Posted by Marv:
i think if someone's attacking another person directly through slurs, then that's totally uncool. and i think the board mostly self-moderates by people telling that person to cool it, with andrew and martin stepping in if they need to.
as far as statements made in the middle east thread, that was a hot topic at a hot time and imo it was all fair game. whether some guys were saying zionism is racism or ohers were saying arabs haven't contributed to society there were a lot of strong sentiments that got heavily debated. some things were said in extreme forms because emotions wre running hot and personally i thought the debate was constructive and healthy. i didn't see the need to censor or ban anyone for what went on there.
as far as bonn, again he could do things that were inflammatory, jumping on peoples' posts and saying "that's what it looks like to a casual fan" or calling them "beginners," snitting their stuff, etc. inflammatory postings are gonna draw fire eventually. the snitty gay robot reference may have gotten out of hand occassionally but bonn never changed his style of positng and kept drawing the same fire to himself imo.
i agree with you killa that personal attacks should be mininmized but i don't think this site needs any further official censoring than it currently operates with.
Marv, I wasn't really talking about the middle east thread, the comment about Arabs came before the middle east thread. I completely left the ME thread out of it, because I agree that it was hot in there, and that was just its own little universe. Everyone in there kind of left that stuff in there and moved right along.
I maybe a little off base here with the BOnn thing. What brought all of this back up for me was, last week Simrud basically in a not so roundabout way called EnySpree a ni**er, and there was no response to it from anyone other than myself. I didn't understand in any way how it was not an outrageous thing to say and I felt there should have been some kind of action taken. I didn't have the time to address it then, but now as I read a thread and Sim is saying his ni**er comment was a joke that he decided to repeat and that is somehow supposed to absolve him of any responsibility for repeating it; I am upset all over again. He seems to be taking the position that as long he didn't make up the joke its fine for him to post it here? If I googled some anti-semetic jokes and posted them would that be cool, cause they're not my jokes? I don't think its cool and I wouldn't do it, I expect the same courtesy I don't think I'm asking for anything really crazy, but I'd like to not have people throw racial slurs around so casually.
This is also now in the context of an argument where Sim is implying that he has stabbed people and stuff. I mean, I think this is going too far. Maybe its me, but I feel like a line should be drawn somewhere.
I wanted to bundle all of the stuff up together as I think they were related issues, but maybe they aren't. I seem to be off base with the Bonn thing. I am not off base with this Simrud, ni**er thing. What he said was inappropriate and I am offended by it, period. I am offended in the same way that my mouth was wide open when the Arab comment was made, and I said so then. It just seems like I am the only one who is offended by these things, but I am very clear that they are racist remarks, and people here who don't think of themselves as racists, ought to be offended as well; or maybe should start thinking of themselves as racists.
And Solace, I'm totally for applying this standard to everyone, but what racist remarks have been made here against white people, because you implied that there have been some comments made?
11/20/2006 11:56 AM