I sent this as a PM to CRZ, who suggested I start a thread here so that he could respond publicly.
Here's the text of the original mail:
Heh, I didn't think my comment would become so literal!
Seriously, though, I didn't see anything up to my comment that I would classify as "hate" speech, but, regardless, I feel that deleting everyone else's comments forces anyone reading the thread from here on out to *imagine* what those people might have said in order to force such a reaction.
Anything thus imagined is almost certain to be worse than what was *actually* said -- you're going to be causing people to assume that everyone in that thread said horrible, evil, hateful things about Falwell, without letting their words speak for themselves, or allowing them a chance to respond.
I'm not requesting that the thread be re-opened or anything, but I think that deleting people's comments is unfair to those posters, about whom the worst may now be assumed.
Respectfully, --K
Since sending this PM, other remaining comments (mine and CRZ's) in that thread were also deleted, which makes my opening line in this PM make even less sense. Unfortunately, it also makes it seem that I was participating in "hate speech" against Falwell, since there is no evidence to the contrary.
My suggestion would be that the entire thread be deleted, and replaced with a single post thread, locked, wherein Z can say: "Jerry Falwell died" and a link (so that no one will feel the urge to start a new thread). I'm not really comfortable with people assuming anything about me due to that ravaged thread.
--K
Last 5 movies seen: Zouzou **1/2 - Linda Linda Linda ***1/2 - The Painted Veil *** - Music and Lyrics ***1/2 - Who the #$&% is Jackson Pollock? ***1/2 - Little Children ***
That's a very good point, as I myself wondered what people must have been saying to cause such a reaction. Then again I'm not a person who subscribes to the belief that controversial topics shouldn't be discussed on a message board. On the other hand it's CRZ's board, he makes the rules, and I do my best to follow those rules, even the ones I disagree with.
Obviously I didn't see any of those posts, and therefore I don't know how out-of-line some people may have gotten. And I say that without making any assumptions about you, Karlos.
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As soon as I saw Jeff's choice of title, I could SEE THE FUTURE and knew exactly where the thread was headed, but at the time, I was looking at it on my phone and didn't feel like figuring out if I could log in and do anything or not. (Also, it hurts my thumbs.)
I didn't LITERALLY mean "hate speech" but was really more trying to get across my distress that 1) what I feared was happening, was happening - specifically, that 2) I could see people engaging in "who's gonna do a better job disrespecting the dead and/or religion while steadfastly proclaiming they're doing no such thing," 3) for some reason, somebody thought it would be a good idea to steer the conversation towards Fred Phelps, whose words I'm NEVER interested in seeing posted to this board, followed by other people (a moderator, even) actually going along with that tack.
(I DID mean the other two sentences in that post, though - I'm gonna try to love EVERYBODY, and Jerry is anybody...and I do sincerely believe he loved the Lord.)
By the time we got to...whoever the last guy was putting out a bunch of Falwell's own words - a technique I like to equate to the concept of "trolling" - after deleting that post, I decided, you know, I really should just burn down this entire thread, because it never would have existed if I had been on duty at the time. It's a lot easier to piss everybody off because it leads to a feeling of equality amongst everyone, right?
Those of you who haven't figured it out yet - or would like a reminder - I may sleep in on Sundays and I'm definitely a lapsed Methodist, but I'm still a Christian, and when I sense that people are starting to try getting clever with the religion, I react just a little bit quicker than when I sense that people are trying to get clever with the politics, and I shut it down.
Unfortunately, this is one of those things Aaron and I know better than to talk about, but if you've read his posts you know that he generally won't react like I will in this situation, and yeah, he didn't this afternoon either. Usually he will let me have my way in situations like this because I tend to go along with his paranoia about certain other topics which you will seldom see on this board but which I'd normally have no problems discussing. (That's not meant to be cryptic, but may come across that way. Feel free to ask me or him in private if you're dying to know.)
This one's almost a double whammy anyway, because it would be really hard to separate the religion from the politics.
I've never been a big fan of people using RIP threads to score points no matter who the guy is - I also wish those people who don't have anything nice to say wouldn't post to let us know how much they don't have anything to say, as it tends to come off as....I'll say "ironic" and almost always seems accompanied by a few paragraphs preceded by "but."
So anyway, I haven't done a good clearcutting for a long time, but I probably should have done that first rather than try to diffuse things with a "clever" post of my own which had no chance of steering things back away from my third rail. Again, things would happened a lot earlier if I hadn't been in and out of a training room all day, but at least I got this thread out of it.
Thank you for your thoughtful reply; however, it does not address my expressed concern.
--K
Last 5 movies seen: Zouzou **1/2 - Linda Linda Linda ***1/2 - The Painted Veil *** - Music and Lyrics ***1/2 - Who the #$&% is Jackson Pollock? ***1/2 - Little Children ***
Originally posted by Karlos the JackalThank you for your thoughtful reply; however, it does not address my expressed concern.
--K
Let me go back and find your expressed concern...
You think I was unfair to everybody whose post was deleted. You are free to think that. I opted to be equally unfair to everybody who posted. If you're worried that in a thread containing six deleted posts, one of the posts happens to have your username attached to it.....well, find better things to worry about. People do not form lasting impressions of a poster based on the posts of theirs that end up deleted (unless ALL of their posts end up deleted); they form lasting impressions of posters based on the posts of theirs that stay here forever.
Originally posted by odessastepsDoes that mean you would prefer not having RIP threads in general, no matter how innocuous the deceased person might be?
I don't think I implied that - or at least I HOPE I didn't. I have no problem with newsworthy deaths getting their own threads, especially during the time that that death is considered "breaking news" and may not be known by a majority of the folks yet. I strongly encourage links be included to help everybody learn more. I am happy to read about how (dead person) made a mark or influence on the poster - but even then, I don't want to see a "death affects me more than you" competition either. I think most of you know it when you see it.
What I ESPECIALLY don't want to see is a bunch of people who didn't have anything nice to say about (dead person) but couldn't be bothered to say it until after they died - you missed your chance, so stifle it. Note that I'm not saying "at the same time, consider this carte blanche to post about any living person solely for the sake of smearing them and letting us know how you hate 'em," because usually when people do that it smells like troll bait and is dealt with accordingly.
Originally posted by CRZThose of you who haven't figured it out yet - or would like a reminder - I may sleep in on Sundays and I'm definitely a lapsed Methodist, but I'm still a Christian,
Originally posted by CRZThose of you who haven't figured it out yet - or would like a reminder - I may sleep in on Sundays and I'm definitely a lapsed Methodist, but I'm still a Christian,
Here's where I add nothing of value to the conversation:
In general, I'd like this board to stick with the idea that dead men have no politics. It's hard when the deceased was political, but I'd rather see restraint by people than the opposite.
Secondly, I'm also a lapsed Methodist. I was very religious, and I actually don't have any problem with people living their own lives under any religion. My biggest problem is when people try to regulate or push their religion onto other people. This applies to Christians, Muslims, Jews, Atheists, etc. I personally feel very strongly that the U.S. and really the world in general needs to take a religion-neutral stance to governance, or else you risk societies that are oppressive (whether the target is homosexuals, women, or infidels). I probably believe in God more often than I admit, although I'm probably more of an agnostic than a Christian. I'd have a real hard time convinving anyone who actually knows me that I'm an atheist.
I used to teach Sunday school, by the way. I was one of the "charismatic leaders" who would testify at Youth Group and try to get the "come-level attendees" (Great America Trip, Water park) to come back to the "Grow-Level" events. Anyway, I used to sell people on God, specifically Methodism.
I generally get caught up the "facts -vs- religion debates" where people argue that items of faith are equivalent to scientific research. This is where my anti-religious reputation stems from. I don't hate peaceful people practicing their own beliefs at home, but I don't want stuff mandated to me by people who believe there is one true way, it's their way, and the rest of us better conform. I also don't agree that we need to allow people to practice their own religion at home if it violates the rights of an individual under their care or in their home (female circumcision is bad, beating women is bad, treating children as property is bad, etc.) I feel that any person should be able to determine their own existance and beliefs, but once they try to extende that to other people, we should not tolerate it. A man can try to influence his wife to be submissive, but he should not be able to force her to just because a religion tells him she should be. She should retain her rights. I'm rambling now...
Re: freedom of speech here... I dunno. There are a few topics that I won't allow specifically due to contractual agreements with our advertisers. I know you guys don't see the ads, but they are there, and they come with a price on our side. We can't have discussions about illegal things, activities such as MP3 sharing, Filesharing, etc. (note that I'm not making a moral judgement or trying to tell you what is what, it's just how it goes from the ad agreements) and we aren't allowed to host racially discriminitory or hate speech. Again, I'm not saying that this is what happened here, but there is a line and we're not supposed to cross it, and I don't know where it is.
I've been really busy and not completely paying attention to the board. I'm closing escrow on my house today and something probably slipped through.
I don't always agree with CRZ deleting threads, but we do retain the right to do so at our discretion and we're pretty transparent about when we will exercise that discretion. This has been clear to anyone who has been around the board (I hope) and it is mentioned in the privacy policy at the bottom of the main page (I will review this and make sure that it is).
A thread or post might be deleted for any number of reasons (divulging personal information about a person / celebrity, hateful speech, intolerance, trolling, redundancy, stupidity, inappropriate timing, bad joke, admin bad mood, we don't like you, we don't like the subject, ad agreement, etc. etc.) We probably won't discuss it on a public venue but if you ever want to know why, the name of the person who deleted the post is there to read, please send a PM and we may discuss it with you. I am not gonna promise this - in fact I would not have discussed it with any of the recent troll invasion folks - I simply IP banned them all and nuked all of their posts. This may happen again in the future.
This place is easy to get to and you are probably accessing it from home, but remember it's our little cocktail party, and if the hosts think you need to go, it will probably (eventually after much grousing) happen.
That said there are users who were gruff and even argumentative with us who hung around for years! We didn't kick them. We don't kick people off, generally.
PS> I'm not against the Jews at all, but Zimmerman is just a German name. As far as I know, we don't have any Jewish background. I think we're more likely to have an African American or American Indian relative on my Dad's side than we are to have Jewish - our family name is what it is due to an adoption. My great-grandmother remarried and my grandfather was adopted by him and took his name. We could have been Buchholtz's (Still German, "Beech Grove") instead.
Originally posted by CRZIf you're worried that in a thread containing six deleted posts, one of the posts happens to have your username attached to it.....well, find better things to worry about.
Well, my post hadn't been deleted when I sent you the PM. Since posts after it had been deleted, I assume you left it up and then thought better of it at some later point. So, no, my PM had nothing to do with my own post.
The other post that had been left up and has since been deleted was your own, saying that you could have done without the "hate speech." That was my concern -- publicly accusing people of "hate speech," but not allowing their words to remain for others to judge, while also not giving them an opportunity to respond.
Both those posts are gone now, of course, so I'm perfectly willing to drop all this.
--K
Last 5 movies seen: Zouzou **1/2 - Linda Linda Linda ***1/2 - The Painted Veil *** - Music and Lyrics ***1/2 - Who the #$&% is Jackson Pollock? ***1/2 - Little Children ***
Originally posted by Guru Zim Re: freedom of speech here... I dunno. There are a few topics that I won't allow specifically due to contractual agreements with our advertisers. I know you guys don't see the ads, but they are there, and they come with a price on our side.
I never would have noticed this had you not brought it up. Heck, I hardly even notice that there are ads here.
Registered users don't see them, but the same content goes to the guest viewers who pay (in part) for this place, so the content rules have to be enforced.
The hide tag is questionable, but it may allow us to circumvent the normal rules, as non registered users cannot see the content. I'd rather not push it so I am enforcing these rules in the hide tags as well.
For context, we still lose money running this place. But, we almost break even some months. So it's not something I want to lose (the ad and affiliate checks).
Thread ahead: Where in the W...orld is Carmen Sandiego? Next thread: Forty-one million wasted clicks Previous thread: the-w.com topic of interest: May 2007
It's just a simple (UNIX) shell script:
#!/bin/shecho Location: http://imagen.CRZ.net/pokemon/`echo . | /usr/local/bin/gawk 'srand ( ) {print 1 + int(rand() * 150)}' | awk '{printf ("%03d",$1)}'`.gifechoecho
You could also use an `ls *.
#
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