For a minute there I thought I had to get off my couch, when all the while the fact is we don't have to do anything much but keep things afloat for just a few decades more! In fact, we'd best shut up about PO, because if our offspring finds out we knew about it all along, they'll turn and wring our necks come 2036!
Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2007 3:44 pm Post subject: Question/suggestion Re: CoC
Hello,
My questions/suggestion about the CoC (code of Conduct) was prompted by an unfortunate incident which took place in one of the forums last night, where a "joke" was made about killing
all people of a certain type.
The CoC (http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic2867.html) includes a section "The following post content is subject to edit/deletion: "
which includes various categories (copyright violations,
exhorting others to commit illegal acts, etc). Above this list, but apparently not included in this list are other types of posts
to be avoided, e.g. "Avoid flaming and ad hominem attacks"
Shouldn't this be in the list itself?
More worryingly, other categories are not even included.
Say, suppose someone says "g*d hates all f*gs" -- I don't
care whether you call it hate speech, or if you call it anything
else, but whatever terms you use, such posts should be
in a category under the list of categories or types of posts
to be avoided.
Peakoil.com could say, "well that falls under off-topic posts"
since there is no forum topic about social issues (or is there?
even that claim is fudging since some forums do touch on social
issues) but be that as it may -- I think that would be a major
cop-out, a lack of taking a moral position. (There is no cernsorship issue hwere but "what type of posts are appropriate here"..this is the internet where an infinite amount of space
exists for people to spew racism, sexism, homophibia,
antisemitism, arab-hatred, etc etc all they like, all day long)
I would suggest that the easiest way to modify the CoC
is simply to add a few words that we are to be respectful
towards one another and towards all people and then
just to add that promoting hate or violence towards
any group does count as one example (among others
that come to mind) of posts which fall outside of the "be respectful" guideline.
in which a poster remarked about NEOPO's
icon (which includes a Nazi symbol combined with the
Jewish star of David in an upside down flag -- a borderline
case I will give the benefit of the doubt (as we should
when at all possible) as not directly promoting hate) and said, I paraphrase but very close to, the following "joke":
"[I'm not sure what to make of your icon]..If you're
a Jew that's ok..if you're a Nazi that's ok..If you're American I could even eventually get used to that..but [your icon is confusing]
so I don't know whether to throw you in the gas chamber,
to bomb your major cities or to hand you a f'ing coke"
The most offensive part, in bold, is verbatim, or very close
to it. The "joke" was that just as one is prompted to
"give a coke" to an American and just as one might be
prompted to bomb the cities of the Nazis, one would
be prompted to "throw you in the gas chamber"
if the person in question is Jewish. This is no less
offensive than "I don't know whether to lynch you, or.."
being suggested as appropriate (including as a "joke")
for someone being black.
I happen to have had some of my direct relatives
murdered by the Nazis, but I've spent most of my
adult life fighting against other kinds of hate,
since they are typically more common than
antisemitic hate or "jokes" -- most recently I
was the only one to (politely but directly) call somone on a post
on the PO forums saying, again nearly verbatim, that "all Asian
people should be exterminated"
The easy thing for PO.com to do, in thise case,
is very different from the right thing for PO.com
to do (and doing the right thing can be
done with small changes, could be done
quickly, easily, without being
heavy handed) so I hope PO.com will
do the right thing rather than the easy
and dismissive thing to do. I'm putting
my peakoilster's pessimism on hold
here, or trying to. The result will
affect the kind of reputation this
very important website has,
on the internet.
For the sake of clarity then: I am
proposing that the CoC needs to be modified
with a few words that indicate that "hate"
type speech falls outside of the level of politeness
expected, and falls far enough outside if that it is subjet
to post deletion and other steps outlined in the CoC.
Joined: May 15, 2005 Posts: 4144 Location: THE MATRIX
Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2007 9:45 pm Post subject: Re: Question/suggestion Re: CoC
In the past I had the same feelings and not just about racism.
In short..... I got over it.
I realized I was wrong and that freedom of speech should have no limitations.
Now I notice what I think is called reverse racism on this forum and that is when you post something controversial where race is concerned people immediately believe that you align with the subject matter and begin to call you names such as racist or anti semite.......
Yeah I totally disagree with your position as well. _________________ It is easier to enslave a people that wish to remain free then it is to free a people who wish to remain enslaved.
Joined: Oct 23, 2005 Posts: 1702 Location: East of Eden
Posted: Thu Jan 04, 2007 12:07 am Post subject: Re: Question/suggestion Re: CoC
Edpeak, chill. Insensitive remarks are irritating. Deal with it.
If you don't like what someone says, use your button. _________________ "If a path to the better there be, it begins with a full look at the worst." — Thomas Hardy
Posted: Thu Jan 04, 2007 6:07 am Post subject: Re: Question/suggestion Re: CoC
It's a balancing act we do everyday around here.
We have dedicated no small amount of time to this very topic... when is speech over the line?
No doubt some staffers will comment on this thread, so I'll use the same argument here as I have in our staff discussions.
Quote:
A child-molester & a young boy are holding hands & walking through the spooky woods late at night. After some time, the little boy says, "Hey Mr... I'm scared". The child-molester looks down at the young boy and says, "You think you're scared... I have to walk back alone".
Hate speech or just a joke?
I disagree with your calls for stronger censorship, & will fight to my last breath to defend your right to this opinion.
PAX friend... nothin' worth doin' is easy. _________________ "When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Stephen F Roberts.
Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 6:05 pm Post subject: Re: Question/suggestion Re: CoC
Aaron and others,
This thread is about suggested modifications to
the CoC, not about personal views, and I wouldn't
want to facilitate a change of topic from the
suggestion at hand, to political views. But as
they were raised, let me open by knocking off
several straw men at once; I am, for the record,
(a) in complete disagreement with laws that jail
people for what they claim did or did not happen
(b) The govt of Israel is more threatened by my
views about it than the views of just about any
other. (c) It is patently false to say I
"attempted to classify" the event as "hate speech"
-- my clear, stated goal was to have Peakoil
describe what language: "I don't care whether you
call it hate speech, or if you call it anything
else" I could have used "X" for the rest of my
post to stand for what people call posts like "g*d
hates all f*gs" [on top of that, I was using the
"hate f*gs" example not the others, when I first
used "hate speech" in a "par example" about what
language might be ultimately chosen]
And one could go on about the straw men but as I
said this is a thread about proposed changes to
CoC not a thread about Gideon's views nor mine
about European laws, etc.
It really doesn't matter what you call statements
like "g*d hates all f*gs", nor do I care, as I
indicated, what exact words one uses to describe
the following actual example, whose url I now
have. Someone wrote: "I want the asians all
dead. Period. They are a vile race...[they are]
Nasty germ like bacteria. The poster child for
humanoid parasites"
(http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic25228-0-asc-45.html)
which was the other example I saw with my own eyes
(and I was the first poster to speak out against specifically
against Racism in that case).
Interestingly, someone tried to point out how
crazy the Asian hating statement was by means of a
parody, saying "I want the women all
dead. Period. They are a vile race." One person
misunderstood and thought they were serious. Their
reply? "This is a disgusting thing to say. i don't
care if you were joking" In fact, they were not
'joking' ; they were not thinking that killing all
women is funny; quite the opposite, they were
deliberately criticizing and pointing out the
madness of statements like "all Asians are
vile". And if they were instead making a casual
joke about all women should be killed, or all
Asians, or all Jews, then the fellow who said
"This is a disgusting thing to say [even
'jokingly']" would be exactly correct.
Aaron, I very much appreciated your tone and your
sentiments in your closing statement, which is one
with which I agree..however like the preceding
poster, you seem to have completely misunderstood
my suggestion when you refer to it as my "calls
for stronger censorship" -- note the CoC states
"avoid flaming and ad hominem attacks".
Question for us all to consider: Do we consider
this current, existing phrase "censorship"?
If you consider the above existing phrase to be
censorship, then my suggestion of adding "and
hateful" would be "stronger censorship" (and it
would be interesting to hear why you believe this
existing so called censorship is ok)
But, in fact, the existing guidelines are not
censorship, and therefore adding a few words
making it, to give but one possible phrasing,
"..avoid flaming, hateful speech, and ad hominem
attacks.."
or some variant along those lines (replaced "hate"
with whatever X PO.com believes best represent the
"g*d hates all f*gs" type posts) does not in any
way and by no stretch of the imagination, change
its status from non-censorship to censorship.
Gideon's suggestion that this has anything to do
with "thought control" is absurd; can you imagine
someone calling it "thought control" that the
existing, current CoC indicates to avoid flaming
and ad hominem attacks? Neither one of these tells
you what to think. Nor do they tell you WHAT
you're allowed to say; they refer to the
cordiality, civility, and politeness, and not
attacking people personally. We shouldn't attack
groups personally either, at least not unless the
"group" is defined by an ACTION (like "the group
of SUV drivers") which clearly is not the case for
the set of all Asians or all Jews. But you know
what? I don't even think we should personally
attack even THOSE kinds of groups personally (if
you google for "hate sin lover sinner" on
peakoil.com you'll find two posts, both are by
me. I was being figurative, but the point remains)
The same goes with the suggestion that it is
"repressive of free speech" -- unless one takes
the insane position that the existing policy of
telling people to avoid "flaming and ad hominem
attacks" is somehow "repressive of free speech".
Coyote -- the ignore button means you cannot even
follow what people are saying in response. And
again, let's go back to first principles: why
isn't the ignore button good enough a reason to
delete the words "ad hominem attacks" from the
existing CoC? I'll suggest for the sake of brevity
on the "ignore button" issue, that the same
answers apply to why that's not a satisfactory answer to
"g*d hates all f*gs" or "I want all Asians
dead..they are a vile race" posts or "[are you
Jewish or not?] I don't know whether to throw you
in a gas chamber" posts either, unfortunately..
One issue I think is a serious one: the danger of
a slippery slope. I agree that's to be guarded
against. But, again, that danger already exists
with the current policy language. Personally I
don't like things to be over complicated, which is
why I have not suggested a long sentence about
"racism, homophobia, sexism, anti-semitism,
...[long list continues]" but instead suggest PO
find a short phrase of perhaps two words, perhaps
one word, which describes the above examples.
In short, there is not "call for censorship" here
any more than the existing language embodies any
"censorship" (how it's used in practice is another
matter, but as noted in the previous paragraph
that's an issue we deal with separately: the issue
of not having the CoC language misused or abused
'in practice') -- the existing language on its own
certainly is not censorship.
The existing language says: we are a community
that has a certain purpose (which topics this
community is about) and with certain norms (avoid
ad hominem, avoid flames) and adding a phrase
along the lines suggested would similarly merely
states: our norms frown on flames, yes, they frown
on ad hominem, and thirdly they frown on
Quote:
"g*d hates all f*gs" or "I want all Asians
dead..they are a vile race" posts or "[are you
Jewish or not?] I don't know whether to throw you
in a gas chamber"
posts too. And of course I'm being informal with the
phrase "frown on" I'm referring of course to simply
putting parallel language for those types of posts,
as the language for ad hominem and flames, that's
all (so the "to be avoided" etc language in other words)
This is a simple, non-censorship, easy to
implement, and positive affirmation.
Your example about the child molester raises
an important question Aaron, but it's a separate
question from the one I'm raising. Your example relates
to the question, "how do the moderators exercise judgement?"
which is a valid question, but the same question comes
up as far as flames and ad hominem: How do the moderators
exercise judgement? One could come up with examples
where it's not 100% obvious. So yes it's an important
quesiton but a separate one, it's an issue that already
exists and which I hope will be discussed and worked
on. A different question is "do we put 'avoid flaming'
in the CoC at all?" The question I'm raising falls
into the same category as this second question.
Finally, another possibly helpful idea, based on the
previous paragraph
Quote:
can you imagine someone calling it "thought
control" that the existing, current CoC indicates
to avoid flaming and ad hominem attacks? Neither
one of these tells you what to think. Nor do they
tell you WHAT you're allows to say; they refer to
the cordiality, civility, and politeness, and not
attacking people personally. We shouldn't attack
groups personally either, at least not unless the
"group" is defined by an ACTION (like "the group
of SUV drivers") which clearly is not the case for
the set of all Asians or all Jews. But you know
what? I don't even think we should personally
attack even THOSE kinds of groups personally (if
you google for "hate sin lover sinner" on
peakoil.com you'll find two posts, both are by
me. I was being figurative, but the point remains)
is to just modify the existing CoC by adding
"against any person or group" next to "ad hominem"
since I think ad-hominem-directed-against-a-group
comes pretty close to characterizing the three
examples (two actual, one hypothetical but
shorter) cited above and others like them.
Joined: Oct 04, 2004 Posts: 5136 Location: Oklahoma
Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2007 8:17 am Post subject: Re: Question/suggestion Re: CoC
Well, I was the one who removed the remarks in question from the thread. I did that under the existing Code of Conduct because they were off topic (the thread was about the drought in Australia) and disruptive (causing the thread to devolve into a flame war). Otherwise I agree with Aaron, and I am grateful that the staff discussions about this issue have given me a chance to re-evaluate it and change my point of view. _________________ "Every junkie's like a setting sun..." - Neil Young
Joined: Oct 23, 2005 Posts: 1702 Location: East of Eden
Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2007 11:11 pm Post subject: Re: Question/suggestion Re: CoC
edpeak wrote:
Coyote -- the ignore button means you cannot even
follow what people are saying in response.
Not true. At all. Give it a shot sometime. It'll make you a happier poster. _________________ "If a path to the better there be, it begins with a full look at the worst." — Thomas Hardy
Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2007 11:41 pm Post subject: Re: Question/suggestion Re: CoC
I think this board works quite well.
What is the deal that some guy comes along with a cloak of superior morality and wants to tell us what to eat, where to find humor, and what is appropriate to say.
Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2007 11:52 pm Post subject: Re: Question/suggestion Re: CoC
Is there a way to erase what I just posted?
I just realized that I made a derisive remark about the group of beings we refer to as teenagers, all in the unworthy attempt to be humorous.
I would like to apologize to anyone who may have taken offense. I did not really mean to imply that teenagers think they know everything there is to know, or that they think the world exists only for them.
Any similarity between edpeak and teenagers is I am sure coincidental, and I did not mean to imply that any of them or he, or any member on this forum, including myself, might have an underdeveloped, egocentric, paranoid, or juvenile personality.
Geesh, I keep getting in deeper in deeper. Ok, let me contact Jimmy Swaggert on how to sincerely apologize and I will update my post a little later.
Last edited by gego on Sun Jan 07, 2007 1:50 am; edited 3 times in total
Posted: Sun Jan 07, 2007 12:25 am Post subject: Re: Question/suggestion Re: CoC
Oh no. I did it again.
I wish to apologize to the Christian Right and all tel-evangelist, sinful or otherwise. I did not intend to imply that there is anything hypocritical in contriving a sincere, politically correct apology. After all Jimmy Swaggert , by his own admission did not have sex with that prostitute, but just choked the chicken while watching her dance on the hotel room dresser, a much lesser offense from a religious point of view.
Any similarity to Bill Clinton's statement that he did not have sex with that woman, and my above remark is purely a coincidence and is not intended to reflect poorly on Bill Clinton, Jimmy Swaggert, James Baker, or others, nor do I intend to imply by mentioning James Baker and prostitutes in the same post that his exwife, Tammy, may have even looked like one. I am not religious, but at this point, I am also praying that Lewinksy is not a Jewish name.
I am new at being politically correct, so give me a break.
In this thread the question is ask, "Who is hotter? Nancy Pelosi or Condoleezza Rice?" One of the respondents, who will go unnamed to protect his shameful identity, simple posted "I'm allergic to dust."
This is disgraceful. Being a member of the mature generation myself, I can only take offense at such derisive remarks about my group. Please immediately revise the Code of Conduct to make any negative remarks about advanced maturity strictly prohibited; if you let this go too far before you know it senility will be the object of offensive humor.
You may not know it, but I had grandparents who reached their 80's before they died. I think this gives me a special status to complain about hate speech directed at the "mature generation". Only someone judgmentally challenged would make such a dastardly remark about these repositories of wisdom in our society. Enough is enough.
Edited once to replace the word "fool" with the more politically correct "judgmentally challenged".
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