It is possible that your interpretation was correct and mine wrong. If so, it merely places you in the company of many others.
If that’s how you referred to Andrew Jackson in your edits, then I’m not the least bit surprised you were banned. You do realize, I hope, that people there are trying to write an encyclopedia and not a polemical screed?
well, no, it means more than that, as one of those sides is right and the other…not.
The “hand-stabber” was an attempt (awkwardly said) to point out that Liberal was offended by “godbotherer” while he used terms like “handstabber.” Nothing was intended other than to indicate that the standard needs to be fair: if the one is disallowed, so should be the other. And, people who live in glass houses… (I haven’t read the lengthy Pit thread on this.) I really don’t want to get into a discussion of this in this forum.
You are correct, words like “kike” and “towelhead” are not permitted as user names. Whether they can be used in posts or thread titles depends on the context.
PERMITTED: “Where did the term ‘kike’ come from?”
NOT PERMITTED: “Damn kikes control the entire sports world!”
Oh, sorry, one more point. One underlying question is: “How many people need to be offended for some phrase to be prohibited?” The answer is (again) it depends. In this situation, one was sufficient because reliable sources indicate the word is indeed offensive.
We are becoming an international board, but we have fairly small numbers of people from some ethnicities, nations, cultures, etc. And there is lots of ignorance out there to fight. If we have only one Khoi on our boards who tells us “Hottentot” is offensive, and we find outside justification (so this isn’t just one person, although only one person complained) then we’ve all learned something and we make the change.
If we had one person from Delphi complain that “delph” was offensive, we’d ignore it: there’s no consensus from other Delphiniums. So, it all depends.
Then why is White Trash still allowed? Seriously, I do not care one way or another about this term and I use it, but should we be using it?
Red Neck is another good one. I strongly dislike the term WOP personally but others do not even know what it means. Other Italian-Americans might be upset by Dago. What is the line? What if Hottentot was used as a reference to Bloom County? It was used often in Bloom County.
Which ethnic/regional groups are protected and which are not?
Jim
That was an interesting read. I remember when the Seinfeld guy, (Michael Richards?) used the word ‘nigger’, and my boss at work was all, “Oh, my goodness! Your people have every right to be outraged!” And I said, “Actually, no one I know is outraged. We have long ago disabled the power of the word. He was not able to hurt me with it.”
Now, I realize the men who he said it to may be outraged, (I would not have been), and I realize that so-called ‘black leaders’ were outraged. But my friends, family, black co-workers…generally, we were not outraged a bit. Not even miffed.
A rule that means whatever you say it means is a pretty durned flexible rule. I’m not suprised you want to stick with it. It’s pretty much a responsibility-free rule, as far as the mods go.
Not really. We get it right probably more than 90% of the time. When we screw up, youse guys let us know about it. 
So, we try to act responsibly. Actually, we would try to act responsibly even if you didn’t call us out. We’re just silly that way.
I asked this myself and I was told I was being too sensitive. :rolleyes:
[fixed coding in quote]
Except that it isn’t true — the “while” I mean. It’s been going on five years since I used the term “hand-stabber” pejoratively. I stopped when someone simply asked me in a civil manner if I would.
I don’t think it should be banned, but I think this latest thing over Hottentot seems like an overreaction. I just wonder where it begins and ends. At the same time, I know there are a few words I am overly sensitive to, that others would not perceive as a big deal.
Jim
Or my favorite - cunt. I find it to be the single most offensive word in the English language - but I understand that that is a regional and age thing - it isn’t the same in other parts of the world, nor is it necessarily as offensive to someone fifteen years younger than I am. But I’ve seen people around here called cunt - in the Pit - and have been told I’m oversensitive to the word.
Yep, this is the problem. We all take exception to different words. That is a word I avoid using, so I understand why you are sensitive to it. However, I watched bitch go from being a very bad thing to call someone, to what is now quite often a source of pride and empowerment. I do not understand, but I have seen it happen.
Geek is another good example, geek was very insulting, not on the scale with some of the other words we are discussing, but still very insulting. Now many people* take pride in being a geek. I have a friend that put the bumper sticker on his car, “The Geeks Shall Inherited the World”.
There is also the whole issue of the N word vs. ‘my niggah’ between people that enjoy hiphop.
Jim
- including myself, I am a proud Geek
So which is it,
“I was told (paraphrasing due to restraints)” with it’s sinister, I can’t really tell you the whole story, I’m not even sure if I can even mention the words, the PTB are watching,
or
“I stopped when asked in a civil manner.”
told != asked
due to restraints/my clinical usage might be forbidden != simply asked in a civil manner
CMC
More about this in a more appropriate forum.
[sigh]
This all started with complaints that we did not warn people for name calling in a dispuational thread in ATMB. Instead of warning damn near everybody in the thread we chose to close the thread and go outside to play. (It was a nice spring day, everybody got a break.)
Liberal complained that he was slandered and nobody did anything about it. I repeated what I just said above about nice day, go outside and play, etc. and recommended it as a positive course of action for everyone. (It was still nice outside.)
I didn’t consider this a big deal and truly thought little of the entire episode.
Liberal continued to complain.
I told Liberal that it was at the least unfair for him to complain about being called “godbotherer” when he had previously had no problem referring to others as “handstabber(s).” It was a point that has not apparently registered with Liberal in any meaningful way except for him to claim he does not now use it and this is therefore proof of further discriminatory treatment against him.
“Godbotherer” is lifted from the works of Terry Pratchett, but I could find nothing anywhere concerning “handstabber.” The staff informed me it was a story told on Madelyn Murray O’Hair . . . story furnished by Liberal . . . used to illustrate Mrs. O’Hair’s dislike of anyone who believed in a God; in the heat of anger she apparently stabbed someone in the hand with a ballpoint pe. This was therefore sufficient to Liberal to be used as derogatory shorthand in reference to atheists.
I further told Liberal that that I found proof of the “handstabber” story absolutely nowhere and since this was a site that preferred not to spread ignorance that the term not be used at all. If Lib cared to bring some cites in as to the veracity of this story we’d reopen the subject.
The rest is many many bytes later and it’s still the same except that we’ve had spring rain here.
The sun is now back out and there’s all sorts of springtime wild bloom outside and I’m going to walk around the block. It’s too pretty to argue.
Next time I’ll just warn everyone and then close the thread so everybody can feel bad equally.
As for name calling, why is it necessary? Why do it at all? Beats the hell out of me. (Not that I want to offend Satanists, I am SO sorry.)
The handstabber word for atheists always seemed confusing to me anyway. Unless you knew this apocryphal story, the term was just meaningless. I could, with more justification, call christians, I don’t know, something like tree-killers! But if I started using that term to refer to christians, no one would know what I meant until I explained it to them.
(examples of how christians are tree-killers)
Matthew 21:19 - “And when [Jesus] saw a fig tree in the way, he came to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. And presently the fig tree withered away.”
Wikipedia: “Prior to the arrival of European-Americans about one half of the United States land area was forest, about 400 million hectares (1 billion acres) in 1600. For the next 300 years land was cleared, mostly for agriculture at a rate that matched the rate of population growth.”
I agree with you about the word cunt. But I still think there’s a huge difference in using a word in a post and having it as your username.
Slandered? 
No. I never said that, and never felt that way. My complaint was that an ad hominem was used outside the Pit. Simple as that. I would have reported the post had it addressed anyone else as well, as I have in the past.
Honestly, I don’t know why you didn’t just tell the only person in the thread who called someone a name to not do that. But that was your call.
I explained five years ago, when I stopped using the term, that I could not recall where I had heard the story from. I thought I had recalled hearing it on the radio from her son in Charlotte in the early to mid 1980s.
It didn’t refer to atheists in general, but only to very aggressive hard atheists like Madalyn Murray O’Hair. It did not apply to soft atheists, just as “fundie” typically does not apply to liberal Christians.
Testing. (Sorry to hijack, but I needed a multiple page thread for a test post because something isn’t right with my broswer and multi-page threads.)
As you were.