Yoda!!!
What have you done with John Mace!!??:eek:
Excellent point. Agree 99.9%. The only reason it’s not 100% is that he said “this racist”, not “that racist”. 
Except that the context was provided. Budget Player Cadet referred to the highly contentious, multi-page thread that led to him believing, quite correctly, that bita malt is a racist and just before his post Marley had implicitly complained the OP had a habit of posting racist drivel.
If the mods are going to argue that it’s not an insult to call someone “sexist” for stating “all politicians regularly drag their wives and children around the campaign trail” then they have to argue that it’s not an insult to use the term racist to describe someone who repeatedly posting threads and posts regarding the alleged intellectual inferiority of certain races.
If scientific racists don’t like getting called racists then they should stop promoting their beliefs.
Here’s the difference, as I see it:
We already have one thread by this guy where he is acting like a racist
We already have one thread by this racist.
The first is apparently OK, but the second shouldn’t be. Please note that in your example, you weren’t called “a sexist”. You were obliquely accused of “being a sexist”, which indicates that you were “acting like one in this circumstance”. If I call you “a sexist”, that has a different meaning-- that you have that attribute as a character trait. Therein, I believe, is the difference.
Ibn: I can find a couple of threads where you complain about this event in ATMB. I can’t find the original thread where you allegedly were called a sexist. Could you help me out and locate the original accusation? Because if you were accused of “Being sexist” that’s a different situation. One describes behavior in a thread, the other personal character. It’s a fine but bright and important line.
I would just like to say that I really appreciate Jonathan Chance’s moderation style so far. He seems to respond quickly, and doesn’t get defensive when his actions are questioned. He seems comfortable reformulating his position when others express their opinions. That’s good moderation, IMO.
I actually thought that might be the case so I specifically asked if that was the case. If the mods considered “you’re being sexist” to be less questionable than “you’re a sexist” and was told that they are the same.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=14693544&postcount=28
So no, as far as the mods are concerned “you’re being sexist” is a comment on the person but so long as it’s not used as an insult, it’s acceptable though strongly discouraged.
For good reason incidentally as Marley alludes to.
Based on that logic you’re using you should be sanctioned if you said “Ibn Warraq you’re an asshole” but not sanctioned if you said “Ibn Warraq you’re being an asshole”.
Both are equally personal and equally insulting.
However, the mods have repeatedly ruled that accusing someone of being racist or sexist “is discouraged because of its personal nature” but it is not automatically an insult.
Calling someone who is a racist a racist is no more of an insult than calling a holocaust denier a holocaust denier.
Now, if you feel the mods should change the rules and declare that calling another poster a racist, sexist, homophobe etc. should automatically be considered an insult instead of usually being considered an insult but not always, then I’d recommend opening a new thread and doing so. However, I seriously doubt they’ll over rule the current feeling regarding the use of those terms and so long as we have so many posters who feel the need to make threads and posts opining on the intellectual inferiority of blacks I don’t see why they should.
Hear, hear.
Ok, this is the offending quote:
All I can say is that if I had to moderate this assortment of triple negatives, all while under threat of undergoing 5 pages of rules lawyering in ATMB, I’d gnaw off my jackboots.
PS: Thanks for the responses, JM and IW.
Regardless of how one feels about that particularly comment, and for the record Marley did say that even without the line through it(edited in later) he wouldn’t have modded it because it was merely “borderline”. I merely brought it up as an example of the fact that the mods don’t consider calling another poster a racist to automatically be an insult worthy of modding. Truth be told, until I reviewed it, I couldn’t even remember who called me a sexist.
Anyway, they’ve repeatedly ruled that they strongly discourage such behavior when not used as an insult it’s not sanctionable, though if the thread gets too heated or it causes a hijack they’d probably step in.
That’s why I’d strongly disagree with sanctioning Budget Player Cadet. Yes, I’d have used the term “scientific racist”(an academic term) and yes, perhaps he could have been more explicit in putting it in context, but I think considering bita malt’s recent history, the histrionics related to the recent thread, and that BPC specifically referenced that thread which had already been slightly alluded to by Marley, I think it was rather obvious why he was using the term.
Beyond that, if we’re going to allow racists to pepper GD with threads speculating about the intellectual inferiority of certain racists and, in the words of another poster, “make the first page of GD look like Storm Front” then yes, we should let those who don’t like it call the racists what they are, so long as they are not insulting and doing so to describe the poster’s beliefs?
I don’t know. We let a lot of stupid people start threads, and we still can’t call them stupid.
Yes, but calling someone stupid is considered an insult and is not allowed outside the pit. It’s a term directed at the poster not their beliefs. That’s not the case with calling someone a racist.
They have said that calling someone a racist can be considered an insult, but is not automatically considered one.
The reasoning seems to be, and if any of the mods would like to disagree, feel free to step in, is that terms like “racist”, “sexist”, etc. are descriptions of attitudes and beliefs and are not necessarily insults.
Calling someone a “racist” is more like calling someone a creationist, a conspiracy theorist, or a Holocaust denier. Those are terms that can and often are used as insults and one can be sanctioned for using them if one is trying to be insulting, but they aren’t always considered verboten.
But what is “indisputably racist”? If we have that rule then any poster could say that in his mind the post was “indisputably racist.” I can’t see a scenario where it isn’t an insult.
To use your murderer example, could someone call gay male posters “cocksuckers” because it is simply a statement of fact, and cross their hearts they never meant it as an insult?
I think the terms racist and cocksucker, by their very nature, are insults.
Cocksucker certainly is, even amongst people (like gay males) where there isn’t really any negative connotation regarding the literal act.
I’m less sure that’s true with racist. Racist is certainly considered insulting amongst people who think racism is a bad thing. And over the last few decades that category has grown to include most of the US population. But its certainly not universally true.
So I guess the question is if “racism” has become such a taboo word that its seen as an insult by actual racists. Do members of the neo-Nazi’s and KKK get insulted when people call them racist? I honestly have no idea (and can’t say I’m particularly eager to go to their message boards to find out).
The answer is that the mods determine if when you use the term “racist” you are doing it to be insulting or if you’re doing it to accurately and credibly describe the person’s beliefs.
I can’t imagine any scenario in which any of the mods would consider someone using the term “cocksucker” to refer to a gay poster NOT being an insult unless it was clearly intended as a joke.
Also, the term “cocksucker” was very specifically crafted to be an insult and has alway been used as such. That’s not true of the term “racist”, “sexist”, or “anti-semite” and the term says nothing about the person’s beliefs or even necessarily their actions(since not all gay men do that).
By contrast, there are plenty of times when you can call someone a racist and it’s not an insult.
Finally, what makes you think the mods will automatically not classify something as an insult just because the poster “crosses their heart” and “swears” that “it’s not meant as an insult.”
Based on such reasoning they’d never be able to nail anyone for personal insults or trolling because they’d have to take the posters word for it that they weren’t.
The mods are required to make judgement calls and that’s what they do and part of such judgement calls is deciding if a poster is trying to pull the wool over their eyes.
Probably not. So to argue that calling someone a racist isn’t an insult because the person is likely a KKK member is a double secret insult. 
But I suppose you are right in that if a poster proudly proclaims that whites are better than blacks and that the KKK will rise again, it may not be an insult to call the person a racist. However, such instances would be rare on this board, and in 99.9999% of cases, the term is an insult.
When are those times? Unless a poster states that he is the grand cyclops of the KKK, that term will be an insult even if the poster made a statement that contains elements of racism. Isn’t that the rule of the board: attack the post and not the poster?
Where does it end, though? If you’re clearly an asshole, is it not still an insult if I call you an asshole?
(generic “you”, I have no reason to think Flyer is an asshole)
Well, for starters, just because you take a comment as an insult doesn’t mean that other people have to feel you’ve been insulted.
But you’re not attacking the poster, you’re describing his or her beliefs.
We have people on this site who probably don’t like being called Holocaust deniers, creationists, or climate change deniers, but the mods aren’t going to sanction me if I use those terms to describe them unless I’m doing so for the purpose of being insulting.
Do you disagree?
Is your position that I should be sanctioned if I use the term “Holocaust Denier” to refer to a David Irving type who whines “He just insulted me and besides I don’t think the Holocaust was a hoax! I just think the Zionists have grossly exaggerated the number of Jews killed to justify the creation of Israel and punish the Germans and that it was only about 100,000 Jews who died in the camp!”
Or, “Mods! He just insulted me! I was just asking questions! I’m not a Holocaust Denier! I’m an agnostic in whether or not it happened!”
In fact, virtually all “Holocaust deniers” insist they aren’t.
Once again if it’s okay to say to a poster “you’re being sexist” for saying politicians drag their wives around the campaign trail, it should definitely be okay to say "you’re being racist for insisting that black people are mentally inferior to whites.