Atheism Plus/Free Thought Blogs (FTB)

[kbonn]

I've been on A+ since October and I haven't seen it. From what I have seen it takes a pretty entitled attitude to get kicked off. I went back and checked the situation on your ban and I can't say it wasn't justified. It wasn't nice, but that isn't the same thing.

Very briefly, you started by defending Wind, (Kelly B?) and that opened a conversation which I read as, you were ok with how Xie behaved, however you wanted all the people Xie was triggering with Xer behavior to not be triggered back? (That may not be what you meant but it's how it reads to me.) Your last post completely ignored the post by piegasm clarifying the point. Given the escalating hyperbole in your posts from the start to the end, epically in non-specifically vilifying TLC and Setar.

I will say that I didn't see mod warnings in that thread, were you warned elsewhere?

I know you have a lot to respond to, so I'll just respond to the part about me.
Firstly, I received no MOD warnings in that thread, I was discussing things with mods, but at not point did I get *** Mod Hat on *** or anything similar to that. I had been warned in a separate thread for posts in that thread, but that was weeks earlier, and I stopped posting in it as directed. Since this time, I emailed support(at)atheismplus(dot)com to ask if there was any way to contest my ban(or at least my ban being permanent). I also have emailed hyperdeath directly to ask the same question. I have received no replies at all, not even to say, "No you can't contest it".

Secondly, on to what I was doing. I continually tried to restate my issues, which were as follows.

1) Non-mods shouldn't be involved in moderation discussions unless they were the injured party. Using a secret forum to have mod discussions between mods and a select group is harmful and not desirable.

2) Both Flewellyn and Ceepolk were dishonest and manipulative towards Wind in the thread. I completely understand them not admitting there was a 'secret' forum until they could confer with the others, since it isn't their decision alone to make. But that wasn't all they were doing. They were also attempting to gaslight Wind based on how they *thought* she knew the information in an attempt to extract exactly how Wind knew what she knew.

Again, I understand them wanting to know how word about the forum got out, but they should not being doing so in a way that inflicts harm. Had Setar, or TLC, or Eowyn Entwife (just to name a few) had been treated as Wind had been treated, neither Flewellyn or Ceepolk would have remained mods,(or if someone else had been acting in the way they were towards one of the mentioned people) they would have been immediately perma-banned.

All I wanted was some, SOME accountability for how Wind was treated, and for what happens when a mod behaves badly.

3) This is likely the issue that got me banned. There is a blatent double standard(or has been) with how people are allowed to act, and how they are allowed to talk on the forums. I even suggested that it was possible that much of the moderation towards the "in group" was done privately, and I was willing to take the mods at their word if they claimed I was correct. The issue with that is it gives the appearance of favortism by the mods. It also sets everything on unequal footing if some posters have carte-blanche to do/say whatever they want(with only slight repercussions) where as other have to tip toe on eggshells to avoid being moderated. As I said many times in that thread, "Don't be an a-hole" was either a forum rule, or it wasn't. To let certain regulars express themselves in a way that others are not is unfair. If you notice AA, they actually changed the "don't be an A-hole" rule after I was banned. So it actually never was a rule, they changed the wording to say what they always meant. ALL I WANTED was an admission of this, why is that worthy of a ban?

Also, I was never suggesting that only some people where allowed to be triggered. However, is being triggered license to be an a-hole or be abusive towards others? If so, then "don't be an a-hole" is not a rule! Is it?


I am fine with whatever rules that A+ wants to have, and I would always do my best to behave within those rules as long as I am/was a member of the forum. However, is it unfair of me to expect these forum rules to be applied to everyone, in all circumstances?

EDIT: Also, to date, I have not been added to the ban list with a link to my special crime. Why is that?

 

[kbonn]

*They do not allow dissent.

This is false. Dissent is allowed, and often encouraged to move a discussion along. What is not allowed is questioning of certain basic assumptions in the areas where those assumptions are accepted and the conversation is trying to move on to a higher level. For instance if there is a discussion about how a new anti-rape campaign is pro feminism and really generally awesome, a commenter who brings up "I don't think there is any such thing as rape" is not going to be welcome in that thread and will quickly be ejected from it. If they take the same spiel to the I&A section and try again they will likely still get moderated because the evidence for rape is overwhelming and debate over that is not conducive to maintaining a safe space for rape victims. (just as one of many examples).

I got into a discussion involving the coverup of rape committed by the state champ football players. I disagreed that this was primarily because of "rape culture" (meaning that they got away with it because people don't take rape seriously as a crime), suggesting it was likely(or at least in my opinion) more likely that it was more about who the criminal was, and who the victim was. That the local "celebrity" of the rapists had more to do with with them getting away with it. If the rapist had been a homeless man, or a goth kid or a typical "out" group kid in the high school, and the girl raped had been the daughter of someone important, there would have been no coverup. I was banned for 24 hours for this, on the accusation of "dismissing" rape culture. I made no comment as to whether rape culture was real or not. I merely commented on that one particular story and the circumstances around it. I attempted to clarify this and was banned for a week.

Dissent allowed? Depends!

 

[H'ethetheth]

*They do not allow dissent.

This is false. Dissent is allowed, and often encouraged to move a discussion along. What is not allowed is questioning of certain basic assumptions in the areas where those assumptions are accepted and the conversation is trying to move on to a higher level. For instance if there is a discussion about how a new anti-rape campaign is pro feminism and really generally awesome, a commenter who brings up "I don't think there is any such thing as rape" is not going to be welcome in that thread and will quickly be ejected from it.

Okay, that's a silly example. Now let's make it a bit less silly and say someone brings up rape culture in the thread. Someone else then reacts "I don't think there is a rape culture in the US", or "I don't think your depressing generalization of male-female relationships is based in reality, or helpful."

Do you think that will end well? Should I try?

Or let's say someone opens a thread discussing the privileges that women have over men.
How long before the thread is locked and the user banned, you think?
How many men's rights advocates are active on the forum there?
How many people are there who agree with feminists like Paglia or Hoff Sommers?

 

[rustypouch]

Okay, that's a silly example. Now let's make it a bit less silly and say someone brings up rape culture in the thread. Someone else then reacts "I don't think there is a rape culture in the US", or "I don't think your depressing generalization of male-female relationships is based in reality, or helpful."

Do you think that will end well? Should I try?

Or let's say someone opens a thread discussing the privileges that women have over men.
How long before the thread is locked and the user banned, you think?
How many men's rights advocates are active on the forum there?
How many people are there who agree with feminists like Paglia or Hoff Sommers?

Indeed.

I have a hard time accepting that a place where 'mansplaining' is a valid reason for banning someone, and 'freeze peach' is openly mocked is somewhere which encourages dissent.

 

[ApostateltsopA]

@Squeegee Beckenheim, I will admit to a bit of hyperbole, however I was asked to read the whole thread if I wanted to comment, another member pointed out the hyprocracy of mocking a links basket and asking folks to read large amounts of info here. Are you seriously that upset about calling this a demand?

I'm not upset about anything. I was correcting your factual error.

I think pushing on this front is a trip down pedantry lane personally.

And you're free to think that. I think that using terms like "demand" and "upset" where they're not accurate is mischaracterising those you're speaking with, attempting to make a discussion of fact into an emotional discussion, and acting in bad faith. All of which you're welcome to do, as long as you understand that posting in that manner is less likely to be conducive to friendly and constructive debate than not engaging in such hyperbole would and, instead, is more likely to lead to bad-tempered and irrelevant derails.

We are speaking about personal responses to posts. Fact is so heavily colored by emotion in this place that I am amazed you can't see it. Frog in slowly boiled water I suppose. More importantly why are you rejecting emotional bandwidth in this, or any, conversation? That looks to me like a rejection of emotion as a valuable intellectual tool. I will freely admit too much emotion is likely to shut down cognitive processes but I'm not a vulcan and won't pretend to be one.

@Foolmewunz, AA is fine, I usually suggest Apos or Apostate but I will answer to just about anything and if there is no hostile intent I don't seek to manufacture it. How do you shorten your name?

@Foolmewinz and Krikkiter on "Dogpiling".

Krikkiter has a valid point. When should a respondent self censor to avoid dogpiling? There was a thread on anxiety and dogpiling at A+ and quite a lot of discussion in the Mods capricious thread. No one can offer a definition of dogpiling that is actionable. I have noticed that when people at A+ are the third or fourth or fifth to respond they, and I, will start placing the comments in hidden text so that they don't overwhelm. I can't see that there is much else that can be done. This communication format and the asynchronous communication pretty much guarantee that a minority opinion will be responding to lots of people.

I suspect that a major bone of contention here would be the definition of what constitutes a sound and thorough rebuttal. The thread posted earlier about science and how it can and cannot inform or be the basis of values was mainly people misrepresenting what was being said, and even claiming that the poster was saying the exact opposite of what they had explicitly said in order to take offence and scream "STOP ERASING THE GENOCIDE OF BABIES!" at the other side. And when it was pointed out, with quotes, that the poster had explicitly said the opposite of what it was being claimed he said, and that, far from "erasing" deaf people mistreated by the current medical model, he was a deaf person who has been mistreated by the current medical model, ceepolk framed her not paying attention to his posts and going off half-cocked as him being in the wrong.

Surely any sceptical thinker has to be open to the possibility that they are wrong, rather than blaming any faults or mistakes on their part on others?

A skeptical thinker also needs to be aware of the context of their messaging and the communication which occurs through implication, as well as specific meaning of text. In the thread you mention, people were specific and detailed about how the posts, even though the text said one thing, communicated something entirely different through implication. Mr.Samsa was not open to that feedback and dismissed it out of hand. The fact that he has a disability does not create a free pass to erase the experiences of others or claim a thing was not communicated when it was. Communication is a process and feedback is important. If you dismiss the feedback you are receiving then you are not communicating honestly. Emotions were running high on that thread and it was eventually shut down. No mod action was taken on any of the participants. Though we were all told to drop the topic. You might also note when Setar brought it up early xie received a warning.

It's like 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife.

But, really, the point here is what the A+ forum/movement hopes to achieve. If an increase in social justice and equality and fairness for all is the goal, then that might require a bit of effort put in to educating people. If all that's desired is a space where people can sit around agreeing with each other about what is wrong with the world without actually doing anything to change it, then shouting obscenities at anyone who doesn't agree with or is ignorant of the issues and never stepping outside the forum is just fine.

In the moderation thread posted a page or two back it was explicitly said that at A+ if a newbie says something that's disapproved of that the default position is to assume that they're the enemy.

I think these touch on a fundamental point of misunderstanding between those active at A+ and those who have tried to be active and got ejected, or those who saw the ejections and decided not to join. A+ is not an outreach, or teaching, or even an action forum. The primary reason for that board is to create a safe space where marginalized voices can be heard. In other words people who are lost in open forums like this one where there is too much competing noise. That learning occurs there, and that it is open to those of us who are the Ash Ketchums of Privilege Pokimon is a bonus, but not the primary reason for existence.

Personally I'm grateful to them, I'm a much better person for my time with them. However you better believe I hit google before I ask basic questions.

The "lack of time" meme was discussed a couple of pages back. The whole issue of responding with "I don't have the time right now to prove that you're wrong, but you're wrong".

If you don't have the time then wait until you do or just let it go. Suggesting that you could debunk a claim if you really wanted to but you don't want to right now is not the same as actually doing so

This is placing undue onus on minorities to have to respond to majorities. Especially since we are discussing the behavior at a site created for and dedicated to those minority voices. I've lost track of how often I've had to tell someone that the place is not debate club and does not exist so they can roll in with their argument and try to undermine the core premise of the institution.

The idea coming from this place is also hypocritical; look at the anti-spam protocols of this board. You have to be a member to post, and your membership application has to survive moderation based on only the application. No posting is possible until after the moderator has signed off on you, and even then posting is limited. Contrast that with a policy like FTB where anyone can post on any topic immediately, or A+ where member posts, not members themselves, are moderated. The bar to even start a conversation here is much higher.

Also, "I don't have the time right now to prove that you're wrong, but you're wrong" is not the same as, "Your argument is fallaciously reasoned, here is a link describing why." (If you want to get a specific argument, I'll see if I can dig up the argument to avoid that fits it and we can talk about why that AtA fits.)

The biggest issue with A+ is that they have a tendency to see ableism, privilege and slurs where none exist. See the Limerick discussion in which the author of a completely harmless limerick was dogpiled because some limericks are sexist and therefore all limericks are sexist.

The see these things where others do not, I have learned to recognize a lot more of the privilege and subconscious bigotry that our societies reinforce. However you are misrepresenting that situation. Glob, was not dogpiled for the limerick, if you go back and look nearly every posted objecting to it was clear, and repeatedly so, that they did not attribute the sexism to any intentionality on Xir behalf. However they also explained why it was sexist and inappropriate. Glob's reaction was to refuse to acknowledge that input and instead insist that noting of the sort had happened, and after doubling down on that, they were moderated. The limerick directly referenced sex, and there was no intimation that all limericks are about sex, though it was pointed out that sex is often a context that comes with limerick. As an example an old episode of STTNG has Data saying, "Captain there is an odd limerick playing in the shuttle bay, there once was a woman from Venus whose body was shaped like a...DATA!" No one had to tell the audience why that was sexual, or what the next word was going to be.

And of course JREF doesn't hold that all opinions are equal. But at the same time it holds that no opinions are untouchable.

A+ holds very few opinions as untouchable, an example of one would be "Women are people and deserve exactly the same rights as non-women people" If you want to debate that, I shall call you monster for it should be self evident. However there is also the attitude that not all opinions are up for debate in all places, and barging into a conversation with basic opinions agreed upon by participants where you are challenging that basis is wrong and will be stopped, because it prevents the higher level discussion.

Imagine I had found evidence that zebras are the product of magical incantations involving eye of newt. If I barge into a biology lecture with this data I will be thrown out. It's not the place for it. If instead I publish my findings, I'll just be dogpiled in the peer review process and perhaps the next generation will benifit, once the old guard loses the ability to oppose my research.

*Personalized politics and Declaring enemies.

I don't see that behavior as problematic. To use your example, there is a host of material easily available online about the prevalence of rape and rape culture. Someone in denial of these things has not done their homework. If you want to make the case that the US is not male dominated I am going to dismiss you out of hand, unless you bring some serious evidence to the table. The onus is on the person entering the space to prove there assertion, not on those in the place to prove them wrong.

Again with the biology and zebras, if I do find Eye of newt to be causal I need to prove it, you are all able to reject the idea out of hand until I do. The lot of us do this to religious claims on a constant basis.

What you are declaring to be "bad people" could be "misinformed people" or they could just arrive at a different conclusion. Usually the differences in opinion are minor. The issue with looking for "bad people" means that everywhere you look there are "bad people". Or witches. Or communists. Or Suppressive Persons.

And? Remember the matrix film? Neo was the hero, but he had a gun aimed at his head for the safety of the others in the car. Until you unplug and oppose the system you are part of it. If you are in denial of the patriarchy, you are reinforcing it. It's that pervasive. I wish I could link a TED talk on this topic, (Google: TED, Colin Stokes How movies teach manhood).

It depends on the opinion, not the person holding it. Who has a more valid opinion, a white man in a relationship with a black woman with mixed race children or a black woman who believes that all white people are devils who should be murdered?

So a person whose opinion is not defined or a person who has sociopathic tendencies? Unknown does the white guy also think white people are devils? Do you see how you reinforced the white guy with a spouse and kids just to get him in the ballpark with a black sociopath? I have informational knowledge of racism, I can see it, sort of, but I have never lived it. A black person has lived it. Do you disagree that the burned hand teaches best? Would you not agree that someone with 3rd degree burns is better able to talk about the consequences of fire than the person who read about third degree burns in a book?

*Bad ideas, I agree, but recognizing them requires that weight be given to opinions and source counts towards that weight.

How about declaring skeptics who are not part of your specific movement to be the enemy as Greg Laden did?

Sounds hyperbolic to me, if that is the quote I believe it is, it's also not widely endorsed. I think even he walked it back, though I don't seem to be finding that on google atm.

*Exclusion, I never claimed that A+ is more inclusive. I pointed out that this place excludes, and censors. As to your reasoning, if it were accurate then the rule would be only about the specific words, however we are also banned from getting around the filters and innuendo towards those words. So no, there is censorship here. To claim otherwise is naive or disingenuous and you just lost naive now that I have explained it.

Also, I was excluded. My first application for membership was denied. I had to jump through specific hoops to be allowed to post.

*Automated response*

Unfortunately we couldn’t complete your registration for the JREF Forum.

We do not retain details of accounts that have not been approved however the most likely reason is that some required information wasn’t entered during the registration process (First name, Last name, Country and State if in the USA).

Please either try again to register or drop me an email and I will do my best to sort out any problems you may be experiencing.

@Squeegee Beckenheim "validity of opinions" Note your example also takes a highly specific, and unlikely, senerio to allow white guy's opinion to trump black woman's. I think we are in fundamental agreement that unless the specifics are very abnormal the person with the lived experience will know more than the person without.

@Squealpiggy - "Rape Victims trauma" Have you followed your link? There are huge red letters of apology all over the misconduct. Perhaps you think that moderators at A+ are deities and should be incapable of error? It looks to me like they acknowledged their mistake, and made amends.

 

[Wildy]

And let's not forget the woeful treatment of a rape victim for saying that (s)he was glad to be alive following his/her ordeal.

As the big red words say on some of the posts there, they did reverse the ban and issue an apology.

They also edited the post where Cuduggan2K2 calls piegasm things that are a violation of the MA here to get rid of some of the dirty words.

 

[Myriad]

Would you not agree that someone with 3rd degree burns is better able to talk about the consequences of fire than the person who read about third degree burns in a book?

Absolutely not.

Especially if the person who had the 3rd degree burns wants to ban all use of fire, and insists that no one who has not suffered such burns should have any say in the matter.

The consequences of fire is a broad topic that relates to and effects many areas of medicine, law, engineering, materials science, and other fields. Personal experience of a specific burn adds real but extremely narrow expertise to the matter. I'd hear what the burn victim has to say but a person who has the right epidemiological data on burns from the right book can probably contribute more.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=8977421#post8977421

Respectfully,
Myriad

 

[RandFan]

I don't know why my quotes your quoting disappear when I try to quote it, but if there is a way, perhaps someone could help me out.

Also, let me clarify, what Rebecca did AFTER posting her first video, and they way she treated people with honest disagreement(IE Steph Mcgraw(sp?)) is shameful and a disgusting bully tactic. However, her initial video, I didn't think was that bad when taken in isolation.

Agreed.

The dawkins thing, I figured most people here are aware of his "Dear Muslima" letter posted in the comments to RW's post. Basically, he was telling her that her priorities were off and she shouldn't complain about X(being hit on/propositioned in an elevator), because group Y(women in many muslim countries) has to deal with Z(Genital mutilation).

He engaged in false consolation fallacy. He simply should have pointed out that someoe taking no for an answer is what many hope for. However, RW is entitled to feel however she feels even if there are starving children in... where is it they starve now?

Many times on FtB and less so on A+, people expressing concern for certain issues that are more isolated to men, or affect men in a lesser degree are given the brush off or mocked with a comment similar to "Oh here we go again 'What about teh menz'".

Yea, I don't care for that attitude. I understand where it comes from. I tend to be dismissive of those with first world problems (I forgot my pin) or with complaints exclusive to white people. So I get it. But it's not likely to engender good faith discussions. I realize that sometimes it can seem a fine line. When it comes to men and women's relationships I don't think any sincere position ought to be marginalized.

 

[RandFan]

It read to me like someone who has a lot of time and doesn't mind rehashing the same ground over and over, while still being condescending. As though any other way of doing things is inherently inferior and people who don't have the energy or spoons, for endless debates on the same topic, especially when it comes to abelism and slurs, are doing something wrong.

I think that attitude also contributes to the false notion that opinions are equal and that if an argument has multiple sides, the sides must be equal.

Here at JREF, if you want to discuss the existence of Bigfoot, there is no presumption that Bigfoot does not exist and therefore we are not going to treat that subject differently than other subjects.

James Randi has been studying this stuff for a long time, if anyone wanted to make a set of rules about what is off of the table he could surely do it. Truth is, anything not specifically forbidden for legal or other serious reasons is permitted. JREF and other such Forums are not media outlets. Their job, IMO, is to foster dialog and debate and not decide ahead of time what is worthy of discussion and which side the forum should take on any given subject. There job is not to decide who to curry favor with our who to favor in a debate.

 

[zooterkin]

The see these things where others do not, I have learned to recognize a lot more of the privilege and subconscious bigotry that our societies reinforce. However you are misrepresenting that situation. Glob, was not dogpiled for the limerick, if you go back and look nearly every posted objecting to it was clear, and repeatedly so, that they did not attribute the sexism to any intentionality on Xir behalf. However they also explained why it was sexist and inappropriate. Glob's reaction was to refuse to acknowledge that input and instead insist that noting of the sort had happened, and after doubling down on that, they were moderated. The limerick directly referenced sex, and there was no intimation that all limericks are about sex, though it was pointed out that sex is often a context that comes with limerick. As an example an old episode of STTNG has Data saying, "Captain there is an odd limerick playing in the shuttle bay, there once was a woman from Venus whose body was shaped like a...DATA!" No one had to tell the audience why that was sexual, or what the next word was going to be.

The poem was addressed to a female member called Buckle, who specifically said she took no offence.The limerick was not sexist, nor was it about sex. It's not surprising that Glob refused to accept either of those allegations.

For those who missed it:

There was a young lady called Buckle
Who lived life with calmness and chill
Until she dealt with a banker
who was a real wanker
and she ended up feeling quite ill.

What conceivable sexism is there in that? It was claimed that 'wanker' has a sexual connotation, and the poem therefore constituted sexual harassment; it may have that literal meaning but in common usage in Britain it is pretty close in meaning to "jerk" (which may have a similar origin as a term of abuse). Just because some limericks have a sexual pun, doesn't mean that all of them do (and this one doesn't, unless I'm missing it; having grown up listening to Round the Horne, The Goons and I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, I think that's unlikely).

 

[ApostateltsopA]

I am definately not going to be able to keep up with this. Happily I am home from work today and don't have to be phone posting.

Kbon, I want to take this entire post to talk about your moderation.

I had been warned in a separate thread for posts in that thread, but that was weeks earlier, and I stopped posting in it as directed. Since this time, I emailed support(at)atheismplus(dot)com to ask if there was any way to contest my ban(or at least my ban being permanent). I also have emailed hyperdeath directly to ask the same question. I have received no replies at all, not even to say, "No you can't contest it".

If this conversation convinces me you will be an honest and aware contributor I'll use my voice to bring up your issue.

Secondly, on to what I was doing. I continually tried to restate my issues, which were as follows.

I disagree with you on some of these points. I think we can talk them out here if you are amenable.

1) Non-mods shouldn't be involved in moderation discussions unless they were the injured party. Using a secret forum to have mod discussions between mods and a select group is harmful and not desirable.

Why? I'm not aware of any moderation discussions that involve non-moderators what is a moderator? It seems to me that anyone involved in a discussion about moderation is a moderator, and what you are really objecting to is secret moderators. Why?

2) Both Flewellyn and Ceepolk were dishonest and manipulative towards Wind in the thread. I completely understand them not admitting there was a 'secret' forum until they could confer with the others, since it isn't their decision alone to make. But that wasn't all they were doing. They were also attempting to gaslight Wind based on how they *thought* she knew the information in an attempt to extract exactly how Wind knew what she knew.

Again, I understand them wanting to know how word about the forum got out, but they should not being doing so in a way that inflicts harm. Had Setar, or TLC, or Eowyn Entwife (just to name a few) had been treated as Wind had been treated, neither Flewellyn or Ceepolk would have remained mods,(or if someone else had been acting in the way they were towards one of the mentioned people) they would have been immediately perma-banned.

All I wanted was some, SOME accountability for how Wind was treated, and for what happens when a mod behaves badly.

First, gaslighting. To gaslight someone you have to know the information you present to someone is false and be doing it to manipulate them. We could argue that when Flew denied the existence of the secret forum that was gasligting, but I see no evidence that ceepolk was acting disingenuously. It seemed to me that she was responding to what she perceived to be the truth.

Second, accountability. What kind of accountability? Flew apologized for lying. Ceepolk tried to engage with Wind, unsuccessfully. It turns out she was wrong about someone feeding Wind information and that Wind set the whole thing off on a guess to confirm the guess. Wind's behavior was execrable on that thread. Filled with accusations and disruptions to a lot of people's sense of safty, and for what? To confirm that there was a channel of communication that was not open to xir?

The entire thing was a hot mess. It seems very one sided to expect only some of those involved not to react emotionally.

3) This is likely the issue that got me banned. There is a blatent double standard(or has been) with how people are allowed to act, and how they are allowed to talk on the forums. I even suggested that it was possible that much of the moderation towards the "in group" was done privately, and I was willing to take the mods at their word if they claimed I was correct. The issue with that is it gives the appearance of favortism by the mods. It also sets everything on unequal footing if some posters have carte-blanche to do/say whatever they want(with only slight repercussions) where as other have to tip toe on eggshells to avoid being moderated. As I said many times in that thread, "Don't be an a-hole" was either a forum rule, or it wasn't. To let certain regulars express themselves in a way that others are not is unfair. If you notice AA, they actually changed the "don't be an A-hole" rule after I was banned. So it actually never was a rule, they changed the wording to say what they always meant. ALL I WANTED was an admission of this, why is that worthy of a ban?

Also, I was never suggesting that only some people where allowed to be triggered. However, is being triggered license to be an a-hole or be abusive towards others? If so, then "don't be an a-hole" is not a rule! Is it?


I am fine with whatever rules that A+ wants to have, and I would always do my best to behave within those rules as long as I am/was a member of the forum. However, is it unfair of me to expect these forum rules to be applied to everyone, in all circumstances?

This point has had a lot of mileage with quontir in the mods forum. The response is yes there is bias. Absolutely yes, bias exists and favors those who have spent time on the boards and built a reputation.

Why should that not be the case? A+ is not a judiciary, the posters are not citizens. It is a community, specifically meant to be safe for those who are residing there and using it. Bias towards those who have earned trust is natural and good. Suspicion of those who have not earned trust is also normal, and good. This is why schools require doors locked and guests to sign in, wear identifying stickers and be specific about where they will be traveling and why.

The core assumption to this argument is that favoritism is bad, but I do not see any argument for why. Especially I don't see it for why a safe space would not use favoritism and multiple layers of trust.

Also there have been some updates to the don't be an ass rule, there is a long discussion about it if you go look in Forum matters.

EDIT: Also, to date, I have not been added to the ban list with a link to my special crime. Why is that?

I have no idea, I'm not a moderator.

****What I think got you banned***

I mentioned this last time but here are the specific quotes. All from page 72 of the capricious thread

When people scream **** YOUs in my face, my tactic on here is the same as it would be in real life: I walk away. Or I just ignore them and respond to the people who aren't screaming **** YOUs in my face. Since tone-policing isn't allowed, it's pretty much the only option.

Ignoring people who aren't conforming to your standard of civility is exactly what tone policing is. The fact that you didn't explicitly tell anyone they need to be nicer before you'll listen to them doesn't stop it being tone policing.

What an *******! So refusing to put up with verbal abuse is now tone policing? If Irk doesn't want to deal with someone, xe doesn't have to. Sort of like how people you don't want to deal with on this forum get banned. "Agree or be silenced" is somehow ok when "I don't want to engage people who are verbally abusive" is not ok?

Your post was three days after piegasm had clarified with this

What I mean is that if you think the person saying '**** you' is being totally unreasonable and has no grounds for getting mad, then walking away/ignoring them is a better tactic than tone-policing them (which is forbidden here anyway).

Walking away is certainly preferable to explicitly telling them to be nicer but it's far from ideal. What you ought to do is consider the possibility that your failure to see any grounds for the other person's anger might, maybe, possibly be due to a lack of understanding on your part as opposed to unreasonableness on their part.

How is that not stirring the pot? You ignored the relevant portion of the conversation and reacted hyperbolically to only half of what was being said. You completely misrepresented the argument piegasm was making. At no point did piegasm insist that a person must sit and accept verbal abuse. Expletives are also not abusive. They are words. How they are used is what matters.

More later, have to run.

 

[Professor Yaffle]

The poem was addressed to a female member called Buckle, who specifically said she took no offence.The limerick was not sexist, nor was it about sex. It's not surprising that Glob refused to accept either of those allegations.

For those who missed it:


What conceivable sexism is there in that? It was claimed that 'wanker' has a sexual connotation, and the poem therefore constituted sexual harassment; it may have that literal meaning but in common usage in Britain it is pretty close in meaning to "jerk" (which may have a similar origin as a term of abuse). Just because some limericks have a sexual pun, doesn't mean that all of them do (and this one doesn't, unless I'm missing it; having grown up listening to Round the Horne, The Goons and I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, I think that's unlikely).

I was far more offended at trying to rhyme Buckle with chill and ill...

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

I'm going to throw my grandmother under the bus again. She experienced living as a poor girl on the South Side who was mocked for her ethnicity, and she uses that experience to justify her racist and classist prejudices. She, like many others, got out during the White Flight and looks down her nose at the people who are too lazy to work. She experienced or witnessed all sorts of prejudices to and from Black, Jews, Poles, Italians, etc. And she uses those to back up her claims that Jews are selfish people, Blacks are lazy, etc.

She uses personal experience as her trump card any time anyone tries to call her on anything.

Personal experiences are not only a biased sample, but they are inaccurate in and of themselves.

 

[zooterkin]

I was far more offended at trying to rhyme Buckle with chill and ill...

Though, to be fair, it was responding to a poem that rhymed 'bureaucracy' with 'nonsensology' and 'astrology'.

 

[Quinn]

Personal experiences are not only a biased sample, but they are inaccurate in and of themselves.

I like to think of personal experience as an unintentional, unstructured, undocumented experiment with a sample size of one and no control group.

Any conclusion that you would not feel comfortable deriving from such an experiment, you should not derive from personal experience.

 

[kmortis]

I don't know why my quotes your quoting disappear when I try to quote it, but if there is a way, perhaps someone could help me out.

To have multi-level quotes, you have to go through something of a process. Down in the lower left, there's an envelope button. That quotes the entire post in a Private Message (PM). Copy the text, push the back button, paste into the quick reply and go from there.

***Example***

She could have expressed an opinion about the encounter and offered a suggestion that men consider that women might fee vulnerable in an enclosed space.

How did that work out?

Some people (women in particular) had a different opinion. That's it. No reason to call anyone out at a conference. That's the good thing about dialectics. RW expresses her opinion. Other people express an opinion and we move society forward. People are allowed to have an opinion different than RW, right? People have the right to express that opinion, right?

I've no idea what this is about. It looks like a hasty generalization and straw man but tough to tell.

I don't know why my quotes your quoting disappear when I try to quote it, but if there is a way, perhaps someone could help me out.

Also, let me clarify, what Rebecca did AFTER posting her first video, and they way she treated people with honest disagreement(IE Steph Mcgraw(sp?)) is shameful and a disgusting bully tactic. However, her initial video, I didn't think was that bad when taken in isolation.

The dawkins thing, I figured most people here are aware of his "Dear Muslima" letter posted in the comments to RW's post. Basically, he was telling her that her priorities were off and she shouldn't complain about X(being hit on/propositioned in an elevator), because group Y(women in many muslim countries) has to deal with Z(Genital mutilation).

Many times on FtB and less so on A+, people expressing concern for certain issues that are more isolated to men, or affect men in a lesser degree are given the brush off or mocked with a comment similar to "Oh here we go again 'What about teh menz'".

***End Example***

On a related note, there's a multi-quote feature. It's the quotation marks button on the lower right. Click that to quote multiple posts, mark the final post with the "Quote" button.

***Example***

She could have expressed an opinion about the encounter and offered a suggestion that men consider that women might fee vulnerable in an enclosed space.

How did that work out?

Some people (women in particular) had a different opinion. That's it. No reason to call anyone out at a conference. That's the good thing about dialectics. RW expresses her opinion. Other people express an opinion and we move society forward. People are allowed to have an opinion different than RW, right? People have the right to express that opinion, right?

I've no idea what this is about. It looks like a hasty generalization and straw man but tough to tell.

I don't know why my quotes your quoting disappear when I try to quote it, but if there is a way, perhaps someone could help me out.

Also, let me clarify, what Rebecca did AFTER posting her first video, and they way she treated people with honest disagreement(IE Steph Mcgraw(sp?)) is shameful and a disgusting bully tactic. However, her initial video, I didn't think was that bad when taken in isolation.

The dawkins thing, I figured most people here are aware of his "Dear Muslima" letter posted in the comments to RW's post. Basically, he was telling her that her priorities were off and she shouldn't complain about X(being hit on/propositioned in an elevator), because group Y(women in many muslim countries) has to deal with Z(Genital mutilation).

Many times on FtB and less so on A+, people expressing concern for certain issues that are more isolated to men, or affect men in a lesser degree are given the brush off or mocked with a comment similar to "Oh here we go again 'What about teh menz'".

***End Example***

I hope this helps.

 

[dasmiller]

This point has had a lot of mileage with quontir in the mods forum. The response is yes there is bias. Absolutely yes, bias exists and favors those who have spent time on the boards and built a reputation.

Why should that not be the case? A+ is not a judiciary, the posters are not citizens. It is a community, specifically meant to be safe for those who are residing there and using it. Bias towards those who have earned trust is natural and good. Suspicion of those who have not earned trust is also normal, and good. This is why schools require doors locked and guests to sign in, wear identifying stickers and be specific about where they will be traveling and why.

The core assumption to this argument is that favoritism is bad, but I do not see any argument for why. Especially I don't see it for why a safe space would not use favoritism and multiple layers of trust.

So, if I'm following this correctly: Limericks are bad because they can be tool for oppressing women and enforcing the status quo. But there's no historical or social downside to favoritism.

 

[recursive prophet]

Last reply and I must sleep,

RP can you please create a topic for the video? I was thinking to call it Elevatorgate revisited: with guest star Shrodinger's rapist.

I'm working on it right now AA. Just wanted to let others know so we don't end up with 2. And let me say I think you're off to an impressive start. My greatest contribution to this thread may well end up being getting you to join in.

ETA-major kudos to kmortis for his thorough explanation I can only hope I'll be able to follow. When I think of the wasted hours setting up multiple quotes. Wonder if I could find a used Yerkish terminal on Amazon?

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

And let's not forget the woeful treatment of a rape victim for saying that (s)he was glad to be alive following his/her ordeal.

These are the examples of how the rules are applied injudiciously and dissent is crushed at Atheism Plus.

I'm not sure you've painted an entirely fair picture, there. piegasm thought that Cuduggan2K2 was posting a hypothetical, and banned them on the basis of that, as looking at the original posts makes very clear.

Which is not to say that that incident isn't a terrible indictment of the modding policy over there or, indeed, the general level of consideration. It doesn't seem like people, the mods especially, put much thought into what they do or say. It's just "stimulus, response, stimulus, response". "Cuduggan2K2 disagrees with me about rape, ban him "for being a dismissive, victim-blaming [Rule 10]", rather than taking the time to actually read what he'd posted. It wasn't unclear, at all. And, yet, after piegasm banned him, ceepolk joined in with her usual valuable contributions, and Kassiane also joins in. Again, Cuduggan's post wasn't ambiguous at all, and taking the time to read what he'd posted, rather than seeing a few key words and shouting at the world would have ensured that none of that happened.

It was quickly pointed out to them that they'd just banned a rape victim for saying that he'd rather be alive than dead. It seems that their reaction was to put a big notice on the two relevant posts saying that they'd made a mistake, and unban Cuduggan so that he could explain himself. I'm sure that makes everything better rather than, say, trying to learn a lesson from the incident and modifying their behaviour so that they don't go off half-cocked in the future.

I think that incident is deplorable enough without having to paint it in an even worse light.

 

[zooterkin]

I'm working on it right now AA.

I'm pretty sure there's already at least one thread about elevatorgate, a search should find it.

ETA: This one, for example. There are others; I'm not really sure we need to go over it yet again.