Offensive Avatars

Discussion in 'SF Open Government' started by Giambattista, Apr 5, 2011.

  1. chimpkin C'mon, get happy! Registered Senior Member

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    4,416
    Wow, .S.A.M. that's much more offensive than my crusty toe image...

    (Hope you don't mind...)
     
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  3. Giambattista sssssssssssssssssssssssss sssss Valued Senior Member

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    Feast your eyes on this monstrosity. Him and Joe Lieberman (on second thought, we shouldn't even joke about his name) make a cute couple. Sshhh! Don't tell John "Insane" McCain though, Lieber-boy told him he was the only one!


    POLICE STATE 2011: Lindsey Graham Advocates Killing The First Amendment



    Love this comment here...
    Graham is one of the few elected officials to meet with Gadaffi personally in Libya to sell him weapons, two weeks before the Lockerbie Bomber was released. No connection? Yeah right. Lindsay Graham is a gay terrorist militant national socialist, like Ernst Rohm. These DHS 9/11 benefactor scum hate the Constitution, and would move to a Chinese Socialist state tomorrow if they could. Lindsay Graham is the person that enjoys Al-Qaeda's status in the US household, he feeds on his people fear.
    IranContraScumDid911 2 weeks ago 11



    Was I wrong to call Lindsey a faggot? After all, rumor is rife that he's a total closet case, being blackmailed for his "traditional values" or something.
    Faggot means a lot of shit anyway. People call others fags all the time, even their friends! It can have all sorts of uses.


    There. Two cents on that issue. It was worth the homophobia branding as far as I'm concerned. I'd do it all over in a heartbeat.
     
    Last edited: Apr 21, 2011
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  5. Giambattista sssssssssssssssssssssssss sssss Valued Senior Member

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    First that, now Queermo... you are an expert. Thought about writing a guide book? Things to do in LA When You're Gay

    I'd love to know... let me guess. Fag?

    Are you stretching the truth?
    I distinctly remember you having an avatar a few years ago. I want to say it was a woman's face or something. In fact, I think you may have had one other after that.

    :shrug:
     
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  7. Giambattista sssssssssssssssssssssssss sssss Valued Senior Member

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    minor?!?!
     
  8. Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    I was just confirming what I could as I was in the actual conversation.
     
  9. Enmos Valued Senior Member

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    43,184
    I'm not saying that's what happened. Just that I seem to have a (very) vague memory of something like that. I could easily be wrong. Perhaps I should not have brought it up because I'm not helping anyone with it.
     
  10. Gustav Banned Banned

    Messages:
    12,575

    with the internets, we are all experts


    vinegar strokes


    oh dear
    please read....(1) The Inherent Unreliability of Eyewitness Testimony - Dr Phlog p123-p245

    never had one
     
  11. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    37,884
    Random memory

    Thank you for the random memory: Babs Bunny, "I am not cheap! I am one hundred percent genuine, drip-dry, all-American jackrabbit!"

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  12. Giambattista sssssssssssssssssssssssss sssss Valued Senior Member

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    4,878
    True enough.


    vinegar strokes

    i was pulling up to the vinegar strokes when she woke up and caught my sticky gift in her freshly opened eye

    :huh:

    Unlike Dr. Phlog, and my satire aside, I don't stake my full faith and credibility in peer-reviewed gospel when it's most convenient for me.

    Does anyone else recall Gustav having an avatar for a short time?

    In his defense, it was really only a short time. But I do remember him having an avatar for a short period of time.

    Anyone? Anyone?
     
  13. Giambattista sssssssssssssssssssssssss sssss Valued Senior Member

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    4,878
    Drip dry?

    Sick. Bestial pedophilia cartoon propaganda?

    Why? Oh, God, why?
     
  14. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    37,884
    Cartoon Bunny Perversion

    Actually, I think at the time she was a fashion accessory.

    The sad thing is that someone, somewhere in the world, has made porno pictures of Babs Bunny's ... um ... rabbit hole.
     
  15. Giambattista sssssssssssssssssssssssss sssss Valued Senior Member

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    4,878
    Excuse me. I have to go do my right handed workout.
     
  16. Giambattista sssssssssssssssssssssssss sssss Valued Senior Member

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    This thread is excellent. From point A to point Zeta.


    Getting back to the main point, if I dare do that.

    Was there any real reason my avatar would cause excitement or controversy? Was it really that bad? Was it actually a cause, or was it inflated beyond credibility for something?

    Was it actually controversial? Racist? Worthy of being removed?

    Is this just a ritual that Sciforums goes through every once in a while?
     
  17. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    37,884
    (Insert title here)

    I would look back to my earlier assessment:

    I think there is a question of whether or not the political statement is legitimate. And here I don't mean whether or not the authority agrees with it.​

    Yes, I left out the harsher part of that paragraph, but only because the above is the part I want to focus on.

    There are essentially two questions: What? and Why

    As to the what, there are a couple of controversial issues that would put the image on someone's radar:

    • The Hitler reference, in and of itself.

    • Echoing the least rational, most provocative parts of a useless, largely racist° argument distracting American politics.​

    Maybe in January, 2009, the avatar would have had different significance. But it's April, 2011, and folks have endured this Hitler-mania for a couple years, and the closest thing to an explanation we've gotten is, "Liberals called Bush Hitler!" For two and a half years, then—remember, this started during the campaign—we've put up with many people hiding their racism behind a stupid, superficial tit-for-tat.

    Still, though, that doesn't say anything about you. However, when you stopped and asked people what they thought of your new avatar? Yeah, that put you into a realm where it was possible to construe the avatar as deliberate and inflammatory goading. (i.e., the Why?)

    That would be the strongest assertion of impropriety.

    It is my personal opinion, though I cannot explain it for you thoroughly because much of the material is restricted, that:

    (A) The avatar is controversial
    (B) The question of how controversial is open
    (C) The question arose primarily in response to other issues
    (D) I don't know why anyone mentioned the back-room thread to you°, as no official action or position had been resolved​

    Additionally, I would simply remind that the relationship between standards and action is not fixed. Sometimes the difference between acceptable repartee and unacceptable goading depends on what else is going on around the site.

    I'm sure I could devise a longer answer, but I'm not sure it would actually say anything more.
    ____________________

    Notes:

    ° largely racist — It's always a matter of perceptions, but take, for instance, something I've mentioned here before. Imagine you go to a Tea Party rally. As you're walking through, you stop and listen to a guy explain to people why Obama is Hitler. And then you walk along for a while, and come across another Tea Partier denouncing Democrats as dirty Jews. Now, setting aside the obvious paradox—Really? Obama's going to massacre the Democrats?—it just reminds that this whole thing is about Obama the alien. You know, the anti-colonial, Kenyan-born commie-fascist-Jew-Hitler who hates the white man and his glorious, noble, capitalistic institutions. After a while, yeah, people do start to accept that for those folks it's the fact of a black man in the White House. During Obama's term, I've even encountered a conservative argument that the fact that people are throwing all sorts of racism at the president cannot be taken to mean they're racist.

    ° I don't know why anyone mentioned the back-room thread to you — This should not be taken to mean that such action was unacceptable, or without reason. I've tipped people before that the staff was gearing up to come after them, but I'm not certain I ever got such a proactive result.
     
  18. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    at least they aren't screwing goats anymore.
     
  19. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    Well. Good, I guess.
     
  20. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    Why would I object to your self definition as a potty mouth?

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  21. Giambattista sssssssssssssssssssssssss sssss Valued Senior Member

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    Really, the "people" was one person. I enjoy taking jabs at pj, just cause he's so darn defensive on certain issues. I think the reaction is funny.
    The avatar was a strong symbol of my distaste for a recent bit of bad behavior on the part of the administration.

    I think it was a warning of sorts. The person suggested that I take it down. Naturally, that only emboldened my resolve.
     
  22. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    37,884
    (Something, something, Burt Ward)

    And therein you will find your answer.

    It's not the worst statement, in that context, insofar as it's not one that generally gets people permanently banned. To the other, there are no guarantees, so it's always a gamble.

    It's an interesting result; when I've tipped people before, they generally pulled back their behavior, shifted to a different tactic, or found some way to evade the growing object of complaint. Or they've told me how evil I am. Or the staff. Or something like that.

    Do remember, though, that the staff is not monolithic. Nor are they uniform in how they bear their grudges and other bad feelings. One risk of so proactive a course is that in responding to what might be an unbalanced regard for the complaint under consideration, one might also alienate staff members who might otherwise have either taken your side or simply chuckled off the complaint.

    Courage and futility are not inextricably linked; nor are they mutually exclusive. But they are very important factors in a cost-benefit analysis of any intended political action.
     
  23. Giambattista sssssssssssssssssssssssss sssss Valued Senior Member

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    4,878
    Permanently banned? WHA?? That's an awfully harsh proposition for a political avatar. There's no reason that someone should be banned for something like that at all. Because a few people are overly sensitive to a messianic politician does not mean someone should be banned.
    It's stupid to have to tiptoe around and apologize because people get easily insulted by images.



    I suppose I should appreciate the effort to "warn" me or whatever the motivation was. I guess I do, although I didn't feel that it was an issue that I should heed, for the reasons I've already stated (if people get offended by a favored politician with a Hitler moustache, that's their problem!).


    I still don't get it. I'm sure most people don't have a problem with that kind of picture. Having policies that are based on the emotional frailty (bad description?) of a few individuals is not a good idea.

    Come to think of it, I think quite a few people would get a good laugh from this...http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2719013&postcount=72

    I do. Few things are more satisfying than seeing a politician be made fun of. That a few people get offended? They can either put their feelings into words and do something constructive, or they can look away, pout, cry, whatever. Banning or forcibly removing something like that is the coward's option. The action of someone who themselves deserve that moustache.
     
    Last edited: Apr 23, 2011

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