague standard is a moderator issue. Seems to me the general posting public would only begin to be up in arms if they began receiving conflicting moderator warnings under the standard. Notice that mhendo finally figured this out and decided to simply start posting and see what happens. So I don’t think that the potential for difficulty in interpretation is an inherently killing quality, at least not from the standpoint of us plebes. If/when it gets to the point that Ed cannot force someone to moderate the Pit, even at bayonet point, then one will know that the standard was too vague for easy enforcement.
Matter of fact, yes. The “ability to use that term,” as opposed to the use of that term is vital. It happens to be a term that many Dopers don’t employ themselves, but being told “No” just sit well with some of us when that “No” is based on arbitrary personal judgments. If Ed had announced that henceforth the term “tomato” was offensive and its use could lead to a banning, I think most of the posters who are up in arms would be just as upset. I have no problem having my speech restricted, if that restriction makes some sense to me, or to most of my fellow citizens. I’m not asking for the right to cry “Theater” in a crowded fire, or to interrupt an invited speaker at a private function. But on a messageboard whose owner publishes salacious personal ads? I think he could allow for greater latitude of personal expression here, or at the least put a little effort into persuading us of his reasoning.
**Ed **has literally announced, in his “I have a million votes” post, that it doesn’t matter what we think or what our tastes are or what our preferences are, he’s going to do this because he feels like it. Which is his right, but by no means does that have to be acceptable to us, nor do we have to go along peaceably with being addressed like so many monkeys.
Clearly, many Dopers feel the same way as you. Nonetheless, I have a different opinion. I don’t think it diminishes the forum at all. I think it improves it. I think it changes the tone of the forum for the better.
On the subject of things being diminished, I think that referring to another human being using a crude swear word diminishes the person doing the insulting far more than it could ever diminish the person being referred to. I find it surprising that more people don’t want to have more self-respect than to address other human beings, other people, in this way. I don’t think it’s asking too much to say, ‘Hey, raise your game, have some regard for the fact that you are addressing another thinking and feeling human being’. After all, if you want people to treat you in a respectful manner, why shouldn’t you be prepared to do the same?
I’ve travelled around the world. I find it hard to believe the world needs more coarse expressions of hatred and disrespect, more contempt shown by one person for another, more anger and verbal abuse, more crudity of thought and expression. We have plenty enough already. Even on a humble message board such as this, taking steps to encourage a more civil tone and a more considered use of language is something I think worth supporting.
This has nothing to do with having strong convictions and/or a high level of testosterone. I am no pale, shrinking violet when it comes to expressing my views or addressing those with an opposing view, as people who know me will verify. But I have respect for myself, as well as the person I’m addressing, and so I moderate my language accordingly. If people in The Pit were to do the same, I think the Pit would be the better for it.
True- but Ed’s the one asserting that we should “trust him” in his even-handed enforcement of vague-at-best rules. So, it’s a bit disconcerting that he read threats into a post because of a poster’s “past history”.
That’s exactly the concern with the vagueness of the new rules for many of us.
I find that thought to be disconcerting. Discipline in school or at work, awards at school or raises at work, whether one goes to jail or gets probation, how one treats the person one sees in the neighborhood bar two nights a week - all that and so much more in life depends on past history.
Posts do not stand in a vacuum, any more than anything else does. That’s part of the point of this board, that posts do not stand in a vacuum, that we know each other. That post could be interpreted very differently depending on if it came from you or me or prr or some random innocuous MPSIMS poster. As it happens, it came from prr and was interpreted with the source in mind.
shrug Perhaps he will return and let us know how he meant it to be interpreted.
I certainly agree with you, as I am one who depends heavily on my good reputation at work, However, I also see people with good ideas getting slammed because of previous (unrelated) pissing matches with the Deans or getting called to the carpet when others don’t because they have filed grievances against the college President. That’s not appropriate.
When someone (Ed, in this case) wants us to trust him that rules that we see as vague will not be used to target unpopular posters or in a overtly biased way, then the onus is him to appear above the pettiness. Many of us are saying “please have rules that can be enforced with a minimum of interpretation”; he’s the one saying “trust me. I’ll be fair”.
Mmmm, no, you don’t have to stifle dissent, this is true. Indeed, I would not even encourage that you stifle dissent. But I do encourage you to rethink the particular line in the sand that you think needs defending. Going to the barricades over the right to scream “cunt!” at someone simply makes you look silly and juvenile. :dubious:
That analogy makes your point clearer to me, and I agree that it’s a valid concern. I’m do think that at this point all we can do is raise hell if that happens. (In polite terms in ATMB, of course. ) But not everyone who get into a pissing match with the Dean is undeserving of being slammed, not does filing a grievance against the college President automatically mean that you are innocent of doing anything for which you should be called to the carpet.
) But not everyone who get into a pissing match with the Dean is undeserving of being slammed, not does filing a grievance against the college President automatically mean that you are innocent of doing anything for which you should be called to the carpet.