N/m.
To me it’s not even in the top ten of incendiary labels, but as I said it’s all about gores and oxes. The point, however, is if Marley et al aren’t going to step on every label such as this then they shouldn’t be seen to be arbitrary in stepping on just one. There needs to be some sort of balance here. Personally, I’d let Gun Grabbers go, and simply allow posters to mock such labels if that’s what they want to do…or ignore them. But I’m not a mod, nor do I play one on the SDMB. I DID stay at a Holiday Inn Express about 4 nights ago, so there is still some residual effect happening…
Put that way, XT, you make a fair point.
Agreed. As I say, similar terms like gun nuts, gun fetishists, etc. are equally annoying (and FWIW I treat them all equally, never having reported any of them). If it were up to me, first time you used one of them–or anything resembling one of them–in GD would result in a ban from that thread.
Can I first ask why any of you CARE so much about a moderator requesting that a particular tone be maintained and that certain phrases be avoided in the service of maintaining that tone? Is it going in your permanent record or something? Prevent you from getting into MIT?
IN any case, for the little it is worth, to me phrases like “gun nut” and “gun grabber” are both doing the same as Godwinizing a thread. Their use reveals a lack of interest in understanding the perspective that you don’t agree with. Gun threads tend to evoke extreme poles of perspectives and use of those terms fan the flames of that polarity. I can completely understand a desire to at least TRY to keep a gun thread as civil as possible in GD, especially in the current period of greater interest in these threads.
Maybe their use should just be mocked, but that also detracts from the actual exchange of ideas as well.
But again, why does a moderator request matter to you so much? Dang, four pages over this? Really? Time to get out more people.
In my opinion Great Debates has more than enough mocking already.
Question: I keep seeing “gun grabber” as a supposed counterweight to balance the use of “gun nut”, but how often do we see the phrase “gun nut” used by those who oppose an unrestricted 2nd Amendment in Great Debates?
I don’t know. Can we do a search for that term? That’s the only way to know. My experience isn’t so good with 3-letter words.
It’s not like I’ve ever counted and it wouldn’t be easy to search for, but it gets used, yes. My unscientific observation is that gun owners probably get called names more often than gun control proponents around here- partly based on volume. The derisive comments are usually more like ‘you think you’re living in an action movie’ than ‘you are a gun nut.’ I hope we’ve at least cut down on the ‘you have a gun because you’re compensating for impotence’-type insults. I used to see that one more often.
If “gun grabber” merits mod action, then how about “motherfucking NRA scumbags”? from this thread in Great Debates?
And how about “gun scum” from the same thread?
I know Marley is not online at the moment, but I have reported both posts.
Which poster was being referred to with that statement?
What poster did I refer to with the “gun grabber” post that prompted this thread?
We all realize that as the self appointed site yes-man you feel you have to chime in with your everso incisive questions, but do you really think there is a substantive difference between this example and oakminkster’s original ‘infraction’?
The mod note Oak got was not about references to other posters, but about the general tone of using a negative catchphrase.
I’d definitely support mod action against both of those examples.
“We all realize”? Ignoring the attempt to poison the well by you and the mouse in your pocket, I will point out that “gun grabbers” is being used on a regular basis against members of this message board, while the term “motherfucking NRA scumbags” seems to be directed towards the leadership of the NRA, and no poster to the best of my knowledge has said there were a member of that group. I was wondering if that was a factor in the decision, but it just may be that one term was reported to the mods and the other wasn’t(until last night, that is), and “Motherfucking NRA scumbags” just slipped through the cracks.
Did Oakminster use the term gun grabber against a member of this message board?
Has Marley acknowledged that he was not responding to a report?
Was Marley moderating for tone, or because the phrase itself was banned?
Is mouse in your pocket (or some variant thereof) your phrase of the day?
I’m going to wait for Marley to get back to us and respond, rather than attempt to read his mind and respond for him.
All posters who are members of the NRA.
I thought the reference was to the leadership of the NRA, but maybe I misread.