I would propose that this thread needs 2 sister threads:
1) What rule changes would you propose to strengthen/improve GD?, and;
2) Is there a double standard for right/left hate speech?
The instruction I gave was not was not just ‘this post is fine but everybody ignore it.’ It was ‘this type of post is not welcome in this thread.’ So yes, I did try to prevent the thread from being taken over by partisanship. The idea was not to let Der Trihs have his say and make everyone ignore it, it was to keep the thread moving past that.
I quoted you because you were the only person who had responded to Der Trihs at that point. It was not intended to be any kind of more severe admonition. Of course it’s also true that “too good” contributed nothing to the thread, but that wasn’t the main issue.
A few months ago, I remember tomndebb posting that he was interested in cutting a lot of this stuff down. We haven’t discussed how that might be accomplished, but I’d also like to make that happen. (We have to find an understandable way to do it and I’m not saying a handful of piecemeal ‘don’t hijack this thread’ or ‘cite this claim’ instructions will get it done.) I think we can do better than a lot of this doctrinaire left/right bickering. And on the same note I think it’s a problem that the site has become mostly inhositable to conversatives, although we do have some very intelligent ones still around.
On preview, never mind - I think I should respect raindog’s request about what he wants to discuss.
I would be very glad if you start either or both of theses separately. If I may make a suggestion, start number 1 first, and let it sort of run its course. I rather suspect the second might encounter more difficulties than the first.
Regards,
Shodan
Works for me. I know it was introduced upthread, but I’d leave the phrase “hate speech” out of either debate. Those words have a specific meaning and the semantics are going to be a problem even if ‘hate’ is convenient for you as shorthand.
If your dreams are like your posts, don’t bother cuz you aren’t missing much.
CircleofWillis, if you have a beef with elucidator, go open a Pit thread, This is not the forum for you to try to hijack the thread with snark or violate the rules with insults against another poster.
[ /Modding ]
I disagree with your perception.
The issue is not content free posts or even unpopular content free posts.
The issue is inciting to riot which occurs when the OP refuses to develop his or her own arguments.
Circleofwillis’s first humorous post to this thread quoted a single line from one of my posts:
and noted that a rigorous enforcement of a rule against empty one liners would get elucidator banned.
The comment was amusing in its way, but he (and you) have ignored the rest of my post (bolding added, here):
Had KLR 650 been one of the peanut gallery, I would have ignored him and I suspect that Marley might have, as well. However, an OP who posts content free provocation is a typical cause of fights.
Had KLR 650 been merely a contributing poster, I would have waited until some other poster(s) had risen to the bait, (hoping none would), and when both sides began getting out of line, told everyone to back off. As the OP, however, KLR 650 refusing to provide support for his own topic was much more likely to cause a fight to break out and if we’re going to tell him to take his behavior out of his own thread, we might as well close the thread.
The recent adoption thread followed a similar pattern except that the OP posted at length, obscuring for a while that she had no substance to her posts. She was not asked to prove her point, only to explain what in the world she meant by some of her more outrageous statements. When she refused to even acknowledge that her posts were confusing, only then–after five days and over 400 posts–was the thread shut down.
My only point was that you made it sound like we were going back and forth. There was only one exchange and it had been long past when you put on the mod hat. It was so unnecessary that I was genuinely puzzled. If you had come in right after that exchange, I would have understood what you were doing. You may want to go back and look at your wording. It just seemed out of place for the amount of time, and posts, that had passed.
tomnedebb, what I think you fail to realize is the source of the riot.
I agree with you, in part. There is a riot. There is a mob forming.
The true source of the riot, however, is that someone has dared to come to the SDDMB/GD and espouse a view that offends the board [political, social, or religious] sensibilities.
Go look at some of these threads. Poster A shows up with an argument that is highly unpopular. His argument is also weak; not fully developed.
In the ensuing 200 posts there will be a dozen or more feeble attempts to defend his postion. However, there will be 75 inane, pointless, citeless posts attacking Poster A’s position.
But do we see? Poster A is inane, and “content free”, while we’re blind to the fact that the reason the spotlight is on Poster A is because he has made an unpopular argument. He’s a polarizing figure.
**He’s seen as a trouble maker. **
So, yea, I see the riot. And I’m sympathetic to your job as riot policeman.
But my experience is that the biggest crime he commits is daring to come with an unpopular idea, and his failure to fully develop his unpopular idea -----his secondary crime-----puts him in the same company with the 2 dozens posters attacking him.
It sounded to me like you were going to start going back and forth, which would have taken the thread off track. I didn’t want that to happen and that’s why I worded it that way- it was preemptive and not intended to be a punishment.
But that is NOT your experience.
You are here with a number of unpopular ideas and I know darned well that I have told posters to keep their attacks on your ideas away from attacks on your person.
Is it true that a weak argument will be savaged? Sure. Will it be savaged more loudly by a majority than a minority? Sure.
But it takes the combination of an unpopular idea plus a weak, (or nonexistent), supporting argument to get into flaming territory. (And if the argument is so weak as to be unsupportable and no champion from the same side will stand up to support it, what is the purpose of letting the thread continue to boil for days?)
I would also disagree that threads get shut down for weak arguments, at all. They get shut down when one side refuses (or fails) to lay out any actual argument. We have had CT threads that went hundreds of posts–unpopular ideas with weak arguments. What gets closed are threads where there is nothing but a repetitive reassertion of some belief without any supporting argument.
Tom,
An example of this is that we have no shortage of OPs from the left end of the political/religious/social spectrum who have weak, or underdeveloped arguments.
No one is *“incited to riot” * because what causes riots is not so much the quality of the argument (although a weak argument acts like gasoline to the fire) but the argument itself.
If I post an inane, citeless rant-like OP in great debates about Dick Cheney’s crime wave I’ll get some level of support, and be attacked by **Shodan, Mr Moto, Sam Stone, Bricker **or others.
Quite literally a handful at most.
However, if post an inane, citeless rant-like OP in great debates about Obama’s health care and hatred of America you can count on putting on your riot gear.
Both OPs were inane, content free, citeless, and hyperbolic. Given the board demographic, there will only be one riot. And history bears this out.
I largely agree with this post. And attacking me, as opposed to my argument is against the rules. And you have stepped in when the rules are violated. I appreciate that.
And I agree that it takes “the combination of an unpopular idea plus a weak, (or nonexistent), supporting argument to get into flaming territory.” But it is when the flaming starts that we have riots.
But my point is that is usually when we have riots and posters are asked for [moderator] “Cite” and so forth. But the combination of A) an unpopular idea, and B) a weak argument is not against the rules.
And if flaming/riots only tend to occur when both A & B are present, then I think we need to take a step back and realize that the posters most likely to get a rebuke are the ones with unpopular ideas.
Because the left leaning posters------who post the popular ideas-----are every bit as weak, citeless and inane.
Absolutely true. However, as a Moderator, my job is to keep the flames down, not to level judgments on the quality of arguments.
On those occasions where you apparently see me judging the arguments, I would say that I have looked at a mob situation and pointed out to the lonely “victim” of the mob that he or she needs better arguments so that the thread becomes a discussion rather than a flaming. If the great unwashed mass of “lefty atheists” is not flaming their simple-minded associate for his or her OP, there is no flaming. I can roll my eyes at the silliness, but I have no reason to interfere.
The options that you appear to leave me are
- to take on the role of argument judge and shut down the simple minded “lefty atheist” threads
or - to let the simple minded threads from the religious right be hammered into gore, stopping them only after blood is drawn.
I think that pointing out why their arguments are not persuasive and suggesting that they come up with better arguments is the more helpful way to encourage them to participate.
That’s why I posted as I did earlier. It seems that Der Trihs’ fact-free hate rant was not the problem; it was that somebody reacted to it. Had it just been left to lie there stinking, no action was necessary.
Then, when you did take action, you seemed to equate magellan01’s post to all the hate-rants Der Trihs had already posted. Because you (IMO) improperly characterized magellan01’s post as if he has said that ‘Democrats are stupid’ when he neither said nor implied any such thing.
It sounds a bit like you are saying that content-free rants aren’t a problem until someone reacts to them. Which is much the same as saying that we are being called on to ignore them.
IOW, is Der Trihs’ content-free hate rant the problem, in and of itself, no matter how other posters react or don’t react?
Regards,
Shodan
And that’s the way I took it. But I don’t think you understand my point: it should have been clear from when you came in that enough time and , especially posts, had passed, that what you feared didn’t seem very likely. And the tone of your post simply didn’t seem appropriate for a two-post exchange that had happened like 40 post earlier. Like I said, I found it odd.
I do also think that it was unfair to insinuate equivalence between his hate-filled stupidity and my “Too good.”
Can you at least see how actions like that give credence to the charge of moderation bias, whither it’s intended, or existent, or not?
If it is true that both sides are equally adept at posting inanity, and that both sides will flame the other, given the slant of the membership, wouldn’t it also be true that content-free post from the left would be more numerous than those on the right. And wouldn’t the left (since their are more attackers) have a tendency to flame more than the right? And if either of those holds to be true, wouldn’t one expect moderation to more often be addressed to those on the left? Does it?
This hardly seems to be the case. Especially with the content-free AND constant flaming by the resident hater, DT. The sole fact that he is given a pass demonstrates without a shadow of a doubt the bias in this board’s moderation. I know that won’t change now. Even if you and most mods might agree with the recent arguments brought against the board concerning DT, no one would dare want to act, which would be saying in essence, the conservatives on these boards were right about something.
I would have made the same post (minus the quote) if no one had responded to Der Trihs because his post was the issue: it was not welcome in that thread. I also included magellan01’s response, but that wasn’t indicating any kind of equivalence - I was saying posts on that theme belong in another thread.
Yes, it is.
I didn’t look at the time stamps, I admit. Yes, a good amount of time had passed. Then again it’s a text conversation and the comments were sitting there, so I thought I should be clear. My aim wasn’t to crack down on you and Der Trihs, it was to keep the thread from turning into just partisanship.
What matters is that neither one was wanted in the thread, not judging your two posts in a relative sense.
I think these last few posts are compelling and I see the issues you have to face.
I trust you agree that both options are untenable. But I assume you agree then, that the circumstances-----the board demographic—places a greater burden on the right leaning posters to have his act together.
But if the mods take any action that causes the unpopular to leave; to be driven out, it only perpetuates the problem. If I read you correctly, you’re sometimes saving the right leaning poster from himself; saving him from his own argument. (and the goring he’s receiving)
Either he bucks up and comes with a stronger argument, or he comes back to play another day. The problem is he doesn’t come back. He’s been driven away.
In many cases, however, he hasn’t been driven away by quality but by quantity. (although often he’s been bested by both quality and quantity…)
I don’t know the answer, but I do perceive the fix has been to drive away unpopular ideas/posters and further reduce the diversity of thought.
Consider this, however, in general what is the nature of the goring? Isn’t it true that the inane citeless right leaning poster is being gored with inane citeless left leaning spears?
OTOH, if the inane right leaning poster is being gored by a superior argument, from well researched and prepared adversaries than the board is better off without him, right?
I mean, in this country we routinely will put 300 policemen around 6 protesters who are holding an unpopular rally.
I think the rules can’t be applied in such a way that a problem is solved (flaming) and in the process another problem is made worse. (a lack of diversity)
It seems to me that added rules on taunting, indirect insults, and piling on may give the unpopular idea a chance to stay and debated.
More posters on the left than on the right get admonished, today.
The discussion is what happens to threads where the OP is ill prepared and what role should the Mod take in addressing that. When the ill prepared poster on the left shows up, there are fewer posters to pile on, so the flames do not get as high.