Moderation question

[JackRiddler]

While I see that there are no easy answers for me to offer as alternatives I don't understand how locking the "Flotilla" thread helps the situation with flames, trolls, or offensive posts.

The subject is a current event, the thread was a place for compiling news and analyses as they appeared, and many of the comments were carefully considered and non-flaming. c2w? put in what I thought was an excellent set of thoughts on the European history prior to the Holocaust, which no doubt was a lot of work, and worthy of reply. That's just one example. If the subject also attracts undesirable ugliness (such as the post just before the locking), then surely the problem is in the undesirable ugliness and not the subject.

[chiggerbit]

I agree. MOST of the last several pages were very well-worth reading, and I was in the process of starting a new thread to point out c2w's insightful contributions there, such as:

......I'm not quite sure how to put this. But it's very difficult to get American Jews to take a moment to think about how fucked up they still are as a direct legacy of the brutality and poverty and fear and anger that their grandparents or great-grandparents lived with in Eastern Europe if they lived or in the United States if they were last-wave immigrants in the 1875 to 1913 period. As my grandparents were, for example. Because they were totally destroyed people, and that kind of damage gets handed down for generations and generations before it dwindles to within non-traumatized parameters.

It can't be stressed enough that families can and do feel the impact of trauma for generations...

[MacCruiskeen]

Logging in at 3:15 a.m. CET for the first time in 15 hours. (I am very, very busy offline right now.)

The "Flotilla" thread has been locked???

Barracuda's first intervention on that thread was a disgrace and a provocation - a vain and arrogant and deeply stupid provocation. And barracuda is not a stupid man.

The moderation here is a disgrace. It is killing this board.

Less importantly, but not unimportantly, it is also killing barracuda's contributions to this board*.

*I have seen this happen so many times: people placed in a position of petty power suddenly abandoning their own best selves, and preening themselves, and posing around, and wallowing in that petty power.

[Username]

~
I don't want it locked. I just got back from work and had something to say.

This is censorship.

Breezy wins.
~

[barracuda]

What in the name of Pete are you on about Mac? I didn't intervene in any way, shape or form on that thread.

You're all perfectly capable of beginning new threads on whatever subjects you desire, either with new information or by borrowing subject matter from the old thread.

[Jeff]

Good points, Jack. I admit that closing a thread is pretty heavy handed, but a thread is one thing and a discussion is another. The discussion can certainly continue in a new thread, linked to the old. Thirty pages is long for any fast-moving, text-heavy thread, and the latter pages of this one were being larded with so much animus I thought it was probably time for a reboot. The Hitler was a zionist post knocked me off the fence on that score. I suppose I could have micromanaged and deleted the post, but I prefer it when members self-moderate, as most do, most of the time.

[anothershamus]

Good points, Jack. I admit that closing a thread is pretty heavy handed, but a thread is one thing and a discussion is another. The discussion can certainly continue in a new thread, linked to the old. Thirty pages is long for any fast-moving, text-heavy thread, and the latter pages of this one were being larded with so much animus I thought it was probably time for a reboot. The Hitler was a zionist post knocked me off the fence on that score. I suppose I could have micromanaged and deleted the post, but I prefer it when members self-moderate, as most do, most of the time.

bravo!

[Username]

~

The discussion can certainly continue in a new thread, linked to the old.

It just isn't the same.
~

[Username]

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kidding, of course, but it has somehow taken the wind out of my sails.
~

[smiths]

i have a question as well,
if you ban someone for a week for a certain kind of behavior and upon return that person gets straight back into the same shit, what then?

whilst i will not voice my opinions in the same confrontational way as nordic i am guessing i feel roughly the same,

there has been a sensible and fair policy here of reigning in and stopping anti-semitic commentary which has been excellent,
but when is the same kind of approach going to be applied to Israel itself

it is a hardcore militaristic sham democracy, based on racist precepts that everyone everywhere has agreed are abhorrent,
laws that have race at the foundation of them are not dignified or acceptable,
collective punishment of a population is abhorrent and wrong,
anyone that pops around here talking about legalities (percival) has lost their mind and their humanity in my opinion

i am sick of this bullshit, i am sick of seeing a group of people confined in a giant prison whilst comfortable people across the world debate laws and rights to exist,
i am sick of millions of Jewish people who know nothing of the realities of life in Gaza but whose own collective trauma has placed them in the position of defending and supporting a murderous, wretched policy by a rogue racist state, seemingly forgetting all the real lessons of their own history
Israel should be a pariah state like North Korea
shame on any of you who have defended israel with your weasel words, i am sickened and appalled, again

[barracuda]

The same goes for America, and almost any country you can name, smiths.

I feel pretty much the same way when I read people going on about their favorite football or baseball teams, or talking about tee vee shows they enjoy while their countries of residence are literally burning children world-wide. Should we ban those people too?

What fine country do you live in that is not currently killing innocent children?

[smiths]

i will excuse your complete ignorance of the point barracuda and put it down to feeling a little on the defensive yourself

to simplify it for you,

israel is a 'jewish' state (a racial designation which is pretty fucking flimsy)
there are a pre-existing non-jewish population who are living in prison camps
it has created a legal system with this racist division as the foundation

now you tell me, is that the same as america?

i live in australia, we have a thing called the Racial Discrimination Act so as Australia's "domestic laws meet Australia’s international obligations, including with respect to racial equality and preventing racial discrimination."
"The Racial Discrimination Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of race in many areas of public life. These include in employment, renting or buying property, the provision of goods and services, accessing public places and in advertising. The Act also prohibits offensive behaviour based on racial hatred (racial vilification)."

is it perfect? no; was there abuse of the indigenous population? fuck yeah; are we as a nation trying to deal with it and make it right? yes, however imperfectly
does australia have a legalised racist law system? no

the only places that do are unmentionable due to comparisons that no-one really wants to get into

[17breezes]

i will excuse your complete ignorance of the point barracuda and put it down to feeling a little on the defensive yourself

to simplify it for you,

israel is a 'jewish' state (a racial designation which is pretty fucking flimsy)
there are a pre-existing non-jewish population who are living in prison camps
it has created a legal system with this racist division as the foundation

now you tell me, is that the same as america?

i live in australia, we have a thing called the Racial Discrimination Act so as Australia's "domestic laws meet Australia’s international obligations, including with respect to racial equality and preventing racial discrimination."
"The Racial Discrimination Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of race in many areas of public life. These include in employment, renting or buying property, the provision of goods and services, accessing public places and in advertising. The Act also prohibits offensive behaviour based on racial hatred (racial vilification)."

is it perfect? no; was there abuse of the indigenous population? fuck yeah; are we as a nation trying to deal with it and make it right? yes, however imperfectly
does australia have a legalised racist law system? no

the only places that do are unmentionable due to comparisons that no-one really wants to get into

Unless you have a history of condemning all the Muslim racial states as well you have little credibility.

[barracuda]

Killing is killing, smiths. Australia lives in the shadow of a racial inequality that is pretty fucking recent. And you reap the benefits of that. You name what happened there the euphemistic term "abuse". Indigenous Australians have a life expectancy between 12 and 17 years less than non-indigenous Australians. Yeah. I'd say that's abuse all right. Ongoing.

[slomo]

i will excuse your complete ignorance of the point barracuda and put it down to feeling a little on the defensive yourself

to simplify it for you,

israel is a 'jewish' state (a racial designation which is pretty fucking flimsy)
there are a pre-existing non-jewish population who are living in prison camps
it has created a legal system with this racist division as the foundation

now you tell me, is that the same as america?

i live in australia, we have a thing called the Racial Discrimination Act so as Australia's "domestic laws meet Australia’s international obligations, including with respect to racial equality and preventing racial discrimination."
"The Racial Discrimination Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of race in many areas of public life. These include in employment, renting or buying property, the provision of goods and services, accessing public places and in advertising. The Act also prohibits offensive behaviour based on racial hatred (racial vilification)."

is it perfect? no; was there abuse of the indigenous population? fuck yeah; are we as a nation trying to deal with it and make it right? yes, however imperfectly
does australia have a legalised racist law system? no

the only places that do are unmentionable due to comparisons that no-one really wants to get into

Unless you have a history of condemning all the Muslim racial states as well you have little credibility.

What is it with you? I usually remain silent on this bs, but you seem to have one and only one song. Pretty much everybody I see posting regularly here has criticized non-Israeli atrocities (including, e.g., Saudi Arabia, various African states, etc.)

As far as I'm concerned, you have no credibility.