An Open Letter to UPN

[Amras.MG]

See, and to me, "man-babies" and "bridesmaid" are the only things that I could see as hate speech in that quotation. The rest is pretty standard Mormon family practice.

[Jerichi]

Well, the line containing those two words was pretty much my focus, though the rest of it did make me mad regardless of whether or not it falls under hate speech.

Apologies if this seems kind of scatterbrained. It's 1:30 and I should really be in bed by now anyways.

[Marion Ette]

Originally Posted by Rangeetsuper

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?"

This is where things get very iffy. I think we can all agree that UM phrased his statements about taking a 12-year-old bride in a serious tone. That said, joking about pedophilia (and other sexual crimes like rape and incest, while we're at it) is a very touchy topic. I personally have a very high tolerance point for joking around, but these jokes can be incredibly offensive and, even worse, can sometimes act as triggers for people who have had experiences as victims of this type of thing.

That said, I worry about what effects banning jokes about incest/rape/pedophilia will have on free speech in general. I realize this may be a slippery slope fallacy, but it definitely opens up the possibility for other "offensive" jokes to be deleted/removed if a member complains. Defining what "crosses the line" can be super-subjective, too. What offends me may not offend someone else, and vice versa.

[Jerichi]

There really is a point where we just have to use our best judgement and hope we made the right choice. We've all known Mozz for long enough to know that he's not actually threatening to anyone, but of course, that still puts us on the slippery slope. UM could have been joking or entertaining hypotheticals but I think we have a lot more evidence against him in this case.

I dunno. I really would also like to point out that we are talking about permissions to post on a relatively small Pokemon forum, so having cut and dry rules about absolutely every situation is not worth anyone's time or effort. When it comes to a serious problem such as someone's safety, even if there isn't an immediate threat, it's advisable to take a greater preventative action, even if it is a controversial and politically loaded one.

[Talon87]

Why is incest being lumped in with rape and pedophilia? I don't have any family members I fancy in that way myself but on legal and moral grounds both I'm an outspoken supporter of same age group incestuous couples' rights. All of incest =/= the subset of paternal abuse of vulnerable daughters which, frankly, is better off being identified as pedophilia and rape or molestation. =\ [/soapbox]

Normally I wouldn't even post this since it's off topic ... but here it is aptly ON topic for illustrating just how murky the waters can get.

[Jerichi]

Not really the time or place, Talon, but if you'd like to start a new thread on it, be my guest.

[Marion Ette]

Originally Posted by Talon87

Why is incest being lumped in with rape and pedophilia? I don't have any family members I fancy in that way myself but on legal and moral grounds both I'm an outspoken supporter of same age group incestuous couples' rights. All of incest =/= the subset of paternal abuse of vulnerable daughters which, frankly, is better off being identified as pedophilia and rape or molestation. =\ [/soapbox]

Normally I wouldn't even post this since it's off topic ... but here it is aptly ON topic for illustrating just how murky the waters can get.

Because I was talking about joking in regards to sexual crimes, and whether you agree with it or not, incest is a sexual crime in the US... except in my home state of RI (go figure), and in NJ if both parties are over 18. It is a fair point though, Talon. Even in my example, there's a lot of grey area. Also, it can be hard to convey tone over the internet, so it can be sometimes difficult to tell when someone is joking in the first place!

[Talon87]

It is both the time and the place, not to debate the question itself but to illustrate via the question that one person's ban-worthy crime is another person's egalitarian belief.

The question of double-standards is fair not only for questions like this but also for the question of hateful speech. What you cited as examples of hate speech were as soft as cotton balls compared with the vitriol at least one member fired back at unownmew with. Is it really sufficient to say "hate speech = ban" or "making fun of me = hate speech"? You were offended by the bridesmaid comment. Frankly, I thought that was mild. Granted, I'm not the target of the insult but like ... it didn't strike me as being nearly as bad as (example) "I hope you die in a ditch, you febber guff" where febber is one racial slur and guff one gender slur. We have members who do this sort of thing with varying degrees of frequency. Will each be banned (and for how long) each time he slips into such a pattern? Serious questions.

[Jerichi]

Okay fair enough I misinterpreted your post. Like I said it's way too late for me to be awake so my though processes are a little foggy.

And honestly, Talon, I'm not comfortable giving you set-in-stone rules concerning hateful or offensive or any kind of negative speech directed towards a specific person in question. There's so many variables that go into moderatorial decisions that giving specific rules for specific instances is pretty much impossible. I can't very clearly or aptly define "what is hate speech" or "what is too offensive" and while there are definitely obvious lines there's point where it's quite blurry, as you've pointed out.

What I can say is this: if a debate gets heated and insults start to get thrown around, I will (or anyone else can, really) step in and warn the offending parties. If I or any other mod gets a PM or any other sort of statement of concern about a certain member, I'll act to try to address their concern. That said, I can't stop people from saying them nor do I feel comfortable censoring people, but if it gets to the point where it is detracting from the quality of the debate, I'll step in.

Again, I'm not perfect and I'll admit to having done some of these things in the past, as have others, some of which who have or have had moderator powers. But I feel like a lot of my hostility was triggered by the "on-edge" feeling that loomed over the debate forum for much of its history. While um was obviously not the direct cause of this problem, I feel like his presence encouraged a lot of people to act very hostile, even if he wasn't being hostile himself. Hopefully, we can turn things around a little and have a more respectful and tame Debate forum.

Also, on a totally personal note that is not really directly related to any mod actions I might take, I really think we should probably just agree as a community to put a moratorium on discussion of sexual identity and marriage equality for the time being. There's way too many emotions involved to have a civil debate and I really don't think it's worth it. If things change and we can come up with a good reason or context to discuss it, then we should, but as it is, it's really not helping anyone to get extremely emotional over an argument on the Interent.

[Muyotwo]

Originally Posted by deoxys

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?

I can say from personal experience that we've quietly banned pedophiles and suspected pedophiles in the past, including someone who had previously been a well respected member of the community. The "being a horrible shitposter that most of us disagree with" is a problem, in that it was making people less willing to post in the debate forum, and the debates really did tend to devolve into everyone telling unownmew he was wrong, disrupting all chance of rational discussion. However, that would only be grounds for banning him from the debate forum at the most. He was banned from the forum as a whole because of the pedophilia concerns.

[Jerichi]

It's probably a little late to state this but before the pedophile thing he probably would have been only banned from the Debate Forum if anything happened at all and if we really felt he was detracting from the quality of the debate since he wasn't really doing harm elsewhere.

[Rangeet]

I just want to say, Jeri, that this isn't leaving a particularly good taste in my mouth. Where the pedophilia thing is concerned, I really have to say frankly that I think you, or whoever made the decision, is pulling it out of his arse. I don't think he said anything suggestive whatsoever, and, truth be told, I have to say that I don't know anybody in this forum who would fall for it, as an aside to that.

As for hate speech: I'm sorry, ridiculous double standard, I'd ban Reed before UM for that. I just think that this is a place where we can honestly tell ourselves: "This is a small, close-knit community, we all hated unownmew, we straight up did NOT want him here, and we don't need to justify that, honestly."

[deoxys]

Wait, he's already been banned? I don't like this, I think we should have discussed this and at least given him a chance to speak for himself. Look, I don't like him, but something about this doesn't feel right. I feel like he was just banned on emotion, I sort of feel like this should have been a community discussion before he was just up and banned. I really don't know how to feel about that.

[Jerichi]

I really don't feel like I need to restate what's been stated multiple times by multiple people in this thread, but this was his second offense and he was warned in the past. No, nothing he posted was suggestive but he had a pretty clear sympathy for pedophiles and pretty clearly stated his beliefs of pedophilia to be a "sexual orientation" and one that he identified with.

I don't know how to make that more clear for you.

For the last time: while there were a lot of factors that contributed to UM's banning, the pedophilia was the one that caused it to be a full forum ban. This thread outlines the other reasons why I personally felt he was a detriment to our community and why I felt justified in my position, auxiliary to my main concern. At the very, very least, all the things he's done would have gotten him a single forum ban at most, but we cannot take any risks in this kind of situation.

Also yes on the Reed vs. um thing, we -have- banned Reed in the past for taking things too far and he -has- been told to watch his mouth. Whether you agree with the severity or length or degree or whatever of his ban is not really important but we have shown that we will ban if lines are crossed.

Maybe I should be more clear that my personal reasons are not THE reason for his banning and was not THE reason I pulled for his banning.

[Sneaze]

Wait... I can express my Conservative views now without feeling like I'm siding with a crazy person? Awesome!

But in all seriousness, this needed to happen. No person should have the right to say some of the things he said and get away with it. I don't completely agree with some views and can see where he's coming from on a good few things, but the 12 year old bride thing, among other recent comments, crossed the line like Benedict Arnold crossed the US. That kind of thing gives Conservatives a bad name like... Wait, I'm rambling.

Anyway, my point is, I, someone with opposing views to those of a lot of the forum, will feel much more comfortable in Debate now that there won't be someone who will take everything I say to the absolute extreme.

[deoxys]

I'm aware of that, I just feel like the gun was jumped on this. I don't know, I didn't like him either, I am just having a lot of conflicting thoughts and feelings on this -

Honestly, I sort of feel like it was just an excuse to ban him, more than anything, something I'm sure some of you have been looking for for a while now. I'm sure that opinion will make some of you mad, but let's be honest with ourselves here

I don't know. Don't get mad at that opinion, please... I'm still trying to really decide how I feel about this, I don't know, I need to sit on it...

[Kindrindra]

C+Ping my opinion from the chat with 'geet (tried to keep his text out of it as much as possible, confidenciality or whatever).

me: Eh, I'll miss his opinions, as they were an important window for me into how the minds of others can work (and how different they can be from my own), but I understand why the mods did it and I have to say I agree.

9:47 PM me: Mozz is different, since he's more like the family dog, and nobody really takes him all that seriously. Besides, he's more of an honourary member than anything else- how often does he post? How many of those posts only serve to cause hilarity? UM, on the other hand... He's serious about what he talks about, and he was serious about this. Also, remember that refocusing UPN of 18- was a recent decision of Kuno's.

*'UPN of 18-' should read 'UPN on 18-'. ;^_^

Also, I'm sad that I never found out why his avatar was, of all things, a pentagram, pretty much directly contrasting his views. :Confused:


Please excuse any rambling in this post- my mind is a little lackadaisical at the moment.



EDIT: This post isn't very long or informative at all, actually.

Either way, I wouldn't be opposed to playing devil's advocate every once in a while- armchair politics are a hobby I enjoy sometimes, but I don't really have many people irl that share my passion, which makes things rather stale. :/

[deoxys]

Let me add it's not the person in question that makes me feel the way I do about this, but the principle of the whole thing and the precedents it sets. I couldn't care less for him - but it's the precedent

[Jerichi]

> Honestly, I sort of feel like it was just an excuse to ban him, more than anything, something I'm sure some of you have been looking for for a while now. I'm sure that opinion will make some of you mad, but let's be honest with ourselves here

In some sense I can't really deny this, but before all this happened at most he was going to get kicked out of the debate forum. Sure, none of us like him very much but we really have no reason to kick him out of anywhere but Debate if we ignore the pedophilia problem.

If it makes you feel any better, this had been under discussion for a number of days before it actually happened, though I won't lie and say emotions didn't play some part in this.

Okay it's like 3 AM I have class in the morning I really need to sleep. If you still have some concerns over this feel free to PM me though at this point I think what's done is done. Like I've said many times, this was not meant to discourage other viewpoints or religious beliefs or whatnot, but when we hit the threshold where he admitted to harboring pedophilic desires, we couldn't keep him around, even if his banning had some unfortunate implications or seems to be the result of emotion.

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by unownmew

On the contrary, the younger one is, the more compatible they are. The older one becomes, the more 'set in their ways' they become, but if one marries younger, there is less "mold braking" the person has to do to align with their spouse.

Originally Posted by unownmew

I do not approve of any sort of extramarital affairs, whether they be pedophilic or homosexual in nature. I also do not approve of abuse or coercion in sexual encounters. However, if there is love, kindness, understanding, education, and consent, I see no reason to exclude certain ages from marriage.

Originally Posted by unownmew

But if you really want to go religious, Mary the mother of Jesus was a virgin around the age of 12 years old when she was espoused to Joseph the Carpenter (who conceivably was far older than she), and bore her first child.

I've never even heard of any Christian faith proclaiming that Mary was an adolescent on her way into Bethlehem with Joseph and their trusty mule. But putting that aside, he's pretty much gone on record in the past 48 hours to say that he is a-okay with a 12-year old bride. I wish I could find the exact quote where he mentioned if his dad presented him with a child bride would he turn her away or not (spoiler: he would not) but I'm finding these for you manually from bed via iPhone so ... =\

Originally Posted by unownmew

No one here is suggesting sex with kids is appropriate. What we disagree on is the definition of what a kid is, and the age at which they cease being so.

See the bit with Mary above. It seems that he likes to say "I'm not a pedo" but in the same breath say "12-year old girls, having begun puberty several years prior, are already to be considered as young adults." This is the worrisome thing.

Ill. Bed. Stopping here. Suffice to say THIS IS ONLY A SAMPLE of the stuff he has said both recently and over the past two years which have turned heads and raised red flags.

[Jerichi]

oh my god thank you talon i can finally go to sleep

bless

[Slash]

You gave the arbitrary age of 8, and I used it for purposes of the discussion, but I personally would not seek out such a young age (In the US, nothing less than 12 has been legal anyway). I recognize the futility of finding a young bride, but if such an opportunity were actually presented, I see no reason why to decline. Though my work would be cut out for me given the mental state of most young teens as I above mentioned, I would be happy to accept her, cherish her above everything, and I'd never seek to offend or harm her in any way.

I think this may have been what you were looking for?

[Talon87]

I think that's the one.

[Slash]

Paedo thread, what would be post 16, if I remember right.

[Rangeet]

I personally find approximately zero things wrong with that post in the term of "He's climin' in your windows, he's snatchin' your people up."