An Open Letter to UPN

[Char]

I'm mostly siding with Amras, Blastoise and Deoxys on this one.

The Mozz point that Rangeet made could be a valid one too.

I realize that this is a small forum/community, and that it's probably best for the overall community to ban UM. The defenses given for his banning don't seem too supported in my eyes though, and maybe a bit more of an open trial would've been a good idea before his banning. I also can't really imagine UM portraying a true threat to adolescents on UPN based on his posts/actions/general disposition, and that we might just be looking for any and all evidence to ban him. Maybe I'm just wrong here though?

I might've been okay with the reasoning of, "Unownmew is just a general drain on the community and we've decided to ban him from the Debate forum exclusively," simply because this is a small community and if a decent amount of it is being hurt by UM's statements it would be an okay decision to ban him from Debate for the sake of the common good. I just don't like some of the other justification given so far.

The nature of the debate forum itself will piss people off unless everyone is in relative agreement with each other. It'll be a nicer place now I guess.

[Kindrindra]

Originally Posted by Rangeetsuper

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."

'geet, that would be rape, not pedophilia. Not the same thing. Pedophilia is simply being attracted to kids. They're inherently different kinds of laws- Rape is more in line with Stealing/Murder in being an 'active' crime, while Pedophilia is more in line with Zoophilia in being a 'passive' crime.


EDIT: Ah, thankies, Georgy. From the thread:

Well, pedophilia is defined as a psychiatric disorder of people of 16 years or older, who are attracted to prepubescent children, generally ages 13 or younger.

[hen da man]

Ok, I have been reading through this forum and want to just express my opinion on some things.

Firstly, I am a Christian and I can indeed understand UM's position on Gay rights etc. for I don't support it. The difference is I won't knock someone down as a lesser human being because of it. Just because you don't believe in the actions doesn't give you the right to hurt someone who does. I wouldn't of said some of the things he said because purely he was pushing the barriers. For this I do feel he was a little out of line but I understand where he was coming from. Even then, I feel that he was being unfairly judged over the bridesmaid comment because most will agree that it is bad purely from UM but I also don't think the comment was that harsh. I really feel that if that was the reason at all he was banned, that is ridiculous but don't stop reading because I understand it wasn't. But yeah, I would just like to point out that I just don't agree with the whole Gay point but I am not going to judge anyone on this forum because of it, that is just my viewpoint and it is pretty heavily influenced by religion.

Second up is the pedophilia claims and all that. Again, as a Christian speaking here, I don't know anything of Mary being 12? I am pretty sure that isn't true but he may know something I don't. I also don't think though that he is a 'pedophile' and just because he said he would accept a 12 year old bride doesn't mean it is what he is wanting. Also, I would hope/imagine if he tried anything with an -18 person on UPN, the person would contact a mod or something. But in all seriousness, I think he was just trying to prove a point.

Granted though, I never was in conflict with UM for anything and don't understand how bad he was. But on the contrary I am quite neutral on the matter. I do feel that comments from Rangeet, Amras, Deoxys and Blastoise are worth noting and I agree with most of them. I also don't know how bad his personal attacks were so I can't comment on that and I really don't mean to offend anyone in any way. Especially on the whole gay thing because I have a gay friend and I also am getting to know Kairne and I find gay people just as nice as anyone else. These are just my thoughts though so if anyone can show me other stuff, I am happy to consider. Though I also feel that if UM was causing that much of a problem, I could understand him being banned from the Debate forum but the whole forum seems a bit too much and as it has been pointed out, fueled by emotion. But that is totally understandable if such personal attacks have happened.

[Sneaze]

Originally Posted by hen da man

Ok, I have been reading through this forum and want to just express my opinion on some things.

Firstly, I am a Christian and I can indeed understand UM's position on Gay rights etc. for I don't support it. The difference is I won't knock someone down as a lesser human being because of it. Just because you don't believe in the actions doesn't give you the right to hurt someone who does. I wouldn't of said some of the things he said because purely he was pushing the barriers. For this I do feel he was a little out of line but I understand where he was coming from. Even then, I feel that he was being unfairly judged over the bridesmaid comment because most will agree that it is bad purely from UM but I also don't think the comment was that harsh. I really feel that if that was the reason at all he was banned, that is ridiculous but don't stop reading because I understand it wasn't. But yeah, I would just like to point out that I just don't agree with the whole Gay point but I am not going to judge anyone on this forum because of it, that is just my viewpoint and it is pretty heavily influenced by religion.

Clearly you haven't been reading that thread, but one of the major things that happened there was that he flat out said that if he had a homosexual son he would basically denounce him as a human being unless he did not have any even remotely flirtatious interactions with another male. That's pretty anti-gay right there. And there's a difference between anti-gay and against homosexual behavior in the public eye due to the world not being used to it yet. I am the latter. I am okay with LGBT people and know that they have rights, but I wish for them to be aware of how they act and that there is a time and a place for things and that their PDAs may make some people who are unsure of how they feel about LGBT people uncomfortable.

Second up is the pedophilia claims and all that. Again, as a Christian speaking here, I don't know anything of Mary being 12? I am pretty sure that isn't true but he may know something I don't. I also don't think though that he is a 'pedophile' and just because he said he would accept a 12 year old bride doesn't mean it is what he is wanting. Also, I would hope/imagine if he tried anything with an -18 person on UPN, the person would contact a mod or something. But in all seriousness, I think he was just trying to prove a point.

Being "okay" with anyone even remotely that young in comparison to yourself is just plain creepy, and given that he has a prior offense on this, I don't see the problem with punishing him for being a repeat offender. I am okay with the idea of marriage at ages younger than 18 (and so is the court system in a lot of states as long as it's approved by a parent or legal guardian), but the general rule of creepiness that you should always follow is half your age and add seven (always round up), anything below that is just plain creepy. And if doing this results in an age higher than your own age, you shouldn't be even involved in anything, this means the lowest it can go is 13, and that's only with other 13 year olds and 14 year olds, and really that seems fine by me considering they date at that age anyway, but again it would be something where marriage is a little out of the question unless there would be some sort of outstanding evidence proving that they should be together for the rest of their lives for whatever reason.

Granted though, I never was in conflict with UM for anything and don't understand how bad he was. But on the contrary I am quite neutral on the matter. I do feel that comments from Rangeet, Amras, Deoxys and Blastoise are worth noting and I agree with most of them. I also don't know how bad his personal attacks were so I can't comment on that and I really don't mean to offend anyone in any way. Especially on the whole gay thing because I have a gay friend and I also am getting to know Kairne and I find gay people just as nice as anyone else. These are just my thoughts though so if anyone can show me other stuff, I am happy to consider. Though I also feel that if UM was causing that much of a problem, I could understand him being banned from the Debate forum but the whole forum seems a bit too much and as it has been pointed out, fueled by emotion. But that is totally understandable if such personal attacks have happened.

Rangeet, Amras, Deoxys, and Reed do have valid points on this matter, but then again so does everyone else, it is something that should have been discussed, and I'm sure it probably would have been if things didn't escalate they way they did. I've had few interactions with unownmew myself, given that I regard him as a full blown nut job brought up that way through poor education and an odd family system, but the few I did outside of the Debate forum were at least neutral. It's just that when you got the guy to be able to talk about how he feels about controversial issues he goes so far beyond the extreme that it makes most people who even consider themselves right wing sick.

[Emi]

See, I'm taking the odd road here. Or, at least I think I am.

unownmew is not necessarily a bad person in and of himself, of course of if he was not a troll of course. Yeah, he does disagree with 99% of anything that a liberal would have to say. Yes, he is very LGBT offensive in his posts, and, being straight myself, I personally I have WTF at things like the bridesmaid post.

But, the pedophile thing is more than just what it looks like. If I REALLY wanted to, I could pursue legal action. I AM 17. If my mother had seen some of the posts by unownmew, it could have put the entire forum and Kuno in jeopardy. Think of lawsuits and things like that. A parent with a mission is hard to stop. This was, in my opinion, a good thing to do. He was hypocritical, he was stubborn, he was offensive. And truthfully, despite my intense dislike for religion, I have no problems with people having their own religious beliefs and being in their own religion....as long as they respect the other person. I know I am not the greatest in this regard. I have mental issues of my own which keep my emotions for the most part unregulated. But, what I have seen, I wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole.

And neither would friends of mine. I've multiple friends of mine say to me not to get involved with a person like this. Did i listen? Nope. And I got hurt in the process.

And I agree with the people who believe that this might be just the first step to censorship and repression of opinions. This is a concern. But, in the scheme of things, sometimes freedoms have to take a side to safety, as too much freedom can be bad. It's the reason um was tolerated for so long. If he had gone to another forum, one more politically and religiously minded, do you really think he would have stayed there for long? I don't. This was inevitable, and he started to dive deeper and deeper from "I'm annoying" to "I agree with things that might harm the safety of people on this forum."

It 4:00 in the morning, and I am not the best at typing down my thoughts. Take from that what you will.


tl;dr unownmew should primarily be banned for his pedophilia comments, but, at heart, I'm sure none of us are too sad to see him go. We need to take steps, however, from this forward to make sure that repression of free speech is not impeded.

[Rangeet]

Blaze do you read anything when you sign up? Probably not, but still legally applicable.

http://i.imgur.com/eXjDD.png

[deoxys]

[Emi]

If I remember correctly I was not the only one who though that it could get the forum into trouble Rangeet.

And yes I read but I forget things when I need space for school stuff in my head.

[hen da man]

I do agree that it is weird that he made those claims about the 12 year old and he probably shouldn't, but I am trying to be as neutral as possible. I still think he has done wrong but I think that people have to try looking it from other perspectives. Too many people just straight away jump to conclusions and I just thought that we had to try looking at it from other views.

@Sneezey: I have the same front on LGBT. I also did say in my post that some of his comments are out of line and the homosexual son thing is definitely one of them and I easily understand how offensive that could be. It is those comments that do make me think that he should have been banned from the debate forum.

And yeah I know it is creepy that he would be okay with it and I accept and agree with it but the only thing I can say to say he isn't a pedophile is that he might not want that or be looking for an underage child but said if it was put forward to him, he would accept which may mean might. I also didn't know of a prior offense but ok then.

I am really bad at putting forward my views by the way.

Overall I don't think he should of said pretty much all of the things that people have quoted and put in this thread and should of just bit his tongue and it is his fault he is in this mess. I can understand the reasons for his ban but I feel it may have been influenced a little bit by emotion. Yet once again, I suck at showing my opinions. Just bear with me people, I prefer to be neutral which is half the problem.

[Kindrindra]

Oh come on, 'geet. You should have expanded on that post more with the stuff you were talking to me about. A little more elaboration on why that text is important, and how it protects UPN as a whole from legal action.

And, uh, why did you target blaze? Nothing he said had any relevance to the point you brought up. He just walked into the thread- the points your point goes along with are earlier in the thread. His point about the power of an angry parent is a good one, though.


Other than that, I'm going to step back and let the future lawyer show his stuff. Who knows, might actually have some merit. For once. :P


EDIT: WHY ARE THERE NINJAS EVERYWHERE?!

[Emi]

It was because something about how the forum cannot get in trouble over something someone posts.

Which I know there is loopholes to that.

[Rangeet]

Yeaaaahhh an angry parent could do approximately shit-all to this forum. >.> <.< >.>

No but seriously. Don't see any reasoning for this.

[Emi]

Originally Posted by Rangeetsuper

Yeaaaahhh an angry parent could do approximately shit-all to this forum. >.> <.< >.>

No but seriously. Don't see any reasoning for this.

Can we get off this topic? There is no need to pick apart a post like this.

[Rangeet]

Well it is my reaction to the "his saying that he possibly maybe would accept a 12 year old bride could fuck up this forum forever!" thing. I dunno, I don't know enough law to know for sure, but it seems ridiculously unlikely the forum could get into much trouble over anything anyone posted.

[Kindrindra]

Originally Posted by Rangeetsuper

Yeaaaahhh an angry parent could do approximately shit-all to this forum. >.> <.< >.>

No but seriously. Don't see any reasoning for this.

Actually not true- the media can be much more powerful than the law in many cases. And if there's anything parents are good at, it's attracting the media (though, to be fair, it's actually more that angry parents make an interesting story).

[deoxys]

Jesus, nothing can or will happen to UPN. Shut up.

I'm trying to sleep.

[Kindrindra]

Hey, just pointing out technicalities! No need to get so mad! ;__;

[deoxys]

That wasn't directed at just you.

[Emi]

Originally Posted by deoxys

Jesus, nothing can or will happen to UPN. Shut up.

I'm trying to sleep.

I was trying to keep the thread on track.

I understood. It's all Kin's fault.

[Lady Kuno]

A few notes:

I was ultimately the one that dropped the hammer here. Jeri was modded after the fact.

Jeri did not change the forum rules (without my consent). I gave him the OK, and the only rules that got changed were in the debate forum. This place was devolving into a shithole.

I don't have a problem with pedophilia discussion, but as Talon said, purely from an academic standpoint (provided something like that actually exists).

In regard to this being a community decision.. what? I've always done what I've felt needed to be done. I'm not trying to come off like a dick, but this was my call in the end. I'm sorry if this makes you uncomfortable. I so rarely use my power in this manner, and I hope to god I won't again. I've imposed bans on Blast and others before and didn't feel I needed to hold a tribunal.

---

Anyway, thanks for fielding all these questions Jeri. My view on the whole thing is pretty simple. It wasn't because I disagreed with him. Come on, you guys know me. I really don't give a shit what goes down. But this type of moderating creates a problem. And that problem is when a very large part of your userbase is completely uncomfortable by having a certain poster around. I didn't drop the hammer because I didn't agree with his unique views. It was the fact that he was making specific comments in regards to underage women. In addition to just his.. unique comments to specific members of this forum. See this thread or dig up his posts for more information, but this isn't hard to find.

At the end of the day, UPN is a great place because people can come here and just relax and feel safe. Sure there will be arguing (see this forum; asb; etc) but people at the end of the day feel comfortable.

This was an exceptionally hard decision to make, but ultimately it was mine. While I love to field public opinion on many matters, for something like this I had to choose. Things like a democratic process don't always work on public forums. It will just cause a schism and more problems. This is my role as the one in charge.

[Concept]

Originally Posted by Amras.MG

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.

Personally my major problems with him had little to do with his views (although I obviously disagree with many but by no means all of them) - a lot of my more anti-UM posts have been prefaced with a request that people don't take anti-UM rants as invalidating his views. Lots of people share some of the views he espoused. His posts were clearly either trolling or a complete incapability of considering any viewpoint not his own even vaguely legitimate, and neither of those has any place in a civil debate. He made posts that were an open smear campaign against self-proclaimed liberals/other groups telling them that they believed in terrible things. Not asking, but telling people "this is what you believe and it's why you're a bad person". That is and always was my issue. We've had other members post from his religious or political standpoints (Shuckle comes to mind for political). So yes, as a very active forum goer I've felt he should have been banned long before the pedo problems, not because he has certain views but because - far moreso than anyone else - he showed a complete inability to consider anyone else's views or feelings potentially valid. That has no place in a debate, regardless of what political/religious viewpoint it might be stuck in, and neither did he. /irrelevant persons two cents

Honestly you sound a bit Shadowshocker-style conspiracy theorist at the moment :p

Originally Posted by Amras.MG

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

One would assume not because I've definitely argued against both abortion and affirmative action before and will continue to do so if the topic comes up again, and haven't been warned/banned. Although I probably should have been at least warned for other reasons as I've not been the most constructive member of the debate forum, willingly admit to that.

[phoopes]

Before you read this post, I would like it to be known that I do not advocate pedophilia in any way. Any attempts to accuse me of that are completely unwarranted, and will be met with strong denial and a complete loss of respect for you. I respect the decisions of Kuno, Jeri, and the rest who made the decision, but this is just my personal viewpoint on the matter.

Well, I don't necessarily agree with UM's banning forum-wide, but I understand why it was done. Personally, I think a temporary debate forum ban should have been made for some amount of time with a "this is your last warning" label attached (more on that later). True, he did express some views supporting pedophilia, however I believe those were in the "what if" context from a political point of view, rather than him actually desiring children. In addition to the quote about him not minding having a child bride should the opportunity be presented, the only other quote that I could find on the matter that I thought was iffy at all was:

Originally Posted by unownmew

I agree. Though African and middle eastern tribes may go by actual physical maturity, I agree an arbitrary age is the best choice for a law. What we disagree on, is what that age ought to be. It is my belief that such arbitrary age be 12, as it has most commonly been in human history, though, no doubt you wouldn't be satisfied with anything less than 18.

However, again, I think that this is just his political point of view, and that he would never actually pursue children. He certainly gave me no reason to believe that he was actually a pedophile, and the quotes brought up against him just show me a person stating his beliefs, even though they are unpopular. Though I do understand why the banning would take place, just as a precautionary measure. I just wish this had not been the final straw. He never said anything along the lines of desiring children, only that if the opportunity presented itself, he would be fine with child brides as long as an abuse of trust had not taken place. For example:

Originally Posted by unownmew

If sexual relations were to occur in a mutually approved and lawfully recognized marriage, in a loving manner, treating the young spouse as an equal rather than an object of self-satisfaction, I would fully support them.

To wrap up that point, I really don't feel that unownmew was actually a pedophile, just stating his political beliefs. Besides, to bring up Rangeet's point, anything that Mozz says is much worse than what unownmew said about pedophilia in my opinion, even if we know he's just joking.

That being said, I do understand the outrage over the anti-gay hate speech. If anything, I think that should have been the reason behind a ban more than anything else. I believe that a Debate Forum ban for an arbitrary amount of time would have been appropriate for his comments about homosexuals. They went far beyond just not supporting gay marriage, but showed that he felt that homosexuals are second class citizens, which is just inexcusable in my books. That is why I felt that he deserved a Debate Forum ban for a while, instead of just a forum-wide ban. Unownmew showed that he kept his views to the Debate Forum only. Heck, I even enjoyed interacting with him when everyone was on the Yu-Gi-Oh! kick a while back. Had he been given a big warning like that telling him to tone it down on the anti-gay speech, I feel that he would have been intelligent enough to respect that warning and stop. However, upon his hypothetical return, he would have been kept on a very short leash.

One final point about hate speech: in my mind a double standard has certainly been set here. I'm not going to quote anyone directly here because I wouldn't want to offend them, but here me out. True, unownmew spoke out against homosexuals. However, there were more than a few posts that were completely off topic basically telling him to get out, or fuck off, or just completely berating him, or something else. I remember these posts were made by completely different types of people too, from relative newbies to people who have been a part of UPN for a long time. To me, these off-topic hate posts are just as bad as unownmew's anti-gay speech. Those people deserve a temporary ban from the Debate Forum as well, in my opinion. I think there should be a no tolerance policy when it comes to hate speech in the debate forum, no matter who says it about whom. By banning unownmew with one of the reasons being his hate speech, but not giving a forum ban or even a Debate Forum ban to other offenders, I feel that a double standard is being set. If warnings were given to people other than unownmew, I did not know about them, and I apologize for the accusation of setting a double standard.

Again, even though I don't really agree with what went down as far as discipline goes, I still do respect the decisions that were made, and the people who made them. Hope I gave some food for thought here.

[Lady Kuno]

I agree with the double standards point. However that is why the rules are in place now. I'm not about to temp ban half the forum but something had to be done. I really regret it had to be something extreme but.. that's what it had to be. A temp ban would only mean it would eventually come back to the fact I'd regret not banning him outright in the first place.

The new rules are in place so that if anyone tell anyone to "fuck off" then they'd find themselves in deep shit. I understand your worry for double standards, but it won't be that way.


UPN has been relatively drama free for most of it's existence while I've had it. I understand people are worried but this isn't some drastic regime change or something. Trust in me, yo.

[Tyranidos]

He was alright outside of debates, couldn't you have just banned him from the Debate Forum? I understand the concern (and that he'd been banned before on a previous offense regarding the concern), but he may have learned from his experience and wouldn't act on it again. If he was actually soliciting kids on here, then we have a serious problem, but since he's just sand in the proverbial vagina of the Debate Forum, a forum wide ban was a bit uncalled for IMO.

[Lady Kuno]

His prior offense was actually in the anime section. And that is where it came up this time again first (before coming into Debates).