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Expectations of Barbelith and Barbeloids

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STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

10:28 / 15.04.06

If Tom disagrees, Tom disagrees. It's his board. It would be ludicrous to suggest he's "bound by" anyone here - but I suspect he'd prefer to act on the basis of a well-made discussion involving as much of the community as possible.

Exactly. In the five years I've been here, I can't think of a single time when Tom has taken such drastic action without first gauging the mood of the community, to the extent where it's been possible. It is, as Ganesh points out, Tom's board to do with what he will- personally, I trust him to be reasonable.

I'm liking Ganesh's idea so far. Because SS IS a difficult case- with zoemancer, the offending thread was a sealed-in-stone confirmation that the attitude some of us had suspected did, in fact, exist. If SS were to start a thread entitled "Why I Hate Women" or somesuch, it would be the same and I imagine the same action would be taken. At the moment I'm sensing an abhorrent attitude, but there is no one thing I can put my finger on which, on its own, would merit banning. As others have said, it's a case of waiting until your tipping point is reached- and everyone's is different. Which is why some sort of procedure would come in very handy.

11:04 / 15.04.06

As I've said in the other thread, I'm becoming aware that there's also an issue with some posters shying from posting their opinion because it's at odds with that expressed by a particularly vocal individual, and they fear being drawn into flameysnarkyhell. If it were standard practice to frame Should Poster X Be Banned? proposals in a thread explicitly asking for different viewpoints, then these more snark-wary posters might feel more able to voice their opinions.

13:15 / 15.04.06

The above suggestions seem sensible, but on the other hand, should this board be the kind of place that effectively tries people for their (admittedly in this case fairly bad) behaviour? If so, fair enough, and I'm not trying to say I've got any better suggestions, but wouldn't there be something slightly, well, comical about that situation - 'You, Poster X, are hereby summoned to the court of Barbelith, the charges are as follows...'etc? And wouldn't anyone who was genuinely minded to fuck shit up for the PC fascists in all likelihood just find it very entertaining?

13:32 / 15.04.06

The above suggestions seem sensible, but on the other hand, should this board be the kind of place that effectively tries people for their (admittedly in this case fairly bad) behaviour?

I'd rather it were that than the kind of place which fumes and snarks about said bad behaviour, piecemeal, across half a dozen threads over a matter of months, going through cycles of self-blame and passive-aggressive excoriation, before working around to lobbying Tom 'behind the scenes' for removal of the individual concerned. Or not.

I can see the analogy, but I rather see it as doing what we do already (talk about whether someone ought to be banned) but doing it more openly, transparently and inclusively - as well as having some sort of established end-point by which we do our best to reach a collective conclusion.

I'd hope it'd be a very infrequent occurrence.

13:32 / 15.04.06

And wouldn't anyone who was genuinely minded to fuck shit up for the PC fascists in all likelihood just find it very entertaining?

Sure - for up to a week, as opposed to months or years.

19:33 / 15.04.06

Well I worry (and I've got no idea how these things work admittedly) that Barbelith might get a netweb reputation for being the kind of place that 'flies off the handle about anything.' Where, for example, it might be possible to register, shout 'bums,' or related and then sit there cackling quietly to oneself for the next few pages of opprobium.

I'm concerned that teh board is going to potentially become a bit too baitable - It's not all that difficult to get registered here, you just have to wait a bit, which, let's face it, if you're sitting about in a wearing office job isn't too much of a hardship, and then cry havoc, let loose the dogs of war, and such.

I don't think it's happened yet, but isn't there a danger that it's going to? While not wishing to do down anyone's legitimate feelings of anger, the current propensity towards venting (which I'm as guilty of as anyone, let it be said - I shouldn't have threatened to take out a contract on *Poster X* that time, I'm sorry) seems a bit counter-productive.

If this board is how liberal, left-leaning, and (hopefully) stylish bohemia is conducting itself in the 21st century, wouldn't it be better for everyone to be quicker to mock, and far less easy to anger?

00:29 / 16.04.06

I think your worries are largely unfounded. I say again that all I'm suggesting is a formalising of what we do already when we get to the stage of saying someone ought to be banned. I'm absolutely not suggesting that we reach that stage quicker or that we have a lower threshold for proposing someone for banning. If anything, I'm hopeful that the effort involved in constructing a case against an offending poster will mean people have a higher threshold for saying "Poster X should be banned".

07:08 / 17.04.06

If this board is how liberal, left-leaning, and (hopefully) stylish bohemia is conducting itself in the 21st century, wouldn't it be better for everyone to be quicker to mock, and far less easy to anger?

I don't see why the mocking/banishing with laughter stuff can't still happen, just as the introduction of a halfway-systematised format for saying I Think Poster X Should Be Banned Because... doesn't mean all angry venting will automatically lead to the creation of such threads. If anything, I'm hopeful that calls for banning will happen less because constructing a reasoned, referenced argument in its own thread for community debate is harder work than simply saying, "I can't believe Barbelith's putting up with this" in a moderator thread.

Both Flyboy and GGM have suggested elsewhere that they might start an index thread on ShadowSax, so we should have a test case sometime soon.

08:09 / 17.04.06

Well it'll be interesting, certainly - Still somewhat torn, I admit, between what seems like the entirely reasonable idea of formalising all this, and the 'trial' aspect. If I was the *Poster X* in question I'd be feeling fairly bad at the moment, or inclined to just leave, but then again, that's possibly as it should be...

08:18 / 17.04.06

... the 'trial' aspect.

Well, if you're set on using this analogy, it could be extended. I'd say the only thing worse than being booted off Barbelith after a community discussion of one's alleged 'crimes' is being booted off Barbelith without a community discussion of one's alleged 'crimes'. If requiring those who say, "I want Poster X banned" to substantiate their reasons constitutes a "trial", then not requiring any wider discussion before imploring Tom to exclude Poster X seems not unlike the covert spiriting-away of dissenters without recourse to trial.

If I was the *Poster X* in question I'd be feeling fairly bad at the moment, or inclined to just leave, but then again, that's possibly as it should be...

If Poster X were inclined to feel bad about being discussed, then Poster X would likely feel as bad about about having people periodically express anger within the moderation threads that "I can't believe we're allowing Poster X to stay and post hatespeech". And finding oneself quietly banned by Tom without any recourse to wider discussion might equally ruin one's morning.

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