Clarification and Addendum to the "No Insults" Rule

[Idontcare]

Many topics in politics have no right or wrong answer and are purely subjective. Just two opposing and irreconcilable differences in philosophy.

For example, whether or not capital punishment is acceptable. That is purely an opinion of philosophy, there is no hard mathematical answer.

We see the same irreconcilable differences of opinion in L&R as well when it comes to discussions on the polarizing topic of abortion.

Of course I risk putting my foot in my mouth by bringing up L&R because in L&R we have successfully eliminated personal attacks and insults (in that the rule is enforced with enough consistency such that people know they can count on personal attacks being sanctioned and so on)...so that might not be the best example to bring up for this unique subforum in retrospect.

 

[jackstar7]

Many topics in politics have no right or wrong answer and are purely subjective. Just two opposing and irreconcilable differences in philosophy.

For example, whether or not capital punishment is acceptable. That is purely an opinion of philosophy, there is no hard mathematical answer.

I do not believe anyone is arguing against that point.

But then there are facts and some people simply appear to have no grasp of them, but continue to speak with frequency posting things that are objectively wrong and often backing them up with a handful of nothing.

That gets tiring.

 

[Craig234]

For all its flaws, one thing this forum has is at least people - however wrong - mostly discussing issues honestly, rather than the paid media messages.

I think Cory Booker was wrong recently in what he said about attacks on Romney's Bain history. But I didn't like seeing him attacked for not reliably 'only sticking on message'.

It's pretty tiresome when every talking head from either side has to be forced to only say things for their side, true or false, right or wrong.

I know there's a legal notion that by airing two sides that are not about the truth but just supporting one side, the truth is supposed to come out, but I think that's iffy.

Even in trials, where it's at its best to happen, the players purportedly have a duty not to winning but the truth, that seems to be held in contempt much of the time.

But in politics, more often, it's the well funded side repeating propaganda that wins.

Polls show consistently that well-made propaganda spreading lies is effective at changing public opinion, when repeated a lot by big money funding.

It's nice to have a little oasis of people here who are not paid or forced to push a view, even if it looks that way at times and views rarely change however much they should.

The days of any real sense of a 'town hall' or the citizens of a community 'discussing issues' are long gone, however little they happned - media dominates. We have internet.

As leaders and the Pentagon watch public opinion all over the place and easily manipulated, you can understand how they lose respect for it and start to feel that 'they know best' on matters of public policy, such as when the US should use force, and feel justified in pushing their views onto the public.

And of course, there's danger when that happens. A military, a dictator, will always have a clearer agenda than the chaotic public opinion - but not always better.

Unfortunately, the discussion here often shows just how poorly the citizens in a democracy can supposedly 'run the country' on important issues like war.

Save234

 

[Moonbeam]

Many topics in politics have no right or wrong answer and are purely subjective. Just two opposing and irreconcilable differences in philosophy.

For example, whether or not capital punishment is acceptable. That is purely an opinion of philosophy, there is no hard mathematical answer.

M: Perhaps you would consider what you just said here as an example of pure subjectivity. I can agree that is certain matters where law stipulated definitions, at what age a person may drink alcohol, vote, join the military, etc, the years required are matters of subjectivity based on general experience. But even here, some science averaged appeal to reality is implied. It is always older people looking in retrospect that set these ages from their experiences with living. They may be relatively subjective, but not absolutely so.

No, I think that what happens between two major lines of reaction to life we call conservative and liberal is that the irreconcilability that exists exists in everything including philosophy and an argument for objective truth can even be pushed there. Some philosophies are better or worse than others and that these differences can and are tested where the irreconcilable differences then move on to argument over the validity of the tests, as we see in global warming.

But we can all I think objectively agree that the global temperature is increasing, decreasing, or staying the same, and humanity is or is not having any influence on this. In short, it seems to me that the things that folk argue about are either right or wrong or irrelevant and that real and better understanding can be derived by testing.

What you leave out of your analysis, I think, is the business of motivation, that what is truth and what is lie depends on what skin you have in the game. Every bigot is a bigot, in my opinion, because at his core he feels his bigotry is good. It is not his opinions that he defends, but the feeling that he has to be right or the good will suffer. The average person, it seems to me, wants to be on the side of good and not on the side of evil. You are not going to just walk up and knock somebody off his white horse.

So the enemy of objectivity, it seems to me, is that folk have dominant concealed prejudices, they do not consciously know why what they feel is good IS good and they can't look at that if it could mean that good turns bad. This unconscious feeling that good will turn to bad if they are wrong is why people will not see.

A saying I love is this:

"You can always tell a bigot, but you can't tell him much." I just explained why I think this is. But this also tells us that people who are not bigoted in the same way that the bigot is can see his bigotry.

The bigotry of the South, also found in the North, that black people were inferior, perpetuated the institution of slavery. Slavery was destructive of untold lives, black and white also. I believe it to be an objective fact that black people are better off free and so is American society. Thus I believe it is also an objective fact that humanity free of bigotry is better than humanity infected with it. Thus our little political differences of subjective opinion, as you call them, make a huge difference in whether humanity is better off or not.

For these reasons, I believe the truth matters, that there is a truth, and that to know what it is requires freedom from bigotry.

In short, the little discussions we have here on this forum are actually part of an ancient war between light and darkness that one can perceive externally or internally with the same stakes, the survival and evolution or extinction of the human race. Thus, for me, the truth matters. But while it may matter to me there is nothing I can do but say what I think. I can't make anybody who wishes to be blind see. The blind are blind because they can't see they wish to be.

 

[piasabird]

Over half the posts could be ruled offensive. That is the nature of opinions.

 

[GarfieldtheCat]

Many topics in politics have no right or wrong answer and are purely subjective. Just two opposing and irreconcilable differences in philosophy.

For example, whether or not capital punishment is acceptable. That is purely an opinion of philosophy, there is no hard mathematical answer.

I think I made taht point clear, that there are plenty of areas that you cannot prove.

But there are still plenty of areas that can be objective and proved.

And in any case, even in the subjective cases, make the posters post a reasoned defense of their thoughts/ideas.

We can post links to proof about some subjects all day long, but the trolls ignore it and continue to lie.

We have people that still post birther nonsense. We have truthers. We have people that still believe WMD was found in Iraq. These are things that are not debatable, but pure facts. And here, the trolls are still free to lie and post lies, and cannot be made to defend their position.

 

[GarfieldtheCat]

You really expect a change when people get away with saying things are down when you show proof it is up?

I think Revisionist history was born and bred here and as evidenced certainly flourishing.

Hell never mind re-visioned, it's real time.

I know. It's depressing. But other forums do mandate that you acutaly post some sort of rational reasoning/argument in support of a post, not just a "friend of a friend got an email that said Obama was the devil"

 

[Infohawk]

But there are still plenty of areas that can be objective and proved.

You're asking for the mods to judge evidence. It's clear that there are not enough mod resources to do that and frankly they would be as likely as anyone else to make mistakes.

Maybe people would like a no conspiracy theories rule or limit it to a conspiracy theory thread. But even then you'd have people disagreeing as to what qualifies as a conspiracy.

 

[LunarRay]

A saying I love is this:

"You can always tell a bigot, but you can't tell him much." I just explained why I think this is. But this also tells us that people who are not bigoted in the same way that the bigot is can see his bigotry.

There is a Religious group who until recently deemed the Black folks inferior but for a purely religious reason... Black folk had the 'Mark of Cain'. They were Black so it is obvious. Now all the Blacks have to do in order to attain cleanliness is attain the light of the Gospels.

In Genesis 4 we are told all about this 'Mark' on Cain but the 'Christians' read that as being a sign placed on Cain to keep him from being killed by the others. Moses said God said so it must be true... Guess there should have been a law stating that folks who can't cultivate crops can't be stoned... or some such.

Then comes our latter day Christians who happen upon some Black folks and they figure with the needs they have for hard labor we'll use them and call them Slaves... They don't speak the King's English so... and they're black... no education... and they're black... Perfect!

It started, in my opinion, based on an economical truth. You can make money selling corn AND people. And there is a Market for both. It was reasoned that the Blacks were inferior because the criteria for equality was obvious to anyone who'd sit and look.

Then comes these other Christian folks who say that God said people is people and all are equal in God's eyes... Thou shalt not sell people! You didn't like it when pharaoh made his tombs using slaves so why do you seek to do the same?

What you have is BOTH sides being intolerant of each other's point of view.
Does some independent view determine which is the right bigot or non bigot? And who determines what this source is? Would you accept that a societal majority does and that can reverse when the numbers do? White folks become the slaves and bigots and the other skinned folks become the masters and determiners of bigotry.

Just wondering ():sneaky:

EDIT: I guess in this forum and the others that independent authority are Mods empowered by Anand to determine truth. There is no majority really... He who owns the farm owns the right to determine the crop and the yield... We are asked if the shackles are too tight or loose and it is obvious that we each have different dimensions to accommodate the same size shackle... But we are free to leave... Freemen, as it were... But we are hungry so we'll stay regardless of the constraints.

I understood the Mod's to be tired of having to whip us. We're being fed after all... so behave and stop acting human.

I figure the MODs ought to determine the rules and simply tell us. They only have so much time to devote to this and they do need to be able to play too.
Building a pyramid is nice especially when it has numbers but the labor to construct its meaning is beyond the beyonds... People be who they are regardless of what some depiction says about their commentary.... Only a few will alter their behavior.

 

[GarfieldtheCat]

This happens all the time, and I understand why, when you care about something, and care passionately about it, then it can become so important to the individual that it takes on a life of its own.

Trolls thrive on that, "don't feed the troll" is a phrase that was crafted for specific psychological reasons.

It takes two, that is how communication works, but you also have to know when it is time to step-down and stop the feeding. (not directed at you, making a generalized observation/statement in my post while building off of yours by way of quoting you).

But this seems like the problem everyone says with the media....the truth doesn't matter, everything becomes truthiness. No one wants to take a side, so all sorts of idiots get airtime.

If one side doesn't want to debate or is unwilling to defend their posts, why should they be allowed to post? That pretty much defines them as trolls (unwillingness to actually argue on the evidence). It is easy to tell when they ignore you on 10 or more threads, and continue to lie and troll. It becomes clear they are trolling.

I have dealt first hand with posters that you present solid evidence (and in some cases outright proof) that they are wrong, and they laugh at you and keep repeating the lies. Why should this forum allow that? They refuse to even admit they are wrong, and refuse to read or debate the evidence. They just insult you and continue to lie again and again. Why is that OK?

^ the difficulty with P&N is that the subject matter of politics (and religion) drives people who are otherwise reasonable and measured into a state of passioned rebuttals and zero desire to yield or compromise on their own position and outlook on the topic of conversation.

This is human nature, it isn't going to change, and so given that we need to find a way that accommodates human nature without throwing the baby (that is human decency and civility) out with the bathwater (that is trolling).

Still, even with pure opinion matter, make them post a valid reason. If not, lock it. If they really believe what they are posting, they should have a reason why they post it, and they can present it here.

And if it isn't a real reason (as in "I hate Obama, he is a Muslim who wants Sharia law"), why should we not flame them for posting such an intentionally wrong statement. We all know there might be a poster or two that might truly believe it, but once everyone posts why there are wrong, they shouldn't continue to post it. Most of the trolls don't really believe it anyway, and are just lying to rile people. Is that what this forum wants? This site started because of the desire to provide accurate reports on computer gear. We expect a high level of accuracy and detail when AT posts a review on a video card or something, but we come here, and people get to outright lie nonstop all day long. That seems to be a distinct contradiction in values.

Posts like "Obummer" and "Bobo" are never valid posts, and have no business being posted ever. They have no redeeming value, add nothing to any discussion, yet those words are typed over and over around here. Pure thread-crapping and trolling, yet it goes on. And the posters are still doing it, having not been banned.

Once again, IMHO you are letting the trolls rule by letting them get away with lying nonstop, with no repercussions. If they want to troll, give them a troll cave forum, and let them go at it there.

Make the "Obummer" and "Bushitler" comments (and all the similar ones) actionable. Make people defend their reasoning. The trolls won't be able to have their fun if they actually have to work at making coherent thoughts, or will post anyway and get in trouble. Soon enough, they will leave or be banned.

The insults aren't the problem, in many cases, they aren't even insults. If someone says they are a member of the KKK, it isn't an insult to all them a racist bigot, it's fact. And we should be allowed to call them racist if they are. And what do you call someone that continues to believe something that has been proved and admitted to be false by everyone? I would say they are ignorant. That is not an insult, it is a statement of fact.

NOTE: As I said before, I agree that lots of posts can't be proved. But some can. And everyone should be able to give a decent reason why they believe something.

 

[cybrsage]

Over half the posts could be ruled offensive. That is the nature of opinions.

What a horrible thing to say!



()

 

[cybrsage]

We have people that still believe WMD was found in Iraq..

They were, and Hans Blix's report says so. You are taking his book and pretending that is more authoritative than his official report to the UN...which is silly. Just because you WANT it to be false does not magically make it so. You are an example of that which you say should be stopped.

But this thread is not the place to discuss your failure in this regard. It is to discuss the addendum to the no insults rule.

 

[Moonbeam]

Over half the posts could be ruled offensive. That is the nature of opinions.

This is again you asserting an opinion without stating it as such. This is my opinion, but one I think that could be tested. All we need is a standard by which we define offensive, a body of judges who apply those standards and an analysis of some representative number of posts to determine a percentage. The reason I claim you are stating an opinion and that my opinion is better is that you haven't performed any such statistical analysis. You are judging on the basis of truthiness. You might be right, by accident, but you are probably wrong because there are an infinity of other numbers that could be correct.

My last statement isn't correct because I misread your post but I'll let it stand.

 

[LunarRay]

This is again you asserting an opinion without stating it as such. This is my opinion, but one I think that could be tested. All we need is a standard by which we define offensive, a body of judges who apply those standards and an analysis of some representative number of posts to determine a percentage. The reason I claim you are stating an opinion and that my opinion is better is that you haven't performed any such statistical analysis. You are judging on the basis of truthiness. You might be right, by accident, but you are probably wrong because there are an infinity of other numbers that could be correct.

That is why an Expert Opinion is valued over that of a simple opinion.

The Expert detemines the Confidence level and from that the Sample Size is determined and ole Random goes about selecting input and Mr. Expert concludes what that Statistical Analysis provides...

IF someone casts the exact same insult or offensive thingi to five different people and only one claims Insult... Insult... or if after five insults the person proclaims Insult... Insult... Would we wonder why the first four or the other four would not be?
Guess you gotta know when to hold em and when you can issue them... somehow.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally Posted by GarfieldtheCat
But there are still plenty of areas that can be objective and proved.

You're asking for the mods to judge evidence. It's clear that there are not enough mod resources to do that and frankly they would be as likely as anyone else to make mistakes.

NM

Wolves and Hens are both in the Den house

 

[GarfieldtheCat]

They were, and Hans Blix's report says so. You are taking his book and pretending that is more authoritative than his official report to the UN...which is silly. Just because you WANT it to be false does not magically make it so. You are an example of that which you say should be stopped.

But this thread is not the place to discuss your failure in this regard. It is to discuss the addendum to the no insults rule.

So how is this not OT trolling in this thread?

But it is a prefect example of this forum, where certain people out right lie time and time again, despite having been proven wrong. This isn't a matter of opinion, it's fact.

Why do we let trolls continue to lie?

 

[cybrsage]

So how is this not OT trolling in this thread?

The OT trolling was done by you. Once YOU introducted it and it was not removed by the mods as trolling, it was open for discussion.

Why do we let trolls continue to lie?

Ask yourself, you were the one who posted the OT troll post.

 

[Idontcare]

Why do we let trolls continue to lie?

Because the other end of the scale is something even more unconscionable - censorship at the behest of a benevolent dictator who dictates who shall not be allowed to post their opinion on the basis of labeling the individual as the forum pariah.

Now obviously we must censor, otherwise the forum would be overrun by spammers for instance. So we are expected to be benevolent dictators to some extent, but cautiously guarded and reserved dictators nonetheless.

And part of the process of being cautiously guarded is asking ourselves what harm will come to the forums and the community if we (1) leave the suspected troll post in place, uncensored and unsanctioned, but (2) we were wrong in our assessment of the post and it was infact a bonafide troll post?

Does the forum crash and burn because of the troll's posts? Or does the community have the inate ability to tolerate the presence of some bonafide extreme political opinions alongside the extreme political opinions that are being posted purely for trolling purposes?

In other words, can the community handle the presence of troll posts (is it collectively mature enough to see past them) or do we need to amp up the troll-detectors and filter out more of this stuff for the community's benefit knowing full well that it would mean we certainly would be catching false-positives in that net as our own biases and prejudices become ever more accentuated in said filtering process?

My preference is we leave it up to the individual to apply their intelligence and wherewithal, take advantage of your ignore member list, and decide on an individual basis where your threshold lies for interacting with specific members versus just avoiding them.

If the individual that is causing problems is causing problems in a way that violates forum rules then they will sign their own exit papers for reasons unrelated to their opinions on politics and news.

 

[randomrogue]

IDC this is no different than having a cocktail party where one guest does 35% or nearly half of the talking. It stops others from even participating. That's the real problem here.

 

[cybrsage]

IDC this is no different than having a cocktail party where one guest does 35% or nearly half of the talking. It stops others from even participating. That's the real problem here.

Unless it is this guy talking...and then 35% is not nearly enough.

 

[OCGuy]

IDC I admire you and your knowledge in the technical forums, but I feel like you have tried to take on the near-impossible task of reigning in AT P&N by adding subjective rules/enforcement.

I hope this doesn't burn you out on the forum in general.

Other than the obvious "no racial slurs, etc" rules, there should be very few. This forum already does not attract the high-minded posters of places like DU, etc.

The only rule I thought this sub-forum ever needed was that thread titles had to be the exact title of the article it was sourcing, to remove the yellow-journalism type troll threads.

But what do I know.

 

[Idontcare]

IDC this is no different than having a cocktail party where one guest does 35% or nearly half of the talking. It stops others from even participating. That's the real problem here.

Difference is that in the cocktail party you can't block out the guy doing that 50% of the talking without blocking out the other party goers that makeup the other 50% of the dialogue.

Here in the forums you can. Use your ignore list.

If, after using your ignore list, you find that the other 50% of the conversation is also about that one guy, just being discussed by the other members, then what you have come to observe is the fact that apparently that one guy really is the topic of conversation and what you really don't like is the cocktail party itself.

Time to find a different party then, right?

IDC I admire you and your knowledge in the technical forums, but I feel like you have tried to take on the near-impossible task of reigning in AT P&N by adding subjective rules/enforcement.

I hope this doesn't burn you out on the forum in general.

Other than the obvious "no racial slurs, etc" rules, there should be very few. This forum already does not attract the high-minded posters of places like DU, etc.

The only rule I thought this sub-forum ever needed was that thread titles had to be the exact title of the article it was sourcing, to remove the yellow-journalism type troll threads.

But what do I know.

Well to be fair, originally the goal was not to "reign in P&N", nor was it to add subjective rules.

Originally the goal was to create a dialogue within the community from which the community itself would identify the areas (and prioritize them) which it felt needed the added rigidity of a codified rule and associated moderator backing in terms of enforcement.

At no point in the process was this supposed to be about what I, or any of the mods for that matter, wanted to shape the community into. On the other hand since it is the mods who must do the enforcing, the rules needed to be reasonable (i.e. be intrinsically fair and non-discriminatory) and make sense (i.e. not outstrip the peoplepower we have at our disposal to allocate to enforcing the rules).

The process was always going to be iterative because we are forging new ground here, not just in terms of setting up the infrastructure of enabling a community driven ground rules system but also in terms of estimating, and then adjusting on the fly, the load such rules place on the mods.

And that is all this thread is about, it is born from the reality that the entire process here is very much a continual work in progress. The dialogue must continue. The alternative is we just fall back to the way things were, which if that is what the community wants then so be it. That is why the amendments to the rules are all setup to be trial-based with follow-up voting and so on.

 

[cybrsage]

Difference is that in the cocktail party you can't block out the guy doing that 50% of the talking without blocking out the other party goers that makeup the other 50% of the dialogue.

Here in the forums you can. Use your ignore list.

If, after using your ignore list, you find that the other 50% of the conversation is also about that one guy, just being discussed by the other members, then what you have come to observe is the fact that apparently that one guy really is the topic of conversation and what you really don't like is the cocktail party itself.

Time to find a different party then, right?

You know, I never viewed the ignore list like that. Very interesting way of looking at it...I like it. Of course, there will always be the people who post that member ZYX is on their ignore list, but I liken them to people who walk around with their fingers in their ears saying "nya nya nya, I am not listening to you".

 

[dank69]

Difference is that in the cocktail party you can't block out the guy doing that 50% of the talking without blocking out the other party goers that makeup the other 50% of the dialogue.

Here in the forums you can. Use your ignore list.

If, after using your ignore list, you find that the other 50% of the conversation is also about that one guy, just being discussed by the other members, then what you have come to observe is the fact that apparently that one guy really is the topic of conversation and what you really don't like is the cocktail party itself.

Time to find a different party then, right?



Well to be fair, originally the goal was not to "reign in P&N", nor was it to add subjective rules.

Originally the goal was to create a dialogue within the community from which the community itself would identify the areas (and prioritize them) which it felt needed the added rigidity of a codified rule and associated moderator backing in terms of enforcement.

At no point in the process was this supposed to be about what I, or any of the mods for that matter, wanted to shape the community into. On the other hand since it is the mods who must do the enforcing, the rules needed to be reasonable (i.e. be intrinsically fair and non-discriminatory) and make sense (i.e. not outstrip the peoplepower we have at our disposal to allocate to enforcing the rules).

The process was always going to be iterative because we are forging new ground here, not just in terms of setting up the infrastructure of enabling a community driven ground rules system but also in terms of estimating, and then adjusting on the fly, the load such rules place on the mods.

And that is all this thread is about, it is born from the reality that the entire process here is very much a continual work in progress. The dialogue must continue. The alternative is we just fall back to the way things were, which if that is what the community wants then so be it. That is why the amendments to the rules are all setup to be trial-based with follow-up voting and so on.

Maybe it would help if you look at it from a different angle. A great many of us actively try to counter misinformation. We like to point it out ASAP so less educated, easily manipulated people can see that the info is false before they latch on to it as fact and start spreading it around, continuing the cycle. Now, if someone comes in here and starts spouting lies and misinformation, refusing to acknowledge logic and reasoning, how does ignoring this troll remedy the situation? Would you allow someone to run wild on your technical forums posting false information? Why would you allow it here?

I am not talking about subjective opinions here, I am talking about documented facts.

 

[Bowfinger]

Maybe it would help if you look at it from a different angle. A great many of us actively try to counter misinformation. We like to point it out ASAP so less educated, easily manipulated people can see that the info is false before they latch on to it as fact and start spreading it around, continuing the cycle. Now, if someone comes in here and starts spouting lies and misinformation, refusing to acknowledge logic and reasoning, how does ignoring this troll remedy the situation? Would you allow someone to run wild on your technical forums posting false information? Why would you allow it here?

I am not talking about subjective opinions here, I am talking about documented facts.

Exactly. That's one of the most important lessons one can gain from modern American politics. The constant repetition of lies, no matter how implausible, come to be accepted as truth unless there is an equally vigorous and persistent effort to expose those lies. Merely ignoring lies (and the liars behind them) only strengthens them.