Res wrote:Which rule do you think embodies the spirit of content based speech restrictions.
I did battle with Smokey, a holocaust denier and promoter of Christian Identity anti-semitism for what seemed like weeks. I do not recall any moderator intervention, except when I objected to their posting of Christian Identity garbage on the Mormon side of the board. I'll review the mod forum and (sigh) the Smokey posting, but I don't recall any extra stringent moderation.
You're a better man than I am, Res, there is no question there.
I also didn't explain myself very well. Ultimately, the NSFW is the immediate issue and I see the call has been made. Thank you.
There is a substantial difference between our previous visitor and our new friend. Our previous visitor was a fifth-rate philosophizer, but a philosophizer nonetheless and made arguments for his positions. Our new friend so far seems to have our board confused with Pinterest and has taken on the mantra of the LDS missionary: "I am here to teach, not to be taught". And so, our new friend preaches, pins pictures and links, and avoids the point of the board entirely, which is to discuss. Fine, I mean, there is no rule that says you actually must discuss things here, we had a guy for years just copy and paste chapters of the Bible into a thread in Celestial. But as the new friend starts pushing boundaries and making the site look like a hate-site, Threads with increasing levels of Nazi content without any discussion to contextualize to a passerby, it starts becoming a problem, in my view.
If a person must come here to discuss their neo-Nazi views, and if we're to let them, I think you're right that such discussions technically can happen. But here's the thing. People on all sides can and are angry at times. People promoting Nazism take that anger up a notch or two. It's very unlikely that a pro-Nazi person is going to take the inevitable gang-up with grace. They have a tactical advantage in the sense that If they win the argument (which they won't, here) they win, but if they lose the argument, they also win because they are publicizing and drawing attention to some of the most offensive material imaginable. Think about A-Mike, he'll sometimes discuss to a point legitimately, then get mad and post memes of guns and other stupid crap that he thinks is offensive in order to get back at the people he disagrees with. Well, most of that stuff we can let go it's just the vast quantities of it that become the problem. Now think of our previous visitor, were those fifth-rate discourses really meant as discussion, or were they meant as a cover to increase the output of anti-Semitic memes? Either he originally had good intentions and discussed in good faith, got frustrated and retaliated by increasing the anti-Semitic memes, or he faux-discussed just as a cover so that he could drop as much of his hate content before the inevitable ban? Either way, the end result was pretty well obvious from the beginning.
But our new friend hasn't even made the effort to discuss or provide faux-discussion as a cover. It's just ramping up the hate content slowly and see where we draw the line. I think it's pointless to let that happen. If our new friend makes a huge effort to communicate her point of view and can maintain a pro-Nazi discussion as a model forum participant, with curtesy to other forum members and careful argumentation, then maybe that should be allowed. It's ultimately up to you three and Shades. It's just extraordinarily unlikely to happen.
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