The rules are changing, we are going to start showing the assholes the door

Another element we are taking action against next are some of the examples of people calling others (some of whom have positions that many of us find untenable) "pedophiles" etc. When this occurs in a pattern of insults across multiple threads it is an example of the boorish behavior we will not tolerate.

I find some of these positions that inspire these insults as objectionable as anyone here. I grew up in a cult that promoted pedophilia and many of my young peers suffered from it. I am on the board of a foundation dedicated to helping victims of this cult and other such abusive upbringings and I would (and will) argue strenuously against the people who hold views that are too tolerant of this kind of crime (e.g. not wanting it to be punished as severely as it is etc).

So I have no tolerance at all for pedophilia and this is not a defense of these positions (I personally find the arguments generating these insults to be highly untoward and often disgusting, and I have previously spent hours using reason instead of insults to convince at least one pedophile who joined a2k that he was in the wrong). But repeatedly accusing a member of being a pedophile is an absolutely shitty way to make your case in these arguments and the members who have taken this too far (again, these things are not black or white and this does not mean anyone who uses the word will be suspended) and who have engaged in a pattern of this behavior are being suspended.

Unless you actually have proof that someone is a pedophile using this kind of accusation in argument (even with people who are far too sympathetic to pedophiles) repeatedly rises to the level of abusive patterns of behavior that we are going to take actions against.

1 Reply

@Ionus,

That's ridiculous, the software is not responsible for your downvotes or anyone elses. We do not modify the votes at all.

Go look over my posts and they are doing it to me too (someone decided to downvote every page of some threads I was involved in today, downvoting everyone in the thread). Some people think it's fun to vote a bunch of posts down indiscriminately, it's not something we do and you sound like a crazy conspiracy theorist to posit as much.

The correct way to deal with this is to simply disallow such abuse of the voting (and we will) but till then we'll be manually looking up users who engage in indiscriminate mass-downvoting (or indiscriminate upvoting) and will be suspending their access.

2 Replies

@roger,

Quote:

That sounds like a winner. Those thumbs are important to some

Yeah, I guess they are, Rog, but they shouldn't be. I think the joint would be better off if voting was eliminated. People ideally would just say what they truly believed or felt without worrying about what they think will be "popular." They will get feedback, positive or negative, from anyone who takes the time to respond, either way. But those who just lay in wait to downvote someone without even participating are just chickenshit snipers in my book. If you don't have anything to say or contribute, leave the debate room and go watch TV or something.

I personally don't care about the votes I get, one way or the other. This isn't a popularity contest for me. But some do, and I think that adds to the shallowness of the site. For some it just becomes a "yeah, me too" kinda thing. Some wait to see what others say, and then join in on the popular side so they can feel "safe" in avoiding criticism and gain "approval" from the crowd. It's all counterproductive, if ya ask me.

1 Reply

@Robert Gentel,

Robert Gentel wrote:

Another thing we will be looking at are people who indiscriminately down vote all posts in threads or all posts by certain users.

Made my day... Thank you for that.

0 Replies

@layman,

The votes are not about feedback to the person, they are intended to be used to sort content and bring the best to the top. Right now this does not really have that effect because the comments are all linear and any idiotic post can jump right in and interrupt any other discussion etc.

With the sorted threaded posts the result will be that members will spend a lot less time reading through crappy posts because we'll put the best ones (in the opinion of the community) higher than the others.

You may disagree with that (and the threaded interface will draw some ire) but it will be the single biggest improvement to the level of discourse in the history of the site.

Right now every time some members get into mudslinging it happens in everyone's linear conversation. With threaded conversations that crap can go on in its own comment thread, and users will be better able to follow lines of discussion on topics that they prefer while staying away from the muckrakers.

1 Reply

@Ionus,

Quote:

I suspect some part of the program pre-loads people

I don't think it's in the "program," Ionus, but I do think it's just as mechanical and thoughtless for some. They don't read posts, they just vote, on personal grounds. I have seen an "unpopular" poster (i.e., one who has made some "enemies") reply to a "popular" poster and simply express unqualified agreement. Yet, somehow one gets 3 positive votes and one gets 3 negative votes for saying precisely the same thing. What's that tellya?

2 Replies

@Robert Gentel,

Quote:

You may disagree with that...

Personally, I'm in no position to agree or disagree, because I don't even understand what it means. I guess I'll find out when it happens, if I haven't been banned before then.

1 Reply

@layman,

Right now each thread has one linear conversation in order of date. If two people decide to go off on a tangent, or start slinging mud it ruins the thread for all.

In the new system the comments will be threads. So instead of this:

- comment 1
- comment 2
- comment 3 (replying to the first one)
- comment 4
- comment 5

This linear order means that every comment can disrupt the thread.

It will be something like this:

- 1 reply to topic post
-- 2 reply to 1
---- 3 reply to 2
-- 4 reply to 1
- 5 reply to topic post
-- 6 reply to 5
-- 7 reply to 5
--- 8 reply to 7

The topics will each have multiple lines of conversation instead of one. And the ratings will put the conversations that members deem most valuable toward the top, meaning that a lot of the low-level discourse in the thread will be further down, and users can peruse the particular comments they want and can easily ignore tangents or two users who start slinging mud.

Edit: here are some screenshot examples, though the the interface we use will be different:

1 Reply

@layman,

Quote:

What's that tellya?

That the voting system needs to learn to discard votes from that pattern of behavior. When the new system is launched all votes will be run through the new filters so historically the indiscriminate mass voting will be removed.

2 Replies

@Robert Gentel,

Quote:

The topics will each have multiple lines of conversation instead of one.

OK, yeah, that sounds good to me. With one caveat.

Right now there is no function (that I'm aware of) which allows you to just hit "quote" and then automatically have an entire prior post copied into your reply before you even start. I like it that way!

On sites which have that function, I always cut out the part of the (pre-copied) post that I'm not replying to. But most don't--they're too lazy, I guess.

If that same site also has a "threaded feature," then it can soon get utterly ridiculous. That's because each lazy-ass replying will just hit "quote" and throw in this two bits worth after copying all the ones that have been incorporated before hand by prior lazy-asses.

So you end up seeing the same posts repeated over and over again, with the "reply" just being to the last one. Am I making sense?

That sucks.

So, if I was running the joint, I would NOT add that "quote" feature.

2 Replies

@layman,

I don't understand what you are saying. You want the computer to only quote part of a post that you decide ahead of time?

There is "Quote" and there is "Reply". Quote does, and should quote the entire post you are replying to. That's what quote means.

Reply will keep your post in the conversation, but none of the post gets copied.

I believe this works as intended.

2 Replies

@layman,

layman wrote:

Right now there is no function (that I'm aware of) which allows you to just hit "quote" and then automatically have an entire prior post copied into your reply before you even start. I like it that way!

That is actually a preference (at bottom of page you can access yours) to show a "quote" button. The new system is unlikely to have this button but to work slightly differently (selecting the text before hitting reply will insert the text selected as a quote).

Quote:

If that same site also has a "threaded feature," then it can soon get utterly ridiculous. That's because each lazy-ass replying will just hit "quote" and throw in this two bits worth after copying all the ones that have been incorporated before hand by prior lazy-asses.

That's why the quote all button is likely not going to be there, replaced by a select-text and hit reply that will quote only what you wanted.

Quote:

So you end up seeing the same posts repeated over and over again, with the "reply" just being to the last one. Am I making sense?

Yes, the quote all post and reply at the end pattern is not ideal and the future interface will minimize this while still allowing easy quoting.

1 Reply

@McGentrix,

It sounds like he likes the quote button but doesn't like that many use it in a way that is a bit useless (quoting the entire post to reply at the end).

Either way those issues will change with the new UI to a more sensible method.

0 Replies

The Washington Post on an Anti Defamation League report on antisemitism “Entrenched anti-Semitic views” very rare among whites and Asian Americans, common among blacks and Latinos. The article says 30% of African Americans, and that's enough to reasonably use the term notorious.

Quoting what someone else has written as though i had written it is par for the course with layman. I'm not going to let him sucker me into defending what someone else says.

1 Reply

@McGentrix,

Quote:

I believe this works as intended.

OK, I see where Bob said the same. That just shows you how little I know. One reason I didn't really "look" for it is that I haven't noticed complete posts being routinely used.

0 Replies

@Robert Gentel,

Quote:

That's why the quote all button is likely not going to be there, replaced by a select-text and hit reply that will quote only what you wanted.

Yeah, that sounds ideal.

0 Replies

@Robert Gentel,

Robert Gentel wrote:

. . . the voting system needs to learn to discard votes from that pattern of behavior. When the new system is launched all votes will be run through the new filters so historically the indiscriminate mass voting will be removed.

The irony of this struck me when i saw that someone had gone through a page of posts, voting down every one of them--and not that many posts back, either.

1 Reply

@Setanta,

Quote:

The Washington Post on an Anti Defamation League report on antisemitism “Entrenched anti-Semitic views” very rare among whites and Asian Americans, common among blacks and Latinos

I really don't want to argue the point at any length either, but I did look at your link and I don't believe you have represented in correctly. It says there that, according to the latest figures, 9% of whites and 22% of blacks are anti-Semitic. You translate that into "very rare" versus "common."

Assuming it's 22% vs 9% then, even if black are indeed twice as high, I would say both are relatively rare. There's no great discrepancy there that I can see. I wouldn't call 22% either "notorious" or "common," myself.

Beyond that, there's always this question, which your citation acknowledges:

Quote:

...or at least that’s the difference in percentages of those willing to express anti-Semitic attitudes to pollsters

There may well be some cultural differences which makes whites less prone to "admit" their prejudices than blacks. It certainly wouldn't surprise me. Whites, as a class (socio-economic as much as racial), are probably much better "trained" to respond in politically correct fashion.

Apparently you didn't even read your own site that carefully. The "latest figures" are at the bottom.

1 Reply

@layman,

It's incredible that you claim i misrepresented the article and babble on about 9% and 22%--when these are the first two sentences of the article: "According this article, ADL surveys show that “approximately 12 percent of Americans hold deeply entrenched anti-Semitic views.” However, over 30% of African Americans and Latinos hold such views." It is not at all unreasonable to characterize that as notorious. More than that, you latch onto figures which support what you want to claim, while ignoring the closing sentence of the article. I translated nothing, and i did not at any time use the term common. This is part and parcel of your style--straw man and distortion . I see that you have not commented at all on using someone else's language in quotes which appear to be quotes of what i had written--which they were not.

As for the bottom of the page--i note that you have conveniently ignored the last statement of all: "Nevertheless, the basic point, that “entrenched anti-Semitic views” are far more common among African Americans and Latinos than among others, still holds." As i said, notorious.

In the thread in which i saw you use "kike" and attempt to sluff off the racist implications of that by suggesting that's what others were saying, you just jumping in, dropped off your distortion and did more of your Stepin Fetchit blather. You really, really disgust me.

2 Replies

@Setanta,

Quote:

As for the bottom of the page--i note that you have conveniently ignored the last statement of all...

Unlike you, I much prefer quantitative totals to vague, subjective, qualitative judgments when both are available. I didn't "ignore" anything at all that adds anything of substance.

What you leave out, and seems to want to continue to distort, is that the 9% and 22% figures are correct, not the ones you repeat above.

0 Replies

The rules are changing, we are going to start showing the assholes the door

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