A Possible Change In The Rules - RatSkep tangent

[Robert_S]

rEvolutionist, I don't recall anybody portraying the mods at ratskep (other than you, of course) as an "evil bunch of anti-free speech dictators." However, you can put me down for uptight, close-minded, rigid, irrational and rather cowardly.

Cowardly?!? FFS.

I think that many of us think that strong people do not need to cower from controversial viewpoints and differing opinions. In fact, I think that strong people welcome the opportunities to substantiate, as best as they can, their ideas, and welcome chances to justify what they believe and how they came to believe what they do.

You're right. We're all so weak over there. Thanks for setting us straight.

As was pointed out earlier in this thread, the rule against group attacks came about because the users demanded it.

Isn't it known as "GS rule"?

I don't know, but I have a feeling that the reason those rules are in place was little to do with cowardice and a great deal to do with being fed up with trolls spamming up the boards.

[Trolldor]

So tell me, revvie, who decides what constitutes an attack? Where does the line between valid criticism of a group or ideology and personal attack begin? I'd sure like to meet your objective, flawless arbiters of justice.

Oh, wait.

Anyone expecting moderators to be objective robots is living in an alternate universe. It may surprise some people, but mods are human too. We all have our subjectivity. The FUA is there to try and minimise that subjectivity as much as possible, but there is always going to be context to a discussion that can't be codified in the FUA.

I await the robots.

The problem is, then, you have a rule which forbids badly worded criticisms - and yes, badly worded considering that you apply 'attacks' to groups and ideologies - amongst an internet forum full of the average internet user. It has to then be enforced by Mods who have no grounds to go on other than what they think it means and whether it's "appropriate", which means the truth of the statement is now irrelevant.

Christopher Hitchens would be banned if his Argument in this debate were a forum post:

[kiki5711]

responding to tatt

my reason for disliking that other rats what ever the hell they're called is cause I can't even fart an opinion without getting reported. WHat is their frekn problem? It's like talking with a bunch of 5 yr olds!

What, not allowing racist sexist homophobic bigoted opinion is acting like "5 yr olds" is it?

I'm pretty sure it wasn't racism, sexism, or homophobia that got kiki reported.

I've got no idea. And it doesn't matter. Her inference that the mods ban anything that moves over there is just retarded. As I've said a number of times now, 99% of posters post just fine over there without being sanctioned or banned. There's just a small minority who can't seem to take responsibility for their inability to understand and follow the FUA. There's also a small(?) minority of people who think either the mods need to loosen up, or tighten up, and/or change the specific wording of the FUA regarding either sexism/racism/homophobia and/or trolling. Now I respect the latter people, but not the former. Although, as you can see, the latter group seems to be all over the place concerning what they want.

[pErvinalia]

rEvolutionist, I don't recall anybody portraying the mods at ratskep (other than you, of course) as an "evil bunch of anti-free speech dictators." However, you can put me down for uptight, close-minded, rigid, irrational and rather cowardly.

Cowardly?!? FFS.

I think that many of us think that strong people do not need to cower from controversial viewpoints and differing opinions. In fact, I think that strong people welcome the opportunities to substantiate, as best as they can, their ideas, and welcome chances to justify what they believe and how they came to believe what they do.

You're right. We're all so weak over there. Thanks for setting us straight.

As was pointed out earlier in this thread, the rule against group attacks came about because the users demanded it.

FIFY.

[pErvinalia]

So tell me, revvie, who decides what constitutes an attack? Where does the line between valid criticism of a group or ideology and personal attack begin? I'd sure like to meet your objective, flawless arbiters of justice.

Oh, wait.

Anyone expecting moderators to be objective robots is living in an alternate universe. It may surprise some people, but mods are human too. We all have our subjectivity. The FUA is there to try and minimise that subjectivity as much as possible, but there is always going to be context to a discussion that can't be codified in the FUA.

I await the robots.

The problem is, then, you have a rule which forbids badly worded criticisms - and yes, badly worded considering that you apply 'attacks' to groups and ideologies - amongst an internet forum full of the average internet user. It has to then be enforced by Mods who have no grounds to go on other than what they think it means and whether it's "appropriate", which means the truth of the statement is now irrelevant.

Huh? I just said that the mods take context into account. If some bumpkin comes on and can't articulate what he is trying to say but oversteps the FUA, the mods don't just pull out the ban-hammer. They send gentle reminders and helpful hints. They often send multiple helpful hints before they give what's called an "advisory". And that's not even a sanction. You have to have multiple advisories before getting a sanction. How many times does this need to be said? There absolutely isn't a culture of inhibiting "free" speech and banning people over there. 99% of posts and posters are all good. Get some perspective, please.

Christopher Hitchens would be banned if his Argument in this debate were a forum post:

[/quote]

Sorry, I don't watch vid's online (crap internet connection )

[leo-rcc]

Sorry, I don't watch vid's online (crap internet connection )

I've looked up the transcipt for you.
Source: http://www.amindatplay.eu/2009/12/02/in ... ranscript/

Now I’m sorry to have to begin by disagreeing with His Grace. If you’re going to be a serious grown-up person, and appear to defend the Catholic church in public in front of an educated and literate audience, you simply have to start by making a great number of heartfelt apologies and requests for contrition and forgiveness.

Now you might ask, you’re fully entitled to ask, brothers and sisters, who am I to say that? Well, in the jubilee millennium year of 2000 the Vatican spokesman Bishop Piero Marini said, explaining a whole sermon of apology given by His Holiness the Pope, given the number of sins we’ve committed in the course of twenty centuries, reference to them must necessarily be rather summary. Well I think Bishop Marini had that just about right, I’ll have to be summary, too. His Holiness on that occasion—it was March the 12th, 2000, if you wish to look it up—begged forgiveness for, among some other things, the crusades, the Inquisition, the persecution of the Jewish people, in justice towards women, that’s half the human race right there, and the forced conversion of indigenous peoples, especially in South America, the African slave trade, the admission that Galileo was right, and for silence during Hitler’s Final Solution or Shoah. And it doesn’t end there, there are smaller but significant—equally significant—avowals of a very bad conscience. These have included regret for the rape and torture of orphans and other children in church-run schools in almost every country on Earth, from Ireland to Australia.

These are very serious matters, and they’re not to be laughed off by the references to the occasional work of Catholic charities. But I draw you attention not just to the apologies, ladies and gentlemen, but to the evasive and euphemistic form that they take. Joseph Ratzinger, the current Pope, considered by some, considered by Catholics to be the Vicar of Christ on Earth, in his comment, one of the few he’s made on the institutionalisation of rape and torture and maltreatment of children in Catholic institutions, he said it’s a very severe crisis which involves us, he said, in the following: in the need for applying to these victims the most loving, pastoral care. Well I’m sorry, they’ve already had that, and to say that this is the response to be laid upon you, by the horrific admission that you’ve already had to make is not accepting responsibility in any adult sense. The same euphemism comes, in the term some Christians allow themselves to be deceived in this way and to act against the gospel, well, anti-Semitism was preached as an official doctrine of the Church until 1964.

Do you think that might have something to do with public opinion in Austria, and Bavaria, and Poland, and Lithuania? There’ll come a time, when the church will issue apologies, and explanations, and half-baked appeals for forgiveness for things it’s still doing. I think that there will be an apology for what happened in Rwanda, the most Catholic country in Africa, where priests and nuns and bishops are on trial, for inciting from their pulpits and on the Church’s radio stations and newspapers, the massacre of their brothers and sisters. Staying in Africa, I think it will one day be admitted with shame that it might have been in error to say that AIDS is bad as a disease, very bad, but not quite as bad as condoms are bad, or not as immoral in the same way. I say it in the presence of His Grace, and I say it to his face, the teachings of his church are responsible for the death and suffering and misery of his brother and sister Africans, and he should apologise for it, he should show some shame. For condemning my friend Stephen Fry for his nature, for saying you couldn’t be a member of our church, you’re born in sin. He’s not being condemned for what he does, he’s being condemned for what he is. You’re a child made in the image of God – oh no, you’re not, you’re a faggot, and you can’t join our church and you can’t go to heaven. This is disgraceful, it’s inhuman, it’s obscene, and it comes from a clutch of hysterical, sinister virgins, who’ve already betrayed their charge in the children of their own church. For shame! For shame!

I don’t wish any ill on any fellow primate or mammal of mine, so I don’t at all look forward to the death of Joseph Ratzinger, I don’t, or any other bloke, not really, except for one tiny reason which I ought to confess and share with you. When he dies, there’s quite a long interval till the conclave can meet, and for that whole time, that whole interval—it is a delicious, lucid interlude—there isn’t anyone on Earth who claims to be infallible. Isn’t that nice? All I think, all I want to propose in closing is this: that if the human species is to rise to the full height that’s demanded by its dignity, and by its intelligence, we must all of us move to a state of affairs, where that condition is permanent, and I think we should get on with it. Okay, thank you for having me.

[Robert_S]

rEvolutionist, I don't recall anybody portraying the mods at ratskep (other than you, of course) as an "evil bunch of anti-free speech dictators." However, you can put me down for uptight, close-minded, rigid, irrational and rather cowardly.

Cowardly?!? FFS.

I think that many of us think that strong people do not need to cower from controversial viewpoints and differing opinions. In fact, I think that strong people welcome the opportunities to substantiate, as best as they can, their ideas, and welcome chances to justify what they believe and how they came to believe what they do.

You're right. We're all so weak over there. Thanks for setting us straight.

As was pointed out earlier in this thread, the rule against group attacks came about because the users demanded it.

FIFY.

This is a nice thread to tell the story from your perspective, should you want to.

[LaMont Cranston]

rEvolutionist, Actually I didn't say that all of the folks at ratskep are weak, and you have no chance of attributing those words to me. However, your attempts to attribute words like that to myself and others speak volumes about your own defensiveness and the weakness of your arguments.

I suspect that the folks who started ratskep were more than a bit shell-shocked at the meltdown of Dawkins as a person and RDF as a forum. Because some of those folks felt that way, they were (and apparently still are) quick to hit the old panic button. I haven't followed the goings on at ratskep much, but I'm under the impression that Kiki, Gallstones and a number of others who I know to be good people have run into some problems with the rigid, uptight atmosphere that exists at ratskep.

Yes, weak people think they have to cower and be protected from controversial and emotionally charged ideas and viewpoints. More than that, they think that it is their self-appointed duty to protect others from those same things, whether or not those others have asked for that protection. Some of us don't want or need the protection; we know we are fully capable of fighting our own battles.

[Warren Dew]

I don't know, but I have a feeling that the reason those rules are in place was little to do with cowardice and a great deal to do with being fed up with trolls spamming up the boards.

If you define "troll" to mean "someone the moderator persoally disagrees with", perhaps.

[Imagination Theory]

rEvolutionist, Actually I didn't say that all of the folks at ratskep are weak, and you have no chance of attributing those words to me. However, your attempts to attribute words like that to myself and others speak volumes about your own defensiveness and the weakness of your arguments.

I suspect that the folks who started ratskep were more than a bit shell-shocked at the meltdown of Dawkins as a person and RDF as a forum. Because some of those folks felt that way, they were (and apparently still are) quick to hit the old panic button. I haven't followed the goings on at ratskep much, but I'm under the impression that Kiki, Gallstones and a number of others who I know to be good people have run into some problems with the rigid, uptight atmosphere that exists at ratskep.

Yes, weak people think they have to cower and be protected from controversial and emotionally charged ideas and viewpoints. More than that, they think that it is their self-appointed duty to protect others from those same things, whether or not those others have asked for that protection. Some of us don't want or need the protection; we know we are fully capable of fighting our own battles.

You admit you haven't followed the goings on at ratskep much. So anyway, here you go. This is the "problems with the rigid, uptight atmosphere that exists at ratskep that Kiki and GS have run into. "


Read page 36 to 37.
http://www.rationalskepticism.org/news- ... 7-700.html

This is the Mod note.

MODNOTE
Kiki5711 your post here where you write:

fuck you dude! now go and report that you pussy!

is unacceptable and clearly a breach of the forum users agreement.
Warning issued for personal attack, insult on a fellow member. As you have previously accrued 3 warnings your account will be suspended for one month.

Read page 15 to 16.
http://www.rationalskepticism.org/feedb ... 3-300.html

This is the Mod note.

MODNOTE


Gallstones, formal warning for trolling issued for this post

How about you take you leniency and shove it?


I will not be patronized in public then told I can't respond.
Do your worst.

I can taste the rejoicing already.

As per the Forum Users Agreement, Trolling;

posting disruptive and/or inflammatory content. posting off-topic content after being asked by staff to stay on-topic.


It should be pointed out that you were not told you could not respond, you were in fact directed to several avenues of response as per the modnote from starr.
This advice still stands.

[LaMont Cranston]

Imagination Theory, Thank you for posting that stuff. I've always liked Kiki going back to our days on RDF, and I have an even higher opinion of her now. The fact that she is that up-in-your-face and fiery makes her all the more likeable to me.

It took me awhile to get next to Gallstones, but I fully believe that she is another strong, no bullshit kind of person who has a genuine appreciation of beauty, nature and a lot of other things.

Yes, the people at ratskep have gotten rid of some of us shit-stirrers, and I think that ratskep is all the poorer and much duller for it. I don't expect this to happen, but I think that if the mods at ratskep really had balls, they'd issue apologies to those of us they found too difficult to deal with and welcome us back with open arms. Of course, it would take strong people to do something like that...

[kiki5711]

MODNOTE
Kiki5711 your post here where you write:

kiki5711 wrote:
fuck you dude! now go and report that you pussy!

is unacceptable and clearly a breach of the forum users agreement.
Warning issued for personal attack, insult on a fellow member. As you have previously accrued 3 warnings your account will be suspended for one month.

I posted that on purpose. I knew they were going to shit bricks about it and I welcome their suspension as I have no intention posting there again.

ANd posting that here just makes you look like a whine ass too.

[Imagination Theory]

Imagination Theory, Thank you for posting that stuff. I've always liked Kiki going back to our days on RDF, and I have an even higher opinion of her now. The fact that she is that up-in-your-face and fiery makes her all the more likeable to me.

It took me awhile to get next to Gallstones, but I fully believe that she is another strong, no bullshit kind of person who has a genuine appreciation of beauty, nature and a lot of other things.

Yes, the people at ratskep have gotten rid of some of us shit-stirrers, and I think that ratskep is all the poorer and much duller for it. I don't expect this to happen, but I think that if the mods at ratskep really had balls, they'd issue apologies to those of us they found too difficult to deal with and welcome us back with open arms. Of course, it would take strong people to do something like that...

I don't know either of them, but I'm sure they are likable and great people. Definitely. They did break the FUA though, which they agreed to follow when they signed up. It isn't as if the Mods are out to get them.

If they or others want the rules changed they and all members can discuss it. However until they are changed all members must follow the current rules or face the consequences.


You think it is duller but I think it is better. I guess that is why I am more over there and you more over here. *Shrugs*

I'm sorry, but could you give me your definition of "strong"?

[Imagination Theory]

MODNOTE
Kiki5711 your post here where you write:

kiki5711 wrote:
fuck you dude! now go and report that you pussy!

is unacceptable and clearly a breach of the forum users agreement.
Warning issued for personal attack, insult on a fellow member. As you have previously accrued 3 warnings your account will be suspended for one month.

I posted that on purpose. I knew they were going to shit bricks about it and I welcome their suspension as I have no intention posting there again.

ANd posting that here just makes you look like a whine ass too.

Yeah, I thought so. It is still against the rules though. You didn't think it was unfair of them to do, did you?

What do you mean whine ass TOO? Who else do you think is a "whine ass"?

[devogue]

Even I'm bored shitless of this thread now.

Any chance of some decent drama folks, a proper inter-forum shitstorm preferably?