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What exactly does get you banned on Barbelith?

  
  

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Spyder Todd 2008
20:40 / 23.03.06
I'm not seeing this is an exceptional level.

Fair enough, I may well just be getting paranoid in my old age.
 
 
grant
20:44 / 23.03.06
What criteria?

Here's one: pragmatic. To what degree is comment X likely to make every subsequent post about comment X rather than the original thread topic? To what degree is comment X likely to make every subsequent thread in which user X posts about comment X?

That's directly about the value of the board as an information exchange.
 
 
grant
20:52 / 23.03.06
Another pragmatic, information exchange-level criterion: To what degree is comment X likely to either drive away other members or discourage potential members from applying? (Which, of course, brings up the question of how members are valued.)

To what degree does comment X close down possible contributions or new avenues of discussion?

For instance, Holocaust revisionism, despite how it may appear to some, is really not anything new -- a road that leads eventually to Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Christian baby barbecues.
 
 
grant
21:02 / 23.03.06
A criterion that seems the most intuitive, but probably requires the most discussion, is more based on history & society: To what degree is comment X a product of (or is user X a beneficiary of) historical privilege? To what degree is comment X an instrument of enforcing privilege or maintaining an inequity in power relations?

Personally, I'd see this as another practical factor in information exchange, but I'm one of those R.A.W. "true communication is only possible between equals" freaks. Fnord.
 
 
Tom Paine's Bones
22:37 / 23.03.06
I think there is also an issue around how willing people are to engage with Zoemancer on other issues, when his stance is just "I won't talk about this" rather than a retraction. And I don't think that's unreasonable. It also may affect the starting of other threads. Would Zoemancer be stopped from making posts on a thread about the Israeli oppression of the Palestinians, even if that post would be perfectly valid from anybody else?

Several posters have suggested, for example, that anti-Semitic and/or homophobic comments are likely to be viewed as more serious than other forms of racism and/or misogyny. Are those suggestions valid

The speed with which Zoemancer was banned compared to the Vlad situation would suggest so, certainly.

And I'm not sure that's legitimate.

Yes, holocaust denial is the lying, deliberately or otherwise, about a mass genocide. And it's a genocide which murdered some of my ancestors so it's naturally a pretty raw subject for me.

On the other hand. Like the vast majority of cultural Jews, and a large number of the non-Orthodox religious Jews, I'm pretty much fully assimilated. So, essentially, people only know I'm Jewish in real life if I choose to tell them. So anti-semitism is not a constant and real presence everywhere I turn. That's not something that non-white or female-identified posters can choose.

And on a personal level, I'm actually pretty bloody uncomfortable that it feels like I have a special protection against bigotry not available to other posters. I accept it's done with good motives, but it doesn't feel like an equal position.

I think Barbelith should do one of two things.

Either Barbelith is a place where bigotry is condemned rather than forbidden, as long as it's couched in vaguely diplomatic terms.

Or hatespeech is not acceptable on Barbelith period, particularly when it's proponents refuse to engage seriously with other posters.

Because at the moment it seems inconsistent.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
22:47 / 23.03.06
I agree on the inconsistency thing, and it's something that needs tightening up. I think, though, the reason zoemancer was dealt with so quickly wasn't so much to do with a special dispensation for anti-Semitism, as the nature of the offence- this wasn't a couple of posts in the middle of another thread, this was a massive essay/rant started as a thread in its own right- therefore everyone noticed it at once, and there also wasn't much doubt in anyone's mind that this wasn't TEH JOKE!!1!!- a defence which seems to divide people, as there are always some who'll think this makes a valid excuse. Not much wiggle room for that one in this case.

That and the fact that the poster had been making various of us uneasy for a while.

But inconsistency = bad. Yes.
 
 
Tom Paine's Bones
00:03 / 24.03.06
I take your point. On reflection, I can also see a difference in terms of someone staying on the board between "I recognise that was an inappropriate joke to make on Barbelith and won't do it again" and "the holocaust was faked but I'll stop mentioning it".

It is also probably true that a poster who started a thread about that old racist canard that black people are less intelligent than whites would be quickly bounced. What I'm less convinced of is that an entirely non-jokey thread on feminism which relied on misogynistic conspiracy theorising would be treated as harshly.
 
 
Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero
02:10 / 24.03.06
Some would suggest asking Shadowsax how his alleged mysogynistic conspiracy theories are going down.

Not me, of course, because I'm above all that noise. Yeah.
 
 
*
03:03 / 24.03.06
It's really difficult to make direct comparisons in these matters. Different kinds of oppression are not directly comparable to one another. You can be treating homophobia as seriously as antisemitism, for instance, but starting a thread talking about the number of gay men in the fashion industry is not the same level of offence as starting a thread talking about the number of Jewish people in the banking industry. It's exactly the same in just about every qualitative way I can think of, but it's not the same in effect because the contexts are different in really complicated ways.

This is not to defend Shadowsac, either. Whether or not his new threads started which as a background assumption deny the very real current existence of male domination are comparable to new threads started for the purpose of denying a very real massive genocide in recent history is debatable. I'm not sure what I believe about that yet.

I'm not arguing that there can be no qualitative standard, just that if there is one it will be very hard to find.
 
 
Tom Coates
03:52 / 24.03.06
I think we probably are inconsistent to the extent that some bannings are undertaken much more quickly than others, but to be honest this is probably more a problem with my ability to parse what's going on than it is about the actual behaviour - ie. it's easier for me to glance at a long post denying the Holocaust and determine that it's routinely offensive than it is for me to get a sense of a user's more genearl posting behaviour over a period of time or in places where I'm not as familiar with the context. I think the same principles apply to all, but some cases seem simply easier to judge quickly.

With regards to which, if the consensus is that Vladimir needs to be banned, then send me his user ID, I'll have a quick review behind the scenes to check that it's appropriate, and get that out of the way while we're in the mood.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
05:41 / 24.03.06
Also, although strangely I don't remember being around when it happened, the original Vlad thing happened pre-the kicking of our first Anti-Semite. So perhaps people were trying to stick more to a 'we don't kick anyone except the Knodge' ideal more than we are now. It's difficult to say what would happen now, I suspect it could still go either way.

Likewise Shadowsax, whom I tend to ignore these days. But if anyone feels he should be gone they are more than welcome to PM their case to Tom, it's not up to moderators.
 
 
Ganesh
06:24 / 24.03.06
t is also probably true that a poster who started a thread about that old racist canard that black people are less intelligent than whites would be quickly bounced. What I'm less convinced of is that an entirely non-jokey thread on feminism which relied on misogynistic conspiracy theorising would be treated as harshly.

I sort of feel there should be some latitude for people asking stupid questions and having those questions treated seriously - or at least, not taken as evidence that those posing them are of malign intent. I'm not referring here to Zoemancer's thread (having read it and his defence of it, I'm pretty much convinced of its all-round shittiness; it's probably the most clear-cut example to date) but to the likes of this thread, which asked "why are gay men so lispy and swishy?" and could've been taken as outright homophobic but wasn't. I'm pretty sure the original poster asked the question in a spirit of innocent (if clumsily framed) naivety.

I think a lot comes down to phrasing. I agree that Are Black People Less Intelligent Than White? would be an obnoxious thread title, but I'd hope we'd be able to have a discussion of the education issues around 'underperforming' young black men in the UK, say, even if the framing of the question had to be modified. I'd like to think we'd pause to examine the validity of the question before 'quickly bouncing' the questioner, even if it were badly-phrased.
 
 
Cat Chant
13:18 / 24.03.06
I'd like to think we'd pause to examine the validity of the question before 'quickly bouncing' the questioner, even if it were badly-phrased.

I absolutely agree, both about this general point and about the fact that this isn't what was going on in zoemancer's thread. I think we do, in fact, often do this pretty well - the threads on 'why are gay men so swishy', 'are blowjobs about power' and 'isn't it terrible that girls under the age of 16 are wearing thongs' all started from pretty dodgy assumptions, all continued in ways that challenged those assumptions, and all led to some relatively interesting discussion.
 
 
Spatula Clarke
15:47 / 24.03.06
Tom>

Vladimir's profile.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
20:38 / 24.03.06
I do see Ganesh's point about line-drawing, though: there are people on the board who use/have used the word 'chav' or 'pikey', and when challenged defended themselves by saying hey, that's what they call themselves, plus they started it, and they're only chavs. Now, I don't expect Barbelith to ban those people. But I find that just as reprehensible as Vladimir's nonsense, and it would be a consistent policy.
 
 
Seth
11:05 / 26.03.06
Flyboy: broadly agreed. The usage of ‘chav’ and ‘pikey’ is probably the one I spend most of the time picking up my colleagues on at work, and in this respect it’s uncomfortably insidious: a group of people who are trained to notice and address hatespeech missing the mark in such a way is indicative of a much larger blindspot that I’ve observed in many people who I would expect to know better, in that this is the prejudice that it’s OK to have.

Because of this while I agree with the way in which this is no different from any other discriminatory language I also notice a willingness to engage with the person espousing those views that isn’t necessarily applied to those who might express prejudice towards other groups. Are people much more willing to give the benefit of the doubt here, in that they’re thinking “this poster is probably basically alright and reasonable but they’ve got quite a few nasty unexamined beliefs that they’re probably not even aware of?”
 
 
Jawsus-son Starship
14:36 / 26.03.06
I get that pikey is racist, because it refers to a specific racial group. But is chav? it refers to a social group, not a race. If anyone can help me out with this, I'd love to know.
 
 
Spaniel
15:02 / 26.03.06
No, chav isn't a racist term, but it is a classist term in that it's often used - pejoratively - in reference to poor people. Of course the situation isn't totally clear cut in that the term has started to be used in reference to certain lifestyle/aesthetic choices and as a result some individuals are starting to find positive and affirmative meanings in the word; As has already been pointed out, there are those that choose to identify as chavs.
The thing to bear in mind, however, is that although the term can be used postively, those negative uses are still very much in evidence.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
15:15 / 26.03.06
As has already been pointed out, there are those that choose to identify as chavs.

Hmm. I hear this, but I don't really see it.

As for racial component - very similar to "pikey". The most common etymology for "chav" is a Romany word - chavo. So, the term references travelling people, and associates those on the receiving end of it as behaving like them - so, its sense of poverty, criminality, stupidity has a nice double edge to it.
 
 
miss wonderstarr
15:16 / 26.03.06
Wikipedia: "Sources disagree on the origin of the word. The Collins English Dictionary suggests that it derives from a distortion of the Anglo-Romany word chavi meaning "child". [1] In contrast, the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary suggests that the word derives either from a nickname for "Chatham girls" [2] or from the Romany word chavo (boy)..."

I don't think we can be sure that chav doesn't have the same roots as pikey, ie. relating to Gypsies.

(posted before I read Haus's comment)
 
 
Seth
15:31 / 26.03.06
It was my understanding that it's an acronym for Council House and Violent. But that may have been added after the fact.

There have been a couple of instances taking calls at work in which I've heard accounts of people who self-describe as chavs, but it seems well in the minority and has all the attendant issues that come with a reclaimed derogatory term.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
15:38 / 26.03.06
As has already been pointed out, there are those that choose to identify as chavs.

I don't understand how this makes use of the term any less clear cut, given that Barbelith would be unlikely to find the "but some of them call themselves [word x]!" argument very mitigating if word x was a term that was often used as a slur on the basis of skin colour or sexuality.
 
 
miss wonderstarr
15:52 / 26.03.06
I don't understand how this makes use of the term any less clear cut, given that Barbelith would be unlikely to find the "but some of them call themselves [word x]!" argument very mitigating if word x was a term that was often used as a slur on the basis of skin colour or sexuality.

I'm not advocating the use of this word on Barbelith, but chav might be slightly different in its evolution. "N*gger" and "queer" for instance, as applied to black people and gay people, were initially derogatory and intended as hatespeech.
Any appropriation of these words as neutral or positive happened after they already had negative connotations.

"Chav" connoting a certain style of (mostly but not exclusively -- it also includes celebrity) dress, behaviour and cars does not, I think, have the same unambiguous history. It may have evolved as a badge of pride among members of that group at the same time that the culture was being reviled by people outside it.

[that trustworthy source Wikipedia: " Few people identify themselves as chavs. Note, however, that "lotto lout" Michael Carroll has "King of Chavs" emblazoned on the side of his car"]
 
 
Seth
16:01 / 26.03.06
I don’t believe that changes anything in practise though. I’d still never apply it to anyone because it’s too loaded a term, and I’d lay money that I’d be insulting and hurting people more often than not. I won’t use it with friends because I don’t want to be responsible for making its usage commonplace, thus increasing the chances of people using it in a harmful manner. And I wouldn’t take issue with someone using it as a self-descriptor, because they can self-define how they like. So regardless of how the term developed - whether it was used by people of themselves at the same time as a descriptor used by other people - makes no real difference for me.
 
 
miss wonderstarr
16:10 / 26.03.06
I agree; it's clearly (in my view) a word that mocks and derides people on the basis of their lack of money (the fake bling, cheap labels, fibreglass-modded cars) combined with hopeless aspirations (badly copying celebrity style) and social prospects (part of the stereotype involves pushing prams, driving vans, hanging around town centres, cruising cars), and their misplaced cultural tastes (associated with being working-class and not knowing about genuine quality).

That it may well have further connotations of negative Gypsy stereotypes just means it does a double-barrelled job of insulting another group too.
 
 
illmatic
16:33 / 26.03.06
Seth: The usage of ‘chav’ and ‘pikey’ is probably the one I spend most of the time picking up my colleagues on at work, and in this respect it’s uncomfortably insidious: a group of people who are trained to notice and address hatespeech missing the mark in such a way is indicative of a much larger blindspot

I think an explantion of this is that Barbelith is "ahead of the curve" in it's attitude to this word, in that (as far as I'm aware) it isn't popularly thougth of as hatespeech. (This may have something to do with the disappearance of class in political discourse, but that's another subject). With that in mind, could we please not steam into posters the first time they use the word?

Possibly we could try and explain the attitudes the word embodies, draw out explanations etc before reaching for the raosting forks? Especially with newbie posters, and those unfamilar with the boards culture. Context is everything, but I certainly don't think usage of this word should constitute an automatic banning offense.
 
 
Seth
16:59 / 26.03.06
With that in mind, could we please not steam into posters the first time they use the word?

That was the direction I was aiming at in my second paragraph. There seems to be more willingness to engage when these terms are used rather than shout, which I see as undoubtedly a good thing.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
17:33 / 26.03.06
It may have evolved as a badge of pride among members of that group at the same time that the culture was being reviled by people outside it.

May it? Where's the evidence for this?

Anyway... I'd just like to point out that a few posts ago, I wasn't talking about what the initial response should be when someone uses a word like 'chav'. I was talking about what Barbelith's response should be when, after having had the offensiveness of the term brought to their attention, someone says that they do not agree, and that they reserve the right to continue using the term.
 
 
Spaniel
17:45 / 26.03.06
For the record I wasn't trying to legitimise the use of the term.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
21:18 / 26.03.06
I kind of give a bit more leeway with the c and p words, not because I don't think that they're fucked up and offensive but because I'm one of the people who had to have the full offensiveness thereof explained to hir very slowly and in very small words. I mean, I was already not using them because didn't like the hyuk hyuk, you're poor! aspect but I hadn't entirely grasped the racial element.

I think those words are kinda different to certain other slurs, not because they're any less wrong but because they're in much wider circulation. That makes it harder to sell the offensiveness to someone using them on the board, it's going to take a bit of a run-up to get the feeling across. Sooo... even if a person is being an arse about giving them up, it's a bit more complex.

I dunno. I suppose it's reasonable for the line to be drawn a bit further out than the 'PofZ-Quoting Nutjob' line, but how much further? How do you get the point across? And how do we put it into simple, reasonable, Wikiable language?

"Barbelith: We don't care if you're joking (and we care even less if you read it in the Guardian.)"
 
 
Seth
00:41 / 27.03.06
Giving up the use of a term is an interesting thing. I’m reminded of Mal’s quote to Shepherd Book, and if I paraphrase I hope you guys won’t mind: People don’t like having men of God around because it can make them feel judged as though they’re sinners. There’s a similar phenomenon that goes on here, I think. For example, Mordant Carnival has given an account of having to have the full ramifications of a phrase explained before ze has decided to give it up, and fair fucking play to MC for being wise and brave enough to do that. There are other reactions to doing so that are understandable even though I can’t support them with any rationality other than being able to understand the *fuck you* response. It’s almost as though the person, being totally blind to how they might be damaging someone in that they’ve never had the implications of their actions explained to them, reacts badly when they’ve been told the full ramifications of their behaviour, whether those ramifications are actual or potential, because suddenly they’re in a position where they have to reassess what could be large swathes of their decisions or use of language in the full realisation of what they’ve now learned. I can understand people not wanting to face that full realisation and wanting to defend themselves against it instead. It can be a really hard thing to face about yourself. That realisation can cause a reaction against the person who drew it to their attention in the first place. And at the same time we still have to create an environment in which people aren’t afraid to participate because of the casual and unexamined use of hate speech at the same time as when the person speaking it may never have seen it as damaging. That’s a really fucking hard balancing act.

Now I’ve never needed to have the harmful implications of the word ‘chav’ explained to me because it seemed apparent from the get go, simply from context. But what is obvious to me is not necessarily obvious to other people, and I know I have blind spots where other people’s eyes are wide open. I would like Barbelith to be a place where I could trust that other people would offer me a way through my personal prejudices towards something better. Maybe that’s a throwback to my initial experiences here, when people of the quality of Lothar Tuppan and Wyrd would willingly communicate with a devout Christian like my younger self without picking me up on many of the inferences within my posts that could well have seemed judgemental of them and their practices.

I don’t know. I’m either blessed or cursed with an ability to see complexity and nuance in behaviour even when one person is seemingly wilfully ignorant when confronted with a coherent argument. Maybe it’s because I don’t believe argument is the best way of communicating with a person. Sometimes I get concerned that people here might think I choose to defend people’s right to talk unexamined and sometimes hateful bullshit, and that’s emphatically not what I’m about. I just recognise and understand (and sometimes even sympathise with) ignorance because I am ignorant myself. And maybe I’m just drunk and rambling. Do with as you will.
 
 
Seth
00:59 / 27.03.06
Think back to all those times in your past when people have explained things to you that you'd been ignorant of beforehand, and be honest with yourself about the way in which you've responded. You may have been exemplary, you may have been a total horses ass. That’s all I’m saying. Just because you’ve been lucky/wise enough to learn a hard lesson doesn’t mean everyone you’re talking to has, and maybe you can have the privilege of helping them through something that someone else once helped you through, or something similar.
 
 
*
03:45 / 27.03.06
That reminds me of a time on another board when I was called for cultural (mis)appropriation for talking about acupuncture and TCM. That person had a valid point. She could have told me that while there were respectful ways for a white person to learn and talk about acupuncture and TCM, the way I was talking about the topic was exoticising. Furthermore I was arrogantly setting myself up as an expert while pretending not to do so. Instead, she told me that TCM and acupuncture were quackery, and that it was disrespectful to the cultures of Asia to pretend that these were as valid as Western forms of medicine because that was like saying that Chinese people were too dumb to come up with real science. I got bogged down in the argument about whether TCM and acupuncture were valid, and completely missed the other really important points about how I was using them in my conversations on the board. It's only because I'm a bit obsessive that now, a year and a half later, I have an inkling what happened there, and I had to get here on my own.

Thanks, Seth. I hear what you say and it is wise. I hope I can be wise enough to help people come to the point of self-reflection, instead of making them get all shouty and then reach that point, if they do at all, years later and only through their own painful efforts.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
18:54 / 19.04.06
With almost balletic timing, Psionic Nurse/ Gravity Rides Everything is back - following the Vladimir Baptiste model of make offensive comment, lose rag when challlenged, disappear, come back as if nothing has happpened. As a model, this is not one I am entirely happy with.
 
 
matthew.
19:14 / 19.04.06
Ah, the originator of this thread. I propose we see what this suit has to say. Perhaps ze has had a change of heart. I'm hoping for the best.
 
  

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