An Open Letter Re: Mods

[yo man im awesome]

Re: An Open Letter Re: Mods

if there is tension here it is for petty reasons and you cannot convince me otherwise.......... idiot

There isn't a SHRED OF TENSION in here I swear to GOD just RELAX OKAY you don't have to be so BIG TEXT there's NO TENSION

[Charu]

Re: An Open Letter Re: Mods

Welp, that's THAT I guess.

Pressing F for Xel

F

(Context was name calling and leave it at that)

[dAnceguy117]

Re: An Open Letter Re: Mods

it was an intentional "ban me" post, move along yall

[aperson]

Re: An Open Letter Re: Mods

[-paexaea-]

Re: An Open Letter Re: Mods

man what in the fuck is going on

[gold stinger]

Re: An Open Letter Re: Mods

forum riots? idk

[rushyrulz]

Re: An Open Letter Re: Mods

there's a difference between insinuating black people are a different race as a humorous quip (tastes may vary) and saying "Dude, ******s should just leave the country, I can't stand the idea all these children having a negro as their parent"

the rules may say it's not allowed to post content which is racist but can we really not see the difference between having a dubious sense of humor and being... actually fucking racist?

I think your rule is completely stupid. You are telling me that in the precise context of that post, I am "inciting violence against women" which is not at all the correct context of that post even remotely.

Just gonna post my opinion on this topic. I know devonin disagrees with me on this, but I don't think any word is inherently racist or otherwise offensive (i.e., people who use a historically racist word, not in a racist context are not being racists by using the word). If I were running the show, I would certainly use a bit of discretion around these words as they are not always used vitriolically. However, I do not run the show, and it is the moderation leads' opinions and mandate that any usage of any slurs/racist/homophobic/transphobic/etc. words is an immediate ban. While I may not agree with it myself on a personal level, I will abide by it and enforce it as an MP mod myself.

Should posts be removed?
This is not free speech. By using this forum, you agree to abide by its rules, however much you may personally disagree with them. Not all posts that break the rules are removed, but some that are particularly nasty will (I know some/most of you didn't see Travis' post, but the ban and post removal was definitely warranted as it was genuinely transphobic).

Should users see what caused a ban?
Because this site's policy is to remove posts that explicitly violate its rules, full transparency isn't possible. You don't get to see the juicy context because making it available to you defeats the purpose of its removal in the first place. As a community, we need to trust that bans are deserved, and bear in mind that there is an appellate system as well if the banned user doesn't feel in fault.

[devonin]

Re: An Open Letter Re: Mods

Just gonna post my opinion on this topic. I know devonin disagrees with me on this, but I don't think any word is inherently racist or otherwise offensive (i.e., people who use a historically racist word, not in a racist context are not being racists by using the word).

I've heard the exact opposite from like 99% of all members of historically oppressed classes I've ever seen give an opinion about this. So you're not just disagreeing with me on this, you're disagreeing with the impacted people who are saying "No, even in a context you think is not hateful, using that word is hateful to us" which, of course, you can believe all you want.

[G.S.M]

Re: An Open Letter Re: Mods

how dare the mods do their jobs

HOW DARE THEY

[roundbox]

Re: An Open Letter Re: Mods

Re: word filters

Word filters don't solve the problem. Sentences have context and it's pretty dang obvious whatever offensive word you're using.
For example, if someone said, "Go back to (country) you (censored word)," it would be painfully obvious what the censored word would be based off of whatever country the person listed.
Does it prevent us from seeing the word? Yes. Does it prevent us from knowing what offensive remark was used? Not likely. Does it stop the offender being a bigot? Nope.
How hard is it to avoid a handful of words from a language when there are thousands upon thousands of other words?

[DaBackpack]

Re: An Open Letter Re: Mods

The issue at hand there is that the only reason that word does what she claims it does, is because people like her have given it that pedestal and power to do so. My like or dislike of Raeko aside, what I have to say about it remains the same. Censoring it doesn't solve the issue, removing the power from it does. You do this by not giving it that power in the first place.

No amount of you saying this is going to make it (non-vacuously) true

EDIT: I honestly can't believe certain people in this thread are being so pedantic about rules

There's these things called "common sense" and "inference" which, even if wording in a rules thread isn't clearly defined, help you get an idea of what not the fuck to do in the forum. It's not a goddamn legal document, it's a set of heuristics that help you not get kicked out of FFR.

It's pitiful that you need an itemized list of "what specific versions of the n-word can I use" as if being on the internet absolves you of any responsibility of being an actual decent human being. If the rules say "don't use slurs", why in God's name would you try to find out what specifically constitutes a slur? It's embarrassing.

I have no reason to suspect that bans are being given without transparency. What I do see is people trying to find out exactly where the line is and getting booted for toeing it. This isn't a transparency issue. Nobody has any obligation to write you a letter about what specific words you can and can't use here. Again, that's just pedantic and honestly if you're that interested in those edge cases, you are most likely not acting in good faith.

You don't get serious consequences for acting in good faith. Most of the ban cases I see are of people acting in bad faith, trying to "push limits" as if this social media platform is a fucking video game. There are bugs in this game, there are objects you can clip through, but if you actively trying to exploit the system then you deserve to be banned.

[gold stinger]

Re: An Open Letter Re: Mods

It's pitiful that you need an itemized list of "what specific versions of the n-word can I use" as if being on the internet absolves you of any responsibility of being an actual decent human being. If the rules say "don't use slurs", why in God's name would you try to find out what specifically constitutes a slur? It's embarrassing.

Here's a very good example on context that also bridges the current major Open Letter threads in the process. Shows that there's a difference between whether something can be damaging/attacking, or can describe a situation in a way that isn't meant to be damaging/attacking.

i check back on this site occasionally and i am astounded each time to see how much further the community has managed to sink into its own collective autism-fueled degeneracy

i can only pray this is rock bottom

What happened to you man, you used to be cool.

Big ol' oof.

We all made the corn man sad and that makes me sad.

His using 'autistic' as a slur is what makes me sad.

I am inclined to agree with dbp on this one. It just takes a level of common sense and inference to get by.

[Funnygurl555]

Re: An Open Letter Re: Mods

No amount of you saying this is going to make it (non-vacuously) true

EDIT: I honestly can't believe certain people in this thread are being so pedantic about rules

There's these things called "common sense" and "inference" which, even if wording in a rules thread isn't clearly defined, help you get an idea of what not the fuck to do in the forum. It's not a goddamn legal document, it's a set of heuristics that help you not get kicked out of FFR.

It's pitiful that you need an itemized list of "what specific versions of the n-word can I use" as if being on the internet absolves you of any responsibility of being an actual decent human being. If the rules say "don't use slurs", why in God's name would you try to find out what specifically constitutes a slur? It's embarrassing.

I have no reason to suspect that bans are being given without transparency. What I do see is people trying to find out exactly where the line is and getting booted for toeing it. This isn't a transparency issue. Nobody has any obligation to write you a letter about what specific words you can and can't use here. Again, that's just pedantic and honestly if you're that interested in those edge cases, you are most likely not acting in good faith.

You don't get serious consequences for acting in good faith. Most of the ban cases I see are of people acting in bad faith, trying to "push limits" as if this social media platform is a fucking video game. There are bugs in this game, there are objects you can clip through, but if you actively trying to exploit the system then you deserve to be banned.

sorry im commenting again, but I've been accused of harassing people at school when i thought i was acting reasonably. in my case it was probably racially motivated (angry black woman trope lol) but "harass" is just too vauge a word, even for people who at least try to act in good faith. at least, im trying to do that now.

it's easy to misinterpret criticism as personal attacks if someone is criticizing something you put effort into.

[rayword45]

Re: An Open Letter Re: Mods

im not white and im not gonna argue in this shithole race bullshit argument

but i do wanna say the point of the OP is very, very valid. yeah ban whoever but please stop deleting the posts its making thread pages go poopoo

[xXOpkillerXx]

Re: An Open Letter Re: Mods

sorry im commenting again, but I've been accused of harassing people at school when i thought i was acting reasonably. in my case it was probably racially motivated (angry black woman trope lol) but "harass" is just too vauge a word, even for people who at least try to act in good faith. at least, im trying to do that now.

it's easy to misinterpret criticism as personal attacks if someone is criticizing something you put effort into.

You have any example on here?

I believe it's not a hard task to see if the criticism is loaded with harmful words or not

For example:
Your opinion on the topic seems like it's based a bit too much on rough personal experiences and not enough on actual logic.

Your fucking thought process is so damn ridiculous all you do is talk about your selfish ass, you dumbfuck

(Just an example, not srs)