I’m being serious. This is a thread about new board policy and you’re writing posts with the tons of someone authorized to give people instructions (and you might not only be the only one).
In order to keep the misunderstanding in this discussion at a minimum, I would suggest that unless you actually have the authority to formulate or enforce board policy then it might a good idea not to make statements that look like you’re doing that.
withdrawn
You’re in luck. I now have some sweet news to balance the sour. Your right to roll your eyes at my shitty jokes has not been infringed. However - I don’t mean to pee in your Wheaties, but - you don’t get to be the arbiter of what’s funny. Neither do I. If I had a nickel every time I’ve commented to myself how horrible some of the humor at this board is, I’d have no time to post to it – I’d be too busy counting my nickels.
Reminder that this thread is about the clarification of moderators’ position on sexual/sexist jokes. The rules have always been there:
FAQ - Rules for Posting and see Post #10: Are there any rules on insulting other posters? And at Guidelines and Etiquette in Post #2: Good manners and common courtesy are expected.
The issue was brought to our attention, and there has been considerable discussion in every imaginable direction. The mods agreed that it was an issue that needed clarification, and we have made that clarification. (Thanks, Little Nemo, your input was very helpful in crystalizing our thoughts.)
It’s not new rules, it’s new clarification of existing rules, and it’s increasing moderator awareness of an important issue. We are constantly trying to balance between “free speech” where varied opinions can be offered for discussion, and “common courtesy” where we are expected to be reasonably civil to one another. So our rules will never be fixed (in the sense of Rule 42(A)(5)(b)(iii) ) but will always depend to a considerable extent upon context and situation. Thus, clarification is always helpful.
We will add these clarifications into the “Rules” and “Etiquette” threads above, in a few days.
BTW: even in the Pit, there’s a minimum of “good manners and common courtesy” – some types of flaming (outright racism, sexism, etc) are not permitted.
Acsenray, I hope you see this as a gentle suggestion, not an instruction: read the two paragraphs of your post and tell me you can see the irony in them :).
Edit: to clarify entirely, I’m in agreement with the mods on this (although I’d prefer they be even stricter). If anyone misunderstands my posts as speaking for them, that person’s got some issues, to put it mildly. Your question about whether I’m speaking for the board is totally ridiculous. It’s obvious for whom I’m speaking.
No I don’t. I was very carefully wording my post to suggest that something might be a good idea. I was very specifically not issuing commands, which the wording of your posts actually does. If we are trying to understand boards policy I submit that this is a very useful distinction to make.
Huh? How can something simultaneously meet both condition 2 and 3?
How can a thread be both a non-sexual topic and a serious sexual topic?
To which the obvious riposte is: if you can’t handle a gross joke, try a different board.
Really. Rather than trying to Nerf-pad all the sharp edges on this playground, why not find one that’s pre-Nerfed and more befitting your delicate constitution?
So then, you’re saying we shouldn’t even strive to treat each other with a basic level of respect? That ship has already sailed, no point trying to be civil now?
And if you can’t express yourself without resorting to gross jokes and sexist commentary that borders on harassment, why don’t you try something more your speed, like Reddit?
See, it’s a shitty argument when either of us make it.
With all due respect, both of the posts you cite have to do with behavior aimed at other Dopers. I think there is general agreement about that aspect of this new rule/interpretation/application.
What I am curious about is how it applies to posts aimed at people off the boards. For instance, pantsless women handing out condoms in a Pope hat. I don’t see how joking about her ass is any different from joking about any other kind of buffoon. It is not any more a violation of courtesy or good manners than any one of a hundred other PaLATR posts. And I do not see how it is a violation of any of the three clauses of the new rules/interpretations/applications/whatever they are. Can you talk about how it is?
Regards,
Shodan
With all due respect to you and DiosaBellissima (who appears to agree with you on this issue) I continue to disagree. There are certainly threads where sexual subjects are being discussed in a serious manner (and I offer Skald’s thread as a recent example). But in my opinion, the CMU marcher thread does not qualify.
I cannot find it in myself to regard somebody shaving their public hair into the shape of a cross, putting on a Pope’s hat, and marching bottomless in a parade in the same category as standing in front of a tank in Tiananman Square or sitting at a lunch counter in Greensboro. This was an act of being silly not an act of serious protest: more Pigasus than Peterloo.
And as such it was subject to jokes. Which is how people took it. The joke posts started immediately - they did not derail an ongoing serious discussion. And if the topic you’re joking about involves somebody marching naked in a parade with their pubic hair shaved as part of the protest, some of those jokes are going to be sexual.
How about you not exclude a middle the size of the solar system? There’s quite a bit of space between “has no problems with these kind of jokes” and “thinks they are super fun”. I don’t make comments like that as they usually are so expected that they can’t be funny. They remind me of Beavis & Butthead stupidity. But the comparison you made between what transpired in the thread with the pantless protestors and a 14 year-old girl “asking for it” is absurd.
So, while I think this board—and any adult board—would be better without “tits pics”, I think the moderators are way over reacting. We don’t need more super-subjective rules like this.
By the way, Mods, is saying something like “women aren’t physically strong enough to do that job”, now to be considered sexist and would run afoul of these new rules?
To clarify my above remarks, I’m only in disagreement about the application of this rule being applied to that one specific thread. I have no problems with the new policy itself or its general application now that it’s been explained. The new rule seems to be that there are times and places where some jokes are not appropriate - a common sense rule I think we can all live with.
As someone whose input was valuable to the mod staff in formulating the policy, perhaps they can consider your posts in interpreting or applying it.
Regards,
Shodan
So far so good…
(emphasis mine)
But here, I think you misread what Red Barchetta wrote. He was using “disgusting” to refer to the level of censorship he thinks the new rule introduces. How is that out of bounds in a thread discussing what the new rule is an the degree that it may be appropriate, necessary or helpful?
This thread received 175 replies (not including mine) in 340 minutes.
That is more than 1 reply every two minutes, for 340 minutes!
Averages out to about 0.51470588 replies per minute in this thread.
That’s exactly what I took his post to mean.
That’s explained in the post you quoted. Saying a rule is good or bad is helpful, saying somebody wants disgusting censorship isn’t. I’d like for this thread to be less vitriolic than the last four or six sexism/misogyny discussions.
In here?:
[QUOTE=Marley23]
And let’s steer this thread away from comments about who and what is disgusting (because it’s sexist or because it’s no fun) - there has been way too much of that kind of stuff in the last half-dozen threads about sexism/misogyny. We’re trying to have a useful discussion about the issue and how we can handle it.
[/QUOTE]
Can you point it out? Your parenthetical doesn’t apply to a discussion about the level of censorship that might be a result of the new rule, or a poster’s perception of it. No only do your words not explicitly say that, it would make zero sense to bar discussion of the effects of the new rule. Surely, you didn’t mean that, as many subsequent posts have discussed that very topic.
Well, if you’re rounding up, sure.