That's a good question. Tbh, I have little experience observing people admitting mistakes anywhere, it's hard, but typically when I do it is when I don't feel personally attacked.

I don't think that true. Posters turned up in PU out of the blue and despite not posting anything inflammatory got abused and called names straight away. PU was an animal house and woe betide anyone who entered unawares.


Wil, come on now. You're easily the most abusive poster I've ever seen online (though i don't frequent breitbart type sites). You are a good example of the poster in your first quote, and that's just an observation, not a criticism. It would be ridiculous if you were to cry and whine about being abused. Not everyone is like you.

Dude, you aren't suggesting anything to do with content neutrality at all (which BTW content neutrality is exactly the current rule over in Alta, as the r-word isn't censored at all, regardless of 'content'). What you are suggesting, it seems, that the r-word (and any other characterization) be censored on the whim of the addressee.

To review:

No censorship is always content neutral, by definition.
Censorship by the whim of the addressee has nothing to do with "content neutrality".

And no, what you are proposing is would not help. Consider these scenarios...

A	No one posts the r-word	Nobody derails by whining about PCism run amok	Not going to help
B	No one posts the r-word	a buncha Tone Policemen whine & derail anyways	Not going to help
C	One random peep posts "you're a r-word"	The post is ignored	Not going to help
D	One random peep posts "you're a r-word"	a buncha Tone Policemen whine & derail	Not going to help
E	One random peep posts "you're a r-word"	That poster is reported & sanctioned, the post itself is ignored	Not going to help
F	One random peep posts "you're a r-word"	That poster is reported & sanctioned, however a buncha Tone Policemen whine & derail anyways	Not going to help
G	One random peep posts "that's r-word"	The post is ignored	Not going to help
H	One random peep posts "that's r-word"	a buncha Tone Policemen derails & whine	Not going to help
I	a buncha SWJs post "you're a r-word"	These posts are ignored	Not going to help
J	a buncha SWJs post "you're a r-word"	a buncha Tone Policemen derails & whine	Not going to help
K	a buncha SWJs post "you're a r-word"	Those SWJs are reported & sanctioned, the posts are ignored	Not going to help
L	a buncha SWJs post "you're a r-word"	Those SWJs are reported & sanctioned, however a buncha Tone Policemen whine & derail anyways	Not going to help
M	a buncha SWJs post "that's r-word"	These posts are ignored	Not going to help
N	a buncha SWJs post "that's r-word"	a buncha Tone Policemen whine & derail	Not going to help

That's how idiots on the left like kerewo operate. Label someone they disagree with as a racist or bigot without any actual concrete evidence, just their subjective opinion.

It's a well-used tactic in P and it's hard to combat because if you fling dirt at someone often enough some of it sticks.

To expand, online is so much more difficult to communicate clearly. Most of us are not good writers, and even the best are still easily misunderstood because most of us aren't the best readers. The principle of attacking the argument and not the arguer couldn't be more important than in this medium, so that clarifications can be made to our arguments before emotions take over.

I think the cordiality (ie not feeling threatened) explains it in part, but another factor is that Internet debates offer those determined not to lose face the easy options of fleeing (by simply not replying) or of deflecting (by making multiple replies to other posts), which are much harder to carry off in face to face debates.

People behave totally differently under the cloak of anonymity, and it's rarely an improvement.

It's not just about the "r" word, it's about personal attacks, calling people names. Wookie refuses to admit calling people racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic, pick your ic or ist, are even personal attacks on the grounds that if true (according to him), they cannot be attacks. This is simply a falacious argument on it's face.

Again, sure limitting personal attacks won't solve everything, and yes people will still argue over what is racist, but so what, it's a start.

I agree, and there's the flip side, people will act out shouting people down in ways they never would in person, much like road rage. It's also tough to address everyone when getting bombarded with replies, you often don't know who's read what, and how they're taking what you're saying. This internet is a tough nut to crack. We had eons to work out social norms face to face, maybe we'll get anon and semi-anon forums right someday too.

Oh, and there are so many different personalities who would never meet IRL so often super wide differences in viewpoint from the start, and being anon means you quite literally could be arguing with a 12 yr old and not realize it. The challenges are probably too many, WAAF.

Yes, leftist is the same as rapist...
Maybe the problem is that people can't parse text? Maybe they read too quickly? See what they want to see? I don't get this commentary. We're talking about the group of white males - which are roundly abused by the left with no censure and no exceptions - and comparing with Muslim males, who are a protected species. I'm asking, why?

I even added extra "averages" in there so there would no misunderstanding:
Your response:
?????????????????????????????????????????????????

I actually missed that, because in the previous paragraph you were just saying Muslim males. So that clarification helps.

As Chez pointed out earlier, isn't it fair to distinguish between Muslims living in Briton vs those living in say Pakistan? I mean, can we not assume with pretty good confidence that even a Christian male in Pakistan is likely to be more mysogynistic than an average Muslim male in Briton?

No to your hypothesis .

I am sorry to hear you feel that way about me, but I think it shows everyone why you were so harsh about my banning/exile (not that anyone ever questioned the fact that you played favorites - or least favorites)

Making posting Trump's tagline as a signature and then not being able to post the slogan at all in the Trump thread for me only were ridiculous rules and the way you moved the goal posts I think most everyone understood what you were trying to do (ban me).

You also made other rules specifically to me, some of which you PMed to me and said you'd perma ban me if I ever discussed them on 2+2, in hopes I'd get frustrated and break one of your rules so you could ban me. Eventually I realized PU was not good for me, I wasn't contributing in a positive way since I was constantly worried I'd get banned and I was tired of defending myself from the same small group of posters so I tested your lines not caring if I got the ban.

After my ban I had a few posters PM me ideas to get unbanned from PU, but at that point I didn't want to return. It wasn't just the brutal dictatorship you were running - it was also frustrating seeing others getting bans for things they did once (or very irregularly) when other posters did them all the time without punishment. There were a few times I thought about writing out a well thought out PM to Mat on why you needed to be demoted from mod, but I just didn't care enough. You made PU (or maybe it was already this bad before I got here) so ****ty that I didn't care to spend any energy or effort to make it a better place despite such an easy-fix being available.

I want you to know that despite being excited about the prospects of PU w/o you as a mod I wish you well. I hope we are able to have many good healthy debates in the future in PU and we both are able to learn some things from our past conversations and our future ones.

Welcome back, bahbahmickey.

No, you missed the point. Try to pan back, and look at a bigger picture. I'm going to make two points here, which I believe are not controversial, and on which I hope I can get a quick 'amen'.

1. Your professed goal is to foster productive debate, correct? Exactly how are these restrictions and limitations you're are championing supposed to help to do that? In particular, if the kinda posting you want to restrict and limit is simply ignored, is there any problem at all?
   
   Well the answer to the last question is "no". If posts of the kind you wanna restrict or limit are simply ignored, there is no problem at all. There is only a problem if the kinda posts you wanna restrict and limit "trigger" a response, and the combination of that "trigger" -and- that response ends up derailing and destroying the conversation.
   
   
2. Besides the name calling|"poo flinging"|attack-the-attacker issues, there are plenty of other ways that a productive debate can be derailed and destroyed. Some of those ways are just as, or even more, capable y/o likely to derail and destroy productive debate than mere name calling, etc.

1) I agree but people are human, even Well Named is I think. Limiting personal attacks helps keep the discussion where it belongs, on the arguments.

2) yes, and hopefully Chez will manage the trolling well too, though I don't think there's a simple rule like "attack the argument" that can help there. It's more of a judgement, flow of discussion issue.

One question for you, why do you think the rule "attack the argument, not the arguer" exists in P, and is a common rule in forums?

Well, this would be an interesting thing to investigate. Do you think if it were true, it would influence your opinion?

It's not so much a mantra as simply a statement of the rules. I'm more than happy to defend my beliefs as I always have been in the past, it's always agod thing to have our beliefs challenged. I'm sure we will get to it but you'll have to forgive me for now as taking on this moderation gig is quite time consuming.

"Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mod"

Posts: 29,994
Make your 30,000th post a banning. In honor of your new power.

Dumb**** maybe you should read more and talk less. I haven't labeled Foldn a racist or bigot. I've labeled him a rapist because he admitted to raping someone in another thread. So the opposite of what you just said.

You were asked to follow simple instruction and couldn't be bothered which led to your exile. Chez is going to have much more complex rules than "don't post these words" how do you expect to follow them?

I'm well aware of that and no I wont be bothering Mat. From the rules stickie:
There's no software enforcement of time outs.

Chez's Stadium

Pretty sure you've called me racist, bigot and much more. And no, I have never admitted to being a rapist. That is a terrible lie. Nobody, including my girl friend in the event I described, has ever called it rape or me a rapist, except posters like you here at 2+2.

We were both very drunk. She initially claimed she was passed out, but then backtracked when she realized what she'd said, at least that's how my best friend (her brother) described it. It was clear from the start she was trying to get me in trouble with her brother for the sex and subsequently not calling her, not for date rape, which is ridiculous because I'd been fending her off for years. Lol, if anyone was taken advantage of it was me. Anyway we got past it, and are all still good friends.

You should ask yourself what you're trying to accomplish by lying and smearing a stranger on the internet. What relevance does it have to this discussion, and would you ever do such a disgusting thing IRL?