I really think this thread should be closed before we get to post 151. And then made into a sticky.
So we can always be treated to the sublime lyricism* of The Banning of Shodan 1-2-3.
*The sublime lyricism derives from its evocative callback to a certain movie title, rather than to any glee one might feel vis-à-vis Shodan’s departure.
I agree with most of this, but it’s a lot more than just the number of reports. I can think of a few other aspects to the dynamic.
[ol]
[li]Expressing conservative views on this MB is inherently controversial, and leads to hostile situations far more often than expressing parallel views on the liberal end. You can express the sentiment that “Trump sucks!!!” repeatedly without getting into any all out pitched battles with anyone, but if you said “Obama sucks!!!” it’s virtually certain that a lot of nastiness would ensue. So it’s natural that a conservative would find themselves trading hostilities with others more often than a liberal would, and this would lead to the perception that the guy is out to rile people up.[/li][li]There’s an argumentum as populum aspect to it as well. If 17 guys think one guy is being a jerk and 1 guy thinks those 17 guys are being jerks, then even a person who is himself inherently unbiased is going to be influenced in the direction of thinking this 1 guy is the source of the trouble, especially if he’s frequently in that situation as above. This is so even if the sole reason for the 17 to 1 ratio is the underlying composition of the MB.[/li][li]It’s impossible to completely separate an assessment of why someone is doing something from an assessment of how rational that is. To the extent that you think “someone can reasonably believe this” then you’re less inclined to assume “he’s only doing it to rile people up” and vice versa. So even if the staff isn’t out to get so-and-so for being conservative, they’re more likely to judge that poster as being a troll if they have contempt for the views he’s expressing. As long as the staff leans left, this factor will be in play even if in theory this doesn’t directly impact their assessment in a given situation.[/li][li]In recent years, the staff has leaned in the direction of defining certain views more commonly associated with conservative thought as being inherently offensive (and has banned some on that basis), and has in general leaned in the direction of having what is or is not “being a jerk” to be heavily driven by the type of PC thought which is more conducive to left-winger than to right-wingers. There have been posters (e.g. starving artist) who have been banned for expressing viewpoints which have been defined as misogyny, but even terms of terminology, being sensitive to the notion that terms like “harpy” are inherently misogynistic is aligned with a left-wing viewpoint and is something which a left-winger is less likely to trip over than a right winger.[/li][/ol]
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.
I didn’t like Shodan at all. I like the banning even less.
I generally believe this board is extremely well moderated, but at the same time, despite this, it has become a bit of an echo chamber. And no question in my mind that banning for “harpy” or even for what harpy means in this specific context, was really the first best excuse to axe Shodan. Enough people bitch about you, you get disappeared. And sure, you have some control over that. If you do nothing wrong, they won’t be able to. But that is no way to live or participate in a message board. Harpy? Please.
People have been “bitching” about Shodan since 2006 or 2007 at least. It is hardly a new or sudden thing. Be serious please.
Wrong. The logic is that, while you may dispute whether his behavior was acceptable, he was formally advised multiple times that it would not be accepted.
The two points are unrelated; the latter simply illustrates that he did not innocently blunder into some sort of trap unaware or unadvised. He was aware, he was advised, he transgressed repeatedly.
This. And it may be my own bias showing, but I don’t believe that Shodan’s tap dancing of the line came anywhere close to what posters typically do today in nearly every political thread.
And this as well. I’m not suggesting that the mods are having secret meetings to ban conservative posters or that any one has a vendetta.
The fact that he had an odd warning here or there for the first 19 years of posting and then got 4 in the past year shows the level of focus that the mods placed on him. Sure he would drop a bomb in the middle of a thread, but many, many posters do that and are never modded.
As far as this “harpy” stuff, it is a gendered insult, but many insults are gendered. I don’t think I’ve ever used “motherfucker” or “prick” or “dickhead” or “cocksucker” to insult a woman. Such insults do not insult “half the board.” If that was the case then any insult against Trump should be construed as an insult to Trump supporters on the board, no?
These gender based insults are not insults against the entire gender. They are saying that that one specific individual that is being insulted. If a woman cuts me off in traffic and I call her a bitch, does that mean I am demeaning all women including my wife, my mother, and my daughter? If it was a man who cut me off and I call him a dick, do I hate myself?
This is really simple stuff and the powers that be are stretching to find misogyny where none exists.
This illustrates my point. You believe that Ann Coulter or Jenny McDermott could properly be called a harpy. Shodan believes that this Harvard professor fits the bill.
That is a mere disagreement about substance yet you would attribute outright malice to Shodan because of your disagreement over the applicability of the term.
One could easily make the counterpoint that all Ann Coulter is doing is “expressing a reasoned and reasonable opinion” and that by calling her a harpy you are expecting her to conform to a gender norm.
But that is what debate is about unless you just want to have every poster agree on everything in GD, or you want to punish one side and have a stricter set of rules for them.
I don’t think such terms are necessarily insults against all women, but they do show–if the person saying them has thought about it at all–a disdain for women in general.
Shodan has thought about it. Just as he has thought about his racist comments. He knew what he was saying and how it would be perceived.
But it’s not. If I call a woman a bitch who cuts me off in traffic, does it show a disdain for my wife, my mother, my daughter, and my sisters? How? When I use the male gendered insults above, does it show a disdain for men, even myself?
Also, I have never seen Shodan post anything close to a racist comment. Cite?
[quote=“Fotheringay-Phipps, post:142, topic:853763”]
I agree with most of this, but it’s a lot more than just the number of reports. I can think of a few other aspects to the dynamic.
[LIST=1]
[li]Expressing conservative views on this MB is inherently controversial, and leads to hostile situations far more often than expressing parallel views on the liberal end. You can express the sentiment that “Trump sucks!!!” repeatedly without getting into any all out pitched battles with anyone, but if you said “Obama sucks!!!” it’s virtually certain that a lot of nastiness would ensue. So it’s natural that a conservative would find themselves trading hostilities with others more often than a liberal would, and this would lead to the perception that the guy is out to rile people up.[/li][li]There’s an argumentum as populum aspect to it as well. If 17 guys think one guy is being a jerk and 1 guy thinks those 17 guys are being jerks, then even a person who is himself inherently unbiased is going to be influenced in the direction of thinking this 1 guy is the source of the trouble, especially if he’s frequently in that situation as above. This is so even if the sole reason for the 17 to 1 ratio is the underlying composition of the MB.[/li][li]It’s impossible to completely separate an assessment of why someone is doing something from an assessment of how rational that is. To the extent that you think “someone can reasonably believe this” then you’re less inclined to assume “he’s only doing it to rile people up” and vice versa. So even if the staff isn’t out to get so-and-so for being conservative, they’re more likely to judge that poster as being a troll if they have contempt for the views he’s expressing. As long as the staff leans left, this factor will be in play even if in theory this doesn’t directly impact their assessment in a given situation.[/li][/QUOTE]
I would like to echo this.
As a conservative, I agree that Jonathan Chance said that it takes some real trying to get banned here, and that most members don’t get suspended or even warned at all. I hold some pretty right-wing views, and I’ve been here for six years with 17,000 posts and at the most I think I’ve only ever gotten one warning, if even that. So it’s not as if the mods are out to get anyone; there is reasonable slack on the leash.
Now, that being said…
The reason I haven’t gotten warned is because I am very much aware of the dynamic that Fotheringay-Phipps mentions, which is that by very nature of holding some views that fly against the majority opinion of this board, I am skating nearer the line of getting warned or accused of trolling, even if I don’t ever use profanity or name-calling of any sort in my posts. I started a thread a while ago and it was locked up as “scientific racism,” even though it was nothing of the sort. I started another thread asking some Hillary-related questions in perfectly good faith and it was moved to the Pit as a “rant,” even though it was nothing of the sort.
There is a real difference between “holding an honestly different opinion” and trolling or antagonizing others, and some Dopers, I fear, don’t make that distinction. Either you must agree with them or else you’re a troublemaker. And what concerns me is that we may be heading in an eventual direction where even being respectful, avoiding insults, and making arguments in good faith is no longer enough to remain in good standing as a Doper - one must toe the party line on certain issues - that for instance, someday a Doper who insists in a respectful and insult-free way that there are only two genders will face discipline for “transphobia”.
It can, yes.
You’re equating something specifically feminine with something bad. Same for Don’t be a pussy when you mean that someone’s weak or timid.
But like I said, you’d have to have thought about it.
Maybe, but probably not. Calling someone a dick is usually referring to a body part. Calling someone a pussy is most often referring to the whole female.
A quick search comes up with this. I’m sure I’ve seen others, but I’ll happily retract if I’m mistaken.
I think it’s good to restrict misogynistic slurs (even archaic or perhaps “mild” ones like harpy), at least outside of the Pit (and maybe inside it too). If others have been calling women harpies and getting away with it, that should stop too.
Our society is still very misogynistic, and I think it’s fine to make them sanctionable in an effort to reduce misogyny on the board. Maybe just a drop in the bucket, but drops can add up.
That depends on whether you oppose misogyny, or whether you are looking for a way to post in a misogynistic manner and get away with it.
The rules about not being a jerk and threadshitting. You must surey understand.
Or as said earlier:
And please, people, we learned “other people are being jerks and don’t get punished” is no argument back in middle school.
Besides, this Board does not run on the Missouri Compromise, they don’t have to balance kicking out one on the left with one on the right.
And about the *words *themselves:
Yes: as stated before, in his post he went straight to “Harvard harpy” without apparently having any evidence of the person’s character or conduct, simply based on what he understood to be her ideological position. Heck, when people say Hillary Clinton is “shrill” at least they could make up an excuse that they literally meant they hate her timbre of voice or tone in her public speaking. But as far as I can tell he did not have any evidence that the professor was angry or nasty or violent so "harpy’ came out of nowhere other than “I need a pejorative that applies to a female”.
Now however in face of some recent comments: I would much rather bear the responsibility for what I say, what words I use to say it, and in what context and what consequences it may carry, than be given an ever-expanding Index of Zero Tolerance words and phrases that will (a) encourage the more obnoxious to find ever more creative ways to dance at the edge of the line and give more ammunition (“he never said The Word”!) to those who decry the injustice when one gets busted; and/or (b) burn those who may not mean ill but just momentarily lose composure in a moment of pique, and shut down any appeal in defense. Let the whole of each’s posting history be weighed.
As far as the SDMB is concerned, one can hold an honestly different opinion and still be a troll. The key is whether or not the honestly different opinion is deliberately being presented to stir up shit.
Yeah, we talked about that in another thread and I still don’t understand it. Suppose I hold a controversial belief and I feel strongly about it. I know that starting a thread about it will rile up a ton of posters, but I do want to talk about it and argue it forcefully.
Does that make me a troll?
ETA: Because that is totally contrary to my understanding of the word. To me a troll is “Let’s see what will get them riled up today. Oh, I will post that Donald Trump is the Greatest President in history (when I really don’t believe that) just so I can get out the beer and chips and watch everyone go nuts.”
I see. So it’s okay to call someone a harpy, as long as you have evidence of the person’s character or conduct? And if you do have that evidence, using the word harpy is no longer insulting to all women, everywhere?
Which is why I said “as far as the SDMB is concerned”.
We’ve had sincere racists deliberately troll the board before, and I don’t mean Clothahump.