Red Diamond Threads

[Camikaze]

That's beside the point, and you're being completely disingenuous here; you have pretty much said "some opinions are more "right" than others on CFC". When will this be reflected within the rules?

Let's Godwinn this.

If your opinion is 'Hitler was an awesome dude', then that opinion is not right for CFC's standards. That's already in the rules as an opinion that is going to produce a negative reaction because our members aren't a bunch of white supremacists.

If you said 'Stalin was an awesome dude', we're going to give more leeway to that. That's because within an American context, that is not as contentious a statement. Now, in an eastern European context, for example, for a lot of people it would be as bad as the Hitler statement, as I'm sure you know. If most of our members were from eastern Europe, then we'd perhaps have to consider that trolling or inappropriate, as it's something that's going to produce a negative reaction. But most of our members are not from eastern Europe, so we're not using that as the standard.

What I've said is that we expect common decency. That is necessarily subjective, and we take the standard that is appropriate to most members. That can't please everyone (a white supremacist certainly wouldn't be happy if you were to infract them for anti-semitic rants). Doesn't mean that we are applying our personal opinions to the subject; naturally our interpretation of the acceptable standard is going to be informed by our own beliefs and social context, but that doesn't mean we are making some sort of conscious decision to quash critical opinions, as you seem to be suggesting. I think I've been very vocal in this thread about my opinion on that death; I'm certainly not of the opinion that those disagreeing with me are more 'right', else I wouldn't be arguing the point.

 

[nonconformist]

Again completely disingenuous; we are perfectly within our rights to say Hitler was awesome if we do not specifically mention racial policy.

However, you seem to imply that antisemitism is fine, *if* it comes from the right place.

Again, let me bring up Maggie Thatcher; what will be the policy when she dies?

Cos if you insist on this asinine "don't say anything unless you've got something nice to say" bollocks, the only people posting in that thread are gonna be Americans.

Be consistent, or reflect in the rules that consistency doesn't matter, and that this site is targeted towards people of a certain background

 

[Dreadnought]

Do moderators moderate posts or just reported posts?

 

[Quackers]

Again completely disingenuous; we are perfectly within our rights to say Hitler was awesome if we do not specifically mention racial policy.

However, you seem to imply that antisemitism is fine, *if* it comes from the right place.

Again, let me bring up Maggie Thatcher; what will be the policy when she dies?

Cos if you insist on this asinine "don't say anything unless you've got something nice to say" bollocks, the only people posting in that thread are gonna be Americans.

Be consistent, or reflect in the rules that consistency doesn't matter, and that this site is targeted towards people of a certain background

You would never think Thatcher won 3 elections and was in power for 11 years reading this

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Do moderators moderate posts or just reported posts?

If a moderator is reading a thread and happens upon any post that violates the rules, he/she could infract it.

You would never think Thatcher won 3 elections and was in power for 11 years reading this

Just because a politician stays in power for more than one term, that doesn't mean the politician is liked by the majority. That's the current situation now in Canada with Stephen Harper.

 

[Quackers]

Well Thatcher won majorities in 3 elections so your wrong. So relatively she was "more liked" then the other parties.
Leftists can't accept democracy when it goes against them

 

[Quackers]

1979 Election map. Blue = CON. Yellow = LIB DEM. Red = LAB.

99% of people dancing on her grave? Maybe 99% of misorgynists

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Well Thatcher won majorities in 3 elections so your wrong. So relatively she was "more liked" then the other parties.
Leftists can't accept democracy when it goes against them

But was it a majority of the entire UK population that was eligible to vote, or just a majority of the people who did vote?

Anyway, we could better argue this in a different thread...

 

[Cutlass]

Well Thatcher won majorities in 3 elections so your wrong. So relatively she was "more liked" then the other parties.
Leftists can't accept democracy when it goes against them

That was then. This is now.

 

[Grisu]

You guys should just say that you screwed up with the Winehouse thread, or you overreacted with the Jobs thread. Either way, I don't mind, as long as you learn from it. Because if you can't learn from it, how the hell are we supposed to learn from it?

I, for one, agree that we didn't handle those two threads the same, and I think we should have come down much harder on the Winehouse thread. Just reading it made me want to infract some posts, and I don't know why I didn't do that back then as I remember at least browsing that thread.

Do moderators moderate posts or just reported posts?

both, but due to the sheer number of posts in OT it's much liklier that we act on a specific post if it's reported.

 

[Kozmos]

The whole moderation became like a nanny state. Worse than GameFAQs and you can't even mention nazi or homosexual there without it getting autoflagged for review. Even worse yet it is now completely up to the arbitrary standards of the mod online what is a discussion or not. It used to be a forum, now it is a debate club and I have to standards and arguments why I like ice cream or pizza more.

 

[metatron]

[...]

 

[LucyDuke]

Lucy (and this goes to some of the things non-com posted and I hope will be my last comment here),

All I can say is that was during a time when I wasn't active on the forum, so I can't comment on why the posts were or were not infracted. I looked through the first 4 pages and saw only 1 reported post (which was dealt with).

So, if posts aren't reported, not much I can do. Nor do I possess a time machine to go and deal with things that I might have handled differently had I been more active at the time.

Do cops catch or even notice all crime? Of course not. While a lot of stuff gets reported to us, tons of stuff that should be does not.

I'm not sure what you mean about the contradicting sentences. And no, I'm not being obtuse.

I wasn't trying to point out inconsistency. I haven't looked closely at the Steve Jobs thread for a couple of reasons, one of which is relevant. My point was that there was actually interesting content in the Amy Winehouse thread. Not very interesting, but it was more discussion than just useless eulogy.

We do not need nor do I want a rule for "RIP" threads.

If you want to argue how good or bad or their company/politics/music career was, fine, start a new thread.

This looks like a rule against talking about how good or bad someone's accomplishments were in their dedicated RIP thread.

 

[nonconformist]

I, for one, agree that we didn't handle those two threads the same, and I think we should have come down much harder on the Winehouse thread. Just reading it made me want to infract some posts, and I don't know why I didn't do that back then as I remember at least browsing that thread.

Thank you, Grisu. You, unlike many of your colleagues have actually admitted error and fault, and I think that's a step in the right direction.

 

[EnglishCrusader]

Let's Godwinn this.

If your opinion is 'Hitler was an awesome dude', then that opinion is not right for CFC's standards. That's already in the rules as an opinion that is going to produce a negative reaction because our members aren't a bunch of white supremacists.

If you said 'Stalin was an awesome dude', we're going to give more leeway to that. That's because within an American context, that is not as contentious a statement. Now, in an eastern European context, for example, for a lot of people it would be as bad as the Hitler statement, as I'm sure you know. If most of our members were from eastern Europe, then we'd perhaps have to consider that trolling or inappropriate, as it's something that's going to produce a negative reaction. But most of our members are not from eastern Europe, so we're not using that as the standard.

What I've said is that we expect common decency. That is necessarily subjective, and we take the standard that is appropriate to most members. That can't please everyone (a white supremacist certainly wouldn't be happy if you were to infract them for anti-semitic rants). Doesn't mean that we are applying our personal opinions to the subject; naturally our interpretation of the acceptable standard is going to be informed by our own beliefs and social context, but that doesn't mean we are making some sort of conscious decision to quash critical opinions, as you seem to be suggesting. I think I've been very vocal in this thread about my opinion on that death; I'm certainly not of the opinion that those disagreeing with me are more 'right', else I wouldn't be arguing the point.

So basically you are saying that some opinions are better than others, based on what people on these forums think of them?

 

[_random_]


If your opinion is 'Hitler was an awesome dude', then that opinion is not right for CFC's standards. That's already in the rules as an opinion that is going to produce a negative reaction because our members aren't a bunch of white supremacists.

If you said 'Stalin was an awesome dude', we're going to give more leeway to that. That's because within an American context, that is not as contentious a statement. Now, in an eastern European context, for example, for a lot of people it would be as bad as the Hitler statement, as I'm sure you know. If most of our members were from eastern Europe, then we'd perhaps have to consider that trolling or inappropriate, as it's something that's going to produce a negative reaction. But most of our members are not from eastern Europe, so we're not using that as the standard.

I think either of these would be entirely dependent on context. If somebody is a supporter of a strong national military or punctual trains, they could reasonably say that, in the context of promoting these things, Hitler was an awesome dude. And if somebody's opinion is that Jews and Christians ought to be persecuted by the state, then they shouldn't be able to point to praise Stalin as a supporter of views that, according to the forum rules, can't be expressed because their hateful nature. On the other hand, somebody could point to a generally well-regarded figure like Abraham Lincoln as a positive example of opposing interracial marriage, and that would also be unacceptable. Moderator judgement should be based on if the point expressed is truly hateful, not on which figures are invoked.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Well, I was going to just post my views on how the first 90 days of the RD thread trial had been going and I find three pages of folks complaining because they feel the right to publicly hate dead people has been violated. And all because a mod preempted the expected hateful posts by changing the status to RD.

Whose opinions matter most? For 98% of the posts here, no one's matters most, but for the 3% that get folks riled up enough to report, the moderators and admins opinions count more than yours. The minute you post a controversial (to someone) item, your opinion becomes secondary to those who have the responsibility to try and keep a semblance of order. Just like your opinions, the opinions of staff are biased by a lifetime of experience and their time as a mod here.

Why would we even want to try and control what goes on in OT? Mark wondered why anyone would even attempt to keep a place like OT from being as amusing as possible especially when the effort is both so unappreciated and Sisyphean. The only reason I can see is that to not make the effort would create an even bigger mess that may not be any more amusing. For many, cfc is a second home and I cannot see a good reason to encourage any more dis-functionality than we already have.

About consistency.Don't count on it. It is about as likely to happen as you all are to stop complaining about the moderation or stopping trolling those you disagree with. CFC is too diverse across its members, its forums, and its staff for any real consistency to happen. A better and more reasonable goal would be less ill will, less hateful posting, and more civility. But if we accomplished that, I'm sure you all would complain that all the fun had been driven out of OT.

And for those of you gleefully anticipating the death of M Thatcher so you can celebrate her passing in public, I suggest that you start your own "Ding dong the witch is dead!" thread and let those who will mourn her have their own RIP thread. There is little sense in trying to integrate the two. I'll even make yours a RD to make sure that no one sings her praises where you have to bear reading them.

I guess I'll get back the RD thread business next.

 

[choxorn]

Whose opinions matter most? For 98% of the posts here, no one's matters most, but for the 3% that get folks riled up enough to report,

98 + 3 = 100?

 

[Birdjaguar]

98 + 3 = 100?

I couldn't decide between 97% and 98% so I decided to allow for both options.

 

[Grisu]

Thank you, Grisu. You, unlike many of your colleagues have actually admitted error and fault, and I think that's a step in the right direction.

Well, if we did it regularly it would probably be PDMA but joking aside, I don't think this is a fair or accurate statement. I've seen quite a few instances were mods have indeed admitted error (of course, I would have seen more than you of those since not all of those statements are in the public boards). But I can't think of any active mod who would have a problem with admitting a mistake if it's been made. Such things happen and it's not possible to completely rule those out without replacing us with moderating bots or something.

As for inconsitency, of course this does and will happen. with 10+ active moderators in OT it's not possible to achieve that every post will be dealt with in exactly the same way. We do discuss reported posts and infractions in staff to keep consistency as high as possible, but 100% consistence will never be achieved.