P&N Community Poll (mod-sponsored): Renewal Vote on "No Personal Attacks/Insult" Rule

[Dr. Zaus]

You'd make a good pet.

I'm already someone else's sock puppet... and only true friend...

:looks wistfully into the distance in the sort of way only a bob-the-builder sock-puppet can do; 'Can we build it' you notice him seem to think... 'I just don't know', his puppety eyes reply:

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

According to this post, calling someone an 'idiot' would be intentional posting of misinformation unless we had proof that the recipient met the necessary IQ requirements of one of the many definitions of the word 'idiot.' Is that where we are going with this now? Doesn't the word 'dumb' have several definitions other than 'one who cannot speak'?

This. I don't like the direction the mods want to go.

 

[Zebo]

It's semi anonymous. WTF I prefer true fellings rather than RL where someone would get fucked up. Keep it loose.

 

[werepossum]

I agree.

but why is it ok to make racist comments about whites? either ban it all or allow it all. none of this bullshit that you can be racist to whites but you utter anything offence to other races you are banned.

In principle, yes, but are there any racist terms that are really offensive to white people? I utterly reject the liberal canard that only whites can be racist, but part of being the majority for so long is that no racist terms against us really carry any weight because it''s not really possible to oppress the majority. If a black calls me a cracker he's obviously "disrespecting" me, but why should I care? On the other hand, if I call a black the "N" word it brings up a not-to-distant time when not only whites but society as a whole - including blacks too for the most part - thought of blacks as a sub-race, second class in almost every way to whites. That is true (to a lesser extent) of most if not all non-whites in America just as it is true of non-Chinese in China, non-Vietnamese in Vietnam, non-Japanese in Japan, and non-Hispanics in California. In principle it's the same, but in practice it's an order of magnitude different in impact.

Hispanics get ready, soon it's gonna be your turn in the barrel.

 

[werepossum]

I'm already someone else's sock puppet... and only true friend...

:looks wistfully into the distance in the sort of way only a bob-the-builder sock-puppet can do; 'Can we build it' you notice him seem to think... 'I just don't know', his puppety eyes reply:

 

[dank69]

In principle, yes, but are there any racist terms that are really offensive to white people? I utterly reject the liberal canard that only whites can be racist, but part of being the majority for so long is that no racist terms against us really carry any weight because it''s not really possible to oppress the majority. If a black calls me a cracker he's obviously "disrespecting" me, but why should I care? On the other hand, if I call a black the "N" word it brings up a not-to-distant time when not only whites but society as a whole - including blacks too for the most part - thought of blacks as a sub-race, second class in almost every way to whites. ...

This. Sad that it even has to be explained.

 

[cybrsage]

it''s not really possible to oppress the majority.

Unless you are a shiite in Saddam ruled Iraq. You were most likely speaking of representative democracies, though, in which case you would be mostly correct. Affirmative Action oppresses the majority. But for the most mart, you are right.



However, ONLY blacks are protected here - asians, latinos, gypsies, on and on, are not protected...so it is not the majority group which is the only one being considered a second class race not good enough for protection.

 

[Ninjahedge]

It has to do with decorum.

You call someone an idiot and that may be OK, but REPEATEDLY calling them an idiot (or worse) without any real meat to your proof thereof, and it gets childish and insulting.

"You're stupid"
"No YOURE stupid"

is a common occurrence here, as well as disparaging flame posts that are intended to derail.

It is impossible to write an absolute rule to cover everything. What should be done, and this requires additional work, is for the mods to actually moderate before they enforce. A cop does not come in and start shooting people as soon as they arrive at the scene (in most cases). They try to figure out what the problem is and resolve it.

Having mods come in on a complaint and issue infractions w/o any heads up (and warnings can be across threads too) is a bit totalitarian.

Do other sites do this? Yep. Other sites can be better or worse than we have it here. But the goal with this is to try to make it so that discussions here are less combative, not forcibly sterile.

 

[Idontcare]

According to this post, calling someone an 'idiot' would be intentional posting of misinformation unless we had proof that the recipient met the necessary IQ requirements of one of the many definitions of the word 'idiot.' Is that where we are going with this now? Doesn't the word 'dumb' have several definitions other than 'one who cannot speak'?

This. I don't like the direction the mods want to go.

The "no misinformation" rule requires something by its very definition...it requires that the person posting the "information" knows that it is "misinformation".

We moderators are intentionally looking to not sanction the ignorant. Everyone is/was ignorant about everything at one point in time. Babies don't know jack until they are taught. Being ignorant is not a crime, nor is it something to be ashamed of.

But eliminating ignorance is a part of life. So when misinformation is posted, and it will be, the role of the community is to address the misinformation. It is not the job of the moderators, there aren't enough of us in the first place but even if there were it still would not be our jobs to be "content editors" that filter out the misinformed from the informed.

That burden falls to the community, maintain yourselves at what ever grade level befits you. 3rd grade, 10th grade, or college level, the community is the community that it is.

Where the moderators get involved is when a member is intentionally posting what they know to be misinformation.

And so the conversation naturally becomes one of "how do you know that I know that I am posting misinformation? maybe I was just ignorant up until you pointed it out to me?"

And that is how it goes down. The accused are given the benefit of the doubt that they are innocent until proven guilty. Firstly their "information" must be proven to be "misinformation", and then secondly they must be informed/educated and acknowledge that their information is indeed misinformation, and thirdly the member must persist in continuing to post the misinformation after they have been informed that it is misinformation.

Then, and only then, can we as moderators sanction the member for subsequent postings of said misinformation because then, and only then, do we have no doubt that the member is doing it intentionally and they know what they are posting is in fact misinformation.

It is one thing to call someone a liar. It is another to prove they are lying. And it is yet another entirely different thing to prove they are intentionally lying.

The "no misinformation" rule is designed to only address those situations involving intentional lying. Laying the groundwork to prove that a member is intentionally lying is a burden born by the member who is accusing the other member of intentionally lying.

Don't ask/expect the mods to do all that heavy-lifting, we haven't the time or the peoplepower to do all that work. But if you are bothered by it, enough to put in the time and effort necessary to confirm beyond doubt that the member is intentionally lying, then bring your evidence to the court moderators and we will weigh the evidence of the prosecuting attorney member that claims the defendant other member is intentionally lying, we will assess the counterclaims of the defense accused member, and we will render a verdict.

This is how life works, in the forums and outside the forums. That is how libel works, in the forums and outside the forums. And that is how the "no misinformation" rule works.

 

[Idontcare]

In principle, yes, but are there any racist terms that are really offensive to white people? I utterly reject the liberal canard that only whites can be racist, but part of being the majority for so long is that no racist terms against us really carry any weight because it''s not really possible to oppress the majority. If a black calls me a cracker he's obviously "disrespecting" me, but why should I care? On the other hand, if I call a black the "N" word it brings up a not-to-distant time when not only whites but society as a whole - including blacks too for the most part - thought of blacks as a sub-race, second class in almost every way to whites. That is true (to a lesser extent) of most if not all non-whites in America just as it is true of non-Chinese in China, non-Vietnamese in Vietnam, non-Japanese in Japan, and non-Hispanics in California. In principle it's the same, but in practice it's an order of magnitude different in impact.

Hispanics get ready, soon it's gonna be your turn in the barrel.

Not speaking as a moderator here, just expressing my working impressions of the reasoning for the distinctions that are made between actionable racism and not-actionable racism in the forums...

I believe it entirely has to do with the reality that while the AnandTech Forums have a global audience, our membership is primarily comprised of North American residents and the living history that those North American residents are immersed in is one in which discrimination against non-whites existed wholesale (including discrimination against non-males and non-landowners) but the distinction of belonging to a group of individuals who's heritage was viewed as being "slave worthy, at best" falls to those of African descent.

That is not to say that only blacks were slaves, it is not to say that Native Americans, Chinese, etc were not enslaved, it is not to say that even whites of European descent were not enslaved. It is merely to recognize that the working history of the culture within which the vast majority of the constituents of these forums hail from did hold one particular group of people higher than all others when it came to "slavery" and the reasoning for the existence of racism against that group to this day.

Racism by a white against an asian is going to have less to do with remnants of a heritage of the institution of slavery and more to do with plain-old everyday discrimination based on stereotypes and differences in culture or person.

Racism by a white against a black today is going to undeniably invoke remnants of a time period in which whites not only discriminated against blacks, but that blacks were held to be so lowly as an entire group that at best they could be used as oxen with opposable digits to work the tobacco plantations and cotton fields.

That is a uniquely ugly and damning difference in the real-world outcomes of discrimination. Rivaled by that of antisemitism in nazi europe, as well as what transpired behind the iron curtain.

But this forum is not dominated by Russian or German members, so we aren't attempting to go after every single instance of inexcusable racism as possible. Pockets of it are going to transpire without our being aware of it. But matching the known relevance of the history of racism to that of the bulk demographic that comprises our membership constituency is something we can do, and so we make every attempt to do that.

If we were a german forum then you can bet we'd be focusing our limited moderator resources towards stamping out antisemitism, etc. We have to allocate our resources to those efforts that we feel we can achieve the greatest good, and taking stock of our membership's demographics is the best way we currently know to accomplish some bit of good in this otherwise ugly ugly world.

 

[waggy]

In principle, yes, but are there any racist terms that are really offensive to white people? I utterly reject the liberal canard that only whites can be racist, but part of being the majority for so long is that no racist terms against us really carry any weight because it''s not really possible to oppress the majority. If a black calls me a cracker he's obviously "disrespecting" me, but why should I care? On the other hand, if I call a black the "N" word it brings up a not-to-distant time when not only whites but society as a whole - including blacks too for the most part - thought of blacks as a sub-race, second class in almost every way to whites. That is true (to a lesser extent) of most if not all non-whites in America just as it is true of non-Chinese in China, non-Vietnamese in Vietnam, non-Japanese in Japan, and non-Hispanics in California. In principle it's the same, but in practice it's an order of magnitude different in impact.

Hispanics get ready, soon it's gonna be your turn in the barrel.

just because the "order of magnitude" is diffrent it shouldn't matter. racism is racism.

allowing one from of racism but not allowing another is not helping. just because i come from a white family does not give anyone the right to be racist to me. Just as someone being black does not give me the right to be racist against them.

Racism is a disgusting thing. But to allow one to be a racist because of past acts by ancestors is just as bad. people wonder if we will ever get past racism? not by the looks of it.

 

[Idontcare]

just because the "order of magnitude" is diffrent it shouldn't matter. racism is racism.

And yet when it comes to matters of the law, we do expect police to ignore speeders going 26 mph in a 25 mph zone whereas we expect them to ticket speeders going 35 in a 25 mph zone.

Both are breaking the law, the speed limit is the speed limit, but we also accept the reality that is the policeman's life and the fact that he must prioritize how he uses his limited time when policing a stretch of road.

He can't pull over and ticket everyone going 26 mph, nor do the citizens wish to be taxed enough so as to pay for enough troopers to be hired so as to enforce the speed limit so rigorously.

Racism is ugly, no question. So address it, head on, as a concerned citizen. When you see it, rebuke it. Stand up for what you believe in. But don't do it in a way that violates the rules or you risk getting sanctioned yourself. Just because you don't like speeders doesn't mean you can shoot them on sight as they speed past your house.

But to require/expect a handful of mods to censor and stifle any and all conversations that might possibly be contrued as racist by someone, somewhere, the world over is just way to unrealistic. As unrealistic as expecting the speed limit laws to be enforced to within 1 mph. Not gonna happen, people want the speed limits but don't want to pay to have them enforced. Such is life.

 

[waggy]

And yet when it comes to matters of the law, we do expect police to ignore speeders going 26 mph in a 25 mph zone whereas we expect them to ticket speeders going 35 in a 25 mph zone.

Both are breaking the law, the speed limit is the speed limit, but we also accept the reality that is the policeman's life and the fact that he must prioritize how he uses his limited time when policing a stretch of road.

He can't pull over and ticket everyone going 26 mph, nor do the citizens wish to be taxed enough so as to pay for enough troopers to be hired so as to enforce the speed limit so rigorously.

Racism is ugly, no question. So address it, head on, as a concerned citizen. When you see it, rebuke it. Stand up for what you believe in. But don't do it in a way that violates the rules or you risk getting sanctioned yourself. Just because you don't like speeders doesn't mean you can shoot them on sight as they speed past your house.

But to require/expect a handful of mods to censor and stifle any and all conversations that might possibly be contrued as racist by someone, somewhere, the world over is just way to unrealistic. As unrealistic as expecting the speed limit laws to be enforced to within 1 mph. Not gonna happen, people want the speed limits but don't want to pay to have them enforced. Such is life.

I expect as a user that moderation would be fair. I expect that when notified of racism they would do something about it rather then say oh you are white so fuck you suck it up and get over it.

am i expecting to much?

to allow one form of racism is still racism.

 

[Bowfinger]

[ ... ]
And so the conversation naturally becomes one of "how do you know that I know that I am posting misinformation? maybe I was just ignorant up until you pointed it out to me?"

And that is how it goes down. The accused are given the benefit of the doubt that they are innocent until proven guilty. Firstly their "information" must be proven to be "misinformation", and then secondly they must be informed/educated and acknowledge that their information is indeed misinformation, and thirdly the member must persist in continuing to post the misinformation after they have been informed that it is misinformation.

Then, and only then, can we as moderators sanction the member for subsequent postings of said misinformation because then, and only then, do we have no doubt that the member is doing it intentionally and they know what they are posting is in fact misinformation. ...

If the bolded is true, you might as well rescind the rule entirely, IMO. It is effectively meaningless. In the great majority of cases, those who intentionally spread misinformation are not acting in good faith in the first place. They will never acknowledge their statements are false because their very intent is spreading lies, not truth. It does not matter how overwhelmingly they are proven wrong. At best, they will simply change the subject, returning later in another thread to repeat the same misinformation.

Thoughts?

 

[OCGuy]

Misinformation police? Haha.

 

[LunarRay]

And yet when it comes to matters of the law, we do expect police to ignore speeders going 26 mph in a 25 mph zone whereas we expect them to ticket speeders going 35 in a 25 mph zone.

Both are breaking the law, the speed limit is the speed limit, but we also accept the reality that is the policeman's life and the fact that he must prioritize how he uses his limited time when policing a stretch of road.

He can't pull over and ticket everyone going 26 mph, nor do the citizens wish to be taxed enough so as to pay for enough troopers to be hired so as to enforce the speed limit so rigorously.

Racism is ugly, no question. So address it, head on, as a concerned citizen. When you see it, rebuke it. Stand up for what you believe in. But don't do it in a way that violates the rules or you risk getting sanctioned yourself. Just because you don't like speeders doesn't mean you can shoot them on sight as they speed past your house.

But to require/expect a handful of mods to censor and stifle any and all conversations that might possibly be contrued as racist by someone, somewhere, the world over is just way to unrealistic. As unrealistic as expecting the speed limit laws to be enforced to within 1 mph. Not gonna happen, people want the speed limits but don't want to pay to have them enforced. Such is life.

The reason the Police Officer does not pull over the person violating the law going 26mph is because he does not view that as a blatant disregard for the law.... The typical Officer must find there is not only a bad act but also a bad heart for the 'crime' to be committed... This is true in lots of situations.

Your limited time ought to be spent Policing those cases where both elements of the 'crime' are present.

As the true speed of the vehicle approaches what might be dangerous for the conditions or what ever other condition might be present the Officer uses his judgement.... This judgement might include having seen this driver speed so often that not only is the element of the 'crime' present but also the 'bad heart'... the disregard for others and even a 1 mph violation would warrant a 'ticket'...

 

[Idontcare]

If the bolded is true, you might as well rescind the rule entirely, IMO. It is effectively meaningless. In the great majority of cases, those who intentionally spread misinformation are not acting in good faith in the first place. They will never acknowledge their statements are false because their very intent is spreading lies, not truth. It does not matter how overwhelmingly they are proven wrong. At best, they will simply change the subject, returning later in another thread to repeat the same misinformation.

Thoughts?

It is not that they acknowledge their statements are false, it is merely that they acknowledge they have been told they are.

That eliminates the excuse that they were unintentionally posting misinformation.

Here is an example. Once the member was made aware of this violation, done so through pm's, then subsequent violations were treated as intentional violations of the rules. (not picking on that specific member, the links are already a matter of public record and viewable by anyone, but the example stands as a working example that applies here so I link to them here)

Afterwards it is up to the attending mod to determine the severity of the penalty for their violation, as is the case with any judge presiding over a case of libel and slander, etc.

It is work, it is not easy. But that is how the unjustly accused would want it. Everyone wants expedient justice to be served until they are the one's on the other end of the gavel, then they want due process and "innocent until proven guilty" to apply.

I won't revoke the rule, the community voted to adopt it twice-over, but I will only enforce it in those cases where the arguments against the accused measure up to something more than "he said/she said" type of argumentation. And really that is for everyone's benefit because you never know when you are going to be the one defending yourself against someone else's baseless accusation that you are intentionally posting misinformation.

 

[cybrsage]

Agreed. Justice must be slow to be fair. Speedy justice invites abuses, either intentional or accidental.

 

[Bowfinger]

It is not that they acknowledge their statements are false, it is merely that they acknowledge they have been told they are.

That eliminates the excuse that they were unintentionally posting misinformation.

Here is an example. Once the member was made aware of this violation, done so through pm's, then subsequent violations were treated as intentional violations of the rules. (not picking on that specific member, the links are already a matter of public record and viewable by anyone, but the example stands as a working example that applies here so I link to them here)

Afterwards it is up to the attending mod to determine the severity of the penalty for their violation, as is the case with any judge presiding over a case of libel and slander, etc.

It is work, it is not easy. But that is how the unjustly accused would want it. Everyone wants expedient justice to be served until they are the one's on the other end of the gavel, then they want due process and "innocent until proven guilty" to apply.

I won't revoke the rule, the community voted to adopt it twice-over, but I will only enforce it in those cases where the arguments against the accused measure up to something more than "he said/she said" type of argumentation. And really that is for everyone's benefit because you never know when you are going to be the one defending yourself against someone else's baseless accusation that you are intentionally posting misinformation.

Sounds like a reasonable balance to me. Thank you.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

Sounds like a reasonable balance to me. Thank you.

+1

 

[Charles Kozierok]

I know I'm new around here, and maybe it's just me, but it seems like the tone of this forum has changed quite noticeably for the worse since this rule change. The impression I get is of less light and more heat -- and there was no shortage of heat to begin with.

It's unfortunate.

 

[Infohawk]

I know I'm new around here, and maybe it's just me, but it seems like the tone of this forum has changed quite noticeably for the worse since this rule change. The impression I get is of less light and more heat -- and there was no shortage of heat to begin with.

It's unfortunate.

I'm not new and it's gotten noticeably worse. It's definitely a shame. Some posters are clearly going all out. I don't think most posters on this forum wanted it (see original vote) and that confusing and perhaps overzealous enforcement caused enough people to vote the other way.

 

[dank69]

Yes, I constantly have to bleach my eyes. I fainted three times this morning alone from all the potty mouths. My innocence is lost and I find myself muttering curse words at innapropriate times because I can no longer control myself IRL. Everywhere I go I find myself analysing every person I meet to figure out if they are a shit-headed conservative, fuck-witted independent or a cock-sucking liberal before they can poison my mind with their propaganda.

 

[xBiffx]

Yes, I constantly have to bleach my eyes. I fainted three times this morning alone from all the potty mouths. My innocence is lost and I find myself muttering curse words at innapropriate times because I can no longer control myself IRL. Everywhere I go I find myself analysing every person I meet to figure out if they are a shit-headed conservative, fuck-witted independent or a cock-sucking liberal before they can poison my mind with their propaganda.

At least I'm not the only one......

 

[Ninjahedge]

At least I'm not the only one......

With mixed emotions?