Making it Better: The future of WP

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Well there was a misunderstanding on this thread regarding lynching and the member involved felt bad about it and had no idea of the horrible context of the image he posted or the extent of the brutal history lynching but in the end it was educational. My reaction was emotional because I honestly thought at the time that he was using it to troll or something but he contacted me privately to clear things up.

And honestly I think that would be the most extreme worst case example of the kind of misunderstanding you’re talking about and as far as I know it has all worked out in the end. So I dont think there’s much to worry about

Ack us Irish, we have always had to leave home, colonial times still leave their mark.

Ok to be clearer and more direct, so that there isnt another miscommunication, based on cyclical past performances, when there is a crisis here, you arrive, out of touch, in a rush, dont seem to care who you alienate, or how that impacts on their lives, you stay for a few weeks tops and then poof... vanished.

I dont believe you are the man for the job of Admin, we need someone who actually understands and is responsible towards the lifeline this space provides for autistic people globally.

Okay I don't think we here were aware this was resolved, as it was a major sticking point. I'm glad you made peace him. I think myself and others were still upset at the idea that we too may make a mistake and end up on the receiving end of a similar emotional reaction.

Have you reached a similar resolution with Sly and his case of misunderstanding that it's never okay to use the n word (to recap: he'd thought it was only bad if you called someone it, but now knows that was incorrect)?

Yes this

I think perhaps you're confusing the job of admin / website owner with the job of the moderators. I'm not running around banning or warning a bunch of people people or doing much specific day to day stuff.

But ultimately, unless I sell the site to someone else, I have the overall responsibility of what happens.

I've made no directives to the moderators to ban specific people or to lock threads about specific things. I like to thing we have one of the more open forums on the internet in terms of supporting free speech while still having a positive community.

But i really got quite upset when I saw some of what was being argued about in terms of defending the use of the N word, racist imagery, etc and I've taken it on as an important issue to fix in the community.

Glad that was resolved.

I think an emotional reaction to a photo of someone being brutally tortured and burned alive for an hour is natural and I think once he realized that's what it was, he had a similar reaction. I honestly felt physically sick from seeing that and i'm sure most people would. As far as sly goes, he never reached out to me so I don't know if he realizes it was wrong to post that.

I will say that I find it quite disturbing that people are acting as if I came in here and alienated people when i simply reacted to some seriously troubling things in a way that most people in my position would. The moderators have been getting burned out having to deal with this stuff and I honestly don't know how they do it. I think we really need to make it clear that even casual racism is just not going to be ok.

Agreed. no place for racism but there needs be evidence to support actually calling a user out for being one.

I also find any images of graphic violence very triggering emotionally.

Thanks for being patient and responding to the various concerns some members have been expressing, Alex.

I hope we can have new mods appointed soon to help with the workload.
They do seem to burn out quickly, maybe we need half a dozen more in case some of them get forum fatigue.

I made a guideline thread announcement about the racism issue.

thanks; I'll take a look.

I don't believe in running away,
Said the *true* "Nihilist".

It isn't B&W:

The problem is that for MONTHS there has been an issue with attacks on a small group of people (calling them reichwingers, insinuating they are Nazi's\nazi supporters\racists\white supremecists\lacking intelligence) for the "crime" of having a centrist or right wing view of any issue (or even just suggesting a different approach to tackling an issue). We even had a thread "is it OK to punch a nazi" (post consisted of "and why is your answer 'yes'") where this "nazi=conservative" link was being pushed (if possible, have a look at the signatures used by the participants which were changed at around this time):

Source: http://dev.wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=388147&p=8546983#p8546983
With the clear insinuation that anyone disagreeing with force (the originator of the post even stated at one point he didn't care if someone was killed) was a "reichwinger", and so were nazi sympathisers, while also insinuating this also applies to anyone on the right of the political spectrum.

Or we get:
Source: https://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=387586&p=8532702#p8532702

Or we get (thankfully edited by a moderator):

Former source: https://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=389161&p=8573222#p8573222
the very clear implication (being that it came from a professional (technical-) writer and so would have been intentionally worded this way) being that to be conservative means you cannot be perceptive, intelligent, or wise.

Or in pointing out that federal officers were sent to a city to protect federal property because the local police were unable to\prevented from doing so:

Former source: https://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=388913&f=21&p=8573352#p8573352
(Since deleted, but indicating any belief that federal officers were sent to protect property made one "horribly racist".)

Then you popped up in the middle of a discussion where a number of people had been complaining about these sorts of things having been happening and allowed to continue, and the first thing you did was make posts which implied you took the side of those taking these types of actions...

And before you ask, these WERE all reported, yet some were permitted to remain...And that is only a sample of how the site has been headed.

As promised: