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Why Think Humanism is a humanist fail.

Any topics that are primarily about humanism or other non-religious life stances fit in here.
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Alan C.
Posts: 10356
Joined: July 4th, 2007, 3:35 pm

Re: Why Think Humanism is a humanist fail.

#41 Post by Alan C. » October 22nd, 2010, 10:56 pm

Latest post of the previous page:

Manuel
Forget specific cases, let's just deal with free speech (or not) on a forum advocating free speech. What is the purpose of moderation in this environement? (sic)
As I've already said animist dealt with this
don't think free speech in this context (it is not one's home) extends to making personal remarks or racist remarks, and swearing is pointless and boring;
Which bit don't you understand?

Cross posted with Marian.
Abstinence Makes the Church Grow Fondlers.

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animist
Posts: 6522
Joined: July 30th, 2010, 11:36 pm

Re: Why Think Humanism is a humanist fail.

#42 Post by animist » October 23rd, 2010, 7:53 am

Manuel wrote:Forget specific cases, let's just deal with free speech (or not) on a forum advocating free speech. What is the purpose of moderation in this environement?
I think you are a bit inconsistent in mentioning a specific case as an example of censorship, and then telling me to forget it

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animist
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Joined: July 30th, 2010, 11:36 pm

Re: Why Think Humanism is a humanist fail.

#43 Post by animist » October 25th, 2010, 10:33 am

hi Maria or Alan or anyone: not being that familiar with the practice and lingo of these forums, I am interested to know a couple of things. First do undeniable "trolls" normally get removed from the main forum? Second, I wonder how you decide on whether someone is a troll - for instance, IMO John Jones shows some signs of this (apologies JJ if I am wrong, as I was wrong over Mickeyd). So if JJ were considered by by you a troll, would that be enough to get him/her removed? Last, I think I have seen the term "toad" used but do not know what that means

Maria Mac
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Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:34 pm

Re: Why Think Humanism is a humanist fail.

#44 Post by Maria Mac » October 25th, 2010, 1:43 pm

Hi animist

As you know, I define trolls* as 'posting with the apparent intention of inciting hostility' and it is, of course, a question of judgement whether people are doing this or not. I tend to err on the side of overcaution and give people plenty of chances to amend their posting style and start fitting in. The main criterion for deciding whether posters like John Jones - who is indeed behaving somewhat trollishly - should be removed is whether they are saying or doing things that people can reasonably be offended by and whether they are doing this repeatedly and more than they are contributing positively. Again, it's highly subjective and though I sometimes, in retrospect, wish I'd got rid of the nastiest posters sooner, at least I've never regretted banning any of the (not sure how many but fewer than a dozen) posters whose accounts I've toaded.

(By the way, 'toading' is peculiar to this forum and it means I've used my superhuman powers to turn deactivated accounts irreversibly into toads and the banned poster is awarded a special toad avatar. This happens to all active posters - as opposed to one-time spammers - who break one or more rules so many times that it's upsetting people and turning many threads bad.)

Not all trolls will necessarily get banned - David Mabus, for example, - because, as long as they are not making people really angry or upset, they can be quite good fun to have around and they can get bored before anyone else does.

Thanks, by the way, for your responses to Manuel. I think his point has been very ably answered by you and Marian and Alan C, though I kind of thought I'd already covered it in the OP. Although I try to use a very light touch in moderating this forum, I am convinced by my own extensive experience as both a moderator and user of various similarly inspired internet forums that rules are necessary in order to maintain the friendly and civil atmosphere, which I believe is more conducive to productive discussion, and where disagreement can take place without invariably ending up with people abusing and threatening each other and frightening away lurkers rather than drawing them in. And the reason I care about that is because that's the kind of forum I prefer to participate in and I know I speak for many others. So my aim at the start was to occupy the space between the very heavy-handed moderation of the former Internet Infidels forum and the almost total lack of moderation in some of its off-shoots, the worst example of which is probably the rants n' raves forum, where rudeness and personal abuse appear to be celebrated rather than frowned on.

I think Dan put it succinctly when he said:
We all decide for ourselves whether we want to participate, given that it is run the way it is run. And fundamentally the owners can run it whoever they like If we don't like it, we can go somewhere else. We could even create our own space, if we don't like this one.
There is a huge marketplace of internet fora for people to choose from. If, under the pretext of needing to 'allow free speech at all costs', they were all unmoderated and everyone could say and do as they like, they would be excluding the very large number of people who simply find that kind atmosphere as unappealing online as we do in real life.

*Guide to internet trolls

philbo
Posts: 591
Joined: December 18th, 2009, 3:09 pm

Re: Why Think Humanism is a humanist fail.

#45 Post by philbo » October 25th, 2010, 3:31 pm

Maria wrote:(By the way, 'toading' is peculiar to this forum and it means I've used my superhuman powers to turn deactivated accounts irreversibly into toads and the banned poster is awarded a special toad avatar. This happens to all active posters - as opposed to one-time spammers - who break one or more rules so many times that it's upsetting people and turning many threads bad.)
Can they be cured by a kiss from a princess?

Nick
Posts: 11027
Joined: July 4th, 2007, 10:10 am

Re: Why Think Humanism is a humanist fail.

#46 Post by Nick » October 25th, 2010, 3:56 pm

No, philbo. You're thinking of frogs. :D


Big Mama does possess the ability to untoad a toad, but so far, quite rightly, has not felt the need to exercise this awesome secret power.

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animist
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Joined: July 30th, 2010, 11:36 pm

Re: Why Think Humanism is a humanist fail.

#47 Post by animist » November 4th, 2010, 7:34 pm

this is marginal to the topic, but, Maria/Alan H, is it netiquette to refrain from responding to a post if it is explicitly addressed to someone else?

Maria Mac
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Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:34 pm

Re: Why Think Humanism is a humanist fail.

#48 Post by Maria Mac » November 4th, 2010, 8:18 pm

I'm not sure there's any specific netiquette governing such a situation, animist. I think it would depend on the nature of the post i.e. whether it's of a personal nature in a support thread as opposed to just a discussion about politics or religion or whatever.

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