Some people have added an extension to their browsers that automatically changes the word Trump to “Drumpf”. If this gives them satisfying giggles, fine, whatever. If they want to go further and actually type Drumpf into their posts here, it’s annoying but, fine, whatever. The problem arises with quoted text.
To alter quoted text from news cites and other sources is certainly distasteful. To alter quoted text from another poster here on the boards is straight up against the rules.
Jonathan Chance has spoken twice on the matter but did not issue warnings either time. March 2nd
March 5th
Thus far, altering text within quotes attributed to other posters has been done by: Fear Itself, once, before Jonathan Chance’s first non-warning. John Stamos’ Left Ear, once, after Jonathan Chance’s first non-warning. SlackerInc, once, before Jonathan Chance’s first non-warning. SlackerInc, again, after Jonathan Chance’s first non-warning, which was addressed to SlackerInc himself. SlackerInc, again, after Jonathan Chance’s second non-warning.
Recently, John Stamos’ Left Ear posted an altered quote of Mitt Romney’s speech. Though perhaps not as serious a board violation as altering a quote of another poster, when he was called out on it his attitude certainly did not err on the side of elevated discourse.
So, can we get an official Mod ruling on this?
Do we “deal with it”? Or do board rules apply even in the face of “But I myself didn’t violate board rules! It was my browser extension’s fault! P.S. It’s funny, deal with it!”
If you have installed something that alters quotes, it is still your responsibility. We’ll probably cut you some slack if you are unaware that your browser extension altered a quote, but if you are aware of it and continue doing it just because you think it is funny, you can expect to be warned for it at some point.
Referring to Trump as Drumpf is childish. It’s like saying “The Democrat Party”. It’s childish disrespect, and only a hypocrite would tolerate one but not the other.
Why is that supposed to be funny? Would it be equally funny if it changed Trump to Shumpk? Clumph? Prumpk? If not, why not? Am I just humor-impaired or am I clueless about something relevant to the char string “Drumpf”?
I reported the most recent offense and tomndebb has since issued an official warning. Two of the offenses were before Jonathan Chance’s first non-warning and two of the offenses had already been addressed- but not as official warnings.
Since we have many John Oliver fans here, I figured there’s no telling how many people have added this stupid browser extension so I thought an official ATMB Thread would be helpful in case any future offenders will want to claim that they didn’t know this wasn’t permitted.
…and to allow for the unlikely possibility that the official mod ruling would be “It may be hard to catch this problem when it’s being applied by the poster’s browser, it’s not such a big deal, get over it.” That way, everyone who’s annoyed by it would know if it was being officially tolerated.
In short, Oliver says that part of Trump's appeal lies in his name, "Trump," so a tool to combat that appeal is to use his family's original name, which really was "Drumpf," and which won't confer that same advantage.
It’s certainly childish, and I believe that most of the instances of such have been non-malicious, but it’s certainly warnable.
I’ve tried to be easy going so far but enough is enough. We certainly hope to have an elevated level of discussion and debate in Great Debates and Elections. Such childishness - not unlike ‘Democrat Party’, ‘Repugnican’ and various similar derogatory names for people of other political points of view - don’t help us achieve that goal.
So the first warning - as mentioned by Tom - has been given based on it. It was given to someone who had been noted already for such behavior. Going forward there may or may not be notes prior to warnings for such.
Other than small changes for brevity (‘snip’ and such) text inside quote boxes may not be altered. That’s a hard rule.
Since the extension in question changes all uses of “Trump” to “Drumpf”, it might be possible for someone trying to correct an altered quote to err in the opposite direction and replace “Drumpf” with “Trump” when that’s what the quoted poster actually intended to say.
I.e., Poster X posts “I think Donald Drumpf is a stupid-head”. Poster Y, who has the extension, quotes them, assumes that Poster X actually said “I think Donald Trump is a stupid-head”, and manually changes “Drumpf” to “Trump”, thereby breaking the rule in an attempt to avoid breaking the rule.
Here’s a question I should probably already know the answer to, and it’s not a big enough deal for its own thread:
The “snip” and such you referred to…I’ll grant that it’s good form to use, but is it required? I’ve never been warned for not including a notation like that, but have I just avoided detection on that?
Here, from ED.
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**Quoting: do not alter words within quote tags beyond fair usage standards
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Do not change quotes of other posters or off-board citations beyond fair usage standards. If you delete material, use either ellipses or descriptive tags (e.g., <snip>, [material deleted], etc.) to indicate you’ve done so. To add non-editorial explanatory material, use square brackets, which means things like [sic] or replacing a pronoun to make a partial quote clearer. If you add formatting for emphasis, please indicate you’ve done so, either in square brackets within the quote or immediately after the quote. Quote tags are for actual quotes only - don’t use them to paraphrase another’s argument or make a joke.
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I realize that’s a pit rule, but it’s pretty much the way I’ve seen it for the entire board.
