PPR rules

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Ha! Wow, no wonder I couldn't find it. I thought that thread was just a relic that hadn't been unpinned*, so it never occured to me to look in there. Thanks for finding that.

Although I have to wonder if that mention of hate speech is really a formal proscription. It seems as though it was written because it was the phrase that came to mind at the time, rather than with a view to become a proper rule.

I've tried to follow this debate, over its multiple threads, but it's been very difficult. The debate has left me unsure as to what the rules in PPR actually are (I'm sure there are some rules, because I have heard that a member was recently banned for their conduct in that forum, but I'm damned if I know what they actually are), and I think this term "hate speech" is not helping because the debate, as it is now, seems to centre around the term needing to be used differently in PPR than it is in the other forums when, if you're right, it isn't used in the other forums in the first place.

I think you're probably right that it has come to be the term that encapsulates "swearing; racist, sexist, homophobic language; behavior intended to provoke or belittle other members; violent or sexually demeaning content", as well.

I think a lot of this issue has centred around that particular rule, when I think the more fruitful rule to focus on, since there seems to be a consensus that in PPR it is necessary to allow off-the-beaten-track beliefs their time on the soapbox, would be

"2. Personal attacks.
This includes insinuation, ridicule and personal insults, regardless of whether direct or indirect. Attacking an opinion, belief or philosophy is acceptable, but attacking the person making the comments is not."

I imagine this has already been brought up, since there has been so much written in this vast argument already, but I thought I'd put it forward here since it might sidestep the trickiness that the term "hate-speech" is causing in this debate.

Of course, this rule comes with its own problems. For instance, I don't doubt there are some thin-skinned posters who will not be able to seperate attacks upon their opinions/beliefs/philosophies from attacks upon their characters, because people have a tendency to define their characters in terms of their opinions/beliefs/philosophies, and likewise I am sure there are some posters who have a clumsy way of phrasing attacks upon an opinion/belief/philosophy that could land them in some trouble if they are interpreted to be making personal attacks.

* - I still think it is a relic that hasn't been unpinned.

I think the point of all this discussion has been to decide what these rules are, or should be, how that forum should be moderated, given that it has not been consistent in the past.

We do have to weigh some of how our overall membership feels, as well, because the result that I do not think anyone wants is for the freedom to post controversial opinions to trump someone else's right to feel comfortable as a member of Wrong Planet. All that gets noticed and considered.

If the right to WP members to feel comfortable is greater than the right to argue controversial topics, then PPR ought to be deleted. Also, Christians in general tend to make people many people uncomfortable, perhaps all Christians ought to be banned for the Greater-Comfortable-Good© of the community. Americans also tend to make many people from the other countries of the world uncomfortable, so perhaps Americans ought to be banned as well? Or perhaps people ought to, instead, be more tolerant of other people having views which make them uncomfortable or even offended rather than arguing that, in effect, only happy thoughts should be permitted.

It's a fuzzy line but one can figure out if it's been crossed by the actions others start to take. When the people this site most wants to serve feel they need to leave because of things posted, then it is time to take a hard look at what is allowed to be posted. Plenty makes me uncomfortable, but it doesn't make me feel I need to leave the community, and thus my discomfort really isn't a factor (and even if it was, given that I'm not really part of the "meant to serve" population, it probably wouldn't matter). So maybe comfortable wasn't the right word.

Excuse me, there is now another fuzzy line as to the phrase "the people this site most wants to serve", with, perhaps, an oppositional category of member of "the people this site most wants not to serve".

i think that both of those rules go hand-in-hand, in a sense, or at least they sit well together.

if someone makes a remark like, "well, we all know that blacks are welfare bums", it is clearly not an acceptable post on WP. however, it is not covered by the "personal attacks" rule.

a black person reading that would feel targeted but that individual would have no moderator recourse as it is not covered under the "personal attacks" rule - after all, that black person was not targeted directly by that statement.

The trouble is that not all the allegations of racism that are being thrown about in PPR of late are aimed at statements like "well, we all know that blacks are welfare bums" (some are, since there was a statement recently made that was a lot like that, although it wasn't aimed at black people, and it was made by someone who later admitted to posting it to deliberately rile up a certain other poster - a definite breaking of rule 2). The charge being levelled against rule 1 is that, because it is a prohibition of something very vague, "offensive" content, and because the list of offensive content provided isn't exhaustive, but only gives some examples, it can stifle debate for the myriad of reasons mentioned throughout the many threads that are involving this discussion, thus stopping PPR from fulfilling its purpose.

But I didn't really mean that rule 1 be done away with (though I can see why you thought I did), but rather that, because rule 2 seems to be more explicitly concerned with debates than rule 1, it would be the better rule to look to in examples where it isn't a clear case whether something is "offensive", at least for PPR. So, the example of "well, we all know that blacks are welfare bums" would be something that clearly falls under rule 1. If someone says something that isn't clearly racist/sexist/homophobic/what-have-you, then I don't see why they should be banned if they aren't breaking rule 2 (in the context of the question of whether their post is offensive).