The Banning of Shodan

[Slash1972]

@Left_Hand_of_Dorkness

Nah. I’m pretty comfortable that my explanation is correct: he never gave me a reason to believe otherwise. You were suggesting there was an alternative explanation, but apparently you don’t actually have one

I have, in fact, given one - he thinks that particular woman, and not ALL women, everywhere, is a harpy.

That’s not how history of social inequality and oppression works.

I see. I guess I wasn’t aware that this message board is at all relevant to the history of social inequality and oppression.

[Fotheringay-Phipps]

@Cheesesteak

Thank you for your “contribution” to the board. We are all better people for having read this.

I suspected there would be reactions like yours, unfortunate as it is.

It’s one of the main detractions of this board. Skewed moderating pales into insignificance by comparison.

[Slash1972]

@Kimstu

The point is that the word “harpy” has very specific behavioral connotations as well as being specifically gendered. It means a female creature carrying out a disgusting and vicious gratuitous attack.

Of course, there are women who carry out disgusting and vicious gratuitous attacks, and I don’t think people do or should get into serious trouble for calling them “harpies”. If someone responds to a particularly nasty malicious diatribe by, say, Ann Coulter or Jenny McDermott by calling her a “harpy”, I doubt they’d get banned for it.

But the researcher that Shodan attacked was merely discussing some of the dangers of unsupervised homeschooling and proposing that it be more strictly regulated. She wasn’t insulting anybody, she wasn’t being disgusting or vicious or gratuitously attacking anybody in any way.

What she was doing was merely being a woman (and especially a middle-aged woman) expressing a reasoned and reasonable opinion that Shodan didn’t agree with. The only reason to call her a “harpy” was to get the misogyny-power boost of denigrating her gender, and by extension, all the other people who share her gender. I don’t see why the SDMB should be expected to consider that legitimate debate.

Wow. So a so-called misogynistic term like “harpy” may not actually be insulting to all women if used against women who, in your opinion, put forth a nasty malicious diatribe? Do you have any similar scenarios where it’s okay to call a woman a “bitch”?

[HMS_Irruncible]

@Fotheringay-Phipps

This logic is silly - a false dichotomy. (To illustrate - Emmett Till “had agency”, and “no one made him” whistle at a white woman.) The fact that someone had agency in doing some action doesn’t contradict the notion that the reaction to that action was inappropriate.

The difference is that Till wasn’t breaking any law, and had no previous offenses or suspicion of breaking the law.

Shodan racked up repeat warnings for hostile/trollish behavior and chose to keep pushing the line. Nobody goaded him into it. He enjoyed it because he could do it with impunity, until one day he couldn’t.

[Exapno_Mapcase]

Hooray.

I’ve been reporting Shodan for trolling for *many *years. Sometimes I’d ask why the mods still allowed him to post. Why, why, why does this board happily harbor obvious trolls?

Nothing but good can be the result from banning a troll. The boards are better now that trolls are being given less rope. Political threads are still contentious and loud but with fewer piles of shit dropped into them.

And don’t get me started on the misogamy, bigotry, homophobia, and all the other little presents we’d find on our screens.

A troll is gone. The only proper response is “hooray.”

[Buck_Godot]

@crowmanyclouds

Damn, now we’ll never know what ‘Regards’ meant. Perhaps it referred to a childhood toy like a Big Wheel or a two wheeler without training wheels…

CMC fnord!

I always interpreted in the same way as “Bless your heart”.

[Fotheringay-Phipps]

@HMS_Irruncible

The difference is that Till wasn’t breaking any law, and had no previous offenses or suspicion of breaking the law.

Shodan racked up repeat warnings for hostile/trollish behavior and chose to keep pushing the line. Nobody goaded him into it. He enjoyed it because he could do it with impunity, until one day he couldn’t.

There are all sorts of differences between Till and Shodan. But none are relevant to the logic point, which is that the fact that someone has agency doesn’t imply that the reaction was appropriate.

So if someone disagrees with the claim that Shodan engaged in an unusually high level of “hostile/trollish behavior”, then you can’t use the fact that Shodan “had agency” to refute that. That was the point of that illustration, and it was addressed to the paragraph (by JC) which it quoted and which employed that logic.

[madmonk28]

@Fotheringay-Phipps

I suspected there would be reactions like yours, unfortunate as it is.

It’s one of the main detractions of this board. Skewed moderating pales into insignificance by comparison.

I have to ask: Don’t you think that comparing a poster to a message board being told to stop posting here after several warnings that his behavior was out of line to a lynching victim whose murder shamed a nation to enact civil rights legislation undermines whatever point you are trying to make?

[Kimstu]

@Slash1972

So a so-called misogynistic term like “harpy” may not actually be insulting to all women if used against women who, in your opinion, put forth a nasty malicious diatribe?

Of course it’s still fundamentally misogynistic that any terms connoting nasty malicious behavior are explicitly gendered female in the first place.

But using a gendered epithet about nasty malicious behavior to describe behavior that actually is nasty and malicious is generally considered much more tolerable than using a gendered epithet about nasty malicious behavior to describe behavior that isn’t. Sure, the former is still reflecting some underlying misogynistic societal norms, but the latter is outright exploiting misogynistic societal norms in order to smear somebody specifically on account of her gender.

[Cheesesteak]

@Fotheringay-Phipps

I suspected there would be reactions like yours, unfortunate as it is.

I know, right? Who would have thought that comparing some misogynistic trolls banning to a kid being beaten to death would prompt an unfavorable reaction?

It’s one of the main detractions of this board.

There are other detractions, like posters who dredge up one of the most horrifying racial attacks in our country’s history to defend a douchebag getting kicked off a message board.

Maybe you should compare it to the Holocaust. That’ll show us.

[Fotheringay-Phipps]

@madmonk28

I have to ask: Don’t you think that comparing a poster to a message board being told to stop posting here after several warnings that his behavior was out of line to a lynching victim whose murder shamed a nation to enact civil rights legislation undermines whatever point you are trying to make?

To people who are incapable or disinclined to think logically and who view things in very simple terms (“hey, he’s comparing Shodan to Emmett Till!!!”) it does. My comment was aimed at the unfortunately decreasing number of people on this MB who are above that.

[madmonk28]

@Fotheringay-Phipps

To people who are incapable or disinclined to think logically and who view things in very simple terms (“hey, he’s comparing Shodan to Emmett Till!!!”) it does. My comment was aimed at the unfortunately decreasing number of people on this MB who are above that.

But you did compare what happened to Shodan to what happened to Emmett Till and I didn’t use any exclamation points. I would argue that thinking logically would include finding proportionate examples for the comparisons you are making. You’ve heard the term comparing apples to apples? You compared apples to child murder.

[Chingon]

You injected Till into the discussion, and for a reason that was unneeded for the “logical” point you were attempting to make.

[Kovitlac]

@Cheesesteak

There’s nothing incidental about the insult being directed at women. It didn’t just “happen to be” directed at women. The purpose of the insult is to attack women, only women, and only women who speak their opinions, and that’s exactly why Shodan chose it.

This is ridiculous. Banned for using the word HARPY? Christ, better not use poo-poo head or meanie-face - we’re getting into really offensive territory, here!

God damn, I’m a woman and ‘harpy’ is the tamest shit ever. Maybe some women disagree, but I’m pretty sure not even Instagram whines about the use of the word ‘harpy’. That really says something when mods here are more sensitive than IG.

I won’t say what I think all this is *really *about, but it certainly doesn’t raise my opinion of this board at all. I get it was viewed as a ‘final straw’ kind of thing, but Jesus Christ. I find even warning for a word that tame to be laughable.

[AK84]

Till may or may not have whistled at the lady, it’s an open question to this day, but what happened to him can in no way be linked with Shodan’s banning, no matter weak and stupid it is.
That’s not a comparison between Apples and oranges. It’s a comparison between Apples and the supermassive black hole in the centre of the galaxy.

[Velocity]

I would like to point out that there have been numerous **non-Pit **threads in which the term “harpy” was allowed and did not result in discipline. (My point isn’t to attack any posters who used that term previously, just to point out that there is a double standard.)

you don’t need that soul-sucking harpy making you depressed

https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=21202166&highlight=harpy#post21202166

Dublin maps and street name changes had me reduced to a screaming harpy.

https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=21721678#post21721678

some self-righteous harpy has demanded that I prove my connection

https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=20676922&highlight=harpy#post20676922

It could be as simple as The Harpy putting a lien against the house

The drunken harpy gets her way.

Is there some way to get the sheriff involved and get a restraining order against the harpy?

if Sister is such a pushover that she can’t stand up to evict the Harpy, certainly Harpy will see this coming a mile a way and browbeat her into not giving you the house. Can your sister keep this a secret? Does she have the capacity to deal with the paperwork, lawyers, and effort of gifting a house without getting “Husband” and Harpy involved with the decision making process?

Kicking Harpy out won’t keep her out or keep other Harpy’s out.

So a couple of months go by then Harpy reappears and worms her way back in

Have you tried talking to The Harpy yourself?

https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=22227317&highlight=harpy#post22227317

During normal times a guy in this situation could go to the bar whenever the nagging harpy attacked.

https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=22064338&highlight=harpy#post22064338

The only episode in which Debra is a harpy is the PMS episode.

https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=22061967&highlight=harpy#post22061967

he should never have married her in my opinion. She was an evil harpy that plagued his life. I kept wishing he would kill her frankly. That’s should have been the finale!

https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=22055595&highlight=harpy#post22055595

The scene with Cliff on the boat was one that I didn’t care for due to the set up of her berating and belittling him, making her a harpy.

https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=20585320&highlight=harpy#post20585320

I was overhearing the harpy talking to a “friend” about hiring someone

the harpy wound up skipping town

https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=20555662&highlight=harpy#post20555662

ADA Cabot’s harpy bitch of a boss, don’t remember her name

https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=828588&highlight=harpy

The Harpy said she was going to move out

also tell them that The Harpy hit my nephew, and follow up with me then

[AK84]

Just to clarify, since it seems Shodan was attempting an alliteration (“Harvard harpy”), would “harridan“ be ok? Or “hen“. Or ”hag”?

[Unreconstructed_Man]

@AK84

Just to clarify, since it seems Shodan was attempting an alliteration (“Harvard harpy”), would “harridan“ be ok? Or “hen“. Or ”hag”?

If it could be proven that the Professor was, say, a Trump supporter, then I suspect Harvard Whore would’ve been deemed perfectly acceptable. Okay, that’d be assonance, rather than alliteration, but it still would’ve scanned well enough.

[AK84]

Velocity, just report each post.

[tricoteuse]

Oh for fucks’ sakes, he wasn’t banned for saying harpy. You’re missing the point by miles if you think that’s it. He was banned for making a misogynistic threadshit after getting lots of warnings and a suspension so he was walking on thin ice the way it was. It’s the same as how the bratty jackass kid in class gets suspended for shooting spitballs but a kid who normally behaves just gets extra homework. I bet he would have been banned if he said harridan, hen, hag, bitch, cunt, wench, virago, termagant, whore, slut, shrill, bint, or anything else because the actual word did’t matter. What did matter was that he was THREADSHITTING AFTER GETTING A BUNCH OF WARNINGS AND LONG SUSPENSION!

I really don’t know why so many people are trying to defend a threadshitting jerk. It looks like he was given plenty of chances to clean up his act and he didn’t so why would anyone thing a warning or suspension now would make a damn bit of difference?