Empathy is definitely needed by society. But unfortunately, being empathic towards someone still does not mean you know what it is like growing up as a little black girl. That's the point. I can think about my weakest points, but I still have no idea what it is actually like to have gender dysphoria. Failing to realize that is basically just patting yourself on the back for being able to make yourself feel bad to connect with someone else.

One of the things they taught us in nursing is that, even if you've been through something incredibly similar as one of your patients, you still have no idea what it's like to be actually going through that experience for them. So saying something like, "I know what this is like" is not usually going to be met with a "Oh, okay!". It's almost always going to be met with anger. Because you don't know what it is like for them. And you never will.

Yes, it is a fact that you said you saw that. You provided no proof. I provided proof that it's just a chapter in California.

I mean, you did. Those were the words you used, not the words I forced you to use. I'm sorry if you don't know what words mean. Though, that would explain a lot.

I'm going to suggest you just read the thread again and follow the discussion that began between AllCowsEatGrass and TiltedDonkey, then read the post I quoted, then read my response to it.

Part of the confusion is undoubtedly that we understand what it means for a post to be bigoted or racist differently. But yes, I am explicitly suggesting that, were I a mod (I'm not, to be clear), I might think that your point of view is racist (in some sense; a lot of unpacking can be done here) and not ban you for it, or take any other action. And that it might be a good general policy to allow certain points of view to be expressed in appropriate forums despite the fact that many (but not all) people think those points of view are (implicitly) racist.

Also, it wouldn't be a secret belief, necessarily. I would probably tell you I thought so!

All of the above is connected (maybe a bit tangentially) to the question of how you formulate site-wide rules about objectionable posting given the fact that there are big differences of opinion about what's objectionable, as well as differences in posters' behavior when they post in different sub-forums.

So, the reason why I highlight the fact that I might tolerate posts that I personally find objectionable (and by extension: which others may find objectionable) is because I think it's a requirement if the goal is to find some site-wide policy that might be consistently followed, so that the question of how to deal with some of the complaints that come up from time to time would have a more predictable answer.

As BTM2 pointed out, and borrowing from Gizmo's post, part of the idea is to move the criteria somewhat away from a judgement about what qualifies as "racist" (or sexist, etc) in some absolute sense to a judgement based in part on other factors, i.e. whether or not the perspective in question is reasonably mainstream, whether the person is obviously more interested in trolling than discussion, and etc. But with the caveat that there should be some minimum site-wide standard of what constitutes unacceptably racist or sexist posting, along with the more variable forum-specific rules.

The point here is that it's not an entire "left wing organization" that is saying the national anthem shouldn't be our national anthem.

And have you actually read their reasonings? Or did you see the headline, roll your eyes, and say "oh FFS PC Culture has gone TOO FAR!?".

a... representative.... went on the news... to declare the anthem racist... and wants poeple to stop singing it.....

so someone declared something was racists.... how is this relevant to the discussion of moderation?.... follow the plot champ

we just finished going over the situation where a poster shared what they were thinking about a hypothetical person with a penis following their daughter in to a womens washroom. what happened? yes a mob declared them a trans phobe and wanted them banned. this is not a good thing for a sustainable forum. again, follow the plot

I think if you read my posts in this thread and then read yours, you might be able to discern the problem.

She got trolled a bit too hard by the management.

I really liked bigolnit too.

You are twisting again.

that wasn't my point, that was the confused moderators point. its irrelevant. a member/representative came out and declared this. think about that. put it in to context of the discussion. someone declared something racist. right, that happened. that happens a lot. we should think about that. people are declaring a lot of things around here and throwing around all sorts of labels
you haven't even formulated a relevant point to what i said. all you have done is derail some point nobody was making and seem utterly confused as to why i don't care if the entire organization backed them or has failed to distance themselves from that statement. follow the plot

How do you know that the hypothetical Rambo is not a trans man complying with the law?

I cannot support closing down SMP and nowadays neither Politics out of personal reasons, and not RGT out of principal reasons.

And what do you mean, "you people"?

what if the hypothetical rambo was complying with the bathroom laws but not following the immigration laws? we must always follow and support the laws, right?

what if the purpose of discussion about laws is to determine what the laws should be, under the assumption they are not always correct?

I want (and mean) a friendly forum.

Well, frankly, it was a rather mad thing to say.

A-****ing-men.

i'm already giving up trying to moderate this thread. thank you to those who stayed on topic. it's been helpful already.

it makes me continue to feel comfortable with moderators having the autonomy they have.

Run off by sexist posting. But the real problem is that she pointed out sexism, obviously.

in 2010 you would be mainstream in not allowing a person with a penis follow your daughter in to a designated womens washroom. somewhere around 2015 that changed to you being a trans phobe and it called for ban on this forum. on what day did this hypothetical father become a trans phobe? on what day can we determine an anthem racist? etc. you really do need to think these things through when you determine how to moderate peoples speech reasonably

You can't say like that. But you can partly understand. That's more than than nothing. But of course, less than all.

Two plus two needs to pivot from poker to just 'smart people in general' IMO. The poker boom has come and gone. I haven't discussed a poker hand since black friday and probably never will again.

This site is no longer about poker. It's a community that was created by the group of people who played poker seriously from whenever the site started through the poker boom. When there was a professional poker scene worth discussing it was the hub of that. And it should remain the hub of what's left of the poker scene... But there are a lot of older guys like me who used to be grinders in our early 20's. For some of us those days were 10 years ago. For most of us it was at least 7 years ago. It's wise to think about how to prioritize the site around our needs as I believe we make up the majority of posters still here, and the vast majority of posters someone would want to advertise to.

EDIT: This site was instrumental in teaching me about poker. Then it was instrumental in teaching me about investing/trading. I shared my knowledge of my industry and negotiation free of charge by way of giving back. I think at this point we need a parenting subforum more than we need a politics subforum. The demographics of the site are changing every year, and it has the potential to remain great. The SEO is still fantastic. You guys need think a lot bigger than board games IMO.

And yes this is business advice. You should probably consult a few of the better posters on here. One of your mods is a very strong marketing professional. This site has a TON of potential because of what it already has. I'd look to modernize the interface, include the ability to 'like' posts (it helps track poster quality... something you clearly need. I doubt you'd be trying to ban TS if you noticed he had 4x as many likes as he had posts), and try to broaden it's appeal. The reality is that you got lucky with your subject matter and your community has a lot of very successful people in it. Successful people who are emotionally involved in the continued success of the site.

So, nothing's going to change then and your site is going to continue to go down the ****hole.

Re: Zeno's post-

Burning down one's own bridges is one thing, burning down a whole bunch of folk's bridges is wildly, extremely another.

Obviously poker players and gamblers wanna socialize about more than just poker and gambling.

I'll be honest I haven't gone through the thread and read most the posts just skimmed it and saw your list followed by I think this shows his underlying biases and sexism and responded. I can argue the similar points in all those topics (I don't remember him saying the pay gap between sexes doesn't exist he said that wasn't the cause it was a correlated issue.) and honestly just brushing them off as delusional and solely contributed to bigotry is why other underlying issues have never been discussed or fixed in society.