Could you please explain why it was even left open in the first place? It is an mess of misogynic meyhem , and every call for a cite(and there were many merely resulted in another pile on of imaginary facts and figures. How did you want the posters in that thread to react to that unghodly mess? You can’t say that if everyone just ignored it, it wouldn’t have degenerated into something that needed to be closed down, because, looking at his first page of posts, it never was worthy to begin with. I would say the blame should fall three ways:
Ecmandu, for piling nonsense onto nonsense and not citing any of it.
Some of posters(including myself) for finally getting so pissed -off that we overreacted.
The mods for keeping it open far after if was obvious that Ekmandu wasn’t going to play nice.
I read the OP and was all like, where’s the misogyny? Then I read down to the middle of the first page and was all, oh, THERE’s the misogyny. And then I reached post 187 in which he essentially calls for mass rape of any woman who has sex with a man after the man makes an advance toward her, and I’m like, hello, mods?
First off, I’m not speaking for Tom or any other moderator.
I followed the thread in question. Not closely, but I did. But I’m generally reluctant to pull the trigger too fast on a thread. I’d rather let it go on long than short. Either will bring me a thread like this, though. I knew this was coming.
As for closing it or not doing so…
Just because you find a thread - or someone’s opinions - offensive doesn’t mean that everyone does.
Misogyny might be offensive, but absent outright hate speech - which is very difficult to define - I’d prefer to err on the side of allowing a thread to go on rather than not.
To pull the plug because I disagreed with him - and I do, the loony was deep in this one - would be moderating content and that’s a slippery slope that all should be concerned about.
People did seem to be having fun batting it around.
Look, by far the worst offense against Great Debates in the thread was the breakdown in actual discussion. When it became an endless stream of ‘man he’s nuts’ and such it was time to close it. But where there was still back-and-forth? My tendency will be to leave it open.
But with all those “facts” out there devoid of any cites, what made this a “Great Debate”? I don’t know where you were seeing any actual discussion, beyond all the requests for cites, which he just responded to with even more wackiness. You say that the thread degenerated, and I have to ask-When was it ever going in any other direction than down?
I see what you’re saying, Jonathan, and on the one hand I think overall I agree: moderating on the basis of opinions isn’t the way to go.
But on the other hand, I’d say that his posts were literally impervious to debate. Couple that with what’s, also literally, the most appallingly misogynistic opinion I’ve ever seen on the boards, and I’d say the offense to Great Debates is keeping that there.
An argument isn’t simply gainsaying the other party, you know. Nor is a debate simply stating an opinion without evidence to support it.
If he’d offered evidence to support his appalling opinions, that’d be one thing: debate would be an effective response. But he didn’t. So it didn’t belong in GD anyway.
As for “batting it around,” once that’s the main point of something being in GD, I’d suggest that itself is a sign that plug-pulling is in order, not a mark for keeping it open.
Didn’t we also decide fairly recently that we were going to clamp down harder on misogyny? I don’t think it needs to make it to hate-speech levels anymore.
Also, if you’re worried that the thread might have some value, you can always try moving it to the Pit. I think that’s a logical choice for a thread where someone is being particularly hateful. And, if there’s any debate, it can still be done in the Pit. (Some posters even think the best debates happen in the Pit.)
Disclaimer: my prior response was to LHOD. You snuck in there on me, Czarcasm.
And no, I think you’re not quite right. In fact, with its welcoming of witnessing, Great Debates is the forum that can particularly avoid the battle cry of ‘cite’. What other posters may do with that, however, is A) best left to the imagination and B) outside the bounds of moderation.
Really, which is better? A person who never posts of cite or someone who posts cites that are nonsensical or made up? Just because I respect peer review and quality media doesn’t mean everyone does.
Which is better? I would say thoughtful medium where a mod steps in when the pile gets too high and says something like, “You better start backing some of your claims up fast(or at least admit that it is all speculation), or I’ll to either close it or move it to MPSIMS/The BBQ Pit.”
edited to add: And I also thought we were cracking down harder on misogyny.
No. You warned me for accusing him of pulling facts out of his ass because he wouldn’t provide any cites, but I don’t think you addressed him until you shut down the thread…and you didn’t mention anything about cites there, either.
At the point where a poster is advocating mass rape as a punishment for a woman who has sex with a man who makes a move on her, I’d say the noose is pretty well drawn tight.
Had I warned you, you’d have been warned. Instead I told you to cool it on the direct insults without giving you an infraction.
And you’re correct I didn’t mention cites. As I said earlier, a request for a ‘cite’ is a custom on the SDMB…it’s not an assigned rule. There is a huge difference between ‘debating in good faith’ and ‘not providing cites’. The first requires that a poster is posting in such a way as to not be attempting to participate in a debate and is close - but not identical to - trolling. Making that decision comes down to my judgement and I’m going to take my own sweet time about doing so as any thread can start or go off the rails and get back on them at any time.
The second - lacking the providing of cites - is an issue of frustrating other posters. But again, Great Debates is the forum that specifically provides for argument that cannot be cited. If such frustrates you, then obviously the solution is to not participate in such threads. And if a poster angers you so much we have the BBQ Pit handy just a few fora over. It’s certainly allowed to begin a Pit thread and invite the subject to join you there providing your posts in Great Debates don’t becoming insulting or somesuch.
You are correct-I was not formally cited or warned.
“But again, Great Debates is the forum that specifically provides for argument that cannot be cited.” Nobody asked for his argument to be cited-they asked for his stated claims of facts and figures to be cited, for without real numbers there is nothing to argue about. This was nothing like arguing about religion-he was stating statistics.
