No need for a new rule. just slap a topic ban on him. There wasn’t a need for a new rule when JohnClay was bad-mouthing his wife every second thread he started, so why the reluctance to mod Skald? Or do topic bans only apply to unpopular posters?
As a male:
Ok, why not start modding that?
Skald starts a thread titled:
“Friend A asks you to persuadeFriend B not to break their engagement. Do you try?”
and puts in this:
In particular, she shot a gonzo scene in which she not only was verbally and physically abused by the director and male models on camera, but also confessed to having been molested by a funny uncle when she was much younger. Eliciting this confession from her — and making her call her mail co-stars "Uncle " while she cried— was the highlight of the scene.
When as Sunny Daze points out he could have just said “she did some porn”.
Yet Skald goes on to mention how the woman is degraded and humiliated and it makes her cry and to that Skald says:
Shortening of the post is mine but if anyone actually reads what has been quoted and said here will know that I am not taking that out of context.
Would it honestly be a horrible thing to have him put in a disclaimer IN THE TITLE that said, “Hey, here, fellow peeps, I have a hypothetical for you about a thing but there is some woman abuse and degradation involved that excites me”* in the title? So that those of us who do not want to read about such things is clear and that we can steer clear of such threads?
Is a simple warning (not of the poster) for that kind of content too much to ask for?
Is a simple “thread contains abuse of women” too much to ask for?
I am not about squanching free speech but please, a labeling of speech surely isn’t squanching it.
*I am not attacking Skald. He himself said it:
and as others have pointed out he has admitted in the past the these things excite him but do I really need to go beyond this one admission?
Mods? Is it really, really that hard to ask for people who want to fantasize about the abuse of women be labeled as such?
I have many women, strong, intelligent women, that I would gladly give my life for that I would be ashamed to show these boards to based on this instance alone.
What harm would it do to have Skald label his posts as things that they actually are?
Such as:
“Here’s a hypothetical about some flowers?”
or
“Here’s a hypothetical about some flowers that also include some degradation of women?”
I agree with Penfeather: why is this even a discussion? From Handy to lissener, to Reeder and John Clay and Evil Captor and Caesarian and many, many others, a topic ban has been the bare-ass minimum starting point for annoying or pervy/creepy posters. Why should Skald get any lesser treatment? Need a bright line? How about “anything more sexual than a quick kiss on the lips between consenting adults is completely off-limits to Skald”? I appreciate the opportunity to share ideas in general, but this is an easy, open and shut case.
Skald gave me low grade creeps before with crap like this, but that recent “Should my friends break up?“ titled thread with the surprise violent incest rape porn was clearly an example of somebody trolling by shocking an unsuspecting reader. And it was gross as fuck.
…from Handy to lissener, to Reeder and John Clay and Evil Captor and Caesarian and many, many others there was an escalation that started with mod-notes that eventually ended in either a change in their behaviour or their banning. None of them received a “topic ban” on their first offense. So there is a *discussion *because there is a process. Its one thing to “rant about this in the pit.” Its another for the mods (who have just had this behaviour bought to their attention) to do their due diligence to investigate a pattern of behaviour.
Dude, all love and such but in moderating this board there is simply no extant example of an ‘open and shut case’. It’s one of the reasons we get so antsy about imposing new board-wide rules. The law of unintended consequences - and an entire board of rules lawyers - makes us slow to move.
For a topic ban, I’d prefer we discuss it as much as possible - both behind the scenes and here - before any motion. If that means it’s a slower process than you might prefer, then I don’t know how to make you happy.
JC, there are 11 women stepping up and asking for your help. 11 people with a concern (Counting other thread too). 11 people stating that it’s not a pleasant place to participate because of some things that are fostered here.
We don’t have to make any poster a villain in this. Even though people are trying to. As at least one poster, who has no idea what is going on, has stated a personal beef is responsible for this (it’s not). That is an example of tone deafness that is being complained about. This is about the issue. Period.
So what do we have so far, 11 women saying stop. a few male members blaming the messenger, a few others finding no problem at all and still a few others being as tone deaf as ever. And a few males stepping up and being counted.
Maybe the slowness of the moderation team to act (and you’re all excellent in other ways) is due to the 3 female, 12 male mod team membership. Have you asked the 3female mods how they view this? (One has spoken in the other thread, as a member, that she finds it uncomfortable) I’m certain all 15 of you have your hearts on the right side of the line, but this *“it’s too hard to do” *attitude isn’t making points. It’s not too hard to toss it around the mod loop. It’s not too hard to PM a few of the woman and ask their input. I think that’s only fair.
And guys, learn your lesson before it haunts you. I was smart enough to learn from my mistakes instead of repeating them. At least, I hope I learned.
ETA, from your post, I see you’re saying what I said here. Thank you.
We all know what the pit is and what to expect if we venture there. This is the kind of tone deafness that is frustrating to many.
Can’t a moderator talk to Skald and just tell him to knock it off? That seems easy enough to do. If he continues then start moderating him in individual threads.
For me, this is the first I’ve heard that this is an issue. The hypotheticals aren’t posted in forums I mod so I don’t get any potential reports, and I don’t tend to read or participate in them enough to notice. It’s like, why haven’t you done something about this thing you didn’t know about?
As for topic bans - I think they more often come about when a person’s pet topic permeates through every thread they participate in. I havent investigated yet, but are most of the threads started of the nature described? I’m not aware that’s the case here. It seems a common ask is more clear labeling which I think is totally reasonable. I’m not sure what form that takes, but could be a starting point.
This reminds me of the discussions we had about gratuitous sexual comments in threads about women’s health and other issues (such as boob jokes in a thread about trouble finding a bra that fits properly). Many of us women complained how exhausting it was, got told it was just a joke, to ignore the posts, be quiet and just report the posts etc. We pushed back, asked for an explicit change in moderation, got support from the mods and saw things get better.
Same thing here. The unexpected insertion of sexual humiliation in otherwise innocuous OPs is creepy. It’s not offensive in a PC/SJW, intellectual and hypothetical way, but in a “makes my skin crawl and stomach tighten” visceral way. Just because some people don’t find it troublesome does negate the fact that it is deeply troubling to other posters. So again we will make noise and cause trouble and maybe we can shift the board culture just a bit to make things better for more of us.
Personally, as a Mod, I’d agree to more descriptive thread titles as a start, or a warning at the beginning of a post. We already do this with threads that contain spoilers.
I certainly hope the sensibilities of people who don’t want a movie spoiled are not taken more seriously than women on this issue.
Very well stated. And from a moderator, no less.
Bang the rocks together, guys! Out evolve the Golgafrinchans.
Exactly.
Well done, SmartAleq. I would no more read his and Shag’s crap than I would stand at a street corner gaping while a stroker wacked his wang. It only adds to their creepy gratification, in fact it IS their gratification.
So, how do you feel about surprise porn in a thread?
There is already a rule in place about clear labeling. Why not just use the existing rule? I know it’s been used in the past. Why is it so hard here?
How about the form it takes is of being clearly labeled that degradation of women is in the OP?
Just ignore the posts, or ignore the poster, was aimed at people who damn well know the man does this, but still seemingly continue to read his posts. At least on my part.
Perhaps it is just being triggered by the word and considering it more like being around the man in real life and being told to ignore what continues to be in your face as opposed to never seeing the man’s posts unless he’s quoted, which is how ‘ignore’ works on a message board.
It may surprise you, but in that other thread where I said we needed to turn this over to the moderators for consideration, I immediately reported my own post to get it to their attention, and suggested as such in the report.
But hey, this is a major holiday weekend, so I figured the response would not necessarily be quick, as many people are on vacation and it might need to involve Ed and other figures in management.
From the post you are responding to;
So it seems to me that I’d already said as much.
That suggestion was made in the Pit thread, and btw it’s a very fine suggestion, and was met with personal attacks. Several good suggestions were made in the Pit thread and each time they were met with personal attacks.
If the same idea is met with universal praise here and near universal vitriol and condemnation there it leads me to wonder which reactions are honest and which are designed to stir drama.
This.
OK, now what to do about it? From the board rules:
People who post shit for their own or others’ titillation should be unofficially warned, then officially warned if they keep doing it. Once it gets into official warnings, it gets handled the same as posters who rack up official warnings for other stuff.
And c’mon, posting about rape, sexual harassment and abuse, child sexual abuse, any of that shit, outside of a serious discussion of the issues related to these things, but rather to ‘spice up’ a post - that should easily fit within that policy.
A poster recently got banned for, among other things, repeatedly insisting that ‘wetback’ wasn’t a racial slur, and getting repeatedly warned for it. If the board can manage that, it can manage do deal with this crap.
I’ve been taking a break from the SDMB for the past couple of weeks, and when I came back to this I almost left again without posting. But since we’re keeping track, you all can count me as the 12th(?) woman who finds it creepy and inappropriate when posters start seemingly-innocuous threads but drop in porn and/or torture scenarios.
However, what I consider a much bigger problem on the SDMB is this helpless attitude when there are complaints about creepy and inappropriate behavior:
I don’t know why you need the crowd to tell you this, but yes, perhaps the Mods could try enforcing existing rules!
We have rules about using descriptive thread titles, avoiding “Penthouse forum” type content, and generally just not being a jerk. Evil Captor used to start innocent-sounding threads about movies only to drop in descriptions of BDSM and rape porn, and the Mods did eventually intervene in that case. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel every time another poster does the same thing. Just enforce the rules. To echo IvoryTowerDenizen, it would be nice if this sort of thing could be taken at least as seriously as Game of Thrones spoilers.
Actually, Beck in post 92 was the 12th to speak up and sign on. You’re number 13, I think.