Maybe, but many people don’t think it was a straw at all.
That is, it was the final warning after several warnings, but it shouldn’t have been a warning at all.
So wait! Shodan using “harpy” was at least mod-noted as misogynistic but “qunt” or “cunt” is OK because 3 years ago, before the board misogyny blowup, it was OK? And it must be OK because What Exit? said 3 other mods looked at it and passed it.
I really wish we could get a mod to answer that question once and for all.
And not to highjack my own thread but if it is true that a right-winger like Shodan cannot call someone ‘harpy’ but it’s OK to call a right-wing nutball a ‘cunt’ without even a modnote, then why don’t the mods just come out an be honest that they are biased in how they apply the rules. Or best case scenario that this board in inconsistent in how it applies the rules re: misogynistic statements.
Mods are discussing. Expect a reply, but not immediately.
I think that’s all we want is a definitive answer. Thank you for keeping us in the loop and I hope this gets you a point or two to move from journeymod to mastermod.
I said above I bumped this up to the modloop and to give us some time. Have a little patience please. It is the weekend.
And the Shodan thing is not equivalent. He had a long list of warnings before the harpy post finally got him banned. I don’t know the details of the discussion, but apparently that post was just the final bit.
Body of work and not one post got him banned.
But if that one post wasn’t actually over the line, then I don’t see how it could’ve been the final bit. And if we’re going to say that it was over the line, then I don’t see how this one isn’t.
(Granted, as somebody who thinks all of this sticks-and-stones coddling misses the point entirely, I of course see neither as a problem — but if we are going to act like one crosses the line, then I don’t see why we wouldn’t act like the other does, too.)
I wasn’t a mod at the time. There is probably more to it than Harpy by itself, but I don’t know. And I really see no reason to reopen this debate in this thread. It seems out of line to me.
As to the current issue, it is a group decision and not mine alone. It is being discussed, though slowly via the modloop. Best I can offer for now.
I can say, it is extremely unlikely to bring a warning, but fairly likely to generate a modnote and a change in board policy. I dismissed the flag fairly quick without a lot of thought, but thanks to both this discussion and the modloop one, think a note was warranted.
I can imagine saying, “don’t be a dick” to someone even while kids are within earshot, but would never say, “don’t be a cunt”, regardless of who might hear.
I think it should get a mod note, sorta a smack on the fanny.
In these sorts of discussions people (including some claiming to be British) keep insisting that in the UK the word ‘cunt’ is some kind of very, very mild expletive.
This is not really correct.
The nearest to official confirmation would be the standards followed by the film censors and TV regulators who have for at least thirty or forty years had cunt, motherfucker and fuck as the three strongest obscenities (with fuck the mildest of those three.) About a decade or so ago cunt and motherfucker were completely banned on TV at any time.
While those three remain the strongest ‘plain’ swear words there are changing views concerning racist words, religious insults and insults based on sexuality. Forty years ago a joke starting ‘So this nig nog and this poof…’ would be OK for an early Saturday evening. These days no chance. Put simply racist language is becoming more offensive than simple swearing. Simple (Christian) blasphemy is reducing in offensiveness.
Here’s the cites since this is the straight dope
A convenient list of UK swear words in order of increasing severity
And the slightly more scholarly pdf file from UK Broadcast regulator Ofcom where the list originated after a public survey.
Note in my personal experience (and perhaps I move in the wrong circles) UK people happily swear freely at each other including calling each other cunts.
TCMF-2L
Yeah, there’s no equivalence there.
- cunt is a nastier word than dick
- punching down is intrinsically worse than punching up
You are right, it’s not correct - it’s a complete misrepresentation. I’m British.
In the U.K., the word has a much wider range of usage. It can be used by men toward other men, in which context it can be as mild as a lightly mocking term of endearment. But it would never be used so casually toward a woman in that way. Because the range of possible meaning in the U.K. certainly encompasses U.S. usage as a severe misogynistic slur.
And everyone in the U.K. who has any online presence is aware of the more restricted usage in the U.S., and the strong taboo here. If a U.S.-centric message board disfavors or bans the word as a misogynistic slur, it will certainly not be surprising or confusing to British users.
The worst that might happen if the word were banned is that a careless British speaker might use it toward another man in a manner that an American might find mystifying as much as offensive. But that’s unlikely in written communication. And if a British speaker uses it about a woman, it is absolutely a severe misogynistic slur.
Yeah, this.
I’m british too. I’d never use it though.
To be fair, for you ferriners, it is often made to seem like you could walk into the local corner shop and say “Give me a pack of fags, ya old cunt” to a 65 year old lady and no one would blink an eye. Not true of course but made to seem that way.
In the US it’s the opposite way. People say it’s scandalous and the worst word ever. Comparing it to n****r is ridiculous. I’ve used the word for decades and no one has fainted at the sound of it or turned me in for a hate crime. I would guess 99% of my usage is directed at men and most of that is friendly banter.
That said, this is one of those “know your audience” things. Since this particular audience seems to be heavily against it, I see no reason not to just ban it, and cutesy spellings of it, across the board. There are other words that are readily available that people don’t seem to mind.
All I ask is that you come to a solid decision, rather than you will decide on a case by case basis. All that leads to is sowing confusion and seeing threads like this over and over.
The whole reason I posted in this thread was to point out the disparity between slurs of any sort directed at people who have an ideology that aligns with the dominant group on this board and those who don’t. It’s ridiculous to rule out of line any discussion that is evidence of that trend.
It was explicitly stated in another thread by Hari that a particular comment was trolling but since he agreed with the comment no harm. And this is more evidence. It isn’t relitigating Shodan’s ban. It’s pointing out that two of the warnings that led to a suspension and ban shouldn’t have even been notes. They should have been flags that were dismissed without any thought but they weren’t not because of what was said but because of the ideology of who said it.
Agreed, and I don’t think we even need to make this about ideology. Even if there were complete consensus among all members here that MTG is despicable, it should make no difference. We cannot use the n-word to disparage a Black serial child murderer any more than we can use to disparage Nelson Mandela. Because bigoted slurs (by definition) imply that membership of that class is in itself a negative.
Shodan’s case is pretty emblematic of how moderation is broken. He eventually got banned for using “harpy” because it was said that he’d been warned for that before. The trouble is that never happened. The mod confused him with someone else, Shodan got punished for it.
To be clear, Shodan deserved to be banned long before that for incessant trolling and lying. But for whatever reason, that’s a call mods are hesitant to make. So instead they rid themselves of the headache with some sloppy bright-line moderation that left nobody happy.
Trolls should be banned for trolling. Mods should be bold when banning people for subjective criteria that are also obvious. Be bold in inferring intent, that’s why humans have brains. Nobody’s deprived of their freedom by being modded here; stop acting like it’s 20 to life.
It definitely should make no difference, but there seems to be pretty obvious bias. It’s hard to blame conservative posters at this point.
Yes, but those posters tend to be those who also objected to the banning of misogynistic language in the first place. The term “harpy” still pretty clearly violates that rule. The question was how severe the issue was. I would suspect that it would have normally been a mod note. But Shodan had a history of antagonizing and pushing right up to the line. So I think it is likely intentional.
It wasn’t the specific word he had been told not to use. But he had been told to stop throwing in those “lesser” misogynistic terms.
Maybe it’s time for our computer savvy conservative posters to create a 100% free speech SDMB alternative rather than expect this liberal echo chamber board to change it’s ways.
Sure, but even if inequitable treatment of conservative posters were moot, it would not matter. Even if this were an explicitly partisan forum where conservative posters were banned from any participation, it is still wrong to use severe misogynistic slurs against a female political figure even if literally every forum member agrees she is evil.