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Old 10-24-2012, 09:52 PM   #1
Jerichi
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An Open Letter to UPN

Dear UPN,

Over the past few months, the state of our debate forum has been a shameful one to say the least. We have not had a civil and calm debate in what seems to be the history of the subforum's existence. I know very well that we are all capable as mature and rational members of this forum to conduct civil discussions even on controversial topics, and while things can become heated, we know well enough when to step back and take a breath. However, recently, there has been a malefactor that has turned us all from respectable debate forum-goers to ad homenem spewing, raging children, both in and outside of the Debate forum. As such, I have personally petitioned to rid the forum of such a malefactor, and I take responsibility for the banning of unownmew.

I will say, however, this decision was not mine alone. I did, however, play a central role in this decision and I feel like I am at least partly responsible for its outcome.

I am sure most of you are aware of my reasons for such a ban but I feel like I should let it explicitly know why I lobbied for it.

For many years now, I have long considered UPN to be my Internet home, the one place I can come to discuss things I enjoy with people I know, respect and with which I am friends. In recent months, however, I feel like the security and acceptance that I have experienced for so many years has been threatened. I have, on multiple occasions, felt personally attacked, demoralized and dehumanized, even if their intent was not my own personal harm or degradation. I have been made to feel extremely uncomfortable, depressed and angry. I have said some things in these heightened states of emotion that I do regret saying and I apologize for that, but I do not apologize for standing up for myself, my beliefs and for others who have shared my grief.

Not only am I concerned for my own well-being but I am also concerned for the well-being of others on this forum. Over the past few days, I feel that the safety of this forum for those under the age of 18 may have very well been compromised and could very well have been for longer than we suspect. If we cannot protect our members and manage those we see to be a nuisance or danger to our community, then we are failing both ourselves and the community at large. While I know of no personal actions taken towards any particular members, we cannot risk having someone on our forum that poses any sort of personal threat to any of our members.

Until very, very recently, it was not in my power to do anything about this kind of thing, but I feel like it is high time this is addressed. As such, I feel like a few guidelines for debate and rules need to be laid out. You can look to this thread for these rules.

I apologize for all of those who have felt equally discomforted by this nuisance and I hope that I can make UPN a safe and friendly place for everyone here.

Sincerely,
Jerichi
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Old 10-24-2012, 10:13 PM   #2
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Literally all of your reasons for banning him can be attributed to those antagonizing him in conversation. Why not just delete the debate forum with your newfound authority, rather than scapegoating one person who just happened to hold completely different views than everyone else?

I'm not saying UM was great, but I also think that this is a complete overreaction, especially if he actually isn't a troll. This is intolerant.
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Old 10-24-2012, 10:23 PM   #3
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This has nothing to do with him being a troll. This does have something to do with the controversy he incited and I am not saying that we are totally innocent in this either. In fact, I'm pretty guilty of inciting a lot of this myself. This is why I am going to be establishing some rules as well. This forum has been an unruly mess for too long and I hope that I can fix that.

He has also very openly stated anti-gay sentiments and worrisome opinions concerning the sexualization of children. Even if he didn't make a single post in this forum, I'd still not want him around because of these two sole factors.
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Old 10-24-2012, 10:27 PM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Amras.MG View Post
Literally all of your reasons for banning him can be attributed to those antagonizing him in conversation.
I feel it's important to point out that this doesn't hold for the pedophilia argument. The only question there is "Was he merely arguing pedophilia from a philosophical standpoint? or was he arguing in self-defense as a pedophile himself?" The latter requires a ban if UPN is to be a child-safe community. The former does not warrant a ban in and of itself but invites a "better safe than sorry" ban. And in unownmew's case, I don't really see how this is even up for debate given that he himself proclaimed he would personally be fine with a 12-year old bride. Not arguing philosophically saying he defended others' right to it or felt we as a society should allow it, but personally proclaiming that he himself would be fine with a child bride. We can split hairs about terminology like "pedophilia" and "ephebophilia" all we like, and we can debate whether society should or should not allow child brides for others, but at the end of the day the question that we have to ask for ourselves as a community is "Do we want to be the sort of community which allows an adult with a possible interest in a 12-year old spouse to be around our middle school and high school members?"

Second, none of this has anything to do with people antagonizing him. You could say hostility, foul language, and other things like that are the product of being antagonized. But nobody here made him defend pedophilia from the driver's seat.

Of course, if you don't accept that he was banned for this reason and this is merely being used to justify banning him for some ulterior motive, then that's a different matter. I can't speak for Jeri or Kuno or Muyo or anybody else, but I can speak for myself that my reasons for wanting him banned were 1) suspected pedophile with numerous counts of self-incriminating evidence and 2) suspected troll with numerous counts of self-incriminating evidence. The community has not agreed with me on #2, including yourself, so I can accept that you'd reject that as a reason to ban him. But I myself have suggested on several occasions in the past that he be banned for the first reason. And it looks like that's finally taken place, whether you accept that that was the true driving factor for Jeri and for others or not.
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Old 10-24-2012, 10:32 PM   #5
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I didn't realize he was being accused of pedophilia. That is completely different. I thought that he was being politically banned because of his extremely conservative views, which don't jive with the moderators or active members of this forum at all. In fact, I still think that's most of the reason.

We're also going to have to define anti-gay. If by "anti-gay" you mean "think homosexuality is wrong" then that's a huge problem.
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Old 10-24-2012, 10:35 PM   #6
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No, it was the pedophilia. He had also been warned about it before.
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Old 10-24-2012, 10:37 PM   #7
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As someone who was consulted on this one (yes, your guess is as good as mine), I was lukewarm/somewhat against the banning for a couple reasons:

1. Being a red-state douchetard (alternatively, having an opinion not in keeping with the majority of the forum) is not a bannable offense
2. I was afraid that it would set a "no differing opinions" allowed precedent as Amras.MG is worried about.

Make no mistake: I'm largely of the opinion that unownmew should use a running chainsaw as a buttplug and make the world slightly less crowded for the rest of us. But being a right-winger that you don't like isn't enough to justify a ban.

On the other hand, once things devolved to age of consent/"I choose to be straight" storytime nonsense, all bets were off.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
I feel it's important to point out that this doesn't hold for the pedophilia argument. The only question there is "Was he merely arguing pedophilia from a philosophical standpoint? or was he arguing in self-defense as a pedophile himself?" The latter requires a ban if UPN is to be a child-safe community. The former does not warrant a ban in and of itself but invites a "better safe than sorry" ban. And in unownmew's case, I don't really see how this is even up for debate given that he himself proclaimed he would personally be fine with a 12-year old bride. Not arguing philosophically saying he defended others' right to it or felt we as a society should allow it, but personally proclaiming that he himself would be fine with a child bride. We can split hairs about terminology like "pedophilia" and "ephebophilia" all we like, and we can debate whether society should or should not allow child brides for others, but at the end of the day the question that we have to ask for ourselves as a community is "Do we want to be the sort of community which allows an adult with a possible interest in a 12-year old spouse to be around our middle school and high school members?"

Second, none of this has anything to do with people antagonizing him. You could say hostility, foul language, and other things like that are the product of being antagonized. But nobody here made him defend pedophilia from the driver's seat.
Basically this (yes, Talon and I agree on something. Please look outside your window to confirm that the Horsemen are not riding). I'm not gung-ho about unownmew being banned, but clearly he was not arguing about the age of consent from an academic viewpoint.

Quote:
2) suspected troll with numerous counts of self-incriminating evidence. The community has not agreed with me on #2, including yourself, so I can accept that you'd reject that as a reason to ban him.
Based on one of the people who actually knows him IRL, he probably wasn't trolling. Take that for what you will.

Quote:
I thought that he was being politically banned because of his extremely conservative views, which don't jive with the moderators or active members of this forum at all. In fact, I still think that's most of the reason.
Being virulently anti-gay certainly didn't endear him to the LBGT members of UPN, but if it had stopped at that he would probably still be posting. Being virulently anti-gay when you're virulently pro-pedophilia is a great way to be shown the door.
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Last edited by Blastoise; 10-24-2012 at 10:39 PM.
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Old 10-24-2012, 10:38 PM   #8
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You guys can't sit there and tell me with a straight face that this wasn't political as well. I'm pretty sure ya'll had been advocating his dismissal waaaaay before the pedophilia stuff.

That said, I of course agree that legitimate concern over pedophilia is grounds for banning.
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Old 10-24-2012, 10:38 PM   #9
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It's high time. To clarify, though, I want it known that I don't mean that out of any kind of spite. Rather, because I know that I'm not the only one who has been distressed by him.

I have not said this much outside ASB, and I know some who post here do not venture too much into ASB, but my depression has been on a serious downer lately, for the past week or so. Now, while I am not blaming unownmew for this, it is undeniable that he is a huge reason why it's been getting so much worse and not going away. I have some pretty severe emotional issues, and the utterly hateful environment is extremely damaging to that. Furthermore, I've seen people who don't share my issues being affected by this as well. Now, obviously, to a radical fundamentalist, a polyamorous gay pagan like myself must seem like the devil incarnate, and I'm pretty sure I'm the only one here (excluding Markus). So I knew I'd get that kind of treatment. I've grown to expect that. What really ticked me off was the other members being attacked as well, which is not okay. And even the other known Christians here have been generally cordial, about as cordial on average as the non-Christians have been. Take that as you will.

I may be rambling here. However, what I am trying to say here is that while no one person is 100% to blame, the brunt of the problem was apparent. Did he deserve to get banned? That's not, never was, and ever would have been my decision. But those who are trying to create a non-antagonistic environment here say yes, and I support their decision.

This has been a possibly pointless post by Kairne.
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Old 10-24-2012, 10:42 PM   #10
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> We're also going to have to define anti-gay. If by "anti-gay" you mean "think homosexuality is wrong" then that's a huge problem.

He said some very offensive things in his last few posts. Many of the claims he made against homosexuals might not have been anti-gay outright but they were borderline. I felt very uncomfortable by much of the things he said.

I'll admit to being biased against people who thing homosexuality is wrong and I'm quite sure that there are a large number of people who are genuinely good people who also subscribe to this. By itself, I would probably not consider it a bannable offense, but it does add to the pile of various grievances that he has had piled against him.

> You guys can't sit there and tell me with a straight face that this wasn't political as well. I'm pretty sure ya'll had been advocating his dismissal waaaaay before the pedophilia stuff.

I can't really show you anything to prove it, but legitimate discussions of banning didn't occur until very recently.

Last edited by Jerichi; 10-24-2012 at 10:45 PM.
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Old 10-24-2012, 10:45 PM   #11
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Can you send me some links, concerning what you thought was inappropriate? Or, if you so desire, post a "what not to do?" For people like myself this will be very helpful for not getting banned, if I were to ever participate in debate again.
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Old 10-24-2012, 10:50 PM   #12
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You guys can't sit there and tell me with a straight face that this wasn't political as well. I'm pretty sure ya'll had been advocating his dismissal waaaaay before the pedophilia stuff.
I don't think anyone is going to claim that unownmew was making ALL THE FRIENDS in the debate forum, but once things really started going downhill in the past few days the discussion moved from "what an annoying fuckhead unownmew is" to "okay, maybe the line needs to be drawn now."

Politics aside, unownmew wasn't even a good representative of his political leanings. He has basically admitted on more than one occasion that he really only watches Fox News and listens to conservative radio: he is inherently the type of person who is going to create more shitstorms by his presence than actual constructive dialogue.

Quote:
Can you send me some links, concerning what you thought was inappropriate? Or, if you so desire, post a "what not to do?" For people like myself this will be very helpful for not getting banned, if I were to ever participate in debate again.
1. Look at how unownmew posted
2. Don't do that

Seriously. I'm moderate and some of the more left wing things people have said in the debate forum have made me cringe, but there are degrees between "partisan but rational" and "screaming ideological retard".
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Old 10-24-2012, 10:51 PM   #13
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Originally Posted by Amras.MG View Post
I didn't realize he was being accused of pedophilia. That is completely different. I thought that he was being politically banned because of his extremely conservative views, which don't jive with the moderators or active members of this forum at all. In fact, I still think that's most of the reason.
Only Jeri can answer that question for you. And only you can decide for yourself whether you accept his answer or not. But regarding the ban officially being about pedophilia, it's addressed here in Jeri's letter:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jerichi View Post
Dear UPN,Not only am I concerned for my own well-being but I am also concerned for the well-being of others on this forum. Over the past few days, I feel that the safety of this forum for those under the age of 18 may have very well been compromised and could very well have been for longer than we suspect. If we cannot protect our members and manage those we see to be a nuisance or danger to our community, then we are failing both ourselves and the community at large. While I know of no personal actions taken towards any particular members, we cannot risk having someone on our forum that poses any sort of personal threat to any of our members.
Note the "under the age of 18" bit. That has nothing to do with "gay youth" and everything to do with youth period.

TBH, and I'm pretty sure Kuno agrees given how he is very laissez-faire and a big fan of free speech, I do worry about censuring people's ability to debate controversial issues and to take positions which may personally offend staff or others. I'm sure you do too. You're telling us so right now. That you worry that he has been banned for his controversial (controversial to UPN, anyway) views regarding such things as religion, sexual orientation, and politics. And to be honest with you, I do think it would be bad if UPN were to say, "You can't discuss whether homosexuality is immoral or not" or if it were to say "You can't express the opinion that you think someone else's religious beliefs are bunk." You seem to fear that. I can tell you that I fear that. I don't want to see UPN go down that road. Which is why, for myself, the question of banning unownmew has never been about silencing opinions I found disagreeable. With unownmew specifically, I felt he should be banned either because he was a repeat offender troll (agree or disagree with me) and I felt he should also be banned because he seemed to be a pedophile (agree or disagree with me) and Kuno has expressed a desire to recommit UPN towards being a family-friendly forum rather than an 18+ forum. But never mind unownmew. Let's say you and I want to debate the ethics of pedophilia. Say we want to approach this topic like civilized, college-educated men and one of us necessarily takes the pro while the other mans the con. Should the one of us who argues in favor of child marriage be banned? I don't think so. It would be all too easy for someone to show up and say "See! See! You're a pedo! Because only a pedo would defend other pedos!" and tarnish my or your reputation, which perhaps you fear is what happened with unownmew. But the thing is, you or I would maintain our innocence because, first and foremost, we're not pedophiles. We were just arguing from a purely armchair philosophical perspective. But unownmew didn't do that. He chose to engage his critics and declare that, yes, he personally would be okay with a 12-year old bride. That to me is a game-changer. No one forced him into that admission. That wasn't the result of a smear campaign by a Jeri or a Talon or a Muyo or a Reed. That was his own personal declaration. So, as I've said before, if he's a troll and he was just doing it to be trolly, we ban him; and if he was sincere in what he said, we still ban him because we can't be having pedophiles on a child-safe forum.

The question of what sort of debates UPN will be allowing and disallowing as we move forward will be interesting. Certainly I don't want people to fear that they're going to be banned if they express views which offend staff members' sexuality, religion, politics, etc. It's not much of a debate forum when it's just a bunch of yes men. And if people have legitimate questions or concerns they want to raise, then they can. For instance, I for one would be okay with the debate about "Is homosexuality a choice or is it something you're born with?" I think it's a fair question to ask, I think it's a question every young adult asks himself or herself at least once, and I think it'd be great for either side to put forth the evidence supporting their positions. But I think a modicum of respect is all that Kuno is asking for here. If you want to argue, for example, that homosexuality is a choice and if member Nebezero replies saying "That offends me! You're terrible! I had people telling me all my life that I chose to be gay and I didn't! I was born this way! Fuck you!", I think you shouldn't be banned for your argument provided you weren't being hostile about it and it was clear you were approaching things intellectually.

I dunno. It's a very interesting situation, this is. We'll just have to see where we go from here.

EDIT: Good lord, ten replies while I wrote this up. ^^; Well, the bit about not banning differing opinions should be of relevant interest to you as well as to others who have voiced similar concerns.
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Old 10-24-2012, 10:51 PM   #14
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Like I said in my earlier post, I am going to be outlining some rules. I'm drafting those now and hope to have them posted before the end of the night.

As for inappropriate things, I can't think of any specific instances, nor do I really have the time to sort through multiple pages of posts to find them, but I'm sure quite a few other members can direct you towards things they might deem as inappropriate.

EDIT: Concerning differing opinions:

I am actually pretty concerned about this myself and I share a lot of Reed's concerns about the dangerous precedent this could set. I am not perfect and nor are any other mods on this forum. However, I still think we should be able to ban people, at least from the debate forum and for only a temporary period (unless they quite clearly show themselves to be problematic for various reasons and for an extended period). So, I propose making any bans harsher than one week from only the debate forum requiring the approval of two mods beyond the one proposing the ban. It's not a perfect system but it does allow for some level of balance so that one rage-fueled mod doesn't go banning all those who he or she doesn't agree with.

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Old 10-24-2012, 11:48 PM   #15
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Originally Posted by Amras.MG View Post
You guys can't sit there and tell me with a straight face that this wasn't political as well. I'm pretty sure ya'll had been advocating his dismissal waaaaay before the pedophilia stuff.

That said, I of course agree that legitimate concern over pedophilia is grounds for banning.
Regardless of how people felt about him previously, if he even suggests that he might be a threat to minors on this forum, he really has to be booted. Young teenagers (particularly girls) are a vulnerable population when it comes to self-esteem. They are generally suggestible, and at such a fragile point in their lives, will respond more readily to positive attention, particularly from adults... I know as a girl, I had quite a few friends in school who were underage that were dating 21+ year olds in secret because they liked the attention from these men. 90% of the time, these relationships ended very badly. I still remember a frantic trip to a friend's guidance counselor in my high school because she had told me she was planning on running off with a 23 year old (we were both 15 at the time; age of consent is 16 in my home state) and the counselor told me "not to worry about it". Indeed, she was lucky in that the guy ended up standing her up. It was emotional for her, but at least she was safe. If something HAD happened, though, a lot of people would've been in deep shit... Not just the 23 year old, but that guidance counselor, as well.

What does that have to do with the current situation? Well, if there are minors in this forum that fit the psychological profile of those friends I had in school, and UM's comments about being willing to take on a 12-year-old bride were ignored, well... What better place to have a secret relationship than through PMs online on a message board like this one? If UM was "tolerated" after his remark and not banned, even if everyone else expressed dissent to his opinion, nothing really stops him from taking that next step and actually seeking out potential "brides" on this very forum because we are showing by not banning him that we are tolerant of his views to some small degree. Would he take that next step? I have no clue. He may just be a very convincing troll, as some have suggested... but if he DID decide to hook up with a minor on this forum, and it gets found out, the forum itself could be in deep shit, especially if it's found out that mods already knew he admitted to having these tendencies and decided to do nothing about it. The forum as a whole may be accused of "facilitating" him should such an event occur.

Better safe than sorry, as some of you have already said, I believe.

Last edited by Marion Ette; 10-24-2012 at 11:51 PM.
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Old 10-24-2012, 11:55 PM   #16
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My concerns exactly, Marion, thank you for articulating them so well.

Also yay rules!
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Old 10-25-2012, 12:06 AM   #17
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Yeah I'm pretty sure I agreed that pedophilia is a bannable offense. No one here is saying that isn't a legitimate reason. I just remained unconvinced that that is actually the main reason. I am also very worried about the direction the debate forum is going to go after this, and I'm quite relieved to see I'm not the only one with this concern.

Any attempts to portray me as a defender of pedophilia will be met with nothing but contempt.
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Old 10-25-2012, 12:10 AM   #18
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I'm sitting on the fence right now with a mixture of feelings regarding the situation that completely encompass both Blastoise and some of Amras' views on the situation.

I have to ask myself the question, in this scenario: had this been any other UPN member who had said something evidencing they might have pedophiliac tendencies, would the community still be grabbing it's pitchforks and torches as it has been, or would it have been widely ignored or written off? Or are we really using this as a scapegoat to kick him out for being a horrible shitposter that most of us disagree with?

This is the main thing that needs to be figured out and discussed here. I know for a fact a lot of us have been annoyed with him since day one due to what is, in their own opinion, ignorance, but at the same time this raises a question of potential censorship for having extreme or alarming opinions.

On the other hand, though, he has offended a few UPNers already, namely Jeri and Kairne, with his stances on LGBT rights. I pose again the question, should it be considered hate speech or should it be considered a contrary opinion to that which we loathe?

I'm not attempting to make this harder than it needs to be, guys, but these are seriously important questions that need to be addressed and essentially unanimously agreed upon before anything is final. It's pretty clear he more than likely isn't a troll, so that argument needs to be thrown at as well. It also needs to be addressed if, as some others have said, he is indeed a threat to minors on the forum, or if how he was debating was simply in a matter of speaking.

Either way it goes, I trust the community in it's judgment, but I ask that you talk this through a bit more carefully before reaching a verdict. I also believe UM should be given an opportunity to defend himself, as anyone should.

Finally, I don't want Kuno to feel pressured into this; he needs to be on board with this as well. I don't think I would want to be in his position in a case like this, and face it, when you really think about it, you probably wouldn't want to either.


edit: Jeri, did you just change the forum rules without Kuno's consent? :/ (not even sure what was changed but yeah)
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Old 10-25-2012, 12:14 AM   #19
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Yeah I'm pretty sure I agreed that pedophilia is a bannable offense. No one here is saying that isn't a legitimate reason. I just remained unconvinced that that is actually the main reason. I am also very worried about the direction the debate forum is going to go after this, and I'm quite relieved to see I'm not the only one with this concern.

Any attempts to portray me as a defender of pedophilia will be met with nothing but contempt.
I don't think anyone could argue that you defend pedophilia, especially since you specifically said that legitimate concern for pedophilia was grounds for banning. I'm not in any way even suggesting that your intent was to defend pedophilia; I just wanted to point out that even if there were suspicions of "ulterior motives" for his ban, keeping him around would not only be dangerous to the minors he may target, but the forum itself, as well. I would hope that even if the member was one who was well-loved by all that an admission of pedophilic tendencies would result in a ban for the safety of the other members, no matter who they were.

My one concern with the rules is how "hateful speech" is going to be defined, and if it will be any different from the rule against ad hominem arguments/personal attacks. I agree that ad hominem arguments and personal attacks should absolutely be a no-go in the debate forum, but I feel like "hateful" could get a bit foggy. I guess I'd have to see how it was implemented.

Last edited by Marion Ette; 10-25-2012 at 12:17 AM.
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Old 10-25-2012, 12:14 AM   #20
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I love Mozz the same as everyone else, but don't you think it's a little bit of a double standard? We know him, and we know basically everything he does is all in fun, but exactly how would it look like to any stranger?

I don't like name-dropping, but sometimes you have to. I loathe unownmew just as much as anyone else, and I agree that saying he'd accept a 12 year old bride is extremely and seriously bannable on any pokemon forum, but I feel at the same time there needs to be something said like "Please don't joke about this stuff, m'kay?"
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Old 10-25-2012, 12:15 AM   #21
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No one's trying to do that, MG.

And it wasn't the sole reason but it was definitely was the deciding factor. If you're concerned that your opinions may come under attack or you may be targeted for not sharing the viewpoints of the majority of the forum, I make sure nothing of the sort happens.

To be honest, I really do wish we had a rational, conservative member to contribute to debates here. I'm not super liberal but I'm not really conservative enough either to promote any kind of two-sided debate effectively. Pedophilia aside, um really didn't fit that role well at all, since he was way too stubborn to cede on any points and would constantly try to inflate his posts with obviously biased sources and dated rhetoric.

There's a lot of merits to conservatism and many that I agree with but I feel like it's hard to find articulate conservatives in the wash of liberals that is the Internet Subculture.

Of course, MG, if you'd like to fill that role, you're more than welcome.

> edit: Jeri, did you just change the forum rules without Kuno's consent? :/ (not even sure what was changed but yeah)

I'm a Super Mod now and he gave me the okay to write some rules for it so it's all kosher.

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I'm not attempting to make this harder than it needs to be, guys, but these are seriusly important questions that need to be addressed and essentially unanimously agreed upon before anything is final. It's pretty clear he more than likely isn't a troll, so that argument needs to be thrown at as well. It also needs to be addressed if, as some others have said, he is indeed a threat to minors on the forum, or if how he was debating was simply in a matter of speaking.
As charged as the debate has been, we did not factor in him "being a troll" as a reason for his banning. As far as the pedophilia charge goes, I think we have pretty safely established this multiple times, not to mention there being a prior incident about which he was quite explicitly warned.

I realize the implications of this banning and I also admit to being the one who pushed it through but I feel like we're better safe than sorry. At the end of the day, there are still a large number of under 18s on this forum and we have an obligation to our members to provide a safe environment.

I'd also like to state that my personal involvement in this decision (re: his anti-LGBT statements and whatnot) is in regards to my own concerns and was -not- the major concern I cited for a ban. I think my letter may have been a little misleading in its format and, once again, I emphasize that the deciding factor for his banning was suspected pedophilia. Even if I don't like it, I tolerated his statements and went on with my life but I just cannot tolerate something like that.
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Old 10-25-2012, 12:19 AM   #22
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I'm a Super Mod now and he gave me the okay to write some rules for it so it's all kosher.
Cool, I was just checking, no harm, no foul.
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Old 10-25-2012, 12:20 AM   #23
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I'm not interested in being the conservative voice, especially because my own views are "moderate libertarian"... whatever that means. Compared to conservatives I am in many ways liberal, and compared to liberals I am in many ways conservative. Compared to moderates I am libertarian.

I really do think this "hate speech" thing needs to get sussed out, as ME and others have said. Is being against gay marriage a form of hate speech on this forum? Is being against homosexual actions a form of hate speech? Is being against abortion a form of hate speech? Is being against affirmative action? etc etc etc
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Old 10-25-2012, 12:25 AM   #24
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Originally Posted by Amras.MG View Post
I'm not interested in being the conservative voice, especially because my own views are "moderate libertarian"... whatever that means. Compared to conservatives I am in many ways liberal, and compared to liberals I am in many ways conservative. Compared to moderates I am libertarian.

I really do think this "hate speech" thing needs to get sussed out, as ME and others have said. Is being against gay marriage a form of hate speech on this forum? Is being against homosexual actions a form of hate speech? Is being against abortion a form of hate speech? Is being against affirmative action? etc etc etc

Aye, I'm technically a liberal libertarian myself (basically I live in lala land), but anyway -


I agree. I wasn't trying to insinuate that UM's anti-gay stances are hate speech, but rather how you and ME have approached it in that we need to define what hate speech entails and the line between it and a differing opinion, even if it's religious (i.e. "You're going to burn in Hell for that!" etc etc, is this hate speech or is it just... not?)

Wanted to correct that as to what I said earlier, I believe it may have looked like I was outright accusing him of such when in fact I was just putting the same question on the table that you and her did.
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Old 10-25-2012, 12:29 AM   #25
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I really do think this "hate speech" thing needs to get sussed out, as ME and others have said. Is being against gay marriage a form of hate speech on this forum? Is being against homosexual actions a form of hate speech? Is being against abortion a form of hate speech? Is being against affirmative action? etc etc etc
Fair enough.

I do actually have something in specific in mind when I was making this post.

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What what kind of answer were you looking for? What kind of answer isn't weaseling? "I accept you my son, and your homosexuality, go get married and have man-babies, I'll be your bridesmaid."? :/

My answer is clear. I would accept him as a person, but not homosexual behavior. I would not allow him, while under my roof, to "see someone" nor bring that someone here, and I would not encourage him to pursue such choices. I will not at all participate in his choices in the matter, which includes sanctioning any union with one of the same gender, or permitting any such partner from entering my house. I would pray to my God, and encourage my son to also commune with God, and make choices as informed by Him, whatever they may be.
This, particularly the first line, is what clinched it for me. If he doesn't respect my desire to get married based on some religious qualms, that's fine, but this is pretty directly stating "I think your idea of marriage is a sham and that you're lesser than a heterosexual couple". Not to mention the string of outright abusive statements he follows with, even if they are directed towards his theoretical child.

If you really do believe X, Y and Z about abortion or gay marriage or whatever, that's fine, you're entitled to your opinion, but at least give your fellow members the respect they deserve. I found this whole post to be belittling and insulting and would consider it to safely fall under hate speech.
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