Changes To the Word Event & Politics Subfora

Anybody who's been to the WE&P subforas knows that there are some changes to discuss. Here is your opportunity.

~String

 

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I have a comment: Who's really going to decide "good faith" though? Sure, in some cases it's clear, but in others the conclusion varies by the source. Tiassa, for example, considers everything I post not to be in good faith, which is clearly preposterous. Yet, I have similar reservations concerning his positioning of arguments and the latent ad homeinem phrasing of his language. Who shall decide then? Who, the Watchmen shall watch?

 

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Well, as with most things in life, it's up to those in charge, and a rigorous appellate process to decide such things. In the English speaking world, precedent and culture act as guides and that appears to be an de facto rule here.

To answer the question directly: Madanthony, [Unnamed WE & P mod], myself, James, Stryder and Plazma.

~String

 

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Does this also mean no more excessive use of smilies?

 

¡Ojalá! If I had my way, they'd be banned outright.

~String

 

Do members who go on a last minute troll/goad/insult spree get banned too ? Or is it only after 12AM.

 

A lawyer advocating lies might actually be acting in good faith if he is completely conned by his client, and genuinely believes the events he asserts to be true. A lack of good faith would be deliberate propagation of falsehood.

For me, this belies the frailty of attempting to enforce any form of "faith" based system.
What if, Sincerely, Poster X believes that Obama is Kenyan, and has been told by the political party that he/she votes for.
In essence, he/she is acting in good faith, but to others it is not.

 

You're right, it would be acting in good faith, but I defer you to the other rule about the scientific method.

Each situation will be judged on a case by case basis.

~String

 

An excellent example for illustration

That depends. Some ask why, since Hawaii apparently has an original birth certificate on record, Obama doesn't just cough it up. There are three primary answers to this:

(1) The certification of live birth Obama has presented is legal and binding.
(2) If Obama gives over to this particular conspiracy theory, why should he—or anyone else, for that matter—not give over to any whacked out theory?
(3) There is likely a faction of birthers that would not believe the original certificate, anyway.​

The question of good faith in a birther, then, lies in their treatment of the counterpoint.

This is much similar to a phenomenon that occurs in our own community. There are many here who simply repeat their accusations over and over, even going so far as to start new topics, without ever giving the counterpoint any substantive consideration. Obviously they disagree with the counterpoint and whatever evidence it entails, but we don't know why because they won't tell us.

 

My sincere thanks to the WE&P mod squad, for taking on so much work to elevate our discourse. This is truly a "careful what you wish for" moment for me.

 

So, he/she must present evidence to back up his point to give the semblance of good faith. Ok.

Ah. So it really depends on their whole treatment of a topic than anything else.

 

Wow, this is a great moment.

Now to see how theory translates to application.

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string
kindly explain why you banned galt

 

lemme nudge.....

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i assume the banning was in concordance with system outlined in the tp
walk me thru it
thanks

 

i recently read a wonderful post about aussies and how they would just laugh and shrug if someone burnt the oz flag

lemme see how that works out here
i do hope string wont catch me tho

 

This and that

As I see it, you have it exactly.

• • •​

Start with the rules, sir. Deliberate inflammation is specifically prohibited.

Now, then, think about past presidents.

• George W. Bush: "Dubya", "Shrub" — These are both names Bush brought on himself. "Dubya" is a nickname he was accustomed to, and made part of his public persona. "Shrub" arises from the late Molly Ivins' book of the same title, pointing out that one of Bush's failed oil ventures was a Mexican enterprise called Arbusto, which he claimed meant "bush". However, according to Ivins' desk reference, Cassell's Spanish-English Dictionary, "arbusto" actually means "shrub". It's not definitive, but BabelFish agrees. "Shrub" is a name Bush gave to himself.

• William J. Clinton: "Slick Willie" — Invented by his adversaries to highlight his sleazy nature, even some of his supporters have adopted this nickname for the former president. We also use the name "Teflon Bill".

• George H. W. Bush: "Poppy" — I think this originates with Doonesbury; that's where I picked up the name.

• Ronald W. Reagan: "The Great Communicator" — A name invented by his supporters to highlight the brilliance of his ability to address nearly any question with scornful evasion.​

During the Reagan years, MAD Magazine did this joke about biblical prophecy, pointing out the number of letters in the president's name: Ronald (6) Wilson (6) Reagan (6). I thought it was funny then, and it still gets a chuckle from me.

But if everyone went around calling him "Wilson" or "Ronald Wilson" or "R. Wilson", what, really, would the effect be?

How about "Herbert", for Poppy Bush? Or "G. Herbert Walker"?

Okay, so "B. J. Clinton" probably would have been apt.

However, the point of calling President Obama by his middle name is specifically xenophobic. It ties back to the secret Muslim rumors, highlights his African heritage, and is used to depict him as something other than American. Look at how this whole thing is going. People are forging birth certificates thinking they can prove he can't be president.

The whole "Hussein" or "B. Hussein" thing is specifically bigoted for both religion and ethnicity. And there is a rule against that kind of bigotry as well, but the end result is that such petty bullshit is inflammatory, especially when combined with someone posting spam for a topic starter and refusing to support the assertions of his own post.

Now, looking back to the thread in question, I would point to the posts you didn't include in the image. Not that I fault the omission; they're split up and numerous. String tried addressing the point once:

Galt responded disingenuously:

String then put on his mod hat and made the point official:

And Galt's response was to invite String to ban him.

String obliged.

Those last two, of course, being the posts you captured.

Now, in the first place, it simply isn't wise to play that way once the mod hats are on. You don't have to say, "Yes, sir," and "No, sir," but telling a moderator to ban you can greatly increase the odds of that outcome. And then taking a swing at the moderator, as Mr. Galt did, only inflames the situation further. Add to that Mr. Galt's posting history, which is rife with haughty insult and disingenuous evasion. These things count against a member when a moderator is considering how to handle a situation.

In the end, I was actually surprised that String took him up on it so quickly. But, to the other, that incident took place exactly as some of the mods were hashing out the problems leading up to the announced reforms. I can't speak for String insofar as I clearly underestimated him on this occasion, and I'm not sure what I missed. However, Mr. Galt's three-day suspension was in line with our current rules. Under the standards we are preparing, he wouldn't have lasted long enough to even get to that point.

 

Oh Lord, I just got coffee up my nose! :roflmao:

 

can i refer to the president as hussein without penalty?
can others?

 

hmmm
string
gimme hundred bucks

 

What Tiassa said.

Look. I really try to understand the context of the post.

I'm no mind reader, but anybody with eyes knows that reason for posting "B. Hussein Obama" serves the singular purpose of making him even more hate-able to the fringe crazies of the world. I have some family members who use it endlessly and while I've yet to see anybody won over by this tactic, I have seen people roll their eyes and realize how stupid that family member really is. What really burns my britches is that the racist wing of this world cannot offer an explanation beyond "Uh, it's his middle name, I didn't name him!" Which I get. (Side question: Does anybody here not yet know that "Hussein" is Obama's middle name?)

Galt's defense was, what I call "lawyer games." In other words, he attempted to evade the accountability of his actions by feigning stupidity as to the net effect of his actions. Then he tried to play dumb about the rules. Then to make matters worse, he acted like there was no issue with his tactic because he was merely referenced back to Obama's middle name being "Hussein" and that made it fair game. Don't get me wrong, Obama is fair game. I just defended this principle in another forum regarding face paint.

Calling a president by an established moniker is one thing, but calling this particular president by his middle name (a name which doesn't resonate well with the USA), ad nauseum, is only done (as I pointed out) to highlight his oddness and "un-American-ness". The more alien Obama can be made to look by his brand of ideology, the easier it is to oppose him. And it works: There are quite possibly millions of Americans who hate him because of his mixed African & Muslim heritages. While it is okay to state a president's full name; as always, everything must be taken in the context of the debate. I judged the context to be racist and his argument to be in bad faith. Moreover, it was just plain annoying. How many times do we need to be reminded of the whole "Hussein" thing? And why the hell does it matter? If a reminder is necessary, then what, exactly is Galt trying to remind us of? Answer: "Obama isn't really an American." If that is his argument, fine, then he needs to start a new thread on that issue instead of sabotaging another thread with his brand of racism.

What if I said something like, "Obama the African half-breed. . ."? And I said it over and over and over? What point would it have? What would I look like? Because as we all know, it's true that he is an African half-breed and I wouldn't be lying exactly... so why not! Well, at first, since my reputation isn't really one of being a racist, people would look for the punch line. After a while they'd start to wonder. And then ultimately they begin to see me as a racist. What if Tiassa or SAM posted the "B. Hussein Obama" thing over and over? Likely the same thing until people started getting the impression that they, too, were racist. Such a statement has absolutely ZERO effect beyond highlighting Obama's differences from the rest of the USA. In the end, this is the same thing that happened with Galt. I let him get away with it for a few days to see if he'd grow out of it on his own (and I would do this in the future with any other poster). Then I'd read the context of his posts and saw the racism and bad faith. In order to move him back away from this tactic, I made a statement like, "Um, okay pal, we know his middle name, we get it. Thanks for the reminder." Then that didn't work, so I had to make it a bit more blunt.

Even after all these opportunities, Galt, failed to alter his tactic. He then began to act smugly about it, playing "lawyer games" (which is the WORST faith a person can act in) by feigning to not know the effect of his words, while utilizing the excuse: "How is it wrong to use his middle name?" Nothing, of course, if it's used in the proper context. But given Galt's hatred of Obama, and is history of these kinds of red herrings, it was pretty obvious what the intent was. And then to put a cherry on top, he dared me to ban him. Instead of PM'ing me trying to show me the logic of using his middle name. Instead of using (GASP!) the scientific method to show how important it was to use his middle name, he got stupid and told me to suspend him. So I did.

What gives me the right to try to tell another person what his/her intent was? What provides me with such clairvoyance? Why do I get to decide who's right and who's wrong? Simple: I'm the moderator and was put into this position by Plazma Inferno!. I have eyes and a peppering of smarts. I'm not obligated to stick to some legalese principle of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Like it or not, as a mod, our judgment is usually final. If this fact is horrible, I dare say: NEVER get a job in a corporation and find another website.

At my day job, I sometimes find myself resolving confrontation with unruly employees who constantly try to circumvent the rules and run around doing what they want to do. It sometimes ends with conversations like: "Well, I had originally hoped to get you to come around by appealing to your better judgment; but lacking that a simple appeal to your desire to remain employed will do. To put it simply Suzy-Q, I'm a manager and I'm giving you explicit instructions to do XYZ. Failure to do so will result in the separation of employment with Acme Corp. At this point, Suzy-Q, you need to make a career decision, what will it be?" Somewhere in there, I remind them that--for better or worse--this place is not a democracy. It's a dictatorship and at this level of the company, I'm the dictator. Sure, we can talk about it, we can even meet with large groups of people to discuss new ideas or better ways of doing things. Any employee can appeal their ideas to the dictator above me, and I encourage it, but ultimately (and until over-ridden) it's my decision.

The same principle holds true here at SciForums. Realizing that, you think people would try to play within the rules a bit more.

~String