'Death from Above': - Suspensions and Bans on Babble: Should Policy and Practice be Reviewed?

Servety was banned because his/her sole purpose in joining was to insult babblers and the left in general.  That's trolling.

ETA: the tinfoil hat bit was not what precipitated the decision, but rather in combination with another thread he/she started there was a clear indication that the new user did not join in good faith, nor did she/he appear to have anything other than derision to offer.

al-Qa'bong wrote:

That servety person was banned for something that veteran posters would have been allowed to do, since Fidel and his fellow conspiraphiles are accused of wearing tinfoil toques almost every day, and the accusers suffer no penalty.

They must resort to the same level of logic that several inquisitions were designed around for three centuries in medieval times through to this Anglo-American inquisitorial setup(as opposed to an adversarial system of defense and prosecution with an impartial court) that exists today. Otherwise they have nothing else to say. They are coincidence theorists and modern day royal jesters whose sole purpose is to mock and entertain in vain hopes of being thrown a few table scraps and pats on heads for their relentless snivelling and grovelling to power, or they are motivated to mock and deride out of fear of being mocked themselves by their fellow toadies within their local chapters of toadies subserviant to the overall loyal order of yes-men.They are intense in their obedience to the status quo always without fail and wear the offical chocolate on their mustaches proudly as a sign of recognition to other brown nosers. Charade they are.

Table scraps?  Pats on the head?  Now that's the spirit.  I think my stuff is beginning to sink in after all.

Other than the banning of trolls, I think I have disagreed with most of the bannings that have taken place, Jeff House and E. Tamaran come to mind. As well suspensions have lead to us losing individuals like Cueball and I have yet to see George Victor re-appear although I believe his suspension has passed. I don't think suspensions or bans of regular users serves Babble well as a community.

There seems to be an aversion to conflict. I find this ironic given the dialectic in Marxism and its revolutionary nature

What I occasionally find interesting is the aversion to persistence.

If I were mounting, say, an e-mail campaign against a company for something unprogressive they did, I would expect that I might be encouraged to be persistent.  If I came here and said "I've sent them two e-mails, should I send more" I would expect the answer to be "Yes".  If I said that they seem to be getting very annoyed at my e-mails, so should I stop sending them, since they're only getting on the company's nerves at this point, I'd expect to be told "YES!  You're winning!  Don't stop now!"

But when there's disagreement here, it's supressed pretty quickly.  Stating your case more than twice -- and becoming "annoying" -- is grounds for some kind of intervention.

I can certainly appreciate that the mods might find that kind of persistence annoying.  But isn't that part of the point?

According to the TAT page, babble is a place for "folks who just won't shut up".  I'd say that really depends.

I think the "problem" is that moderators are human.  As humans they tend to overlook the faults of those they agree with and magnify the faults of those they disagree with.  In my time on babble I have noticed a massive double standard that allows certain posters to basically get away with anything, thus increasing the hostility level and others not being allowed an inch, thus again increasing the hostility level.  This has led to a very stifling atmosphere for those outside the 'in gang'.  And to my mind has led to the decline of discussion and usage of babble as many interesting and important voices have just given up in frustration and left.

I don't know how you fix human nature.

Is there anyway for one to interpret that post Smith other than as support of the status quo? I don't mean that as a criticism. The OP asks if the policy on bannings and suspensions should be reviewed. I take your answer would be "no" or do I misread your post?

NDPP

Except that if you have a group of three friends you can effectively override the power of the moderators to do anything, and ultimately that is a system that WILL fail. The fact is that the power over what happens here ultimately lies with the site owners, as it must.

I don't mean to imply  that I don't take your concerns seriously; I do. As I said, I don't agree with all rulings, closures and suspensions. And I think that keeping a dialogue open for appeal, or to let moderators know how rulings are perceived is a good thing.

After all, babblers do ultimately have power in that they can leave and render the site irrelevant.

But I think the first step is to recognize who is ultimately responsible for what goes on here, and where the buck stops.

Taking the ultimate control of the site away from the site owners is simply a non-starter.

(edit)

And SJ. 

Agreed. It would be nice to be able to recognize satire for what it is. Problem is that some people are just so good at it that it is hard to distinguish from the object of satire..

There are few other sites where you can discuss canadian politics in a dialogue.  Almost all [I await the exception] other sites are vile places inhabited by people who think racism and misogyny are an okay basis for insults.  I think that he moderators generally give sufficient warnings about behaviour they believe is disruptive of civilized debate. 

The problem is the medium.  It is hard to write nuanced ideas in a few paragraphs so with posters one is familiar with you read in views based on their past stated beliefs.  An ambiguous statement by a newbie gets challenged so that people can determine where they are coming from.  It is the tone of that questioning by some of the old guard that looks a lot like hazing.

Moderating is a a dirty job but someone has to do it.  The proof that it has to be done is in the other sites.

Censorship is a concern when the government is the censor because if the government censors something, then an individual has no ability to speak.

In the context of a private endeavor, such as babble, if a person is censored, then that concern does not arise because there is a vast multitude of alternatives to express an opinion still available to the censored person.

So, all censorship is not the same.

Whether or not babble should engage in censorship is a different question.

Ideally, babble censorship should be limited in the interest of encouraging wide-ranging discussion.  If discussion is too narrowly channeled, then babble would become an uninteresting echo chamber.  On the other hand, if discussion is too wide open, the fundamental character of babble as a progressive site would be lost.

For the most part, I think babble strikes a reasonably good balance, although I would probably make more use of suspensions that outright banning.

Excellent comment, milo204...

Northern Shoveler wrote:

Maysie is the best when it comes to teaching newbies about racism and feminism.  Pity we can't all rise to her level.  

Thank you for that observation.  Maysie is remarkable for her patience and willingness to teach people about race, class, privilege and feminism.  I have the pleasure of knowing her, and having her ear (and advice) on those issues, and I hope that, with experience, I can come close to her understanding of those issues.

I'm glad to see you back NS.

As babble has evolved, the air has become thinner.  We've evolved rules and interpretations on rules, remember, because people have seriously violated them.  And then, because we're such a clevah crowd, we find artfull ways of putting first a toe, then a foot over the line, which requires yet another interpretation of a rule or convention......

I saw an agrument in a thread last week that resulted in a banning, and cripes, I couldn't even understand it-- because I didn't have the background of the thread where the arguement started two weeks before that. 

Y'know, Sven and I dissagreed in the Greece thread.  But with me it stays there.  Maybe Sven and I will agree in another thread. More likely-- because he's such a mellon head-- we'll dissagree.  But that dissagreement will be based not on Sven being wrong in the Greece thread, but on being wrong in the current thread he's currently being wrong in.

Whether your seniority date is like mine, almost the same as babble itself, or whether you have joined recently, we all stand on the rectums of those who have come before.   That's why the personal arguments are so strange, and that's why it's hard for new people to get a handle and join in. It requires a lot of time investment to "fit in" here. 

I don't think that's avoidable. Ten years-- that's like a century of convention outside the internet.  It's a culture. And it's not determined by moderators, it's determined by the participants.

Kind of reminds me of the old babble. /sniff

Lard Tunderin Jeezus wrote:

Northern Shoveler wrote:

I am not impatient with newbies but with people who hear all the best posters views and then the next week come back with the same non progressive arguments.  By the third or fourth time I begin wondering whether they are actually here to have a dialogue.

Couldn't agree more - and by the tenth or twentieth time, I know the answer. 

Yes, except that having an opinion is not the same as dealing in bad faith, and I shouldn't expect that listening to someone else's opinion should necessarily mean one is required to convert to it - even after the hundredth time.

Besides, from what I see the biggest fault lines here have nothing to do with people coming back with non-progressive arguments. They are strong disagreements between people who are right here and they are not going anywhere. And there is nothing inherently wrong with that so long as it is dealt with in the right way.

@ LTJ

Are we talking about opinions or behaviour?

Trolling and attacking  is not the same as holding "non-progressive" opinions. And my point is that if you asked 10 people here you wouldn't get the same answer as to what "non-progressive" means. And furthermore, that is not going to change because those differences of opinion have very little to do with newbies and outsiders. They are here, and they will always be here.

What one believes has nothing to do with behaviour. One can be the most committed leftie dedicated to the cause and still be a fucking jerk about it. 

That would be the "wrong way" IMO.

If it is any consolation, it has been awhile since we have had a meta thread.

the problem is with enforcing rules against that. It's impossible to interpret what is and isn't passive aggressive on the internet. What might sound insulting to me could be someone's lack of english language skills or their way of typing or it could in fact be an insult.

the point for me is, by coming here and contributing to an internet forum i kind of expect that and try and give people the benefit of the doubt or press people to explain what they mean by responding to my posts. it usually seems to clear it up just fine and ends up as a fruitful discussion, even if we still disagree in the end. or maybe they call me an idiot or other names and just try and divert the argument...

i can't, nor want to control what other people say or think. sure some of it angers me, frustrates me or offends me but that's the reality of the world we live in. we can't hide from that, we need to confront it at every possible opportunity. banning/suspending/rules seem to just push it off somewhere else.

i know many disagree with that, but it makes sense to me...

Snert should not have been banned.  I await his return under a new incarnation if the ban isn't lifted. Without individuals like Snert this place rsiks becoming an echo chamber. I think the place is a far better place when we have individual's pushing the envelope at the edges.

Please don't disrupt the Leadership threads with discussion of suspensions. This looks like the thread.

I'd like to suggest that we stop suspending babblers for their tone, or opinion - except where there's no other alternative, and only after a word of caution. The suspension of Malcolm was unwarranted in my opinion, and I now see that Peter3 has suffered the same fate, allegedly because he doesn't understand "Racism 101" - and there's even a [url=http://rabble.ca/babble/canadian-politics/npd-leadreship-soixante-dix#co... set of scare-quotes[/url] around his "years" of anti-racist activism. That's uncalled for, and it's a personal attack.

If we want to argue against personal attack, perhaps we should take the same tone in our criticism of moderation and focus on the action rather than the person. 

I know situations like this are charged. Let's try not to make it any more so .

Okay, I'm going to try to speak in the interest of reconciliation. I'd appreciate it if babblers could holster their weapons and listen, because I'm really speaking from a position devoid of malice or bias right now (as far as I can tell). I really like Malcolm, I don't think he's racist (obviously) and I'm pretty sure he has a good understanding of racist dynamics and how Saganash has to deal with them on a daily basis. This has never been in doubt. I hope that's clear.

From the women babblers I've had the pleasure of meeting in person--and there have been a handful--they have all told me the same thing: it is really, really hard being a woman on babble. This assertion can easily be supported by the paltry number of female posters who still hang around regularly: a number which grows even smaller on the NDP partisan threads. This problem--and it should be a problem for all babblers, not just women and not just moderators--is why we have a policy statement which aims to protect female voices. It also aims to protect other marginalized voices, which enjoy even less purchase on babble nowadays.

One of the most vicious and painful attacks someone can suffer on the internet is the pile-on. For anyone who has been subject to one, it's terrible. Please take a moment to consider what it's like to say something you think is true, and then have about a dozen posts scornfully and insultingly invalidating your experience. It really, really sucks. And the people most often on the receiving end tend to be women. Maysie was subject to a pile-on in the last thread for having the temerity to say that something someone said in relation to a FN candidate and in a discussion with minimal emphasis on racial politics was racist. I want to underline that it doesn't matter if she was "right" or not (I tend to think she had a point, but this is beside the fact). So when Maysie was victimized by a very sizeable pile-on, we took notice. What I also want to underline is that Rebecca and I are extremely sensitive to this kind of response, particularly when it targets someone who identifies as a woman of colour. I can't discount that we mods reacted quicker/more decisively because of sympathies with our fellow ex-mod, but truly and honestly, I still try to govern myself with the above reasoning, no matter who it pertains to. The pile-on is completely unacceptable, particularly when the victim is trying to introduce a perspective normally invisible to dominant male, white hegemony. If mods are supposed to do anything, this has got to be it, hasn't it?

(As a quick aside, many people have commented on the irony or uncollegiality of Maysie's initial comments. Sarcasm and conforntation are basically babble's bread and butter, but for whatever reason, Maysie (and this happened when she was a mod as well) faces a disproportionate amount fo scorn and backlash when she is sarcastic. I have always felt that this was rooted in sexism: Maysie is not a "nice girl".)

As for the recently departed, while it's always sad to see a babbler excuse themselves, I can't see the rash of "language policing" that has made the place so intolerable that Malcolm's short suspension broke the camel's back. In my work, I find that introducing a politics of oppression to those to whom it hadn't appeared yet--especially to people who consider themselves enlightened--frequently incites an affect-based reaction, frequently quite violent to a degree far disproportionate to the initial intervention. I hope at least one of the departed returns once they've cooled down, but I don't find that kind of reactionary response particularly compelling as a means to engage or effect dialogue.

Someone asked how I would respond if someone said that something I did was racist--wouldn't I naturally think that they thought my whole person was thoroughly racist? As it happens, in some of the work I do, my privilege and entitlements as a middle-class man are consistently challenged and consistently revealed to me as biased and rooted in class violence. I frequently respond poorly to these revelations, but I have strived, over the past few years, to respond less with angry ejaculations or self-absorbed snits and more with listening. I have never regretted not responding verbally and taking a moment to shift my perspective--and usually it results in an opportunity for personal growth. "Take the cotton out of your ears," a wise activist said to me once, "put it in your mouth and listen, listen, listen."