Moderation Questions and General Chat Thread
The last iteration of the moderation discussion thread was a complete disaster. Numerous attempts to keep it on topic failed, and it became a general discussion thread with almost no moderation related posts at all. And those that were posted were so buried in non-mod posts that it became a huge time drain on the mods to sort through them. Then, when off topic posts were deleted posters complained about that.
This led to the closing of the mod discussion thread, replaced by the post report/pm approach. This has filtered out lots of noise, but has resulted at times in the General Discussion Thread turning into a quasi-mod thread. This is not desirable, but going back to the old mod thread is also not a workable option.
Therefore, I have created this new moderation thread, but with a different purpose and ground rules than previous mod threads. The purpose of this thread is to provide a place for posters to pose questions to the mods about how policies are applied; to bring to the mods attention posts they think are inappropriate and reach the level of requiring mod action; and for mods to communicate to posters things like changes or clarifications to policies, bannings, etc.
Now let me tell you what this thread is NOT a place for. It is not for nonmoderation related posts, even if the discussion originates from a comment in in a mod related post. It is not for posters to post their opinions about other posters or whether a poster should be banned. It is not to rehash past grievances about mod decisions from months or years ago. The focus of this thread will be recent posts that require action now. Or questions about current policies and enforcement.
So basically, this is a thread to ask mods questions. Which means, pretty much that only mods should be answering those questions. If a poster asks why a particular post was deleted or allowed, only a mod can answer that. Everyone else who wants to jump in with their opinion or their mod war story needs to stay out of it. It just increases the noise to signal ratio and does nothing to answer the question.
Everyone needs to understand that this thread has very different rules than the old mod thread and any other thread. Any non-moderation post will be deleted on sight. Not moved to the appropriate thread, just deleted. So don't waste your time crafting a masterpiece post about wars or transgender issues or the presidential election and then post it in this thread. It will be gone. Also, this isnt a thread for general commentary about our mods performance. Posting "browser sucks as a mod" or any such posts that don't actually ask about a policy or request a mod action will be deleted. Everyone is entitled to their opinion about the moderation of this forum. But this thread isnt for complaining about mods. You are free to go to the ATF forum and make your concerns about modding in this forum there.
So with that intro, this thread is open for those who need to bring questions about mod policies or bring inappropriate posts to the mods attention. Again, it is NOT a thread for group discussions about other posters or for other posters to answer questions directed to mods.
We'll see how this goes. If you have what you feel is an open issue raised in the General Discussion Thread, please copy that post or otherwise reintroduce the issue here.
Thanks.
I was just tonight arguing with a friend about the definition of a sandwich. It came down to me saying that it's not something precise, with some fuzziness around the edges, and he was saying that it was precisely defined. I expected us to debate about edge cases, not about whether the edge cases were debatable.
Anyway, he was obviously wrong in his approach. As are some of you.
When the meaning of a word has legal effects, it has to be defined as precisely as possible, and that needs to be very precise. If it can't, then the idea of linking legal considerations to very undefinable words is a big mistake and should be avoided at all costs.
That should be the take away re ethnicity (and many other things), to remove it from "protected classes" (in the law, and in forum moderation) unless the vast majority of adults can agree it obviously mean the same thing for all of them.
Or, you want the law to be this extremely uncertain set of rules determined by a clerical class to which you basically want to give the keys of the kingdom.
It's not a problem if me an al-jalfrezi disagree on the meaning of ethnicity. It becomes a problem when people want to "protect" ethnicity without having a clear, objective, transparent, shared definition of it.
I think it's ok.
I did see some ad for some sort of plant based meat the other day that was like "It's meat, just made from plants"...and I was like damn yeah sue them.
I was pretty unhappy one time when I ordered a "mushroom burger" at a restaurant and didn't get the hamburger with mushrooms that I have been served at every other restaurant at which I have ordered one. Instead I was served a huge cooked mushroom on a bun. I do love mushrooms so I went ahead and ate it, but I still thought it was false advertising. That wasn't a burger! I mean, even when something says "veggie burger", they don't just serve you some random vegetables on a bun! They give you a burger patty of which the primary ingredient is vegetables. So I should have at least expected to receive a burger patty made of ground mushroom.
I thought the classic edge case about sandwiches was a hot dog (on bun) - sandwich or not?
The definition i provided *included history* which requires common ancestors.
But keep going with the claim that blacks cease to be black if they are raised in a different culture and become that culture ethnicity.
So, wait. Are you saying Buddy wasn't an elf despite Papa Elf being his adoptive father? What about after he, Buddy Jr. and Jovie move to the North Pole?
nope. MY claim is palestinians aren't an ethnicity, so they aren't a protected group. Residents of Gaza are a group, like residents of Texas or New York are. Moderation should be the same for comments on residents of Gaza or residents of New York.
No special treatment of residents in particular area makes sense, that's my claim. Which can very well mean no residents anywhere can be called bloodthirsty savages sure. But in any case, it has no
This argument has been debunked now and it’s accepted that Palestinians are an ethnicity and therefore protected from the sort of racism that some might want to make against them.
Jfc. Race doesn’t exist as a bunch of genes. It’s a social construct.
You wouldn’t call a native of southern Spain black yet his skin is often darker than Africans who would be regarded as black.
So you think that ethnicity is real, but race isn't? Then shouldn't you come up with a different word than 'racism'?
I certainly never said anything about defining race by skin color or by anything else in particular. But obviously race means something to most people, and it has nothing to do with where someone lives or what religion they practice. I would have previously considered ethnicity to be related to race, but you just came very close to proving to me that it is not (I'm still not certain what to think about that relationship).
"Or similar"
If I were to make an objection based on the definition this would be it though.
The definition including that phrase was not introduced here until after your comment about ravioli (and I hadn't read it before making that post).
But I don't think pasta is that similar to bread.
So you think that ethnicity is real, but race isn't? Then shouldn't you come up with a different word than 'racism'?
I certainly never said anything about defining race by skin color or by anything else in particular. But obviously race means something to most people, and it has nothing to do with where someone lives or what religion they practice. I would have previously considered ethnicity to be related to race, but you just came very c
Yeah I agree the word racism is unhelpful but it and its predecessor racialism predate our understanding of genetics and it’s too late to replace it with something less confusing.
Race is one form of ethnicity and the one most people conflate with it but as per the definitions posted there are others too.
I don’t think it would be reasonable to say that one African tribe with a set of customs are the same ethnicity as another tribe with different customs.
I had never heard the term 'racism' be confusing or misleading until the past 15 years or so, when some people suddenly decided that being against many common practices of followers of Islam is a form of racism. Even when most of those practices would seem to be hated by those same people.
I had never heard the term 'racism' be confusing or misleading until the past 15 years or so, when some people suddenly decided that being against many common practices of followers of Islam is a form of racism. Even when most of those practices would seem to be hated by those same people.
They also decided that any criticism of any behaviour by any ethnic group not predicated on oppression is racism. Even implying it might be possible that some ethnic groups have worse outcomes for reasons linked to their own agency (=choices) is racism for some people.
This argument has been debunked now and it’s accepted that Palestinians are an ethnicity and therefore protected from the sort of racism that some might want to make against them.
it hasn't been debunked, and anyway any claim about residents of gaza not extended to residents of the west bank isn't a claim about palestinians so it isn't a claim about an ethnicity even if you want to believe palestinian to be an ethnicity.
Or is "gazean" an ethnicity as well?
I don't know enough about each group to say.
But I do know that if you start calling Palestinians or Gazeans abusive names like "animals" or "savages" it will be racism.
Jfc. Race doesn’t exist as a bunch of genes. It’s a social construct.
You wouldn’t say a native of southern Spain was black yet his skin is often darker than Africans who would be regarded as black.
A not actually dark african won't be regarded as black in Spain (or in Italy for that matter).
Even Obama didn't look very black to us here and Berlusconi famously said he was just a little tanned. We correctly identified him as half black which is what he is. Same as our italian 100m sprint champion Marcell Jacob: doesn't look actually black, because he is half black, and italians broadly correctly identify him as such.
And this is 100% because of genetics for both: one actually black parent (a person whose ancestors were almost all actually black) and a non black, light-color skinned other parent.
A not actually dark african won't be regarded as black in Spain (or in Italy for that matter).
Even Obama didn't look very black to us here and Berlusconi famously said he was just a little tanned. We correctly identified him as half black which is what he is. Same as our italian 100m sprint champion Marcell Jacob: doesn't look actually black, because he is half black, and italians broadly correctly identify him as such.
And this is 100% beca
I'm sure the people you cite are delighted to be called half something.
Yeah I agree the word racism is unhelpful but it and its predecessor racialism predate our understanding of genetics and it’s too late to replace it with something less confusing.
Race is one form of ethnicity and the one most people conflate with it but as per the definitions posted there are others too.
Yes because they are also different races lol. There are more differences among sub saharian african races than among the average black and the average white (which is what you might have misunderstood when you claimed something similar, but among whites). African races have both the tallest and the shortest human populations for example.
But ofc "race doesn't exist in the genetical sense" even if the average height of adult men pigmies is 155cm, and the average height of Dinkas adult men is 182cm.
Which is normal because genetic biodiversity for every species is stronger in the area the species originated (it had more time to differentiate).
Why would it be racism to call gazeans abusive names but not to do the same for , say , Naples (italy) residents?
Naples contains several different ethnicities (or did when I was there) . No one ever calls a white Italian a savage (that pejorative seems to be reserved for black, or at least non-white people) so we all know exactly what it is you want to say and you're not fooling anyone.
So you think that ethnicity is real, but race isn't? Then shouldn't you come up with a different word than 'racism'?
I certainly never said anything about defining race by skin color or by anything else in particular. But obviously race means something to most people, and it has nothing to do with where someone lives or what religion they practice. I would have previously considered ethnicity to be related to race, but you just came very c
skin color is salient but there are many objectively measurable inheritable traits that define races far better like average height, or specific diseases propensity or protection from diseases or traits like milk digestion (or lack thereof).
According to Jalfrezi races don't exist, yet 99% of south koreans can't digest lactose when adult while 90%+ of white finnish people can. What is that if not a common genetic trait differentiation predicated on different common ancestors?
Naples contains several different ethnicities (or did when I was there) . No one ever calls a white Italian a savage (that pejorative seems to be reserved for black, or at least non-white people) so we all know exactly what it is you want to say and you're not fooling anyone.
Northern italians often use words toward Naepolitan residents that are as bad as those american white supremacists use for blacks.
It is less common now that the Lega party tried to become a national party but just to give an example, "vesuvio pensaci tu" was common (Vesuvio is the big vulcan near Naples, pensaci tu is like "take care of it").
Or "senti che puzza, scappano i cani, stanno arrivando i napoletani" : feel the smell, even the dogs flee, naepolitans are coming. Or "napoli merda, napoli colera, sei la vergogna dell'italia intera" : Napoli is ****, Napoli is Cholera, the shame of the entire (rest of) Italy.
But no "savage" afaik.
So is this ethnicity or not?
The only Italian I know is figa seca nulla I picked up from someone of Tuscan origin I worked with.
Yes because they are also different races lol. There are more differences among sub saharian african races than among the average black and the average white (which is what you might have misunderstood when you claimed something similar, but among whites). African races have both the tallest and the shortest human populations for example.
But ofc "race doesn't exist in the genetical sense" even if the average height of adult men pigmies is 1
"Races" doesn't mean anything specific and concrete. and was initially coined because Western people thought that superficial variations in skin tone, hair colour etc was in some way significant of deeper differences, mainly because it suited their purposes to depict people they'd brutalised as biologically inferior.
The point about genes, which you continue to fail to get, is that humans are mostly African genes and the few European genes that exist are highly diverse.
You can argue all you like about the science but you are factually wrong, and no matter how much you hate this you have more genes in common with a random African than you do with a random Italian, and this has been established through testing.
"Races" doesn't mean anything specific and concrete. and was initially coined because Western people thought that superficial variations in skin tone, hair colour etc was in some way significant of deeper differences, mainly because it suited their purposes to depict people they'd brutalised as inferior (just as you do).
The point about genes, which you continue to fail to get, is that humans are mostly African genes and the few European ge
The point that you fail to understand is that we share 96% of DNA with chimpazees yet we are quite different overall, wouldn't you say? so even a 0.1% difference among human groups can determine massive outcome differences. Such as lactose digestion which has incredible cultural repercussion in the sense of what you end up doing as a society, even. Having access to different food sources can mean a whole lot of differences in how society is structured, all because of a 0.005% genetic difference between 2 groups.
Protection from thalassemia is literally one gene, and that determines which areas you can live in decently as a group before the invention of modern medicine.
