In this thread, Miller first stepped in and warned me for “hate speech” for discussing the issue of Islam-linked violence, and for illustrating another poster’s problem with using words accurately.
Having understood that any actual discussion of Islam was going nowhere, I decided to simply share links to stories on mainstream news sources about current events involving Islam, free speech, and similar issues that had been discussed in the thread, and not offer any personal commentary on them.
Today, Miller issued another warning for “spamming the board.” I don’t believe I am offering any goods for sale, and I attest that I have no financial stake in any of the news outlets I have linked to and do not stand to benefit from anyone clicking on the links.
Is this really just grasping at any available pretext to shut down anti-Islam discussion?
Here’s a link to the warning (if it is a warning, and not just a note), for those who aren’t interested in digging through that 18 page thread.
And, yes, as Shodan says, just commentary rather than just links. On the bright side, if this is now considered spam, maybe BrainGlutton will get dinged for it too.
I mean, yeah, that’s a warning, but it’s not a Warning.
Of course not. Lord knows there’s more than enough virulenty anti-Islam people around here, and the mods tolerate them presumably for the same reason that the virulent homophobes and racists are tolerated. If your particular approach is earning censure, look at your style of posting, not the content.
Huh–that also doesn’t contain the word “warning.” Miller, do you issue warnings without using that word in the moderating post? Because if so, my bad on my earlier post.
Looking at the infraction system, Miller did not issue an official warning for either of those posts. Haberdash has not received a warning for anything in that thread.
This said, the remark asking the another poster whether he wanted to murder him looks an awful lot like trolling to me. If Haberdash was not warned for that, in my book he got off lightly.
There’s no warning to you from Miller in that thread, or any other thread. There is an instruction to you regarding the “don’t shoot” comment you made. It is not an official warning.
I don’t see how you can possibly refer to that comment as “discussing the issue of Islam-linked violence”. I don’t moderate the Pit and don’t even participate there, but even I understand why that comment was over the line. If you don’t understand what is unacceptable about that particular comment, then maybe you shouldn’t post at all on this topic on the SDMB.
As for the links, you posted a rather excessive number of links in that thread with very little (if any) comment of your own for most of them. Even though you weren’t benefiting financially from the links, that is basically a form of spamming. If you have a point to make, then you should make the point, not just make post after post containing nothing but a link and a quote.
I had to go back ***fourteen ***posts of Haberdash’s in that thread to find any original content (and that was literally just an introductory line); the following thirteen posts were just links and excerpts with no clarity on why those particular stories were posted. They weren’t even consistent in their portrayals of Islam, let alone serving as evidence for whatever argument was intending to be made.
Looks like “spamming” to me - not in the sense of selling something but in the sense of repetitive posting of material with no intent to engage in discussion about it. People who C&P messages across dozens of messageboards and never come back to talk about them also get banned from here, even when they’re not selling anything - the practice drags the whole board down regardless of content.
(For that matter, consider Pjen who actually wrote posts but filled entire threads all on his/her own. That didn’t end well either.)
Stringbean (who launched the thread) and truthSeeker2 have both been criticizing Islam at least as heavily as the OP (example: “unadulterated poison” as sole post content), and the Mods haven’t seen any reason to intervene in their posts.
So, I think the OP has his answer, if he is willing to listen.
As ECG stated you have not been warned by Miller or any other mod recently. If it was an official warning you would get notified. If you disregard mod instructions I’m sure you will get warned. You usually have to work pretty hard to get a warning in the Pit. So I guess it’s an accomplishment of a sort.
Lemme put in a somewhat vague defense of Haberdash for what he’s been doing in that thread.
You’ve seen and read about gag orders. Judges issue gag orders. Or some government agency makes a controversial rule that rural clinics in Africa can’t discuss birth control if they receive any funding from whatever foreign aid program. Or doctors in Florida can’t ask patients if they have a gun in the home. Gag orders of one sort or another.
And you have seen how some people, who object to gag orders, stage protests. They show up wearing tape over their mouths. They don’t have to say anything. Just show up wearing an exaggerated caricature of a gag on their face, and they are making their point. It’s just one form of expression.
That’s just what Haberdash is doing there. He said so explicitly. He felt he was being gagged for the statements he was making. So he took up the practice of posting all those links and quoted excerpts, with the intention that they speak for themselves, while refraining from adding his own commentary. He is protesting by gagging his keyboard.
One can argue separately whether his statements are out-of-bounds even for the Pit. But now he feels is not only gagged, but double-gagged for protesting his gagging.
In every venue where discussion is held, no matter how open-minded it claims to be, there is some certain level of orthodoxy about what may be discussed. Transgress that, and you find yourself gagged. Question the gagging, and you’re “Just Asking Questio<gag>”. To some degree, the SDMB is no different.
This is inaccurate. You were not issued a warning in that thread, nor were you moderated for “discussing the issue of Islam-linked violence,” nor were you moderated for, “illustrating another poster’s problem with using words accurately.” You were moderated for prefacing every reply to a Muslim poster with, “Don’t shoot,” implying that they were a violent terrorist on no other grounds than the fact that she belongs to a religion you dislike.
The term “spam” does not necessarily refer to advertising, although that is the primary motivation for most spam messages. But the term is also commonly used to refer to people repeatedly promoting their pet political or social causes without regard to the appropriateness of the forum, or the expectations of behavior therein. The SDMB is a debate board. Posters here are expected to interact with other posters, and not just treat it like a personal blog. In the future, if you feel a particular thread is not going anywhere, the proper response is to stop participating in the thread, and not attempt to overwhelm it by constant repetition of the same basic theme.
The thread in question remains open, with over eight hundred and fifty posts. And while your position was, mercifully, in the minority, you were far from the only person pushing hard-line anti-Islamism in that thread. You were, however, the only person who drew any moderator attention.
Haberdash may feel he is being gagged, silenced for his opinions being anti-Muslim and therefore somehow off limits, but he is wrong.
What happened is he repeatedly insinuated another poster was threatening him, and when moderated over that, resorted to spamming by posting links without commentary.
I was in the midst of calling out the poster for using “free speech” to include “destroying posters that I don’t like.” Because the poster then began discussing the Garland, Texas attempted murder, I then used murder as an example of another word that she also may not be using in the same way as the other posters in the thread.
You didn’t care about my “don’t shoot” joke until that happened so you could quote it out of context, and you were moderating a thread in which you were engaged as a poster.
If “insinuating that Muslims are violent” is out of bounds and any discussion of whether a Muslim poster is using words correctly constitutes “insinuating that another poster is threatening me” then I guess I have my answer as to whether criticism of Islam is allowed.