Maybe it was close to being a bad typo?
I don’t actually get to make the rules, I’m just explaining how some common sense rules might look. The thing about common sense is that it matches the reality we currently live in, and doesn’t try to impose an artificial symmetry and consistency that doesn’t actually exist in the world today. Racism is not currently symmetric. Sexism is not currently symmetric. Imposing an imaginary symmetry on rules regarding these issues immediately waters them down into meaningless or makes them unnecessarily draconian.
Solve the actual problem you have. Stormfront racists drive people away and make the site unappealing. You can ban them without also banning discussion on why Belgians are the way they are. Even though it’s the biggest injustice they’ve faced to date, white men will survive.
:dubious:
Symmetry is not imaginary nor does it make rules on discourse meaningless or draconian. It makes the rules fair and consistent. It also defangs a loud, obnoxious in-group that looks for special considerations.
If ageism against the old, sexism against the men, and racism against whites is so exceedingly rare to not need any consideration why the worry about a rule that is applied equally yet will rarely, if ever, need to be invoked on these oh-so privileged sub sets?
Would we have to start calling them “Moberators”?
What in-group are you referring to as loud, obnoxious, and looking for special considerations?
I’d suggest that asymmetric rules about racism ALSO drive fair-minded people away. I’m sorry you don’t see that as a problem.
And what I am saying is: an insistence in discussing each post in isolation is a tactic to facilitate asymmetric application of standards. Principled cases can be made for tolerance, and principled cases can be made for strict limits. By isolating discussions to a single post, activists can loudly demand that a strict line be enforced against racism they disfavor, and equally loudly argue for the ideals of free speech and bad ideas being remedied by good ideas when the subject is racism they do not strongly disfavor… each time piously demanding the discussion be limited to only that post.
No! The issue is, or should be, consistent moderation, and discerning that requires comparisons between acts of moderation.
It was not a Warning; it was a Mod Note. (Just so that that issue is clear.)
It was a poster who rarely posts–32 posts in multiple years–who has posted on a variety of topics and not repeatedly thrown racist stuff out there. From that, I made the judgment that the post did not deserve a Warning. Obviously, that is a point on which many of us differ. I rarely make Mod decisions without context, and the poster’s history figured into my decision, here.
I am aware that there is a view that any racist stuff should result in instant banning. No one has provided me an explanation why racist stuff should bring an instaban while sexist/misogynist/misandrist statements or similar attacks on members of a political party or attacks against religious believers or unbelievers, etc., do not bring an instaban. If expressing any idea that could be remotely described as hateful brings an instaban, then it should apply to a lot more topics than just race.
Hate speech? Calls to kill or deport or criminalize groups is hate speech. Incitement to violence or to taking prejudicial action is hate speech. Being stupid and expressing nonsense, however hateful to the audience or target, is not hate speech.
Borrowing from Wikipedia on Hate Speech:
If anyone wants to expand that definition to the simple expression of a racist thought, feel free to bring it up as a suggestion to modify the SDMB rules. (At which point, I would suggest that attacks on any group–by nationality, by sex or gender, by politics, by religious belief, or any other way to identify a group–should be covered by the same rule.)
Just so I’m clear: there are no violations of SDMB rules that result in a warning with the first violation. Is that right? The protocol is invariably a message that such is not allowed here, then one warning, then a ban? Or is more than one warning a possibility? Does this vary from mod to mod, or is this pretty consistent across the boards?
Here’s the point Tom. There’s no record of your Note. When he repeats himself, you wont know he has such a pattern. Sure I guess with only 23 posts you could read all of them.
So, Make it a warning, the conduct was outrageous. Then, you will have history.
Oddly, when I got my first warning the Mod didnt take into account my history.
While I’m not averse to the insta-banning of obvious racists, this thread was just about the warning. You’ve given your reasoning for that.
I think it’s *stupid *reasoning. Someone with a handful of posts who then posts something *that *inflammatory and racist? More like someone stuffed their hand back into their most convenient sock because of the current threads on racism. The unusual posting history should be *more *reason for issuing a warning, not mitigating circumstances. That benefit of the doubt would be more *apropos *for a long-term *frequent *poster who suddenly busts out something racist.
Some of the other stuff you mentioned *should *deserve mandatory warnings too, though - misogyny and sexism, especially. Because, like racism, it’s been noted as one of the things driving posters away from here, affecting the board bottom line. Transphobic posts would be another.
Not misandry, just misogyny, though. Because “balance” in service of current imbalance is as transparently useless as the proverbial majestically equal law preventing both rich and poor alike from sleeping under bridges.
That’s nice and all, but why should we care what you consider hate speech, when you are on record as not moderating for it at all?
Same here.
I agree with Giraffe here. Asymmeteric rules are a problem, but it’s not a problem that can be fixed by offering facts or evidence. And, based on the response, I don’t think a long discussion would be productive. It may be better tothrow the baby out with the bathwater and just make all hate speech (including “anti-‘white’” speech) against the rules.
(emphasis mine)
I agree with this, even if this would mean that writing “white folk” would be a bannable offense. I dig the consistency (even if it’s uneven). But one question: why political affiliation? Why should political affiliation be afforded the same protection as people with disabilities, women, or people of color? If you decide to respond, I *promise *not to debate, nitpick, demean, use coded language, or respond negatively to your answer: just interested in your reasoning (if you choose to share).
If we concede that hate speech should be banned for sake of argument then why do you feel the need to allow hate speech targeting certain groups? That makes absolutely no sense.
Some stuff is prejudice (e.g. misogyny, anti-black racism, homophobia), some stuff is postjudice (misandry, anti-white sentiment, anti-fundie-sentiment) I’d allow more leniency for the latter. I’m not saying it shouldn’t be modded. I’m saying it should be modded with an eye to actual justice, not fake “fairness”. See above about the Law’s Majestic Equality - that was, in fact, biting satire.
IME, “fair play” is what the bully cries when it looks like he’s about to get a taste of his own medicine.
To you.
Postjudice? :dubious::dubious::dubious::dubious::dubious::dubious:
:dubious:
I still find it troubling that you are advocating the notion of collective guilt and action based upon collective guilt. That’s not an enlightened nor erudite attitude.
Yes, postjudice - in this case, deserved, reasonable and experiential-based bias.
I’m not advocating collective guilt. I’m advocating collective responsibility. Primarily to counter the existing diffusion of responsibility that exists here on social justice, especially in the moderation.
That you find that “troubling” is, at best, that diffusion at work. Combatting such embedded privilege is very “enlightened”.
“Erudite”, I wouldn’t know - seems too close to “articulate” for my tastes…
While I agree with most of what you’ve said, this is where I begin to waffle.
I read the moderation as a soft warning, a kind of pre-warning or borderline warning. It probably could have gone farther than that, but I don’t think the moderator under-moderated too badly in this case. If I were a moderator, I probably would have issued a warning, but there’s probably just enough hedging to avoid getting the full smack down.
I am pleased that the moderation staff does not appear to be accepting the Dibble Doctrine.