Cracking down on racism?

I'd say that discrimination of any kind, such as racism, misoginy and so on count as opinions that we wouldn't want in our site.

Context, wording and so on tend to help. And even then, you can always just ask and see how the debate flows.

Not like it matters much, playing devil's advocate is hardly a crime or something bannable.

The existence of a rule does not stop a behaviour, that is indeed correct, but it means there are no excuses. If a rule is broken, then there's a legitimate reason to provide punishment. As simple as it goes, really.

Not to mention that it still works as a deterrent and as a way to make sure people are aware of wills and won'ts in the site.

I don't think that alllowing people with racist/misogynist tendencies is necessary for legitimate conversation.

Which is a problem in general. I don't see how it's necessary to tolerate extremism for the sake of a good debate. I'm not saying that we should ban people because they represent far left or far right. I don't mind stuff like that, but when the arguments are as extremists as those that are presented in OTC regularly, then there's a problem.

Stepping out of the way and allowing their problematic attitude is condoning their behaviour.

Yes, everything needs to be checked in a case-by-case basis.

But the rules are not being asked because of this. We're asking for rules because

A) a lot of things are ambiguous. Dickery is a subjective standard. Which means that a lot of people are not willing to automatically report the "dicks" because they're unsure about whether they'll get anything for their holler

b) People need to know what can't be done and can be done. New people aren't always familiar with them and it's better to be safe and sorry.

Well, if nothing else, I can see that I'm glad I generally avoid OTC.

I know that there's a lot of ambiguity in the rules, but as someone who regularly deals with one select chunk of U.S. law, I can tell you that it doesn't matter how many rules you're dealing with. There's always ambiguity and parts where you're splitting hairs.

Moreover, the granularity of the rules shifts. There might be a shift based on how someone's interpreting the rules today. There might be a shift due to evolving attitudes towards grey-area potential violations by the community at large. There might be a shift simply because someone put in a new rule that needs to be harmonized with old rules and rulings. That's why people say that the law is a living thing - it constantly evolves.

In an organization that does listen to its base, such as this one, a rules change has to be such that the leaders feel comfortable using the new rule as well as one that the userbase will accept.

The flaw that I can see in this discussion is that the leaders, the mods, feel comfortable with the current rules base, while at least one segment of the userbase does not accept it fully. Moreover, vague generalities about specific rules are being suggested, but actual specific rules are not.

I would suggest that, if users wish to have more specific rules in place, they start suggesting specific rules to add for moderator consideration. It's much easier to argue for the merits and drawbacks of a specific rule rather than a general idea of what a specific rule would be.

Perhaps almost tangental to the conversation, I actually like the rules as they stand. I know what a pain it is to moderate an online discussion, and how it can frequently lag behind other life duties. They aren't perfect, but I feel the mods do a pretty good job with what's already in place.

I should add something else: if this is primarily about OTC behavior, then it falls back to the topic of this thread, which is whether it's worthwhile having OTC on the forums at all if it keeps causing all this drama.

Let me assert one other thing, though: we do not wish to be in a position of appearing to engage in censorship merely because some people feel uncomfortable. It would be entirely too easy to fall into the trap of banning people for holding, say, highly conservative viewpoints (or conversely, anarchist or atheist or what have you). Then we are no longer a place where people can have a conversation.

Even Wikipedia's definition of hate speech is ambiguous as to what, precisely, constitutes it.

Edited to add: Do we really give the impression that hollering something that we decide isn't a problem is going to get you in trouble? If you holler something in good faith, I don't see why we'd punish you for it. Repeated frivolous hollering is a different issue, of course, but I can count the number of cases we've had of that on one hand, and it's nearly always a troper with a vendetta against another troper.

edited 24th Oct '11 9:46:24 AM by Fighteer

The only case I can recall where we did take action against someone for abusing the holler button, (1) all we did was take away their ability to holler and (2) we only did so after warning them via PM.

@Fighteer

But there's a difference between conservatism and bigotry. Somebody may want increased border patrol, but that's not the same as "These foreigners are taking away the white goodness of America". And people may want immigrants to at least speak English as a second/third language, but that's not the same as saying not to speak anything but English at all.

Precisely. The line has to be drawn, but it also has to be flexible enough to accommodate people expressing their opinions. Have you reported people crossing the line to bigotry? What, if anything, has been the result?

Never mind, the tempban wasn't for believing Muslims needed to stay out of the West, it was for personal attacks.

Well, Shichibukai was banned and I never hollered any other racism.

edited 24th Oct '11 2:04:15 PM by Loid

Okay, and to your mind is this a proper or improper use of moderation? What about Shichibukai? You keep talking as if he should have been banned a long time ago, and yet we did not collectively decide that he crossed the line into hate speech until he reposted that Stormfront article — which we did not realize until it was brought to our attention via hollers.

If anything, the moral I'm seeing is that we need more hollers. And you have yet to provide any evidence that someone got in trouble for excessive hollers who was not using them to harrass another troper — a whopping one case.

I wouldn't have a problem with Shichibukai's banning if nobody had brought up that he had expressed similar views before. Plus, the only reason that anybody realized that the quote was racist was that it came from Stormfront, instead of realizing it was racist from its content. This means that if he had paraphrased enough, he could still be here, arguing his racist points. In addition, what about people who agreed with his quote, shouldn't they be banned too?

And as for the reason the report button isn't used, I don't because I don't think it will do anything.

So apparently in your ideal world anyone with racist viewpoints would be banned on sight from these forums, whether they actively engage in hate speech or not? What happened to freedom of speech?

As for "don't think it will do anything", have you actually tried? What factual evidence are you basing that on? I cannot think of a single holler that we have not investigated and given due attention to.

edited 24th Oct '11 2:47:13 PM by Fighteer

@Fighteer

So we have full freedom of speech on TV Tropes? And if we won't ban for intolerant views, then what viewpoint is going too far?

As for the second point, Raw Power was banned, came back, was banned again, and when he came back again, mods outright refused to ban him for weeks. Same with I Yellalot when he became Guy In White. Mount Fire Eyes was protected despite him obviously being Blaze Bullet. Hell, Chagen still views the site through a sockpuppet. So, it seems natural that reporting may seem futile.

edited 24th Oct '11 3:00:35 PM by Loid

I have read the thread you are talking of, Loid. Whether the position Shichibukai voiced in his initial post was 'racist' or not depends somewhat on what you understand as 'racism'.

From what I gathered, Shichibukai defines (defined?) himself as a 'racialist' — someone who believes that "race differences are scientific facts" and that they are important factors for culture/politics/whatever, while maintaining that the acknowledgement of these (supposed) facts is value-free. In other words, they claim not to be racists.

Whether you regard that claim as true or not depends on what definition of "racism" you use. I think it's indeed racism, but I know many people don't, because many (most?) think that it's only "racism" when it involves pejorative terms or 'hate speech' directed at a minority. But Shichibukai, as far as I followed his posts, did not do that.

edited 24th Oct '11 2:57:55 PM by LordGro

Let's not go down the "freedom of speech" argument. As this is not a government-run website, the issue of "freedom of speech," even when you start accounting for the grey areas as analyzed by the Supreme Court, is moot here. And honestly, it's a distraction.

I think the point is that, rather than simply say that the holler button won't work, give it a try and see what happens.

I will note, though, that if a mod isn't actively participating in the thread, waiting for the holler to get a response can take some time. I once had a holler that wasn't answered for about a full day (though the mod did end up agreeing with me in the case in question). Be patient.

I just wanted to note this:

I recall a time period when OTC saw little use, but was mostly drama-free. Most of the forum drama was instead in IJBM. One of the arguments against removing IJBM was that it channeled the forum's drama, and that without IJBM, we'd see a lot more drama in OTC. Whoops.

Even if "Freedom of Speech" as defined in the U.S. Constitution and assorted legal precedents is not explicitly in effect here, we do not wish to create an environment in which people are afraid to hold controversial viewpoints, lest we become a true "hugbox" (to borrow a convenient term).

Where it crosses the line is where it becomes hate speech. I already linked to Wikipedia's definition of hate speech and will not attempt to define it further. It also crosses the line when it becomes a vehicle for incivility towards individual tropers or tropers as a group ("all you weeaboos", for example).

Again, if you don't report it, and we don't see it because we aren't active in the thread, it won't get dealt with. This is common sense.

Valid point, but I don't see a lot of topics with the "IJBM feel" that got that forum removed. Most of them invite genuine discussion.

edited 24th Oct '11 4:16:40 PM by Fighteer

We have freedom of speech guys, unless we want to complain about video games

", but as someone who regularly deals with one select chunk of U.S. law, I can tell you that it doesn't matter how many rules you're dealing with. There's always ambiguity and parts where you're splitting hairs."

You would agree, however, that the more precise a law and the more objective a ruling, the fairer the outcome tends to be? Now we don't need to get anywhere near that precise because the mods will be retaining their ability to use their judgement in borderline cases.

"I would suggest that, if users wish to have more specific rules in place, they start suggesting specific rules to add for moderator consideration."

I was waiting until we had decided whether new rules were needed or not before trying to think up a bunch of rules, but sure, excellent point. After supper I'll draft a few examples up.

"I should add something else: if this is primarily about OTC behavior, then it falls back to the topic of this thread, which is whether it's worthwhile having OTC on the forums at all if it keeps causing all this drama."

Of the three examples I used earlier only one was from OTC. schiheebeejeebees is just coming up more often because I doubt many people remember the cybering incident or feel that its removal was all that controversial.

"Let me assert one other thing, though: we do not wish to be in a position of appearing to engage in censorship merely because some people feel uncomfortable. It would be entirely too easy to fall into the trap of banning people for holding, say, highly conservative viewpoints (or conversely, anarchist or atheist or what have you"

I trust you and the rest of the moderators to be able to distinguish strong view points from bigotry.

"If anything, the moral I'm seeing is that we need more hollers."

which is one of the big pros I see coming from having the rules be more precise. I know I'm not alone in saying that I've seen something that might qualify for "dickish" behavior but decided against hollering because goddamnit, that is way too subjective a basis for me to report someone.

"So apparently in your ideal world anyone with racist viewpoints would be banned on sight from these forums, whether they actively engage in hate speech or not? What happened to freedom of speech?"

It's rather hard to be a racist and not engage in hate speech. But yes, in theory, you could be a racist on this site and not engage in hate speech and therefore not need to be banned. I don't know how on earth that would happen but sure.

I'd also like to say that I doubt IJBM was a contribution to this problem. A lot of the strong opinion people were in OTC before or came after the deletion of IJBM.

@Fighteer

There's a difference between a hugbox and a place where everybody understands each other and there isn't hate over the color of your skin. Or should I tolerate people who hate me for no good reason? Plus, it's better to be a racist than to hate people who worship their ignorant view of a foreign country? Because that's what weeaboo means. And finally, what bad behavior is the "hugbox" allowing? Too many civil rights?

edited 24th Oct '11 4:54:13 PM by Loid

In any debate, if you only allow in the points of view that you like, nothing new or interesting develops. Honestly, many of the OTC threads only become fun to participate in when someone with contrary views joins in. I may not like them, but they give us something to actually debate.

As for "weeaboo", I used it as an example. If someone posted, "All you Jews should just go back to Israel," I'd slam that in a heartbeat. Again give us examples of racist behavior on the forums. Don't tell me that the rules don't work unless you're prepared to offer proof.

Shichibukai was banned. It may have taken a while but it happened. That's a win, not a fail.

edited 24th Oct '11 5:33:39 PM by Fighteer

Once again, everybody who agreed with those racist beliefs were left alone, so that's a net loss.

"Honestly, many of the OTC threads only become fun to participate in when someone with contrary views joins in."

How is that relevant? Unless you're saying it's fun to debate with a racist or a sexist.

"Again give us examples of racist behavior on the forums. Don't tell me that the rules don't work unless you're prepared to offer proof." Do you really want us bringing examples of this into an open thread? I thought we were against that sort of thing.

Honestly, if you guys see something you construe as racist, holler it to the mods and they'll deal with it. The rules don't need to be fixed as they really aren't broke. And really, if you take issue with some things you construe as racist, just skip over the troper in question's posts.

yes, because ignoring dickery is truly what should be done in order to improve a forum and its discussion value.

It's a pyrrhic victory at best. Yes, you banned him, but it toook too damn long and way too many threads got nuked and thumped as well as many people got aggravated.

that's not a win, neither a fail. It's just an empty win.

Well, we've gotten to the point where people who can't find their shift key are complaining about the speed of the free service. We're done here.