Another missing thread

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My thread discussing the idea of "Assassination Politics" has gone missing from the PPR forum, and all my posts regarding it have vanished from the find all posts by feature on my profile. I don't believe any rules were broken by that thread, and as I don't know why it's missing or who is responsible for deleting it, at the very least I'd like an explanation as to why it's no longer there. Some people found the idea that was being discussed repugnant, but no specific group was being attacked, no one was being insulted, and it vanished with no explanation or warning after I had invested some effort into my posts there. Please explain, or reinstate the thread.

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Dox47,
I have posted this thread link to the moderation team for whomever moved the thread to respond. Please do not continue to post about it but please wait until the mod that removed it is notified of your request.
thank you,

Merle

Oh, Dox, do you mind that I got chuckle out of you posting this because I just knew, I just knew, you were going to demand an explanation? I am not the moderator who moved the thread, but I did provide an second opinion on it, and I think the removal was the right decision. Explaining the why to you, however, is a little more complicated, in large part because you and I simply have different ideas on what is appropriate.

Since you posted the question, I'll post the response, but as Sinsbodly correctly pointed out we shouldn't be discussing removed threads in the forum to start with. Still, given the concerns some of you have posted about the fairness of moderation, I'll try to respond without revealing too much of the controversial comments inside the thread.

I think there are a few angles that apply, but the main concept to me was that this site cannot be seen as condoning in any way the topic of that thread. Even though the discussion was in hypotheticals, there was a positive view by some responses with regards to what is, by its goal, criminal activity. I understand that the concepts and their attempt to skirt specific laws intrigued you, and from a purely intellectual standpoint I can see how they might be fun to debate, but putting that discussion here exposes the site in the same way posting a bomb recipe might. It is counterproductive to the goals of this site to allow it. We cannot be seen as the potential inspiration for behavior that would be morally wrong and could lead to a clear and heinous criminal act. This is PUBLIC site, and one that is perceived as potentially representing the AS population.

Do the rules specifically say that? I can see where you might argue it. This part would be the most applicable, and the fact that several responses termed the thread disgusting affirm it: The following activities are unacceptable on Wrong Planet: 1. Posting offensive language, comments, video, or images. That the examples that follow in the TOS don't list your topic does not mean the term does not apply. It's a judgment call. But I really think the right call was made.

I haven't demanded anything yet, all I've asked for is an explanation. I don't see it as being all that exceptional to want to know why a thread that I'd put effort into that broke no rules suddenly vanished without warning, and I'm not sure what to make of you finding such a request "amusing".



Where else should this be discussed, is this not the section devoted to questions about the inner workings of WP? If the mod who deleted my thread had merely locked it and left a note and or PM'd me I could have discussed it with them privately, but since that simple step was not taken, I have to post it here instead. The very fact that questioning a decision like this is in fact a rules violation would have made George Orwell proud, and is truly a disgrace to this website and the community it claims to serve. It also says rather a lot about the "fairness" of the moderation here, but that's a whole other can of worms.



Simple fix, add a disclaimer that WP the views expressed herein are not those of WP, there probably already is something like that buried in the rules here somewhere. The idea described was published sometime in the early 90's and can be found in many places throughout the web, including
Wikipedia, and no one is accusing any of them of "condoning" the idea simply because it is mentioned and or discussed.



So it's okay to talk about radical ideas so long as we all condemn them? That seems to be what your first sentence is implying, and by the way we were not talking about a criminal activity, after all the whole point of the idea was that it was completely legal. Even if we were discussing a criminal enterprise, there are numerous threads on this board discussing illegal drug use, patronizing prostitutes, and other "criminal activities". Incidentally, if that's going to be your argument who's law are we going to go by? In Saudi Arabia it would be illegal for you to function in a position of authority, so are you going to ban yourself because it's "criminal activity"?



Apples and oranges, no one was laying out instructions for committing a crime or constructing anything illegal or destructive, we were simply discussing an idea, why should anyone be afraid of that? At any given time many controversial topics are being discussed here, many of them are bound to offend some people, that's the nature or debate. Are you going to argue that all the Christian bating that goes on in PPR somehow brands all Aspies as a bunch of militant atheists? Or that some of the more graphic sexual questions in the Adult forum will make people think we're all a bunch of perverts? Or how about all the "woe is me I can't get laid" threads in Love and Dating? Face it, that line of reasoning is a dead end, you can't allow "what will the NTs think!" to be the standard of what is discussable here, it's simply not feasible, nor is "it might give someone an idea", the kind of people that do crazy and violent things don't need any inspiration, and we can't allow ourselves to be held hostage by them either. Besides, my thread may have sent the message that Aspies consider unusual and sometimes extreme ideas, but censoring me definitely sends a certain message about the management of this site, and it's not a positive one.



Ah, but nothing in my thread was a comment, video, or image, nor did I use any offensive language, it was the idea that those people found disgusting, and nothing in your little rule book says anything about ideas. This extreme stretching of the rules just furthers my previously laid argument that the rules of this site seem to be whatever the mods want them to be, with we the members whom the mods supposedly serve having little or no say in the how "our" site is run.

Dox, while you do make some decent points, none of it changes the decision. You are a better and more fervent debater than I am, and I don't have time to engage point by point. That you disagree with my logic is fine, but I believe you are going to have to respect it. Reality is that many readers on that thread felt you were advocating murder. If that doesn't cross the line on what is allowed, what the heck does? There is nothing worse. Now, I actually felt that that wasn't what you intended, and my explanation above took that into account, but you have to understand that this IS what people read. I would be surprised if you could find many members beyond yourself who are sorry to see the thread gone. And can you really tell me that it never occurred to you that the moderators would find that thread inappropriate?

If I had been the moderator who moved the thread, you would have had a pm with the reasons or, at least, notification. But the moderators aren't required to provide either, and there are many reasons different moderators may not.

If making judgment calls feels arbitrary to you, I am sorry but there is never going to be a way to put in clear black and white, covering every possible situation, exactly what can and can't be said. In this case gut reaction across the moderator team was pretty much the same. It isn't personal to you, although I did assume we would have to be ready with a more detailed explanation than moderators normally provide, because you don't seem to accept much without a debate. There are times that is a useful quality, so I'm not going to suggest you change it, but it can be frustrating to tangle with. I feel I've given you the courtesy of respecting it, and tried to answer your question, and have invested a decent amount of time doing so. If that isn't enough, so be it, but I hope you can accept that this was our decision to make, and it was not made without serious thought.

I'm on my phone, so a more thourough debunking of this will have to wait, your "logic" is far from fine, and should be allowed to stand as the official position of WP, I mean we wouldn't want to send the wrong message...

The message I'm taking from your post as a whole is that I'm wrong and your right, you just can't prove it because my skills at debate are not "fair", and since I'm just a peon here I just have to accept it, that sound about right? I'm far from done here, but I have to go burn some metal, part 2 to follow.

I am not saying I am right and you are wrong, I am saying that we disagree. I respect where you are coming from, and I believe I understand where you are coming from, but I continue to disagree. It doesn't make me right; we'd have to have a full out debate and the votes of nuetral parties to figure that out, but I don't have time to invest in that process. I have a family to care for, AND a job, AND numerous volunteer obligations. I was given the moderator job because people believed I showed good judgment in how I was posting. I am now asked to apply that judgment towards making Wrong Planet a positive experience for as many members as possible. In this case, you feel I've called it wrong, and I respect that, but, yes, it is my call to make, and I don't think that the members who posted how disgusting the thread was would disagree with me. If I had endless time I might enjoy the challenge of debating you point by point and seeing if I could turn your opinion, but I don't have that. I've already spent more time on this one issue than I can afford to. I am not asking you to agree, I just asking you to accept that we feel the decision was thought out and fairly made; a second opinion was sought and given. You are, of course, free to continue to argue your case in this thread, although switching to the MERITS of your topic, instead of the holes in my logic, would be the recommended approach. I will read it, and think about it, but understand that I cannot continue to invest time in answering you.

So you can't defend your decision and claim that you don't have enough time to do your job properly, so why do I have to respect your "logic" again? Further, you go on to essentially declare yourself deaf to reason and by your own admission superior argument, neither being qualities that should be considered desirable in a moderator.



Really? At the time it was removed, there were 9 replies to that thread, and I believe 3 of them were me, 4 were fairly neutral or tongue in cheek positive, and 2 were cranky Canucks calling me a psychopath, since when does that qualify as many? I don't believe either of them actually accused me of advocating murder, they just thought it was a horrible idea and then hurled some abuse at me for bringing it up in a not completely negative light. This could all be confirmed easily if SOMEONE hadn't deleted the thread.



As you admit below, I wasn't advocating murder, but the truth is that people on WP often advocate murder, just read any of the threads about someone abusing an animal, a bad bullying incident, autistic children being mistreated, etc and you will find at posts calling for the perpetrators to be murdered, and often tortured first. I specifically remember the story about the Australian kid that fed all the lizards to the crocodile, and getting into it with an animal nut who was quite insistent that the 8 year old child in question deserved to be fed to the croc himself. Now that's advocating CHILD murder, and that's only one of many similar examples I could bring up that were deemed perfectly acceptable by the mods, other threads have seen people speaking in favor of child pornography, torture, and yes, assassination. Why is my thread unacceptable while all the others were deemed OK?



So now content is judged for appropriateness according to what people may interpret it as? AND you're going to appeal to popularity too, are you trying to make it all the way through the list of logical fallacies in one post or something? Not to mention that we're talking about a 9 post thread here with all of TWO negative responses, I'll bet a whole lot more people than that would be upset to see this sort of thought policing going on on WP (Perhaps I'll ask them...). Anyhow, Eugnics was really popular once too, does that make it right? Finally, you get around to blaming the victim, frankly I try to forget that you people exist as much as is possible, I'd much rather be debating the merits of an anonymous assassination market with the guys in PPR than destroying the flimsy framework you've attempted to justify your blatant power trip with. Would you ask a woman who's just been raped if she'd though about what men might think before she'd worn that sexy outfit? Extreme example, but same principle, that's some good company you're putting yourself in...




Such as? Common courtesy could have saved everyone a lot of trouble in this case, but that was apparantly too much to ask of the still unnamed mod who deleted my thread, so know you've all got me on your case in public. Happy?



So a group of people that has no oversight, no accountability, and that operates behind closed doors made a group decision, and that's supposed to make me feel better? That's how they run things in fascist countries and leftist dictatorships, it should not be how a SUPPORT SITE for people with autism is run. Yes, this is a private website and Alex is allowed to run it however he wants to, I'm just saying...



Considering that I've rebutted every single point you've made regarding why MY post was singled out when much "worse" threads are allowed to thrive, I happen to suspect that it indeed may be something personal, considering my critical view of the mod team, but that's neither here nor there. I accept plenty of things without debate, what I do not accept are arbitrariness, stupidity, and unreasonable behavior, all of which are on clear display here. You've given me your reasons, I've refuted them, so you've basically fallen back to "because we say so and you have to", you're enforcing your opinion by force of your position of authority rather than by your opinion's merits, and that is anathema to any thinking person.

So are you saying that you don't have enough time to do your job properly? Perhaps you should resign as a moderator so someone who can devote the necessary amount of time can do it right, after all that would make WP a better place (as you claim to want), wouldn't it? What you do outside of WP is your business and has no bearing on the way that moderation is conducted here, the "martyr to WP" argument cuts no ice with me.



"People"? You mean mods, you were selected by the other mods, not by the members of WP, and the mods, as has been amply demonstrated, have a very different agenda than the members of WP do, despite serving the members being their supposed purpose. I could speculate on just what qualities you displayed that got you modded, but it would be just that, speculation.



I don't merely disagree with you, I've refuted your reasoning point by point, I've shown you that your judgment was in error, and yet you refuse to change it, what does that say about you? As I pointed out in my previous post, your supporters consist of an angry Canadian with USA envy and a barely literate Quebecois, quite a coalition you've got there. Whatever they thought of the idea in my thread, I doubt either of them would be in favor of the sort of power trip you're on now, so I wouldn't get too high up on that horse...




Than quit, we deserve mods who can devote as much time as is necessary to resolve our issues, not some halfassed drive by moderation.



The merits of my topic are irrelevant, there is no minimum standard of quality that a thread must adhere to in order to exist, look at all the junk "appreciation" threads or "thread killer" threads to name but two examples, I don't have to prove that my thread was "good enough" to be posted, you need to prove that it violated the rules in some way, and you've yet to do that. I certainly won't accept that the decision was well though out OR fairly made, I think I've done a pretty good job of debunking both of those delusions. You have not shown a very good track record so far at keeping your personal feelings out of your moderating, and I believe this is yet another example of that, go ahead and not respond to these charges, but be aware that I intend to pursue this matter further.

Yo mods, this is the annoying person who sinsboldly usually gives veiled threats to. Thanks DW_a_Mom for being approachable to Dox47, but please do consider that when you delete or censor other peoples thoughts on the basis of other people misinterpreting them or taking them the wrong way, that course of action is careless. It gives thought only to appearance and not to actuality or underlying meaning. It's caring more about politics than people.

I sooo gotta disagree with that. There have been some malicious things made by people who have been banned, making claims about WP being a hate site, yadda yadda, and a thread about assassination politics would end up being more fuel for stuff like that.
The site has to stay running in order for the politics vs. people thing to even be an issue. There has to be some consideration of politics.

Not to mention that, unlike some posts that have been considered questionable in the past, this one really did have nothing to do with the site's mission.

I find it ironic that you're arguing this over a politics thread being deemed inappropriate.

The people spreading those claims aren't ex-members, they are the same people who started the Facebook group saying that autistics are rapists. People who have been banned tend to just complain about moderator censorship.

Dox, while you feel you effectively refuted each point, I disagree, and I've confessed to not having time to spell it out. I am sorry if that makes you frustrated but maybe when I get paid to do this job I'll be able to find the time. Fair enough? If you can find people who have that sort of time to invest, without pay, and can do it fairly, point us to them. We would love more mod's.



You forget that opinions exist which may be expressed to a moderator but not posted in the thread.

Dox, I'm not on power trip and I don't enjoy removing threads but sometimes the judgment call is that doing so is in the best interest of the forum. One can argue that we should never remove a veiled ad, or a call to participate in a study, and many more things that we do on a regular basis and that the membership, as a whole, appreciates. There are threads that I, personally, would take out but don't because I know the membership disagrees with how I, personally, see it. This site does, ultimately, belong to the membership, and I seriously try to keep a feel for what that membership, as a whole, wants to see here. Just because that vision isn't yours does not mean it isn't accurate. You know I listen.

There was obviously more, and I gave that information in my SECOND response, not my first, which provided my "official" reasoning. It is a factor, in my opinion, but it should not be the main one and it was not.

I don't think those are the same people as I was talking about. There was a you-tube video that was claiming that WP was a hate site that was against NTs and stuff, it wasn't targeted at the autism community in general, but at WP specifically. I guess I can't be totally sure who said what, but it wasn't the message to the one I was referring to wasn't that autistics were bad, but that WP was bad. Either way, though, it's not exactly unreasonable to remove a thread about "assassination politics," even if it was completely and totally academic and theoretical, that's still shaky legal ground. It's better to keep that ground nice and firm. (I don't know if you were arguing that point at all anyways or just contesting exactly who was saying nasty things about WP..)

(Aren't the censorship complaints mostly from one person?)

(That's the gist of what I'd said, anyways.. most of the words are the same.)

Last edited by Maggiedoll on 29 Oct 2009, 7:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

So, the true colors come out at last, still no rebuttal of my points, my thread informing the users of PPR of this insideous threat has been locked, and I'm being threatened with a ban. You people are beyond despicable, enforcing your opinions at what amounts to gunpoint, these are not the actions of people I would trust to run a dog pound, let alone a support site for autistics. On top of everything else, FAR more people here are now aware of Jim Bell and his idea than if my thread had been left alone in the first place, as well as being shown a great example of why more oversight of those in authority is needed. At this point it's not even about the thread and the idea being discussed, it's about the way WP is being run and whether it's still an appropriate place for aspies in light of the draconian and fuzzy rules and the selective manner in which they are enforced.

Last edited by Dox47 on 29 Oct 2009, 8:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.