PF RULES AND GUIDELINES - Comments Welcome

Duh2 is turning into a troll.

I consider following someone around the board posting the same phrase over and over again troll behavior. It's only happened four or five times, but I see a pattern forming. When confronted, Duh threatens to continue this behavior, I don't mind banter but following a person from thread to thread with the same phrase is annoying. I'm not going to get into a back and forth with Duh on an issue that has nothing to do with the thread and is not on topic. I have a suggestion; If it's that important to him, he can create a thread and I'll be happy to address his "issue" there. I think he's losing it, just though you would like to know.

 

Thread-
http://www.politicalforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=33202

Comment-
"Lose for our soldiers instead of making them lose for you"

Number of times said with nothing else said- 3

Following around board?...from thread to thread?
Well I guess you can technically claim "following" since I replied here....
But past that erroneous compalint with no basis in fact.

Please link each thread where I did this.

I know of one other where I repeated a comment towards you but that was within the context of you playing dumb.... and has nothing to do with this instance.

When I feel like it I will use that comment in reply to you. It is not a "threat" or "behavior" it is simply a comment in regards to what you advocate.




Overall-
It is one thing to complain about a tiff to the mods its another to make things up.





On an aside-

Yet you routinely expect me and others to do just that for you.

 

I fail to understand why the member Eleanor is allowed to continue on this site. Up until now, I have given her/him the benefit of the doubt, but now I feel I must insist you seriously consider removing her/him from this otherwise excellent site. Her anti-Muslim fervour and hatred has reached the point where it has become pathological. Her/his racism against muslims knows no bounds. In the thread "How Can Progressives Negotiate with Islamists" (#32) for example he/she says, ..."Muslims are breeding like cockroaches and spreading like the plague".

This comment alone oversteps the bounds of decency, tolerance and free speech in what we call a civilized society. This is totally unacceptable behaviour and I find this comment to be particularly inexcusable and discusting. These words are straight out of the lexicon of hatred directed against the jews in nazi Germany during the 1930s and 1940s. I am very hurt and upset by this comment and I don't see why I have to tolerate this kind of bile. I teach to a large proportion of muslim students, most of whom, like any other member of society, are fine law abiding citizens. I would appreciate if you would take my concerns seriously and ban this despicable individual from your site forthwith.

Thank you.

 

Thanks for your support. Would you kindly inform me what your next course of action will be?

 

And me. There is a limit. There are a lot of racist members here who actually do try really hard to back up their assertions with evidence and facts. They don't usually succeed, but they do try.

Blatant hate-speech shouldn't be allowed after a certain point, I don't think. Not because I believe in suppression of free speech but as an enforcement of posts and assertions actually having to have some substance to be acceptable here.

In some countries denying the Holocaust is a criminal offence. And it should be. That's surely a suppression of free speech but sometimes that doesn't matter. Some thngs just shouldn't be allowed to be said in an open or public forum.

 

If you click on "User CP" up in the left corner, you will see "Edit Ignore List" on the left side under the heading "Settings & Options". You don't have to tolerate anyone.

 

I think the bigger issue here, 12th, is what kind of forum do you folks want and how do you engeneer the creation of such a forum?. Do you want thoughtful, intelligent people who are well balanced, show a general willingness to follow the site rules, and offer their political perspectives in an even handed fashion, or do you want people who are here for the express purpose of hammering on and on and on about their one pet subject of hatred, who vent their spleen rather than discuss, and who use the freedom of speech afforded them to turn every conversation into a supercharged emotional slugfest? The reason I ask is that if you do actually want the former, then you will turn them away from the outset if this forum's personality is too heavily influenced by the latter.

I know there is a tendency to reject any criticism here, even if it is meant to be helpful, but instead of expecting the thoughtful people to ignore those who flame bait at every opportunity, why not limit the flame baiting in the first place? I know it's a judgement call, but the rules DO mention flame baiting and they definitely mention hate speech. If you want this place to have nice folks who do follow your rules, you are sure working at cross purposes to this objective when you place such an emphasis on supporting the right of people to express hatred above the right of people to actually respond to this hatred . It's not like everybody needs to sit around singing Kumbaya or anything, but I think you folks need to look at this forum in terms of cause and effect.

I'm not advocating banning this person or that, but since most serious discussion groups do place limits on hate speech, the fact that yours is so supportive of hate speech acts as a magnet to those who are prevented from access to their soapbox elsewhere. You are engineering this site as a hate site by welcoming the hate speech while telling others to deal with it. That isn't what the actual stated rules of this forum actually SAY, though, so I might suggest either changing these official rules to match your personal views on the subject, or bringing your operating style more in synch with what the rules actually say. Since the rules specifically mention hate speech, your embrace of such to the point you place no responsibility on the practitioners of such, but expect those who object to remain silent indicates that this rule is meaningless. If this rule is meaningless, then why expect people to follow other the rules, too?

 

We do edit flame bait, but not "hate speech" per se. We decided that there is no reason someone can't explain why they hate Jews or blacks or Muslims or gays. But we do crack down on how they go about it. It's a fine line, but lean toward allowing people to speak. We find most posters prefer that. You will never please everyone.

 

It must mean we are doing something right since some people are claiming we aren't tough enough and others are claiming we are Nazis.

 

This is a debate forum; it's not a social club for a group of people who hold the same beliefs. The mods and the administrator want this to be a forum where people with very different political viewpoints can express their opinions and where those opinions can be debated and judges by their peers. You have two options when presented with opinions that offend you.

One is to vehemently debate those ideas with solid evidence which contradicts it. You shouldn't hope to change the persons mind who posted the opinions (most folks who post on forums feel very strongly about their beliefs and wouldn't change them no matter what is said). However, you might change or solidify an opinion of someone reading the thread who doesn't actively contribute to the site. There are more of those people on this site than you may think.

The other is the one I hope you wouldn't choose, but I can understand if you did. That would be to simply use the ignore list for members whose opinions offend you.

On the topic of hate speech, I wouldn't be to quick to declare it as a bannable offense. Hate speech is a very broad topic, covering not only race and ethnicity, but also political views. There are countless threads/posts here with very offense remarks towards democrats and republicans/liberals and conservatives. Should this sort of hate speech be allowed? If so, where do we draw the line? How do we decide which forms of hate speech is acceptable and which isn't?

Personally, I think hate speech should only be banned if its meant to incite immediate and specific violence towards a particular group of people. That does not include statements like, "We should eradicate all (insert group name here)." That, in my opinion, is not immediate and specific. We had a member who was banned for this reason not too long ago. He made a post calling for a violent attack on a group of blacks who had been charged for a crime against whites. He was attempting to rally volunteers for his plan. That is what I would consider immediate and specific.

Joker
Retired Moderator and Self-Appointed Advisor

 

Lackluster makes some excellent points. As was pointed out, most countries in Europe actually ban holocaust denial and rightly so. The issue at hand is this. Is it acceptable to allow racists a platform to air their filth under the guise of 'free speech'? I argue that it is not, because racists and fascists undermine the very notion of free speech. The people on the receiving end of their bile are not educated white liberals, but the very ethnic minorities who their hate is directed at. It is not me or most other people on this site who would have experienced a brick being thrown through the window of their house, or a letter bomb delivered through their letter box. But many of my muslim students have experienced these things. So there are very real consequences of allowing unconditional free speech - not for many us - but mainly muslims, particularly in the current climate of Islamophobia.

I ought not need to remind you all that Hitler came to power, partly as a result of the fact that the German state allowed unconditional free speech and thus gave the nazi's their much needed oxygen to whip up their hatred against the jews in the same way that racists are being allowed to now against muslims. This is a very serious issue with very serious consequences for the people who are on the receiving end of the racism that is prevelant on sites like this. My advice to the mods would be to not underestimate the amount of leverage racists like Eleanor and their sympathisers garner from sites like this.

Merely to dismiss the issue lightly, as many mods on this site appear to be doing by suggesting that I simply ignore them, is evading the central issue. Again, I repeat that I ask you to take my concerns seriously and ban this individual from your site as the rules indicate. Thank you.

 

One thing to bear in mind is that without a few people who are controversial, discussion can dwindle away to a bunch of me-too's. You need a few lightning rods to keep a forum interesting. If everyone becomes too similar, then there is little to discuss.

For instance, consider how many posts a thread like Eleanor's engenders. Her views are extremist, but who among us would say that she doesn't represent a perspective that many people around the world share? By openly discussing and in many cases, debunking her views, people who may have secretly held some of the same prejudices may reconsider their own views.

However, in a society where dissenters like Eleanor are squashed into silence (the UK, Canada), those views tend to go underground where their adherents only associate with the like-minded, and that is how political movements like the BNP (and ultimately, Hitler's fascist party) gained adherents...among the silent disenfranchised with no outlet.

Say what you will about the American way, but we let our extremists be public about their views, and I think that is the best possible way to handle extremists because it takes away a lot of their thunder about being persecuted.

I find Hairy Marx's suggestions that free speech be curtailed on the forum because he doesn't like what is being said downright frightening. I fear free speech far less than I fear the thought police arresting people for saying something that is unpopular.

 

Why should holocaust denial be against the law? Who does it hurt? Whose rights are being violated?

 

I'm sorry. Making yourself look like a complete lunatic is NOT against the law in the U.S. So, if someone wants to deny that the holocaust happened, in spite of the reams of eyewitness accounts from U.S. soldiers with no reason to lie...well, by all means, let them. They just look like asshats.

I'll even make them their very own aluminum foil headware.

See, my perspective on this from dealing with racists for a very long time is that there is really only one way to handle racism. You let people expose themselves as cowardly, rather stupid weaklings, and then you disintegrate their arguments, point by point. You silence them by showing how incredibly idiotic their beliefs are, not by chucking them in prison.

That's just ludicrous to me, that someone would even think it's rational to incarcerate someone for stupid beliefs. The UK really has gone to hell in a handbasket, IMO.

 

Let's not forget the video tape evidence and the volumes of German documents detailing the entire thing.

I know. And it's stupid.

 

By allowing racists oxygen, one legitimizes their views. It has been said that their views ought to be allowed so they can be exposed by others. That's ok in theory, but what if nobody is prepared to expose people like Eleanor. As far as I'm aware I am the only person who has been prepared to expose her. The problem is with allowing racists oxygen it results in more racist attacks, as all the evidence indicates. What you are all overlooking is the fact that it is not people like me or you mods who feel the brunt of racism, but people like my muslim students who literally have experienced an increase in racist attacks on them. I suggest you all try putting yourselves in the position of others especially in this current climate of islamophobia, then perhaps you may come to understand how THEY feel.

 

Not to say "Islamophobia" isn't serious (though I find most who use that term, almost never draw "lines of demarcation" [a phrase of Comrade Lenin's in intra-Bolshevik debates vs. Mensheviks, etc.] between the truly evil Islamists who do believe in killing all "Infidels" esp. Jews, and the vast bulk of non-violent Muslims but, the FBI stats on Hate Crimes show that far more Jews are assaulted and synagogues desecrated in the USA than is the case w/Muslims. After 9-11 the spike in anti-Muslim hate crimes disapated pretty quickly.
Holocaust Denial, btw, isn't just found on the Far Right. Visit the webpgs. of The Massachusetts Green-Rainbow Party for disgusting "Holohoax, " nonsense, larded in w/standard anti-Zionism.

 

As a newbie, I really appreciate how something was handled by a mod recently. I posted a comment in the "If abortion is murder" thread and was subsequently attacked by two posters. I rose to the bait and made a comment that I didn't think was bad, but apparently it crossed the line (and I DID read the rules before posting).

The mod completely deleted the posts that attacked me (yay!), but left up my response minus the "delusional rant" comment I made, and the mod posted in red in its place "personal attack deleted." I was glad that my whole post wasn't deleted, and the comments in red let me know what I had done wrong without infracting me.

Every forum is different and even after reading the rules it can take some time to become accustomed to the posting climate and to learn exactly where the lines are that shouldn't be crossed, so I appreciated how Metrophobe handled the attacks in that thread.

 

I appreciated how a mod handled a problem too. I noticed a certain new poster pretending to be a lesbian and making many homophobic remarks. The poster even put the label 'lesbian' in his hat--something no lesbian would do.

I reported that I suspected the poster was a troll and a sock puppet and ratri looked into it and permabanned the poster for being a troll and a sock puppet.

 

Any chance of doing something with those who spam the board with endless threads that are so far left or right that they just aren't plausible. I've seen them from both sides of the aisle while I've been here, but lately they are mostly either trying to say Obama isn't a US citizen or is somehow connected to terrorists/ dictators / violators of human rights. Those that have evidence attached I can see, but most of these are entirely fabricated or partly fabricated.

 

I keep seeing the term "sock puppet." What is it?

 

A phony name made up by a user in order to masquerade as someone else on the Internet. Sock puppets can make controversial comments or vote for or against a cause without revealing their identity. They may respond to their own forum or blog posts praising the articles they wrote themselves or disagree with comments criticizing them on other sites.

 

Thanks, Frolicking Dinosaurs. So I guess a sock puppet basically means someone who posts under more than one account on a forum. I suspected as much. Trolls especially are apt to do this.

 

Using multiple accounts does not necessarily mean sock puppetry. It depends upon the way a user uses those accounts.

 

It means sock puppetry if a user intends to disguise another account as another person, for instance.