Thanks to the Moderation Team

[Kathryn41 3,205]

Kathryn, most of the most egregious racist comments do not require any national experience, they are universal, yet you ignore them and claim some sort of national context. It's not that hard, if you don't understand the context of it, then maybe you should not be levying a decision based upon limited comprehension. I understand you are doing the best you can, but if you are making decisions based upon limited understanding and information, you should maybe recuse yourself or consult those who do.

No Rob, I do not ignore them. If I receive the report of a racist comment, then I act upon that report. For a while there, people were complaining that I was being too strict about removing racist comments. Now, according to you, I am not being strict enough. I strongly suspect you are including posts which have not been reported to the moderators - or at the very least, to me - in your conclusion. You will know when I handle a report, because I respond back to the reporter acknowledging that I have addressed their concerns, even if I disagree that it is a concern.

You can insult me if that makes you feel better, but it really does nothing to resolve or address the issue. You have called me a racist a number of times, which is about as far from the truth as you can probably get. I admit that I do have to 'study' threads carefully to identify some of the racist content - often when another comment that is obviously racist has been reported - because such thoughts are indeed alien to my way of thinking. The obvious ones are clear; the subtle threads with subtext are not. No matter what, people still object when I leave warnings, when I remove posts and when I close the thread, you among them. What makes the issue even more confusing at times is where someone reports a racist comment and it isn't a racist comment - it is a difference of opinion - and then they themselves make a blatantly racist comment and disagree that it is racist. What is clear to me, however, is that If I don't agree with you, then as far as you are concerned, I am wrong and that makes me a racist, rather than you ever considering the possibility that you might be the one who is wrong.

I am also happy to have any of the moderation team or Captain Ewok review any of the decisions I have made - or not made - that you consider to be racist. Please feel free to provide specific examples (not in this thread, however, as it would hijack it even further) - however, you will want to consider that you probably do not have the 'whole story' about how a situation was addressed other than the aspects that are specific to you.

Edited September 24, 2010 by Kathryn41

[rlogan 2,036]

Here again we have within this very thread all the evidence we need.

One hurling insults for being too strict at moderation at the same time another is hurling insults for not being strict enough.

One thing that is abundantly clear in the psychology of aggression is that whenever someone has an enemy the arsenal of tactics against them is every article of convenience, whether we actually care about it or not.

So for example with my wife and I, every comment I make about her is scrutinized by some people for every possibility that it can be interpreted as sexist or abusive in some way despite the fact the very people doing it have no respect for her whatsoever. If they had that respect then they would not assume she is too infantile to stand up for herself. It's actually a twin insult to be policing every statement I make about her in the pretense that a grown adult needs to have strangers who hate her husband "protecting" her from him. It's absurd. Righteous indignation is jealousy and envy with a halo in that case. The guys are whacking off to pictures of women the exact age of my wife at the same time they are pretending to be outraged any man could be attracted to women of that age. There are no playboys or penthouse or whatever with pictures of fifty-plus year old women sold to fifty-plus year old men. They are all the age of my wife. But since the entire motivation is to attack out of spite, suddenly the men set down their pornography to type about how perverted I am for being attracted to a woman her age. With the women, nothing outrages a petty woman who dislikes you more than having a wife or girlfriend that blows her out of the water. Especially if that woman showers you with love and affection. The claws and fangs come out with fury.

All this from people who loudly assert how open-minded they are. But where it comes to their enemy - it is not just zero tolerance for real abuse, but instead a relentless manufacturing of every possible reason to attack.

So it goes with racism, sexism, and every other "ism". A moderator has people on all sides wanting to use every tactic against their enemies whether they actually care about it or not. They are cops for politically correct language with their enemy, but nobody else.

It is quite true that at the same time there are people who indeed do attack some group they dislike in almost every action. The stupid thugs are not the problem here. The difficult ones are expert in covering all of their moves with plausible deniability. Gosh, it wasn't an insult - just some light humor. Can't we joke around here?

Being a moderator amongst cunning trolls isn't easy. They put a lot of time into anguishing over statements brought to their attention: does this statement cross a threshhold that is clear enough to sanction?

As posters we do not care about the moderators time. All we care about is defeating our enemy. So our wrath turns upon the moderator when they are not siding with us in fighting with our enemy.

My OP was brought in recognition of the time they spend at this, which is a different issue from whether they side with me against my enemies. We need the capacity to step outside our personal battles with the people we hate and look at the forum objectives as a whole.

[elmcitymaven 9,712]

So for example with my wife and I, every comment I make about her is scrutinized by some people for every possibility that it can be interpreted as sexist or abusive in some way despite the fact the very people doing it have no respect for her whatsoever. If they had that respect then they would not assume she is too infantile to stand up for herself. It's actually a twin insult to be policing every statement I make about her in the pretense that a grown adult needs to have strangers who hate her husband "protecting" her from him. It's absurd. Righteous indignation is jealousy and envy with a halo in that case. The guys are whacking off to pictures of women the exact age of my wife at the same time they are pretending to be outraged any man could be attracted to women of that age. There are no playboys or penthouse or whatever with pictures of fifty-plus year old women sold to fifty-plus year old men. They are all the age of my wife. But since the entire motivation is to attack out of spite, suddenly the men set down their pornography to type about how perverted I am for being attracted to a woman her age. With the women, nothing outrages a petty woman who dislikes you more than having a wife or girlfriend that blows her out of the water. Especially if that woman showers you with love and affection. The claws and fangs come out with fury.

You know what? I was willing to listen to you (although not agree with you on all points) until you wrote this. I may have disagreed, but thought you were coming over as an fairly intelligent and rational chap who felt strongly about this issue.

Did you ever stop to think that some, if not MOST, of the people who complain about the objectification of the female sex on this board are not doing it out of jealousy but disgust with the concept of objectification? Sexism runs rampant in certain sub-fora on this site, and only the most egregious examples get shut down because of the very "plausible deniability" you denounce. It's all in good fun, oh, we're all chaps here, etc etc. The vilest examples make men look like bullies, idiots and thugs. By all means, praise your wife to the stars -- women LOVE to hear men praising women. Really. REALLY! What many of us -- both women and the men you claim are attacking you for your choice of spouse -- do not like to hear is how all other women are tramps, slatternly, inconsiderate, ballbusting, etc etc forever and ever amen.

I have never come across you, have no idea what you have posted about your wife, and I won't go looking for your posts. Your comment about the desirability of fifty-year-old women was also rather tacky (and believe me, I have many, many years to go until I reach that milestone). I know you will certainly care not a fig for my opinion, but I feel inserting your comment here has done you a great disservice.

[rlogan 2,036]

You know what? I was willing to listen to you (although not agree with you on all points) until you wrote this. I may have disagreed, but thought you were coming over as an fairly intelligent and rational chap who felt strongly about this issue.

Did you ever stop to think that some, if not MOST, of the people who complain about the objectification of the female sex on this board are not doing it out of jealousy but disgust with the concept of objectification? Sexism runs rampant in certain sub-fora on this site, and only the most egregious examples get shut down because of the very "plausible deniability" you denounce. It's all in good fun, oh, we're all chaps here, etc etc. The vilest examples make men look like bullies, idiots and thugs. By all means, praise your wife to the stars -- women LOVE to hear men praising women. Really. REALLY! What many of us -- both women and the men you claim are attacking you for your choice of spouse -- do not like to hear is how all other women are tramps, slatternly, inconsiderate, ballbusting, etc etc forever and ever amen.

I have never come across you, have no idea what you have posted about your wife, and I won't go looking for your posts. Your comment about the desirability of fifty-year-old women was also rather tacky (and believe me, I have many, many years to go until I reach that milestone). I know you will certainly care not a fig for my opinion, but I feel inserting your comment here has done you a great disservice.

You've pointed out the problem here yourself: I spoke strictly of comments my wife and I have taken that you are admitting to be unaware of, mostly not even at this forum on account of how common our relationship is here, while you are applying what I said to examples you are familiar with that I am not speaking of at all. Did I speak about sexist-related comments regarding anyone except myself and my wife, and strictly those by people who had other reasons for disliking us to begin with? No, I didn't. The plain english reading of my statements were very narrowly focused, and yet you applied them completely out of context.

One might ask why you would do such a thing. If I said my neighbor stole my lawn mower, would you say that I accused your neighbor a thousand miles away of stealing it? That would be exactly the same thing: applying what I said about a situation completely unfamiliar to you to someone absolutely removed from it.

That distortion of yours was complety an artificial construction, and one I am willing to be understanding about. This is apparently your hot-button issue. So it is understandable that you strain to commandeer any opportunity to steer the discussion to it.

When I mentioned my wife and how people that couldn't care less about her pretend to "protect" her from me, that gave you the opportunity to distort what I said, take it out of context, and get on your podium about your hot-button issue pertaining to other posts not related to them.

Yet I did indeed point out how people with every sort of "ism" under the sun utilize plausible deniability to get away with insulting. That includes sexism. I did not raise your personal issue up to the fore and chamipion it as you desire.

You could have chosen to introduce your hot-button issue in a friendly way. But instead you chose to construct an artificial means to make it into an attack. You express a lot of hostility about subtle sexism. Ok, that doesn't justify what you have done to me.

Message board anonymity does that to people. I am pointing out nothing new here. But I'm not going to be bullied by your hostility and opportunity of convenience in taking my words out of context.

People seem to delight in taking other people's words out of context, harassing them for something they did not say, and essentially demanding they get on their knees and placate their pet hot-button issue.

It is a little power-play people learn. What I will do instead is allow you the opportunity in friendship to acknowledge first that you have taken what I said out of context and demonstrate a spirit of cooperation. Once you have done so I do indeed have some specific statements to make about it because I see it as a problem in the philippine sub-forum.

But again I want to approach this out of a spirit of cooperation and friendly discussion instead of allowing you to bully me into submission.

What do you say?

[Rebecca Jo 1,962]

Someone help me out here.

When trying to make a point, a gentleman is free to use the term "jacking off" in public conversation?

[rlogan 2,036]

You've added to the growing list of proof how relentless people are: how can I get a put-down in here?

The halo doesn't fit very well when an oblique put-down is the only participation in the thread.

The topic isn't relevant. The only thing relevant is "me", getting one-up on you.

Ideally, I get defensive and the tactic is repeated: get people on the defensive and keep them there.

But instead I am taking advantage of your behavior to demonstrate for the umpteenth time what moderators have to deal with. There is a tremendous degree of innate hostility on message boards.

That hostility will wear a halo whenever it can.

[Rebecca Jo 1,962]

You've added to the growing list of proof how relentless people are: how can I get a put-down in here?

The halo doesn't fit very well when an oblique put-down is the only participation in the thread.

The topic isn't relevant. The only thing relevant is "me", getting one-up on you.

Ideally, I get defensive and the tactic is repeated: get people on the defensive and keep them there.

But instead I am taking advantage of your behavior to demonstrate for the umpteenth time what moderators have to deal with. There is a tremendous degree of innate hostility on message boards.

That hostility will wear a halo whenever it can.

You're a funny man, rlogan.

You are so wrapped up in trying to make your point that you don't even realize you could have done it without talking about wankers.

[Rebecca Jo 1,962]

If you ventured outside of a regional forum, you'd see how arbitrary the TOS enforcement is in Off Topic and the new Politics and Religion Forum.

Rob, this is getting really old with you, you know?

Personally I don't think there should be ANY moderation in OT or the new spin-off forums. Just let everybody have it at.

Therefore I'd try to take the slights you suffer in those forums with a grain of salt. This isn't supposed to be a social community. It's supposed to be a message board for help with immigration matters. If some people want to hang around for social interaction, fine. But either behave yourselves or GTFO. You know, like real life where you don't hang out with people you can't stand?

[Flames9_RN 358]

Rob, this is getting really old with you, you know?

Personally I don't think there should be ANY moderation in OT or the new spin-off forums. Just let everybody have it at.

Therefore I'd try to take the slights you suffer in those forums with a grain of salt. This isn't supposed to be a social community. It's supposed to be a message board for help with immigration matters. If some people want to hang around for social interaction, fine. But either behave yourselves or GTFO. You know, like real life where you don't hang out with people you can't stand?

I just use the ignore feature!! And I stay away from OT,lol If something ticks me off, amazingly i just leave the topic, no need to go and cry to mommy,lol But thats just me

[twowls 217]

So for example with my wife and I, every comment I make about her is scrutinized by some people for every possibility that it can be interpreted as sexist or abusive in some way despite the fact the very people doing it have no respect for her whatsoever. If they had that respect then they would not assume she is too infantile to stand up for herself. It's actually a twin insult to be policing every statement I make about her in the pretense that a grown adult needs to have strangers who hate her husband "protecting" her from him. It's absurd. Righteous indignation is jealousy and envy with a halo in that case. The guys are whacking off to pictures of women the exact age of my wife at the same time they are pretending to be outraged any man could be attracted to women of that age. There are no playboys or penthouse or whatever with pictures of fifty-plus year old women sold to fifty-plus year old men. They are all the age of my wife. But since the entire motivation is to attack out of spite, suddenly the men set down their pornography to type about how perverted I am for being attracted to a woman her age. With the women, nothing outrages a petty woman who dislikes you more than having a wife or girlfriend that blows her out of the water. Especially if that woman showers you with love and affection. The claws and fangs come out with fury.

You have an incisive mind and your posts are usually articulate and perceptive. But you went off the rails here, honest. Suddenly all the guys are constantly masturbating, seethingly jealous monkeymen while the women are rageaholic shrews ready to cat-fight, hiss mrowr, over their inferior looks. Good lord, really? I did not know that.

People certainly do project their own weirdness in inappropriate ways. But you've sort of illustrated how things devolve as we get frustrated, take things personally, lose perspective, and resort to jabs and generalizations.

You're asking people to do better than that.

[rlogan 2,036]

You have an incisive mind and your posts are usually articulate and perceptive. But you went off the rails here, honest. Suddenly all the guys are constantly masturbating, seethingly jealous monkeymen while the women are rageaholic shrews ready to cat-fight, hiss mrowr, over their inferior looks. Good lord, really? I did not know that.

People certainly do project their own weirdness in inappropriate ways. But you've sort of illustrated how things devolve as we get frustrated, take things personally, lose perspective, and resort to jabs and generalizations.

You're asking people to do better than that.

There is a site that has now over a thousand pages of relentless, continuous harassment of us that began the moment I introduced my wife. It was a new discussion board that started while I was gone for months in Asia. They invited me to join, so I did.

At first they demanded explanation of why a 49 year old man and a 19 year old woman would get married.

I had not read this literature on covert aggression and made the mistake of thinking they wanted us to explain, which we did. But we learned any explanation in turn was convoluted into endless distortion, with the principle fairy-tale that I had bought my wife from her parents against her will.

Pictures of us together "proved" she didn't want to be with me (just look at her eyes), the sex must be like a slave labor camp for her. Attacks on her that she could "barely speak english" yet was attending english-only college courses in accounting and was trilingual.

It seemed important to constantly misrepresent my age by saying I was over 60.

We stood up to them, but in the end why bother with them. So after we left they continued stalking us wherever we went. They read our blog daily and do their best in their little ongoing thread dedicated specifically to that purpose to ridicule everything about us. Posting personal information too, which is a rule violation - but these are very

Any picture I made of her from being proud was attacked as "exploiting her". Etc. Etc. Ad infinitumn.

On this board you don't see this because our marriage is so common.

Forgive me I am in the hospital again and need to take a bre4ak frtom posting...

[twowls 217]

There is a site that has now over a thousand pages of relentless, continuous harassment of us that began the moment I introduced my wife. It was a new discussion board that started while I was gone for months in Asia. They invited me to join, so I did.

At first they demanded explanation of why a 49 year old man and a 19 year old woman would get married.

I had not read this literature on covert aggression and made the mistake of thinking they wanted us to explain, which we did. But we learned any explanation in turn was convoluted into endless distortion, with the principle fairy-tale that I had bought my wife from her parents against her will.

Pictures of us together "proved" she didn't want to be with me (just look at her eyes), the sex must be like a slave labor camp for her. Attacks on her that she could "barely speak english" yet was attending english-only college courses in accounting and was trilingual.

It seemed important to constantly misrepresent my age by saying I was over 60.

We stood up to them, but in the end why bother with them. So after we left they continued stalking us wherever we went. They read our blog daily and do their best in their little ongoing thread dedicated specifically to that purpose to ridicule everything about us. Posting personal information too, which is a rule violation - but these are very

Any picture I made of her from being proud was attacked as "exploiting her". Etc. Etc. Ad infinitumn.

On this board you don't see this because our marriage is so common.

Forgive me I am in the hospital again and need to take a bre4ak frtom posting...

So this was another site entirely? That wasn't clear in your post, and now I'm confused. It doesn't happen here, so...I'm lost. But that's normal.

Speedy recovery.

[Fandango 1,439]

One thing that is abundantly clear in the psychology of aggression is that whenever someone has an enemy the arsenal of tactics against them is every article of convenience, whether we actually care about it or not.

So for example with my wife and I, every comment I make about her is scrutinized by some people for every possibility that it can be interpreted as sexist or abusive in some way despite the fact the very people doing it have no respect for her whatsoever. If they had that respect then they would not assume she is too infantile to stand up for herself. It's actually a twin insult to be policing every statement I make about her in the pretense that a grown adult needs to have strangers who hate her husband "protecting" her from him. It's absurd. Righteous indignation is jealousy and envy with a halo in that case. The guys are whacking off to pictures of women the exact age of my wife at the same time they are pretending to be outraged any man could be attracted to women of that age. There are no playboys or penthouse or whatever with pictures of fifty-plus year old women sold to fifty-plus year old men. They are all the age of my wife. But since the entire motivation is to attack out of spite, suddenly the men set down their pornography to type about how perverted I am for being attracted to a woman her age. With the women, nothing outrages a petty woman who dislikes you more than having a wife or girlfriend that blows her out of the water. Especially if that woman showers you with love and affection. The claws and fangs come out with fury.

All this from people who loudly assert how open-minded they are. But where it comes to their enemy - it is not just zero tolerance for real abuse, but instead a relentless manufacturing of every possible reason to attack.

I can't speak for others, and I have certainly never made any comment about you or your marriage...but since you brought it up and I'm bored tonight, I had a looksie at your blog. Did you ever stop to think that maybe it could be the way you talk? Publicly calling your wife a 'hot little teenager' or telling everyone how quickly she took her panties off for you is kinda ikky for an almost 50 year old man....

just sayin,,,,

[elmcitymaven 9,712]

You've pointed out the problem here yourself: I spoke strictly of comments my wife and I have taken that you are admitting to be unaware of, mostly not even at this forum on account of how common our relationship is here, while you are applying what I said to examples you are familiar with that I am not speaking of at all. Did I speak about sexist-related comments regarding anyone except myself and my wife, and strictly those by people who had other reasons for disliking us to begin with? No, I didn't. The plain english reading of my statements were very narrowly focused, and yet you applied them completely out of context.

One might ask why you would do such a thing. If I said my neighbor stole my lawn mower, would you say that I accused your neighbor a thousand miles away of stealing it? That would be exactly the same thing: applying what I said about a situation completely unfamiliar to you to someone absolutely removed from it.

That distortion of yours was complety an artificial construction, and one I am willing to be understanding about. This is apparently your hot-button issue. So it is understandable that you strain to commandeer any opportunity to steer the discussion to it.

When I mentioned my wife and how people that couldn't care less about her pretend to "protect" her from me, that gave you the opportunity to distort what I said, take it out of context, and get on your podium about your hot-button issue pertaining to other posts not related to them.

Yet I did indeed point out how people with every sort of "ism" under the sun utilize plausible deniability to get away with insulting. That includes sexism. I did not raise your personal issue up to the fore and chamipion it as you desire.

You could have chosen to introduce your hot-button issue in a friendly way. But instead you chose to construct an artificial means to make it into an attack. You express a lot of hostility about subtle sexism. Ok, that doesn't justify what you have done to me.

Message board anonymity does that to people. I am pointing out nothing new here. But I'm not going to be bullied by your hostility and opportunity of convenience in taking my words out of context.

People seem to delight in taking other people's words out of context, harassing them for something they did not say, and essentially demanding they get on their knees and placate their pet hot-button issue.

It is a little power-play people learn. What I will do instead is allow you the opportunity in friendship to acknowledge first that you have taken what I said out of context and demonstrate a spirit of cooperation. Once you have done so I do indeed have some specific statements to make about it because I see it as a problem in the philippine sub-forum.

But again I want to approach this out of a spirit of cooperation and friendly discussion instead of allowing you to bully me into submission.

What do you say?

I too was confused about which site you were speaking of -- I assumed it was VJ since, uh, we're all on VJ. I assumed this was in the PI forum; mea culpa for missing the context. (And wishes as well for a speedy recovery.)

I do like to play nice though for the most part -- you have made polite noises here so I will be polite in turn. I had no intention of turning this into a discussion about your relationship with your wife, specifically, but to highlight what, yes perhaps, is a major issue for me on VJ -- namely sexism. I will give Kathryn her due -- she is usually very prompt in removing sexist speech or reminding posters to exhibit more respect. I did not intend for you to read this of what you construe as harassment or a personal attack.

However, I've gone back and tried to read something other than what others have pointed out as "dudes be hatin', chicks be hatin'" attitudes in your earlier post. Perhaps this was not your intent, but it really does read this way (and clearly I'm not the only person on here to think that). And I think you missed my rather nice point about how women love to hear about men expressing their admiration for the women they love; you love your wife and that's really a beautiful thing. But it came across a little differently, and I am willing to listen to how I took this out of context. (BOY would I like it if it were out of context!)

That's my olive branch extended. I hope you can see I'm willing to engage in constructive dialogue, even when I'm not totally sure I'm clear on what sort of point you're trying to make here, beyond that the mods have a tough job and some of us don't respect them enough. I know you need prove nothing to me, but I'd like to hear more from you on this nevertheless.

[The_Dude 1,142]

I can't speak for others, and I have certainly never made any comment about you or your marriage...but since you brought it up and I'm bored tonight, I had a looksie at your blog. Did you ever stop to think that maybe it could be the way you talk? Publicly calling your wife a 'hot little teenager' or telling everyone how quickly she took her panties off for you is kinda ikky for an almost 50 year old man....

just sayin,,,,

Rob, this is getting really old with you, you know?

Personally I don't think there should be ANY moderation in OT or the new spin-off forums. Just let everybody have it at.

Therefore I'd try to take the slights you suffer in those forums with a grain of salt. This isn't supposed to be a social community. It's supposed to be a message board for help with immigration matters. If some people want to hang around for social interaction, fine. But either behave yourselves or GTFO. You know, like real life where you don't hang out with people you can't stand?

Seems you might have missed my point, despite the many many times i've stated it. I don't suppose stating it again would help out, so I'll just summarize. I would hope for a more transparent, and uniform enforcement of the TOS. Currently, It is completely arbitrary and subject to whims. I understand that it is 90%+ report driven, and that for it to be enforced, people must report it. The fact of the matter is, I do report racist posts, yet moderators don't get the reference, or don't care. I'm not saying it is a majority of the time, but come on, someone gets suspended for calling someone's racist rant ignorant while Mr. Duke gets nothing? (Yes, I know I am not privy to behind the scenes actions Kathryn, but it's not hard to deduce who got suspended and who didn't)