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Underground > Policy & Help >

"Homo Shit" in the Conversation: Proposed Solution

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23:30 / 10.02.03

First and foremost, I want to find the least destructive way of dealing with (something I see as) a problem with various of InnerCircle's threads, stemming primarily from his 'Knocking on Heaven's Door' thread, in the Conversation.

Put simply, I have a problem with the puerile reversal of Xoc's name - 'Cox' - and the more slyly homophobic 'ginger boy' aimed at myself. And it is homophobic: I don't accept that he was referring to 'health-giving' plants, red beards or anything else. Not plausible. We both know 'ginger = ginger beer = queer', we both know I don't like it, we both know I want him to stop it. Barbelith's always been somewhere I've felt insulated from this sort of casual slur; it pisses me off to see it used here, and I want the whole thing to be over.

So what I'm proposing, InnerCircle, is this:

1) You go back and modify those posts which refer to 'Cox' or 'ginger'. Click on 'moderate post' on the left there, beneath your name, and change or delete those parts.

2) I'll go back and modify or delete those posts of mine which refer to the incident. I know several other posters who'll willingly follow suit.

3) When we're both done, I'll delete this thread and stop hassling you about it.

4) We'll all be happy, happy little bunnies.

I'll even say please.

Please.

Sound fair?

ONLY NICE THINGS

07:29 / 11.02.03

Well, he tried...

Proposal the second. as we know, deleted threads are not obliterated, only removed from vision. So, how about we have a single thread in the Policy or the Conversation linking to ic threads, and delete them from the Conversation or wherever else they crop up? That way anyone who wants to can go and check out the very cutting edge of activism in the innercircle, but also nobody has to bother about him unless they feel the need? Plus, ic gets his own private kingdom, whoich I think is what a lot of single young men with limited sexual experience and limited intelligence are lookikng for. Like a shed.

It's an inovative response, but circumstances may merit it..

08:07 / 11.02.03

A pocket universe? Well, it's arguably nicer than my Proposal The Second, which was to start putting forward for deletion the offending posts...

Thoughts?

08:52 / 11.02.03

Haus proposal sounds reasonable to me. I doubt it would have much impact on a determined poster, but I like the idea of the threads still being easily accessible.

BTW - is there any hint that ic reads Barbelith outside their own threads? If not, this change would come as a shock and might precipitate a tantrum.

08:54 / 11.02.03

I've specifically linked to this one via InnerCircle two main Conversation threads.

09:09 / 11.02.03

Yes, but given the comprehension skills thus far displayed, I was thinking that maybe a moderator might pm ic on any future action. Perhaps this goes too far in accomodating them?

09:21 / 11.02.03

Well, I don't think we'd actually want to go ahead with anything until at least getting his reaction. Ideally, I'd have been happy with him going for my initial plan of mutual self-moderation of the homophobic bits, but he seems to be determinedly avoiding this thread. I'll PM him a heads-up.

ONLY NICE THINGS

09:54 / 11.02.03

He has responded, however -

if all you have to contribute is protocol or style tips, post them elsewhaere, you are wasting your keystrokes. Your virtual egos and petty modulators are like navel fluff, easy to ignore.

This thread is about so much more than gay sensibilities or Baby conventions and politess. go play elswhere, self impostant BabyKins, where your language of *mum they called me gay* and *IC flauts convention* is relevent like kindegarten.com

icFocusGroups

ic is clearly not for turning.

This is a fairly big step though - it's one I'm more comfortable with because it leaves the threads accessible and uncensored, just relocated, but I'd still like to see the support of a decent number of Barbeloid, and hopefully hear Tom's opinion, before we do anything big.

Also, I think we could do with a couple of temp. admins to clear up any explosions resulting, but that;s maybe overcaution.

10:04 / 11.02.03

It's got my support. I'd suggest that any index thread be created in Conversation, rather than P&H.

10:16 / 11.02.03

I agree with it, but I think the index threads should stay in P&H. This nonsense has gone too far already. Shut him down.

ONLY NICE THINGS

10:26 / 11.02.03

P&H has the advantage, depending on how you look at it, that it will stay near the top for longer. It has the disadvantage that fewer people are likely to view it...

Are we seriosu about this one? If so, can I suggest that one of each of the topic area mods puts in a topic asking people to give their thoughts on this as a method of proceeding, with a link to this thread? Or should we get on with it and rely on its reversibility later?

10:56 / 11.02.03

Get on with it. I mean, who *really* gives a damn about those threads besides ic hirself? They're gonna be gone and forgotten pretty soon.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

11:58 / 11.02.03

I like Haus' idea, I want to keep the threads intact so we can show everyone what ic is like, and I especially want to keep them intact so if Chromeo starts complaining we can show that we did try to engage intellectually with him and were just wasting our time.

12:44 / 11.02.03

Perhaps P&H is a better place than Convo... this index thread would be purely serving an administrative function, after all. In itself it shouldn't be an invitation to possibly frivolous conversation. That should perhaps be written into the index thread, or even this thread could possibly serve.

Someone should PM Tom, and see what he thinks?

13:05 / 11.02.03

I only suggest Conversation for any such thread as, with the current lack of thread-locking, there's no way of ensuring that its purpose remains purely as an index. If it's to belong here, then maybe it should include a statement at the very beginning that it's *not* a discussion thread.

13:09 / 11.02.03

In the absence of thread-locking, we'd just have to keep the index thread well-moderated and well-trimmed...

13:48 / 11.02.03

Fascinating idea.

15:46 / 11.02.03

Excellent plan.

It reminds me of how Picard dealt with Moriarty when he got out of hand (only without Stephanie Beacham).

innercircle seems incapable of calling us "moderators." Maybe he has a thing for Borg-defeating shield harmonics.

17:55 / 11.02.03

I like it. I'd put the thread in P&H, but post an announcement of it in the Conversation so people are aware of its existence, and given a place to throw tantrums about it.

18:32 / 11.02.03

Probably you wouldn't want to lock the thread, anyway. For one thing, there may be a future need to add to the index.

I agree that this thread would have to be well-moderated. This is a pretty heavy action, after all. But I wouldn't necessarily discourage in-thread discussion --including moderators staying open to explain why this action was taken. I think the idea is containment, it makes more sense to me to consolidate everything into one thread.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

19:53 / 11.02.03

I've been trying to stay out of this but the anti-gay shit is just foul. There's plenty of places on the net where that kind of crud is tolerated and even encouraged. Don't like being called on your bullshit? Fine. Don't like moderators? Fine. Find a board which doesn't have those things and post there.

The only problem I have with this action is that it supplies our latest encoprecis case with more nummy chicken-flavoured attentiony goodness.

ONLY NICE THINGS

19:57 / 11.02.03

Well, the alternative is to go scorched earth on his ass. Deleted threads still exist, but deleted posts, to the best of my knowledge, do not...

20:15 / 11.02.03

Probably you wouldn't want to lock the thread, anyway. For one thing, there may be a future need to add to the index.

I could be wrong, but I've got the feeling that, as a moderator when we were using the UBB software, I was able unlock threads if there was a need. Not that it makes any difference at the moment.

ONLY NICE THINGS

22:23 / 11.02.03

No, it doesn't - we're not using UBB software any more. I don't even know for certain that we *can* lock threads at the moment. But that doesn't really matter - it only takes 2 moderators to delete a post, so the thread could be pruned reasonably effectively, as long as we put it in an area with a good few active moderators...

23:03 / 11.02.03

No response from InnerCircle, then. I'm moving to enact Haus's Plan B, linking here to those threads with homophobic elements, 'Knocking on Heaven's Door' and 'Intelectual Collective', then putting them to the moderators for deletion, so they effectively become 'ghost threads'.

I've had no response from InnerCircle to any of my PMs thus far, but will inform him of this.

01:50 / 12.02.03

Deleting will remove them from the front page and stop anyone who wasn't aware from stumbling across them, commenting and thus bringing the whole thing back to the top again, I suppose.

This won't stop anything, though, even retaining the links. I'm staring into the crystal ball... the mists are parting... I see... I see new threads in the conversation complaining about this... I see abuse... I see comical twisting of usernames... now I see... yes... a banning! That'll be a fiver, please.

04:44 / 12.02.03

Are you quite sure that IC meant "ginger" to be rhyming slang for "queer"? Is there any indication where IC comes from, or whether IC knows this rhyming slang?

There is a cartoon character called Ginger Meggs, so named because of his red hair (although I can't remember the cartoon ever being in color, the hair color was implied). From my background, I would assume that the nickname "Ginger" might be a little patronizing, but not homophobic.

05:17 / 12.02.03

Ginger Meggs ("Ginge" to his friends).

Somehow I've never considered this a particularly "queer" character. Also, according to United Media, Ginger Meggs was picked up as a daily comic strip by London's Daily Express in 1997. Is it possible that IC has picked up the name "Ginger" merely to refer to an impish tyke?

Of course, I'm not suggesting Ganesh is an impish tyke... um... unless that's how he wants me to think of him... I mean... um...

*continues digging deeper hole*

05:44 / 12.02.03

If the use of 'ginger' hadn't been accompanied by other homophobic slurs, then I suspect it wouldn't have been brought up, auszilla. Unfortunately the situation seems to be that InnerCircle has not only shown us that he enjoys what he's doing, but that he also has no intention of stopping until some action is taken. I think people have shown remarkable restraint so far. If it were my board I'd have banned his IP long ago.

06:01 / 12.02.03

If the use of 'ginger' hadn't been accompanied by a tirade of other homophobic slurs, then I suspect it wouldn't have been brought up, auszilla.

Well, let's deal with one slur at a time, shall we? I'm just saying that I wouldn't ever have considered the nick "ginger" as a homophobic term. There are other explanations. As for the other fightin' words, perhaps IC is responding to what s/he considers unjustified personal attacks.

I think IC might merely be some goofy kid trying to express hir developing world views in a self-amusing way. Maybe it would be more appropriate to apply some mild censorship, rather than removing entire threads. Can't mods just cut the few offensive words out and otherwise let the kid have hir say? These personal remarks are not pertinent to IC's discussion, anyway.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

07:01 / 12.02.03

Whether intentional or not, once it had been pointed out that it caused offense- and not just general offense, but personal abuse-style offense, I would have thought some kind of explanation would have been only polite, other than to immediately label the "offendee" "militant". Especially seeing as how, to my mind, 'nesh is one of the less militant posters here (on many subjects) and ironically one of the most inclined to reasoned debate. Which didn't seem to be forthcoming.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

07:02 / 12.02.03

Though there could be truth to fridge's predictions. I liked the original nice solution, but it ain't a perfect world, is it?

07:09 / 12.02.03

Whether intentional or not, once it had been pointed out that it caused offense - and not just general offense, but personal abuse-style offense - I would have thought some kind of explanation would have been only polite

I agree, from my understanding of etiquette. It would also be far more constructive and effective for discussing the issues IC originally intended to raise.

ONLY NICE THINGS

07:26 / 12.02.03

As far as one can tell, ic is from the UK, although possibly not with English as a first language. It's possible that by "ginger" he meant "possessing ginger hair", but since he has no idea of what Ganesh looks like, and thus whether he is possessed of a beard and if that beard is ginger, it seems unlikely, especially as his subsquent defence that "ginger" means "ginger beard" in Australia seems to be utterly without foundation and an attempt to snow-job critics...

07:54 / 12.02.03

As I've said, I think it could be a vague, unconscious (not the right word but it's late here) reference to Ginger Meggs. You wouldn't need to have ginger hair to be called "Ginger" in reference to Ginger Meggs, you'd only need to be considered an amusing tyke. Or something like that.

I'm not sure how widespread the rhyming slang "ginger"="ginger beer"="queer" (gosh, what lengths people will take to construct a euphemism!), but to me it doesn't seem any more likely as an etymology than Ginger Meggs, which is circulated in newspapers in the UK and other countries.

Anyway, the best we can do is assume IC's explanation of hir own expressions are as correct as anyone else's. People don't always think through every word they post, and it could have several different origins that all apply to varying degrees.

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