technopatra wrote:...
Good to know, Ron, thank you for the clarification. Either way, obscenity definitely puts us at legal risk. Hate speech is simply not tolerated per the spirit of Burning Man, so we wrote it into the TOS. I don't want anyone to come here and have to accidentally see racial epithets.
As is your right and a position I support. It's your sandbox, it's only natural that you'd want to make it the most appropiate sandbox possible, for it's assigned task.
technopatra wrote:...
..and yet during the stopbmorg debacle, I received many many requests to take action, some from the a couple of the most vociferous responders to it.
Oh, I believe you. Folk will take the action that they've been trained to take. This is not a dig, at all, please understand. But because they know you will moderate that kind of speech they'll ask you to do so. If they were to know that it was up to them, exclusively, to create the kind of communty they wanted I believe they'd do that instead. But in any case, it's really a philosphical point as the bottom line is that I'm nothing but supportive of it being the BM LLC's sandbox, operated by you, and probably others.
technopatra wrote:... It went on for weeks, and the offenders showed no sign of flagging. It was a combination of the community-led Mayo tactic and my booting of the worst offenders that finally resolved the problem.
Sometimes they do. Sometimes they flare up only as long as it takes everone to understand that either they're dealing with a troll or will have to agree to disagree. In my experience the latter becomes more and more common, as the space matures, but the former never dies out completely.
technopatra wrote:...
I happened to be the first to respond to the "heeb" comment. It was up fr at least a couple of hours before I came across it.
I missed it, seems to me. But if I had seen it I think I'd have probably reacted to it like I did the assertion that there weren't any Palestinians. Both are examples of hate speech, seems to me, if one is much more subtle than the other.
And there's the rub. I don't envy you your job, honestly. The obvious cases are easy. Use the "n word" and you're off the board. But how about say something like, "there are no Palestinians." Or, "the Holocaust never happened." They both are harder, even if I do believe every bit as hateful and political as the apparently easy examples.
technopatra wrote:... I wasn't going to let it sit there, hurting the thread originator, hoping that someone else would shout the guy down. Why should she have to suffer because no one else jumped to her rescue? She's my community, too.
Understood and applauded. We all do share the responsiblity to create community, after all.
technopatra wrote:...
I think it's apples & oranges, as an email list is still private correspondence. You sign up and the messages you write go to a limited (if large) number of people who have opted in to the list.
I'd agree the analgy is strained, but I'd still think that with time a completely unmoderated for content board could work as an expression of the burner community. However, I'd also agree that it's impossible to be completely unmoderated due to the obsenity concerns alone, for the LLC. And, frankly, branding thoughts may very well be relevent as well, says the former marketing guy...
technopatra wrote:... What is the common bond among folks on this list? Is the email list open to anyone? Have you have issues with persistent trolls and sock puppets? Is it owned by an individual or an organization?
We've never, in the two or so years I've been on it, had a true troll last more than a month or three and those are exceedinly rare. I can think of one in the time I've been on it, in fact. Most are gone within a week, if that long and I don't remember the last one. I didn't even know what a sock puppet was until I started hanging out here, so if there's a problem with them on that list I don't know about it. :)
It's a yahoo group, "owned" by a person in theory but by Yahoo in reality and law. It's only open to adults, and that also breaks the analogy right there, and the list members are all poly folk, or at least interested in joining a list called poly-families. As I said it's all but completely unmoderated (the list "owner" will boot folk for direct threats or being a minor) but still the most alive space I've yet to find on the net. Not only is it active, but the folk learn from each other in a way that's unique, in my experience, to virtual communities...
Ron
hmmmmm, maybe not.
