Posted by jane d on July 24, 2013, at 2:45:49
In reply to Re: anxiety about Babble and me » jane d, posted by SLS on July 21, 2013, at 6:52:24
I'm sorry about the long delay in replying.
> > There's a problem with judging things by people's emotional response to them since we all respond to different things.
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> Does censorship have a place?My preference is to have as little as possible. Especially of content as opposed to style. I'm not going to waste time in defending anyones right to use a particular word in this setting.
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> > > It also pains me to ponder the possibility that posting activity has dropped off significantly as Lou Pilder has been allowed to post exaggerations, over-generalizations, and accusations to a greater degree and frequency.
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> > I think here Lou is being made the classical scapegoat.
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> The scapegoat explanation has become the default argument against investigating cause-and-effect and social responsibility regarding the posting behaviors of Lou Pilder. I was under the impression that scapegoating involves intent; to knowingly blame or punish someone for the acts of others. What is it about my treatment of Lou Pilder that would lead you to characterize it as scapegoating rather than being an inquiry into cause-and-effect and the enforcement of website rules of conduct?I admit I am very uncomfortable with a discussion labeling any one poster as the cause of Babble's problems. It doesn't really meet my own internal standards of civility. But it is in keeping with my anti censorship beliefs.
I wasn't however using the term scapegoat to try and force shutdown of your discussion. I meant it to be part of my argument. It wasn't your treatment of Lou that made me think of scapegoating - it was the strength of your apparent belief that driving Lou into the wilderness (or his posts) would somehow take away the problem of low posting volume. And somewhere in there I think that the strength of your feelings for what Babble has been in the past, the strength of your objections to Lou's posts, have somehow become blurred into a certainty that Lou is a major cause of what you don't like about babble. And it's that causality I think is doubtful.
> > > What do you think of Lou Pilder's posts?
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> > It really shouldn't matter what I per>
> I think it matters. It helps to understand posting dynamics. Why would you not want to volunteer this information? Is each man an island?
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> > As it happens he is one of several people who's posts I rarely read. I have decided that they are unlikely to contain any information of interest to me and they annoy me so I tend to skip them.
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> Do you think that there should be unqualified freedom of speech here?I was not in favor of the stricter civility rules when posters first started arguing for them years ago. For the most part I could live with them however and they mattered a lot to some posters who I respected. And they didn't go far enough for some.
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> > I also think that everybody else should be able to choose for themselves whether to read or not read them.
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> How would one come to decide such a thing if they had not yet read them?Have they really changed that much over the years? My spot checks suggest not. Yes - I could miss something someday. I have found my impressions of some posters changing over the years - often for the better. Those discoveries can be one of the perks of hanging around a place for a long time. But I'm ok with missing posts that I might have liked. I no longer feel I have to read every single one and that makes my life much easier.
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> You make a great deal of sense.
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> Let me see if I can make some adjustments.
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> Thanks.
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> I think Dr. Bob should either delete the specifications of overgeneralization and exaggeration as sanctionable content in his FAQ or explain why Lou Pilder's posts fail to qualify for such sanctions.The overgeneralizations/exaggerations part of the rules was always one of the parts I had the biggest problem with. But I'm OK with the FAQ not keeping up with the reality of the rules on babble. In that way I think it's like real life where unofficial changes usually come first and then eventually the official rules catch up.
poster:jane d
thread:1047296
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20130702/msgs/1047733.html