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Moderation requests & discussion thereof

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09:42 / 18.10.05

It is a big question, but it's been surfacing a lot of late, in one or other shape or form. Perhaps a big, general 'state of Barbelith' thread is needed?

ONLY NICE THINGS

09:49 / 18.10.05

Yeah, quite possibly. Maybe a metathread to set an agenda?

09:59 / 18.10.05

Yeah. Firstoff, to solicit opinions as to whether there's a problem.

10:03 / 21.10.05

Could Head Shop mods help me keep an eye on this thread? I've linked to my post in it, which gives my reasons for not deleting it (the topic starter put in a request to delete hir first post), but I may be regretting that decision very soon. I'm keen for it not to disintegrate into another discussion of whether Barbelith tolerates anti-Semitism. [Alan Partridge] Because we don't. [/Alan Partridge]

Harrison Ford, in a battle suit, wheels for feet, knives and guns

11:09 / 21.10.05

Deva, good call, i sincerely hope it doesn't turn into a debate about how Babelith should/shouldn't tolerate anti-Semitism, it would be a massive de-railing if it did.
Id's comments; Remember that spouting racist crap you've heard from other people is still spouting racist crap, are slightly alarming & a good example of a problem that is partly being discussed in the Is Something wrong With Barbelith thread.

Regrettable Juvenilia

14:45 / 21.10.05

Could a Comics moderator please resize the image, or preferably delete the post altogether, here, please?

*

17:25 / 21.10.05

I've apologized in thread for that. I wasn't trusting the original post not to be an excuse to see how far one could push anti-semitic and anti-asian rhetoric on the boards, but I can see I should have taken it at face value. It would have helped me to read Elbereth's other posts first, which I would have done were it not so late.

Sorry for the alarm.

17:27 / 21.10.05

fly;
why delete the post altogether?
was it more wack before?

10:31 / 24.10.05

I've apologized in thread for that.

No need for an apology - it was a useful heads-up, and didn't rot the thread, as it turns out, so yayy all is well in the Head Shop at the moment cross fingers touch wood.

miss wonderstarr

16:04 / 25.10.05

What do you think of this.

I don't think it's been discussed elsewhere on Policy. There is some suggestion in the thread of locking it, and some implication that it should be allowed to drop.

However, I wonder if it isn't worth "unpacking" what Oddman is doing on here, and questioning hir about it: more generally, about questioning what sort of a contributor Oddman is.

I haven't read all Oddman's previous posts but they include a lengthy attack on Haus for the Grant Morrison exchange, and a joke map of "Lost" that purported to be entirely genuine.

Frankly, I think Oddman is a fairly sophisticated faux-naive troll. I would be interested in other opinions but specifically in what should be done when someone seems to be poking fun at Jewishness while not quite going far enough to be obviously offensive.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

16:08 / 25.10.05

Don't know if it actually requires locking... but it certainly needs keeping an eye on.

(FWIW I liked the Lost map. This is different, though).

miss wonderstarr

17:04 / 25.10.05

I took the "Lost" map as a cue not to take anything Oddman says at face value though -- it seemed an admission that this was a joke persona with a straightfaced schtick.

17:09 / 25.10.05

I think you're probably right - but the more sophisticated trolls are kinda difficult to "unpack"...

17:17 / 25.10.05

Mm. Don't think I'd characterize him so much as a troll as a prankster—well, a would-be prankster, anyway. The problem is, he's bent at a unique angle; his gags, which I'm sure he finds hysterical, fall flat for everybody else.

Question: is it still a joke if the teller is the only one laughing?

17:19 / 25.10.05

If it were me, I'd have unmasked before now. But hey ho.

miss wonderstarr

17:25 / 25.10.05

Maybe being a prankster isn't a get-out clause for flirting with ethnic stereotypes, though.

17:55 / 25.10.05

Maybe not - but, as I say, it's all a little tricky to "unpack", intent-wise, as things currently stand. You're very welcome to try, however.

18:03 / 25.10.05

For a non-joke Barbelith persona, who's just 17 and only finding his feet here, he seems to have an interestingly good grasp on exactly how far he can push things without getting into direct trouble, I'd say.

18:05 / 25.10.05

what makes you so sure its a grasp?

18:21 / 25.10.05

Maybe being a prankster isn't a get-out clause for flirting with ethnic stereotypes, though.

Or maybe it is.

I'm honestly grappling with this. The general consensus seems to be that I've overreacted in the "Fu Dan Ti" thread. But is the substance of that thread so very different?

Do those allegations of "newbism" have some teeth in them? Is casual racism NEVER FUNNY EVER, or isn't it? Is it, perhaps, only funny when "we" (or people "we" "know") do it?

Or is it a matter of style vs. substance here? Money$hot comes over urbane and whimsical, and no one takes offense. Oddman acts like a snotty adolescent and makes enemies. I can't help think that if, say, the unaccountably-beloved Jack Denfeld had played some of Oddman's riffs in his trademark sweetly-dim fashion, we'd be lauding him yet again for his deadpan comic genius.

Perhaps Oddman's problem isn't that he's faux-naive, but that he's not faux-naive enough: but the position of "Barbelith's retarded younger brother" is already filled, so the poor bastard's got to work with what he's got.

I don't know. I genuinely don't. But there certainly seems to be a double standard at play here, and that rankles. If a thing is Wrong, it is always Wrong for all persons everywhere—yes? no?

18:42 / 25.10.05

i'd say yes.
i think money shot's issue is that you have yet to tell him exactly what your objection is.
it might advance your position to explain in what way this is casual racism, and not merely wordplay mocking those seekers of enlightenment who need to have their wisdom ancient and asian.
have you talked to him about it?
or is the board-visible stuff the extent of your complaint?

18:50 / 25.10.05

The latter; I reckoned that I, too, could get my point across with urbane whimsy.

miss wonderstarr

18:51 / 25.10.05

For what it's worth I think the comment that if gags in the style of "Kris Pi Chok Lat" are unacceptable, then "web fu" is unacceptable, doesn't stand.

"Web fu" is a variant on "wire fu" and "gun fu", which are pretty widely used in relation to martial arts movies. I don't feel that's a mockery of the linguistic sound or the actual practice of kung fu. It's just a variation along the lines of Watergate / Camillagate.

Having a laugh about the fact that English phrases can be made to sound "Chinese" has a precedent in Wayne's World as I remember ("cream of Wun Yung Gai") but strictly speaking I think the joke does lie in mocking "Chinese" word sounds and accents.

19:01 / 25.10.05

Yeah, that was bullshit hand-waving Strix's part. Sorry, kid, but it's true.

miss wonderstarr

19:01 / 25.10.05

Is casual racism NEVER FUNNY EVER, or isn't it? Is it, perhaps, only funny when "we" (or people "we" "know") do it?

Anyway, yes, I can see an approach that says it's more acceptable when someone you know says something jokey-racist, because you "know" they're not really racist.

Maybe they're saying it with an awareness that you both know it's wrong, because humour often derives from shock and breaking taboos, but with some kind of distinction from their "real" attitudes.

I'm not sure how much this would actually excuse the comment, but I can understand it feeling like a different situation.

So, people you know, with whose tone and style you are familiar, may well be allowed to get away with more.

19:04 / 25.10.05

Serious question: Is a racist joke more acceptable if it's funny?

miss wonderstarr

19:22 / 25.10.05

Some would say that they could never find a racist joke funny. Perhaps it's only funny if you don't consider it offensive?

The basic pleasures in any joke -- surprise, reversal, taboo-breaking, repetition, skilled anecdotal telling -- could be there in a racist joke.

If you object to the joke's basis and language, that could plausibly kill off all of those pleasures.

On the other hand, if you harbour any prejudices that the joke taps into, it might offer further guilty pleasures by giving voice to something normally unsayable.

19:30 / 25.10.05

Dr Graves;

My feeling is, no. It's a subjective issue this, but only up to a point; Money $hot usually is quite urbane and witty, if not in that thread especially, perhaps, then I'd definitely say in some of his others. His 'drugs' posts in the Temple spring particularly to mind - whether or not one agrees with the use of ayahuasca etc as a means of achieving personal empowerment, or enlightnment or anything, he describes (what I'd imagine to be,) the ups and downs of what must have been a fairly devastating set of experiences with a certain amount of taste and style.

So as far as I'm concerned anyway, he gets the benefit of the doubt.

Oddman, on the other hand, thinks the colour of the comics forum should be changed, because it's pink.

I know who I'd save if the house was on fire, let's put it that way.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

19:36 / 25.10.05

OK, I don't find the martial arts thread particularly offensive, but maybe I was distracted by the 'Mr Kiplings Wayward Suprise', I thought we were going to have lots of humorous fun based on inventing spurious 'crouching tiger' moves.

As for the Paty Cockrum thread, I'd be inclined to leave it alone and see if it now dies (at least until one of the main players in the story says something), if that doesn't happen and things still continue in this slightly uncomfortable tone then I think we'd have to lock.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

19:43 / 25.10.05

I too was drawn to the Mr Kipling joke, and was thus quite baffled when Jack began expressing concern.

miss wonderstarr

19:49 / 25.10.05

I've posted on that thread and then posted again to modify my comment a little... I agree that most of the humour there was absurd and whimsical (not, to me, funny) without being based on some parody of Chinese word-sounds. However, it seemed to be going that way, and that, in my understanding, was why Graves/Jack commented.

Regrettable Juvenilia

07:23 / 26.10.05

the unaccountably-beloved Jack Denfeld

Jesus Christ, and people think I'm mean.

Scrambled Password Bogus Email

08:34 / 26.10.05

Hi de hi, campers.

It may not have come across properly in the actual thread, but I am genuinely sorry for any offense caused by that thread. I have to say, I still do not completely agree that finding amusement from phonetic similarities between two languages is necessarily 'mocking' of one or the other (why not both?), but when kovacs posted that 'email' list of silly gags, I understood how it could be construed that way and why it wasn't such a smart thread overall...

I was also surpirised that the phonetic joke side of it was picked up more than the Mr. Kipling side of it, but then I'm in the UK and know who Mr. Kipling is, whereas I have no idea if Jack is / does, so there you go...

Anyway. The Alien Sex Dustbin Revival Backlash Band was a far better joke from that weekend, but I think I'll keep it out of the Music forum, eh?

08:46 / 26.10.05

I too was rather dismayed by Jack's post as (as I said) I had posted without thinking about it - being bored and amused by the daft wordplay.

But on reflection I saw that it was much like those newspaper 'funnies' that poke fun at foreign place and brand-names (e.g. 'ha ha, isn't it amusing that there is a place in Germany called "Focking"'/ a cafe in Thailand called "Long Kok"' etc.) which I find puerile and embarrassing if not actually offensive (yet)... and I can easily see that someone might find them personally offensive, so apologise for my post in the thread.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

09:27 / 26.10.05

See, I actually do think rude place names are funny. But that includes English ones (which I generally find funnier), Cockermouth being a personal favourite.

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