it is to be added I find it funny that describing a position that meets the objective definition of the noun with the noun is insulting, but the same person who has this opinion inventing a term clearly intended to denigrate opponents (egalitarians), does not respond to any actual argument against the racist positions and has no objective definition, this goes unmoderated.
Honestly, I’m surprised you didn’t get another warning for this;
No need to point that out :rolleyes:
No it’s not.
Beyond that, being called “Holocaust Denier”, “Truther”, or “Birther” is also pretty nasty. However people throw around such terms whenever we have appropriate threads.
Agreed, just like David Irving isn’t a Holocaust Denier. He’s a Holocaust Skeptic.
Its not about what we think. Its what the board rules are. The clearly articulated consistantly modded rules as applied to name calling in GQ/GD. Mods are volunteers here and many/most with jobs and families and they dont have time to rule case by case on hundreds of posts.
We can call him a racist in the Pit.
If it’s an insult to call someone a racist, what is the acceptable non-insulting term to refer to someone who holds the belief that there is a race inferior to others?
Unless such a term exists, the analogy to calling someone “fat” or “cocksucker” does not apply, since in both cases there are alternate, non-insulting terms.
The moderators may agree on particular posters being racists but they don’t want to open the can of worms of deciding which negative personal characterisation are accurate and which aren’t. If you want moderators to get into these messy matters, you’ll have to pay them. This is one of those cases where it’s much better to have bright line rules which aim for ease of application and finality rather than trying to accommodate particular exceptions.
Note that none of this actually prevents anyone from calling someone a racist or any other noun or adjective except “cunt”. You can still do it in a Pit thread. Outside the Pit, you can say negative things about what posters say, not the posters themselves.
It’s about the orderliness and efficiency of administration of the whole forum system which matter more than any one poster. If, one day, Hitler comes back to life and posts here, if you want to say something negative about him rather than his arguments, you’ll have to take it to the Pit.
Well, I said you were expressing bigotry, which I believe is on the acceptable side of “address the post, not the poster.” But if one of the GD mods feels I was in the wrong there, I’ll retract and apologize.
That being said, my previous post remains accurate. You can’t skirt the rules against insulting someone by arguing that the insult is true.
obviously then the insulting terms like holocaust denier and anti-semite must be treated in the same way then. What is the logic if the difference? I can see none.
xenophobic?
Guys, there’s a simple solution here. Open a pit thread and call the guy anything you like (except a cunt 
). Problem solved.
But we NEED labels!
Oh, the irony.
oh the terrible insult of the noun. but then what is the difference for you from the unmodreated anti-semite, it is only an label…
That’s not true and no mod has claimed that. The rules are that you can’t insult another poster outside the pit.
I and others think that while the term “racist” can be used as an insult, it’s not always used as such.
Until extremely recently, the consistent policy in GD articulated by mods like Marley23 was that “terms like racist/sexist/anti-Semite etc. are strongly discouraged because of their personal nature and usually clearly cross the line into insults, but are not always intended as insults.”
Now, Tom and JC have decided that in GD the use of the term “racist” to describe a specific poster is always going to be regarded as an insult.
I and others personally disagree with this change in the policy particularly since it’s being done by people who have openly admitted they won’t enforce explicit board rules against hate speech.
Incidentally while I disagree with their position I don’t want it to come as an attack on them or to suggest that they’re racists or even insensitive to racism.
So no, the board rules don’t prohibit the use of the term racist unless one automatically deems it an insult which IMHO it’s not.
They do however prohibit hate speech and frankly it’s quite depressing that more people seem upset about suggestions that the mods recognize that “racist” isn’t always an insult, than are upset by the mods not enforcing rules against hate speech.
Sticks and stones may break my bones but poorly spelled slow moving jewish neutrons will never hurt me.
Anti-semite is a more specific form of a racist. Call him anti-black.
Serious question.
Why is that term not automatically considered an insult, but “racist” is?
I agree with most that you say. The problem with modding racist is that it becomes a value judgment about whether a person is an actual racist or not. If a person holds a number of obviously racist positions then the call is clear…no insult. But what if a poster has an unpopular opinion and those who disagree try to smear him with the racist stain? Then what would you do? That is obviously an insult and a detriment to conversation. Context is always vital in the slinging around of loaded terms.
I dont agree with modding/banning hate speech because 1)there are ways to effectively respond and counter it and 2)just what is hate speech? Who gets to decide?
not relevant. I was called an anti semite incorrectly, by IW in fact, I did not cry about it.
the relevance is why racist is moderated in a way different from an exact equivalent term… or holocaust denier…