Why Was This Person Banned? Part 2

We've been having more of a discussion this morning on the list, and it's hard, because after having read a bunch of mahmoud's posts this morning, my radar is screaming "TROLL!" and oldgoat and I initially agreed with Maysie's assessment yesterday. 

A bunch of his posts made that radar go off, but especially the one about how he always hears people in his family talking about killing people and hating them.  Yeah, because that's the way it is in typical Muslim family life, right?  Sitting around, talking about killing the infidel?  I don't blame Maysie for looking at that, in the context of a bunch of other posts that seemed to be playing on anti-Muslim or anti-Arab tropes, and thinking he was a troll.

So this isn't a case of Maysie going off half-cocked and the other mods talking her out of it.  That's not how it went at all.  If anything, my support for reinstating mahmoud (such as it is, hesitant and not very strong) is simply because of the reaction to his banning by other babblers, who give him the benefit of the doubt.  So I'm fine with reinstating him, but I also understand why Maysie made the decision she did in the first place.

In answer to all of M. Spector's snarky remarks about the mods in the other thread: this is my workplace, and you're making it suck with your over-the-top attacks on us.  It's a hard fucking job, and it's really, really part-time - the rest is volunteer.  I'm sure you could do it way better, but I have the feeling that if you were doing it for a little while, and got a little taste of the damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't attacks we have to withstand both publicly and by e-mail and through the abuse flag feature, with some babblers demanding you take this action, other babblers demanding you take the polar opposite action, and yet other babblers demanding you do nothing at all, you might feel like taking a bit of time to think through your responses to threads like that one yesterday before posting anything, too.

We responded in a little over 24 hours.  I'm satisfied with our reaction time.

This has been a facsinating discussion. It points up the very real difficulties we all have in making ourselves understood and why literacy and education are important. Words and their meanings are so important. The cultural references and linguistic conventions we all take for granted in our own thoughts frequently don't translate well.

I have found that honest plain speaking (done in good faith) as well as sarcasm are both sometimes hard to achieve in print -- people have their feelings hurt and humour is just plain misunderstood (respectively).

The best approach is to start off with the assumption of good faith. Request clarifications if you feel that has been abused.This doesn't always happen.

Context is important. Enough context frequently reveals true meaning and intent. Investigation of context often leads to broader understanding -- a good thing, right?

Having said all that, the vast experience the moderators have with all the posters and posts have to be respected -- and most of us do, I believe.

I seem to have missed the response to the quite reasonable questions about warnings -- gentle or otherwise -- which seem to have been missing in this particular case. What was the answer, please? No rush.

I'm not sure if my position was as well articulated as remind's, but were I to sit down and really think it through with my left brain it might have sounded like that.  My response to Mahmoud was pretty similar to Michelle and Maysie, and as I said I was keeping an eye on him while doing other things.  We've had trolls through here in the past with very similar MO's, and it always seems to be about muslims.

I guess there would have been no huge harm in letting him carry on a bit longer.  I prefer a smoking gun myself, but I've certainly banned people based on instinct backed up with experience.  I always try to approach life in general with an attitude that there's a small chance of being wrong, but in this case I really don't think so.

There have been a lot of references to R_P here, which I personally have not found to be relevant, but clearly others do, so just let me say this.  When he started posting here, I was pretty much WTF???, and I probably had my finger over the big red BAN button, but I didn't have the same reaction to him as to Mahmoud.  R_P is a much more multi-dimensional and complete entity, (which says to me he's real) and once I got my head around his sub-cultural counter-cultural dialect, and yes he did have a rational justification for his use of the word 'nigga', I found I liked him.  I don't like trolls. I have spent much of my life working in children's mental health, and some time in the YOA system, and I've always liked tough edgy genuine teenagers, and I like him.  Not that my liking someone is a reason for them never to be banned.  I've banned people I like more, because I felt I had to. 

I agree, warnings are probably a good idea, although we often dispense with warnings if we feel it's pretty clear that someone is trolling (and most people don't mind that when they agree that the person was trolling).  We felt that was pretty clear in this case, but we are also open to having been mistaken, since we were clearly not on the same page as a good number of babblers on this one. 

Just to be clear, remind - mahmoud didn't say "infidel" - that was my sarcastic comment about his post where he talks about his family always going on about killing and hating people.  I suppose it's possible that his particular family does that - heck, lots of people's families are fucked up in some way or another.  But it just seemed kind of suspicious to me in conjunction with the other posts, and played into the stereotype I mentioned above, of Muslims plotting out ways to kill people they hate.

The post in question:

Quote:

i have a lot of family that talk about killing and hating ..only words... and too much full of hate.  i just ignore them and make a joke about something to change the subject...cause i cant talk about hating others all the time

Sven, is your tagline showing up automatically, or are you typing it in?  If you're typing it in, could you please stop? 

remind wrote:

You don't like a decision by a mod,  make a disagreement comment and move on, or leave.

Um, that's not what the mods are always telling us. They are always saying if you disagree, don't post it in the thread, but take it to "rabble reactions". That's what I did.

remind wrote:

Harassment, piling on and stalking of the mods is unacceptable, and of note,  it is a wonderful example of white male's notions of privilege.

Your bullshit gets awfully tiring after a while.

[double post - darn "Drupal"]

Is it possible that some number of Muslims have been purposely radicalized and taught not only to hate but trained to commit acts of violence? US whistleblower Sibel Edmonds says it is so - ever since the last years of the cold war and continuing today. 

 Oldgoat is right, there is no smoking gun in that one post of Mahmoud's. How can anyone not loathe the US-led NATO occupation of a Muslim country and Canadian soldiers helping out with the occupation and murder of Muslims in Afghanistan? I am not a Muslim, and I hate the bastards, too, and often express my frustration about that and things in general. It's not against the law.

Yes, I don't think it's easy being a moderator. It really is up to them, and I'm not criticizing them. Tough call. I did sense some  apprehensiveness in Mahmoud's comments to speak freely. And I'm not sure why.  Sometimes people just let loose with their tongues, whether it's here or in a coffee shop or wherever. I'd have allowed him a bit more rope. Again, tough call and glad I'm not the one having to make it.

Unionist wrote:

Mahmoud wrote:

i have a lot of family that talk about killing and hating ..only words... and too much full of hate.  i just ignore them and make a joke about something to change the subject...cause i cant talk about hating others all the time

Was this the worst thing?

Note where he says "only words".

I find it interesting that some people have to exaggerate the horrors of this post (which [b]may very possibly be literally true[/b]) in order to prove their contention that Mahmoud is a troll or a liar or "white".

1) Agreed. 

2) I repeat my remark that a muslim secularist's chances of being banned here would be very high; he or she would have to practice a fair bit of judicious self-censorship, which requires a fair bit of insight, and self-control. 

3) Sanizedah's comments on the other thread should be taken seriously.

I think we also need a clear definition for violating the personal attack rule. I've been suspended for what I thought was a flimsy excuse for suspension, while at other times there have been obvious troll-like breaches of the netiquette rules in general, which are also not well outlined in babble policy, and nothing done after the post was flagged by me. I don't think other babblers should be able to demand that someone be suspended, and those demands realized immediately by mods without debate or warning to the person being suspended. The rules are not always followed, and mod crackdowns, at times, seem arbitrary and lop-sided favouring certain posters. It's like the inquisition here at times.

Fidel wrote:

I think we also need a clear definition for violating the personal attack rule. I've been suspended for what I thought was a flimsy excuse for suspension, while at other times there have been obvious troll-like breaches of the netiquette rules in general, which are also not well outlined in babble policy, and nothing done after the post was flagged by me. I don't think other babblers should be able to demand that someone be suspended, and those demands realized immediately by mods without debate or warning to the person being suspended. The rules are not always followed, and mod crackdowns, at times, seem arbitrary and lop-sided favouring certain posters. It's like the inquisition here at times.

Suspensions seem very wishy washy.

"old" members get away easily with what gets new members perminately banned.  I'm  far left wing liberal but I still believe in hearing what the right wing has to say,even if just to disagree and not let them accuse us of covering our ears and ignoring them.  Wound a right wing poster get a fair chance to say their peace here? Not a chance.

Are bannings fair here? Nope.

"The rules are not always followed, and mod crackdowns, at times, seem arbitrary and lop-sided favouring certain posters. It's like the inquisition here at times."

200%

Practice what you preach.

Yes, it is understandable slumberjack, that you would feel this way. Sorry to hear you too are leaving.

If such comments were made by a self proclaimed Jewish poster, about his Jewish family, there would be no discussion of back tracking, nor would calls for a lighter decision be made, I am sure. It seems wriggle room is trying to be created to accept Muslim bashing.

SparkyOne wrote:

Practice what you preach.

And youve already turned what I said about things in generalities into something personal regarding me specifically. If you have a problem with me and my comments, why not PM me instead?  

Okay sorry bout that. It tends to happen slowly though as a thread becomes less and less about the topic of discussion and more about baiting and counterinsurgency, I mean, counter-attack against the person making the comments. Or something. It's strange how it does tend to happen and deserves some attention I think.

I think Mahmoud  made some naive and ineffectively communicated posts, but I don't believe he was a troll, or at least my definition of a troll, which is someone who posts for the sole reason of stirring up shit by posting opinions that will enrage others.

I think others have been given more slack, and as a result have added a richer tapestry of voices on babble, despite the callowness evident on some occasions.

remind wrote:

Yes, it is understandable slumberjack, that you would feel this way. Sorry to hear you too are leaving.

If such comments were made by a self proclaimed Jewish poster, about his Jewish family, there would be no discussion of back tracking, nor would calls for a lighter decision be made, I am sure. It seems wriggle room is trying to be created to accept Muslim bashing.

Oh yeah, Jew-bashing is verboten here, but muslim-bashing is A-ok.

Do you ever listen to yourself when you make these comments?

"supporting genocidal trade embargos"

The only "genocidal trade embargo" I can think of, today, is directed at a dispossessed people. The only one aimed at a nation, in recent memory, was against Iraq, although the tightening of the Cuba embargo in the 90s was intended to cause death and suffering to those people. It mostly failed.

There are some wonderful threads on babble. Most have to do with philosophy or ideas not immediately tainted by politics. A poster above suggests discourse on babble is endemic to the medium. I disagree. Listen to talk radio, cable news, read the newspapers. The discourse on babble is endemic to North American society. Babble merely reflects those who come here.

Our political discourse, as a society, has been dumbed down to talking points, ad hominen attacks, strawman arguments, and smearing the personality and character of the opponent. We no longer have debates but verbal slugfests. And it can't be avoided because once the mud starts flying everyone and everything is covered.

In part this is because the tactics of Madison Ave. have been turned to politics. You don't have to refute arguments from a communist. You don't have to address criticisms from anti-semites. You don't have to entertain the thoughts of this group of that group. You don't have to address the meat if you can create your own sizzle.

The dumbing down of debate and discussion to where we all choose a color and defend our team, right or wrong, is rendering us all stupid and anti-social. Why do people leave babble? Because you can't have a conversation.

We have become a society of tolerance and I don't mean that in a good way. I don't mean we have become tolerant of different peoples, and ideas, and diversity. Rather, we have become tolerant of rudeness, ignorance, stupidity, narcissism, egotism, selfishness and obliviousness. In our society we can engage in any activity no matter how intrusive, disruptive, and destructive if we can afford the cost of admission.

The result is we share a sense of entitlement and privilege unmatched in modern and ancient history. Yes, we must be tolerant of every opinion no matter how stupid, and we must tolerate every jackass no matter how offensive so long as he or she does not cross the line to besmirch the designated holy cows.

I think the moderators are far too tolerant. Even with me. The success of the board should not be measured by the quantity of the posters but the quality of the discussion.

Wow! Can we please stop attacking each other over -- whatever it is (I can't even follow anymore).

I'm not entirely sorry I almost missed this whole controversy.

For what it's worth -- the most offending post was also the most suspicious, in that he revived a thread dormant for more than two months in order to insert that post. So I can understand Maysie's radar going off.

However, no one seems (I may have missed it) to have asked him what he was trying to prove, or warned him that it looked suspicious, or suspended him until he explained himself to a mod offline (is that an option within the technology available?)

So I still disagree with summary execution except in a case that is beyond argument.

Quote:

You suggest more a strict "moderation".

I am but not on the part of moderators. I have made this argument before in another context, but we must stop being hesitant to offend entirely offensive people.  Part of that must be far less tolerance for wilfull ignorance.

Quote:

babble is NOT intended as a place where the basic and essential values of human rights, feminism, anti-racism, and labour rights are to be debated or refought. Members that join babble who indicate intentions to challenge these rights and principles may be seen as disruptive to the nature of the forum. Such members may be warned, have their accounts suspended, or banned altogether. Repeated attempts to provoke conflict, bait or taunt will not be tolerated.

You agree to avoid personal insults, attacks and mischievous antagonism (otherwise known as "trolling"). You will not post material that is inaccurate, abusive, hateful, harassing, obscene, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy or otherwise violative of any law

The moderators of this board routinely close threads for the following reasons:

* The thread has become off-topic, abusive, or argumentative to the point that civil discussion cannot be resumed;

Nicely worded policy. Let's all follow it. Please?

M. Spector wrote:

Your bullshit gets awfully tiring after a while.

This is an unneccessary personal attack, please refrain from doing so further.  An apology would be appropriate.

jacki-mo wrote:

Remind: your phrase "white male's notions of privilege" sounds racist to me. i.e. steriotyping a group.

Please don't start pulling out nonsensical 'reverse racism' charges, they are foolish and unworthy of attention.

M. Spector wrote:

But we are also entitled to expect that some sort of proper assessment is made before someone is banned, and that demonstrable reasons for doing so are made available on request. (my bold)

I am afraid that I am not aware of any agreement within babble that compels moderators to submit to an 'entitlement' such as this.  I agree that it is good policy in most cases, but I also believe that when the babble community is being attacked, a swift unequivocal response is appropriate.  

Wilf Day wrote:

Quote:

babble is NOT intended as a place where the basic and essential values of human rights, feminism, anti-racism, and labour rights are to be debated or refought. Members that join babble who indicate intentions to challenge these rights and principles may be seen as disruptive to the nature of the forum. Such members may be warned, have their accounts suspended, or banned altogether. Repeated attempts to provoke conflict, bait or taunt will not be tolerated.

You agree to avoid personal insults, attacks and mischievous antagonism (otherwise known as "trolling"). You will not post material that is inaccurate, abusive, hateful, harassing, obscene, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy or otherwise violative of any law

The moderators of this board routinely close threads for the following reasons:

* The thread has become off-topic, abusive, or argumentative to the point that civil discussion cannot be resumed;

Nicely worded policy. Let's all follow it. Please?

 

Wilf is always good for a long quote or pages of statistics to explain a point. In this case he left out the initial context for his quote and I think this is pertinent to the present discussion:

rabble.ca is a public, independent, progressive news and information source. As part of rabble.ca, this message board (babble) was created to ensure that readers/participants could explore any issues of interest and concern. In defining itself as "progressive," rabble.ca embraces a pro-human rights, pro-feminist, anti-racist and pro-labour stance. Discussion which develops and expands progressive thought is encouraged and welcome.

rabble can define "progressive" any way it likes I guess. However, while babble is defined to allow participants to "explore any issues of interest and concern" the particular brand of progressive here proscribes some discussions. (One might take particular note of the inherent contradiction of the statement  "Discussion which develops and expands progressive thought is encouraged and welcome" with the strictures against discussing what exactly is "progressive". Whatever. It's rabble's right to decide.

However, although one might expect "human rights" to be inclusive of gender, race, class and religion, rabble yanks out three of these for special status. Since we've been discussing transgressions that have religious overtones, I'm wondering if rabble/babble might consider either making commensurate note of "freedom of religion" (and how about "freedom of thought") or folding the special cases back into human rights so that there's some recognition of equality amongst the rights.

Maybe with a more explicit statement of  rabble's "progressive" dogma the potential transgressors will have a better guide for what's OK to think and express on babble and the moderators will have that yardstick to apply too.

skeiseid wrote:

Wilf is always good for a long quote or pages of statistics to explain a point. In this case he left out the initial context for his quote and I think this is pertinent to the present discussion:

rabble.ca is a public, independent, progressive news and information source. As part of rabble.ca, this message board (babble) was created to ensure that readers/participants could explore any issues of interest and concern. In defining itself as "progressive," rabble.ca embraces a pro-human rights, pro-feminist, anti-racist and pro-labour stance. Discussion which develops and expands progressive thought is encouraged and welcome.

rabble can define "progressive" any way it likes I guess. However, while babble is defined to allow participants to "explore any issues of interest and concern" the particular brand of progressive here proscribes some discussions. (One might take particular note of the inherent contradiction of the statement  "Discussion which develops and expands progressive thought is encouraged and welcome" with the strictures against discussing what exactly is "progressive". Whatever. It's rabble's right to decide.

However, although one might expect "human rights" to be inclusive of gender, race, class and religion, rabble yanks out three of these for special status. Since we've been discussing transgressions that have religious overtones, I'm wondering if rabble/babble might consider either making commensurate note of "freedom of religion" (and how about "freedom of thought") or folding the special cases back into human rights so that there's some recognition of equality amongst the rights.

Maybe with a more explicit statement of  rabble's "progressive" dogma the potential transgressors will have a better guide for what's OK to think and express on babble and the moderators will have that yardstick to apply too.

This is entirely unfair. The babble terms of use policy, rules around threads, and the role of moderators have expanded and evolved because we as a community of users have failed to set and enforce our own standards. Discussions are derailed with ease, regular users, myself included, will engage in mindless and embarrassing tit-for-tat attacks upon one another that render threads unreadable, whenever there is an election or event of national or international importance the board witnesses a sudden rise of concern trolls, and too often the same arguments are rehashed again and again and the same fallacies are continuously debunked.

The result is this effort of over-policing to manage what ought to be a primarily self-managed board with moderation reduced to sweeping up and closing the lights.

Of course, technology improvements could help with "ignore", single click "report abuse", and ratings for posts so users can quickly and effectively deal with those who are not here for a discussion but to grind an axe, sell an agenda, or just troll.

I know that's been discussed before. Maybe Rabble could make a call for volunteers to implement those changes.