Author Topic: Censorship is a sign of weakness  (Read 15292 times)

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Offline donkeypong

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I was (at least half) joking about banning CRAPCOIN. I like the honesty it brings. It shows us exactly what we get with most of these UIAs and the forum tips.

Offline lovejoy

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Tuck, I'm predominately unconcerned with the fate of CRAPCOIN, and as it seems impossible to destroy it for all time, there it is.  I consulted with the technical department, and it seems you have irreversably tainted the pristine bts blockchain with this crap. Don't worry though I still think fistbump has a bright future. The offer is and is not valid, because it is not feasible... as I don't desire to have anything to do with that asset personally.  The offer was only intended for YOU doing the dirty work of destroying CRAPCOIN, but alas.

To be honest, my motivation for walking into the crossfire here is that I sometimes get in a mood to condense a gathering distaste, and focus it on the nearest offending target.  This just so happened to be CRAPCOIN.  So in a way I would like to thank you for helping me to further crystallize my feelings on something that has so far remained unarticulated. 

In a thread where accusations of this and that fascist censorship, discussions of this or that person's discomfort with incendiary or hurtful language, the ban itself, how it was carried out...(sigh) Forgive my post-traumatic stress for being unable to turn away from the train wreck of human spectacle, and my loathing for the process and it's unfolding, even while perversely appreciating the value it must have for the participants, and the community, in some way.  It's just that I have endured seemingly endless anarcho righteous intellectual ego validating rituals and have grown weary of the culture.  From among the privileged, righteous chip on the shoulder predominately male crusty-punk protesters trying to organize and do battle with the state, to years later among this decentralized, airy, fiery, exceedingly male technorati in one of the geekiest anarcho libertarian smartchain scenes, with extremely promising innovations hewn from cutting edge information technology, visionary in nature...and, unfortunately, a pre-pubescent fascination with crap, orgasms, sperm, "circle jerks" and so on.  Now that anyone can have their own UIA, all the kids want to have their junk on display like obscene clown trophies.

There is a notable habit among some of defending any kind of potentially offensive, threatening, slanderous, behavior in the name of free speech.  But I ask you all, what good is your free speech when the only ones left to talk with you are telling poop jokes?

Thinking back, at least the teen and twenty something crusty punk anarchists realized that they really ought to consider being inclusive enough to create an environment where other people felt, at a minimum, relatively safe to join and share, if not actually ATTRACTED to partake and collaborate.  I mean, don't get me wrong, it was still a shit show, and endless face to face consensus decision making processes even under the best circumstance reveals a terrible truth about the desire for people to display their insignificant egos above all else.

What this all boils down to is the kind of environment we want to create here in our community.  I value the qualities of inclusion and non aggression above an anything goes, lowest common denominator attitude.  By and large I hope to encourage more constructive and collaborative conversations here through my own participation, but if someone is on a tirade of abuse and won't be dissuaded, honestly, fuck em.  They can go somewhere else and spew their vitriol.  I'm all for having standards, and there's nothing fascist about doing so.  If you think a community can't agree upon standards of behavior and enforce them without becoming fascist thugs, then you're lost in the woods.  If by excluding one unreasonable and abusive person we make the forum more attractive to ten others, then it's well worth it, in my opinion.

How we treat this forum is how it will be.  How we behave, collectively, reflects on the community here.  I for one want to see BitShares succeed.  I for one wish to create a positive and welcoming environment to help open up participation in this grand experiment to a much wider audience, whereas others feel it is acceptable to treat the forums like their college dorm room floor, hangin out being stoopid and making poop jokes with porn scattered around.  That's not the kind of environment I'm personally looking to create here, or anywhere I choose to spend time.  So, one who persists in maintaining this narrow cultural bandwidth here will inevitably run into some form of pushback from me. I CAN direct my attention elsewhere, but it's really like watching a culturally backwards trainwreck crushing the hopes of future generations for a laugh, when they could be rolling out the red carpet, or the yellow brick road.  My usual MO is to remain silent and carry on as best I can, as many others do. It's not so simple as just leaving the thread and going on with my day, because for better or worse, i actually care about this community and want to see it thrive.

It's also still one of the hugest elephants in the room, which I have alluded to here, namely: Nearly half of the global population, women, are not represented here in the slightest.  Since a select few here continue to insist upon creating the dorm room floor environment thus ensuring that this imbalance will continue, the trend isn't likely to change.  Naturally this isn't a problem unique to BitShares, but BitShares could be unique in it's response.  Women are just the beginning, this is a challenging space for anyone to engage in, and you've got all sorts of groups whose values are aligned with this project but who would not feel welcome, or see value, when they are greeted with the kind of base accusatory discourse they see when they enter here.

Maybe I'm old fashioned, but when I have guests over I like to clean up a bit, and create an enjoyable environment to meet with them.  I'd like to see a little bit more of that kind of hospitality here on the forums.

Peace



TL;DR "what good is your free speech when the only ones left to talk with you are telling poop jokes?"
« Last Edit: December 12, 2015, 11:05:32 pm by lovejoy »

Tuck Fheman

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@Tuck Fheman are you making a difference when someone says fuck or when someone says fuck off to someone that is part of the (greater) conversation?

I just want our great leader @fav to be happy! Whatever he says goes. I'm done with thinking for myself and will rely on fav to tell me how I can talk, what I can name my UIA's I pay for out of my own pocket, who I can give them to, how I give them, what threads I can respond to and anything else is all up to our great leader from now on.

Hive Mind 4evah!

Offline santaclause102

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I sympathiizes with TheFheman's general sentiment but I also understand when an account is banned because of continious personal attacks that are directed at people that are part of the conversation.

@Tuck Fheman are you making a difference when someone says fuck or when someone says fuck off to someone that is part of the (greater) conversation?

...In the end it boils down to whether you assume any order at all or not. If you don't assume any order you don't associate any normative / judgemental meaning with words (like fuck). Hmmmm :) 
« Last Edit: December 12, 2015, 07:18:54 pm by delulo »

Tuck Fheman

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Every week I go to a church/"holy place" of a religion and yell "You are all idiots and goat F@ck#rs!" last week someone recognised me at the entrance and throwed me out of the church. All this "unjust" censorship from those goat f@ck#rs has to stop!

Damn dude, you're one messed up individual. I'm sorry I got dragged into a conversation with someone like you. @fav can we ban this guy before he starts calling us all ...

Quote
goat f@ck#rs

... for no reason?

This goes against my hive mind rationale and I'm very busy-like right now. I don't have time to respond to these childish post ... yet I can't resist because I see others responding to this thread and I need to get my SJ points!

BTW, I'm really glad I can "mention" my great leader in every single post I make so that it can be properly sanitized. Great use of a great tool for our great leader to do his great work!

chryspano

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Quote

I can show you some pictures of people who got beat down vs people who were yelled at and some images of people who read mean words on a forum.

Would that help you to discern the difference?

TMI - I got beat pretty good as a kid and I can tell you from experience, I would much rather have just read some pissed off forum post from the ahole who beat me on a regular basis.

There is a big difference between hurt feelings and being punched in the face, whipped with a belt or clothes hanger or any other form of physical violence that does physical and psychological damage.


Is this some kind of contest? are we supposed to find the greater evil and ignore everything else? also, by what criteria can we judge the severity of violence, especially in pictures? Blunt internal trauma is supposed to get a lower "score" because we can't see it? Are we supposed to ignore all modern day violence because of the brutal severity violence had at middle ages?


Quote
See above and also "fucking liar" (or whatever it was) is two whole words. I don't think many people would be psychologically damaged, especially if they are a mature adult.

I don't think many people would be physically damaged if slapped in the cheeck either, but I don't see random people at puplic places slapping each other.


Quote
See above and use ignore on a forum. Banning people for having a differing opinion Insulting is baaaad, just baaaaad mkay.

But, that's just my opinion and as someone else said, this isn't my forum.

You guys/gals take whatever actions you want, shut down all speech that differs from yours and shut yourselves into your little safe spaces.

Hey, how about we create a Safe Space area on the forum where you can ban everyone who doesn't think like you?!

Or create the rest of us a part of the forum where we can speak our minds and use our own judgement without having a nanny come save us from teh mean words!

Hey how about two separate forums, like a kiddies table, where there's a caretaker combing through all messages removing any bad words or speech that might cause some harm before it ever gets posted.

Man that would be awesome! I can smell the fascism through my computer screen already! I'm sure your local government would be more than willing to supply some tools and/or personnel to assist as well.

Oh happy days!

^^^I fixed it for you.


The other side of the coin....
Every week I go to a church/"holy place" of a religion and yell "You are all idiots and goat F@ck#rs!" last week someone recognised me at the entrance and throwed me out of the church. All this "unjust" censorship from those goat f@ck#rs has to stop!

Tuck Fheman

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It's sometimes difficult for me to work out when you are being sincere. But I think you are here so.....absolutely no hard feelings! You've helped me think through this difficult subject matter. I respect your passionate defence of the ideal of freedom of expression and belief that there are adequate tools available to mitigate any unwanted contact within the forum. I retain my conviction that verbal violence is unnecessary and that a more proactive countermeasure is useful.

I agree 100% and yes I'm being sincere. I like to debate as much as I like the ladies ... and "I do like the ladies...I like em...and they like-a me"! (shameless Kung Pow reference) ;)

I'm not afraid to be wrong, because that's how I learn and that's why I put my heart out in the open hoping someone will teach me something I don't know, so I can become a better human being. :)

There are great similarities between physical and online interactions.....I could never sit passively while someone is bullied for instance. I still believe in a culture of respect. I absolutely do not condone the censorship of journalism, criticism, disagreement, humour, non personal rudeness etc.

I agree with most of the above.

I hope lzr1900 can apologise to Stan or at the very least, offer to stop attacking him (wether Stan cares or not) and comes back in order to participate civilly and productively.  I believe it's on him if he values this community enough.

If they are man/woman enough, they will, otherwise they're worth ignoring.

Consider the shit, fuck, cock, balls hatchet buried good buddy!

Cool!

I didn't mean to come across as attacking you personally, I merely wanted to attack the points you were representing that I disagree with in this instance because ... I like debating. ;)

https://youtu.be/FgAGkxAtzIg

Offline Ben Mason

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Go tuck. You de man.

I am Tuck's disappoint.

Man you gave up so easily. I would never ignore you, I respect your differing opinion no matter how much I vehemently disagree with it!

I just needed to make a point.

Anyway, I'm glad we had our talk and now we can be friends.

Good times are ahead my friend, cheer up!

Life is too short to dwell on silly words used by silly people when there is so much work to be done, just ask Stan! ;)

You guys put me on ignore and move on with your lives and get shit dun while I continue protecting the forum from misguided bans. ;)
It's sometimes difficult for me to work out when you are being sincere. But I think you are here so.....absolutely no hard feelings! You've helped me think through this difficult subject matter. I respect your passionate defence of the ideal of freedom of expression and belief that there are adequate tools available to mitigate any unwanted contact within the forum. I retain my conviction that verbal violence is unnecessary and that a more proactive countermeasure is useful. There are great similarities between physical and online interactions.....I could never sit passively while someone is bullied for instance. I still believe in a culture of respect. I absolutely do not condone the censorship of journalism, criticism, disagreement, humour, non personal rudeness etc.

I hope lzr1900 can apologise to Stan or at the very least, offer to stop attacking him (wether Stan cares or not) and comes back in order to participate civilly and productively.  I believe it's on him if he values this community enough.

Consider the shit, fuck, cock, balls hatchet buried good buddy!

Tuck Fheman

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Go tuck. You de man.

I am Tuck's disappoint.

Man you gave up so easily. I would never ignore you, I respect your differing opinion no matter how much I vehemently disagree with it!

I just needed to make a point.

Anyway, I'm glad we had our talk and now we can be friends.

Good times are ahead my friend, cheer up!

Life is too short to dwell on silly words used by silly people when there is so much work to be done, just ask Stan! ;)

You guys put me on ignore and move on with your lives and get shit dun while I continue protecting the forum from misguided bans. ;)

Tuck Fheman

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However, if the tipbot is used to bump up old and obsolete threads to derail the whole forum there's only one logical consequence: the medium will be stopped.

There was no tipbot.

That's  just several of you guys jumping to conclusions, again, and reacting with no evidence outside of your own minimal thought process.

As you can see from the quotes selected from those threads, the users quoted said the word "CRAPCOIN" and they were awarded some CRAPCOIN, nothing more.

If you figure out how to destroy CRAPCOIN so it is never issued again, I will send you 5,000 BTS for your trouble, plus a tip.

How big of a tip? I was going to make a ton off of CRAPCOIN, so let's make a deal!  ;)

Some day the forum will be able to separate the play area from the people who are working, and we won't have to bother to even regulate it... we can just choose to see relevant, work related items, and use our precious little time wisely.

Yet you're choosing to spend this much time responding not to the guy who said "fucking liar", but the people defending his right to say "fucking liar", instead of doing work.

Seriously?

No offense man, but go back to work if that's what you want to do. You are choosing to be upset over something so trivial. Move on, get over it, be productive and stop wasting your time with this silly stuff, take your own advice! ;)

Tuck Fheman

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There is no difference between psychological or physical violence, it's the same to me.

I can show you some pictures of people who got beat down vs people who were yelled at and some images of people who read mean words on a forum.

Would that help you to discern the difference?

TMI - I got beat pretty good as a kid and I can tell you from experience, I would much rather have just read some pissed off forum post from the ahole who beat me on a regular basis.

There is a big difference between hurt feelings and being punched in the face, whipped with a belt or clothes hanger or any other form of physical violence that does physical and psychological damage.

In order to ignore a user you will first have to suffer/endure the psychological violence of his posts.

See above and also "fucking liar" (or whatever it was) is two whole words. I don't think many people would be psychologically damaged, especially if they are a mature adult.

"Dodge the punches/bullets/insults!" is not a valid argument in my opinion.

Well, it is when you separate physical violence from two words that form some ahole's opinion on a forum. They're completely different.

For example. Go to war and get shot at, watch some friends get blown to pieces, then come back and let me tell you about a war.

Oh wait, I just told you about a war. Can you feel/see the difference? You probably read the above line and it had no affect whatsoever on you, physically or psychologically.

There is a big difference.

If we don't know where other people's noses start, it could be more civil imo to keep a safe distance than to demand "infinite rights and space" to swing our fists.

See above and use ignore on a forum. Banning people for having a differing opinion is baaaad, just baaaaad mkay.

But, that's just my opinion and as someone else said, this isn't my forum.

You guys/gals take whatever actions you want, shut down all speech that differs from yours and shut yourselves into your little safe spaces.

Hey, how about we create a Safe Space area on the forum where you can ban everyone who doesn't think like you?!

Or create the rest of us a part of the forum where we can speak our minds and use our own judgement without having a nanny come save us from teh mean words!

Hey how about two separate forums, like a kiddies table, where there's a caretaker combing through all messages removing any bad words or speech that might cause some harm before it ever gets posted.

Man that would be awesome! I can smell the fascism through my computer screen already! I'm sure your local government would be more than willing to supply some tools and/or personnel to assist as well.

Oh happy days!

 :-\
« Last Edit: December 11, 2015, 11:47:51 pm by Tuck Fheman »

Offline lovejoy

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You're in a bar. A drunk pukes all over the floor, causing a nasty smelling puddle. You are free to look the other way, and put a clothes pin on your nose.

But if the barkeep wants repeat business and a good clientele they may consider 86'ing people who repeatedly stink up the place.

This is a community, it has some standards, so far I think we are extremely tolerant.

However, if the tipbot is used to bump up old and obsolete threads to derail the whole forum there's only one logical consequence: the medium will be stopped.

Spot on. +5%

There is no difference between psychological or physical violence, it's the same to me.

In order to ignore a user you will first have to suffer/endure the psychological violence of his posts.

"Dodge the punches/bullets/insults!" is not a valid argument in my opinion.

If we don't know where other people's noses start, it could be more civil imo to keep a safe distance than to demand "infinite rights and space" to swing our fists.

Well said.  +5%

Well in that case I apologize for creating a UIA on BitShares and sharing it with your community. I simply don't understand the reasoning behind this. Are you guys taking offense to the name of the UIA? It was created because many of you here refer to most UIA's as CRAPCOIN so I capitalized on that words popularity among your forum and thought it was funny.

You guys have ORGASMS and other funny named UIA's. Are you banning those people too? Are you three on the banning people who create UIA's committee or something? Is there anyone else in this community that can override you three guys who have no sense of humor and abuse your mod powers on a whim?

Do I get a refund of my 5,000 BTS for thinking this community was mature enough to handle a fun UIA but instead I get banned for passing them out freely?

I'm not a mod, FYI, but I think your CRAPCOIN UIA is crap, and I think the ORGASMS UIA is crude, and potentially off putting to a demographic we should be welcoming, in the same way.  There's a lot of adult, dare I say, professional work to be done here without having to navigate through a bunch of masturbatory, adolescent, toys on the floor.

If you figure out how to destroy CRAPCOIN so it is never issued again, I will send you 5,000 BTS for your trouble, plus a tip.

Some day the forum will be able to separate the play area from the people who are working, and we won't have to bother to even regulate it... we can just choose to see relevant, work related items, and use our precious little time wisely.

And to clarify, my suggestion to ban you "while we're at it" was meant to be 51% joking.
« Last Edit: December 11, 2015, 09:49:32 pm by lovejoy »

chryspano

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“The Right To Swing Your Fist Ends Where My Nose Begins”

We are in a bar, a customer is constanly punching people in the nose, he is thrown out of the bar and some people are complaining that he should be left alone because he had every right to swing his fists! OMG!

Physical violence analogies don't apply to a forum post that can be simply ignored IMHO.

There is no difference between psychological or physical violence, it's the same to me.

In order to ignore a user you will first have to suffer/endure the psychological violence of his posts.

"Dodge the punches/bullets/insults!" is not a valid argument in my opinion.

If we don't know where other people's noses start, it could be more civil imo to keep a safe distance than to demand "infinite rights and space" to swing our fists.





Offline onceuponatime

Quote
“The Right To Swing Your Fist Ends Where My Nose Begins”

We are in a bar, a customer is constanly punching people in the nose, he is thrown out of the bar and some people are complaining that he should be left alone because he had every right to swing his fists! OMG!

Physical violence analogies don't apply to a forum post that can be simply ignored IMHO.

You're in a bar. A drunk pukes all over the floor, causing a nasty smelling puddle. You are free to look the other way, and put a clothes pin on your nose.

Tuck Fheman

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Quote
“The Right To Swing Your Fist Ends Where My Nose Begins”

We are in a bar, a customer is constanly punching people in the nose, he is thrown out of the bar and some people are complaining that he should be left alone because he had every right to swing his fists! OMG!

Physical violence analogies don't apply to a forum post that can be simply ignored IMHO.