There is policy, and there is the nature of the board which arises from the entire body of posters.. I always deal with the one with an eye to the other. I serve both the policy and the community. The policy has evolved to accommodate a level of heatedness, and occasional use of the vulgate as we address one another. Being sworn at does not always meet the bar of real abuse.This is just human reality, and will continue unless rabble wants to hire about 20 school marm type moderators. I personally would not like the place to get too vanilla. In terms of favourites BTW, I have suspended people I like quite a lot, and in a few cases banned them permanently.
Where yo find youself in supporting bill c51 is at odds with pretty much how everyone else thinks, and probably runs contrary to the stated progessive nature of babble itself.
yadda yadda yadda,
We have laws against murder. But, well, some humans just have a natural tendency to murder. It is the nature of the community. So, keeping this in mind, when they commit murder, we will cut them some slack. Is that what you want to say?
What you are saying is that we have policies, but if you scream, bully, intimidate, and threaten loud and long enough, you get to ignore them. Eventually, the moderator will get worn down.
There are NO shades of 'being personally attacked'. I have no qualms about posters attacking my opinions, or challenging my facts. That is discourse. But everyone is responsible for their own anger. You do not get to excuse your heated anger by saying "He made me angry". We allow ourselves to get angry.
There are some people that use anger as a weapon. 'Do not cross me or I will get angry'. Or they get angry to get their own way. Parents call that 'throwing a tantrum'. Every parent knows that, if you let a child get away with a tantrum once, they will use it over and over agaijn as a tool, a weapon.
You do not need to hire '20 school marm moderators'. You jiust need to give the original thread poster the ability to censor their own post thread. Posters who over-censor just get ignored, their posts unread. If a person feels they have been over-censored, they can start their own thread. I sent you a PM about the mange le merde, and did not address my concerns publicly. An admonishment from you through a PM would have, should have, sufficed. If a person really objets to being censored, THEN they appeal to the moderrator for an opinion, and potential reinstatement. I underrstand that you must get flooded with 'flags'. There are options. A policy: flags are automatic -content disabled, but the poster gets to appeal. Too many false, inappropriate, predatory flags, and the flagger gets their 'flag' priveleges withdrawn.
The actual use of the term 'mange la merde' could have been justified, given the context. It was, after all, Trudeau who stated it. I have used in myself, in context. Usually, in the form "To quote Trudeau, mange la merde". Especially when the context is about Trudeau. It is not swearing per say, but it is swearing AT someone that is disrespectful. However, it was also the statement about 'wonky' that is a personal attack. You must know that when personal insults are thrown, a more severe insult will most likely follow. I did not do that. I attempted to de-escalate. The other parties involved have chosen to escalate. Just witness their posts after. Your response is an indirect, tacit approval for them to escalate.
As for my contrary viewpoint, I thought that was the purpose of babble - for ALL viewpoints to get a fair hearing. I have supported everything I said with facts. It is censorship in the extreme when only the facts that support the prevailing opinions are allowed. Moderators are supposed to be, after all, unbiased. Maybe the reason why my viewpoint is a rarity is because everyone who shares my perspective has already been bullied off the site. Like Harper only allowing reporters who agree with him to have access to him. Of COURSE all news coverage from the reporters covering his press scrums would then be favorable. No embarassing questions would be asked.
Incidentally, I am no 'vanilla' myself, but I do not need to resort to vindictive personal attacks. The real facts usually suffice.
But if you really looked at my posts, impartially, without jumping to conclusions, you will not see any evidence that I like bill C-51, just that I believe some elements in it are needed. Sometimes the medicine is bitter, but the alternative is death. I HATE Bill C-51, specifically BECAUSE it is needed. It exposes weaknesses in and about our society that I would much rather pretend to not exist. Trudeau would be well aware, as opposition leader, of the not-for-public briefs on the dangers of Wahhabism, and of the inability to deal with it without the dirty tricks provisions of the Bill. Like Trudeau said, keep the useful parts, and deal with the troublesome parts. But, as the incidents in Paris highlight, we don't have time for a two-year study. I have no doubt that provisions allowed in Bill C-51 are being used at this minute to thwart imminent attack.
Or do you want to wait for a Paris-style attack in Toronto, then say 'Why didn't the government DO something?' What are we supposed to do, arrest them, let them out on bail, then let them blow up the parliament buildings? Under our pre-Bill C-51, even if the auuthorities KNEW the Paris-style terrorists were going to attack, could we legally stop them? They did nothing illegal under Canadian law UNTIL they attacked.
Zak was found guilty because he confessed. Several others got off without being prosecuted because of insufficient evidence that they did anything illegal, and they went free, to continue their activities. The radicalization is still continuing, unabated. In the news recently, terrorists associated with a Toronto mosque left Canada to join ISIS.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/al-huda-islamic-institute-students...
But make no mistake, there HAS to be restrictions on it, because a Bill C-51 iunder a Harper regime WOULD be used for ideological purposes. There HAS to be non-partisan oversight, just like the Senate and House of Representative non-partisan oversight of their dirty tricks legislation. Nixon and Bush proved how necesary that is.