RiTides wrote:
For what it's worth, you guys rather effectively shot down my simplistic / idealistic basic ruleset and made some good points about blanket, benign rules not really working. It is going to be subjective, and for better or worse, I'll be making the subject calls to start with (on my unofficial board set up for this - which is really all that's relevant at the moment since the discussion itself isn't happening on Dakka on these topics anymore).

I'm going to do my best to put forth an environment for a solid debate and useful discussion. I'm also really not going to take into account things that happened here in the past, or at the Wasteland, etc though - I feel like that both isn't fair and in some ways isn't feasible. If someone wants to turn over a new leaf and post in a constructive manner at the ETC (I think that name is going to stick now ) then they're going to have a chance to do that. But if they're drowning everyone else out with posts that are not adding to the discussion, then I'll hopefully have a slow-mode or other feature to address it.

I'm just not going to preemptively make use of that, or keep someone from joining, or assume because they support an argument it can be extrapolated that they are a certain kind of person. It's all going to be based on what they post, and I'll try to be as attentive and nimble at the beginning as possible to steer things in the right direction.

Prestor Jon wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

Clearly such a person is suffering from severe problems IRL that aren’t going to be fixed by a message board.

That's completely subjective. Which is my entire point: you're already comfortable with making completely subjective judgments about banning subjects for the health of the discussion, you just disagree about where that line should be drawn.

That’s a valid point. The person detailing a thread with off topic posts about the need for genocidal programs may not be suffering from anything other than a different view of what is funny or appropriate. Regardless of the motivation blatant off topic detailing posts should be discouraged. The content of such posts is irrelevant beyond identifying them as non sequiturs to the thread topic. I don’t think that is a controversial or difficult to codify and enforce position to hold.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

Clearly such a person is suffering from severe problems IRL that aren’t going to be fixed by a message board.

That's completely subjective. Which is my entire point: you're already comfortable with making completely subjective judgments about banning subjects for the health of the discussion, you just disagree about where that line should be drawn.

That’s a valid point. The person detailing a thread with off topic posts about the need for genocidal programs may not be suffering from anything other than a different view of what is funny or appropriate. Regardless of the motivation blatant off topic detailing posts should be discouraged. The content of such posts is irrelevant beyond identifying them as non sequiturs to the thread topic. I don’t think that is a controversial or difficult to codify and enforce position to hold.

...so we should ban people who blatantly argue in bad faith. If "blatant" is good enough for excluding people in case A, it should also be good enough for excluding people in case B, no?


If I make the thread "Should we exterminate the Danes?" it is a political question, it's my topic so by definition on topic, and I argue my sincere belief that Denmark should be destroyed, should that thread be allowed? The blatantly obvious answer is "no, what the heck are you smoking?" or some variation thereof, as already established in this thread.

Why, though? It can't be because the question is off topic, because genocide is most certainly a political question and it is the topic the thread is intended to discuss. It can't be because it isn't my sincerely held belief, because in this hypothetical scenario it is. In this case, why do you ban such a thread?

Prestor Jon wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

Clearly such a person is suffering from severe problems IRL that aren’t going to be fixed by a message board.

That's completely subjective. Which is my entire point: you're already comfortable with making completely subjective judgments about banning subjects for the health of the discussion, you just disagree about where that line should be drawn.

That’s a valid point. The person detailing a thread with off topic posts about the need for genocidal programs may not be suffering from anything other than a different view of what is funny or appropriate. Regardless of the motivation blatant off topic detailing posts should be discouraged. The content of such posts is irrelevant beyond identifying them as non sequiturs to the thread topic. I don’t think that is a controversial or difficult to codify and enforce position to hold.

...so we should ban people who blatantly argue in bad faith. If "blatant" is good enough for excluding people in case A, it should also be good enough for excluding people in case B, no?


If I make the thread "Should we exterminate the Danes?" it is a political question, it's my topic so by definition on topic, and I argue my sincere belief that Denmark should be destroyed, should that thread be allowed? The blatantly obvious answer is "no, what the heck are you smoking?" or some variation thereof, as already established in this thread.

Why, though? It can't be because the question is off topic, because genocide is most certainly a political question and it is the topic the thread is intended to discuss. It can't be because it isn't my sincerely held belief, because in this hypothetical scenario it is. In this case, why do you ban such a thread?

I think the justification would come from the personal conduct policy. If we don’t want posters insulting, denigrating and demonizing other individual posters then we also don’t want anyone to deliberately attack, insult, denigrate and demonize a specific group of people. Same as if I started a thread titled Women are Terrible Drivers: Let’s Mock Them for It, that thread would get locked because regardless of my honesty or lack of profane language it would still be a thread whose sole purpose is to denigrate others and that to type of behavior is bad for the forum community. We could find other ways to discuss the history and future of Denmark and Danish culture without advocating for a genocidal pogrom. Same as we could discuss When is violence justified? But a thread called Nazis should be beaten to death on sight Prove me wrong would not be acceptable.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:


Which, as was pointed out earlier in the thread, is banning people for not posting in good faith.

Prestor Jon wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:


Which, as was pointed out earlier in the thread, is banning people for not posting in good faith.

I thought we were all in agreement that bad faith posts are detrimental to productive discussion and that we were only arguing about what constitutes bad faith, when would punitive action need to be taken and what type of punishment would be appropriate. If a poster only made one post about the Danish menace I don’t think a ban would be appropriate. A mod could remove the post or lock the thread if it was the OP and let the poster know that’s not allowed. Bans should be reserved for repeat offenders. I haven’t argued for anarchy or no moderation in this thread just a more clarified and lighter touch than some have proposed.