[General Battuta]

Everyone has a slant. Reality provides a plausible coselector of belief, though. Not all slants are equally valid.

You clearly disagree with how Nakura was handled. I don't. I don't think you have the full context and I think your judgment on the topic is poor. But more urgently, by supporting Nakura's post, you are now trying to make a political argument about race, homosexuality, socialism, capitalism, and American exceptionalism. Is that really appropriate for this thread?

[The E]

InsaneBaron: You are not seeing the bigger picture. Nakura had a nasty habit of posting long screeds like the one you linked to, filled with bad statistics and even worse preconceived notions, then defend them to death against anyone who would come up to actually call him on his inaccuracies (Note: That wasn't an external article he linked to. That was an essay he himself wrote!). There's also a few instances where he crossposted posts on several forums around the internet, with the expressed intention of trolling. He himself told me that was why he was doing it.

Nakura has, in his time here, expressed little to no interest in the "meat" of this board. Given that a large portion of his posts in GD were quite trollish, we felt that a GD ban was in order.

So yes. You can bring up any political viewpoint you like. You can and will be challenged on them though, by people with vastly different political outlooks. If you bring up the same points with the same arguments again and again and again though, you will not be considered a good poster. Keep up that behaviour long enough, mix in a bunch of real weirdness, and we can and will decide that we do not want to hear from you again.

[The E]

I should note that one of the reasons we've been having this discussion, and the one preceding it, is precisely because the previous rules did not give us an adequate handle to deal with trolls who are perfectly courteous but ultimately just disruptive, like Nakura.

[NGTM-1R]

enough people dislike Nakura

If you're going to be dismissive of the arguments against you in this fashion, then...the irony here is thick enough I could cut it with a knife.

Argue the post, not the poster, etc.

[Luis Dias]

I don't even think people "dislike" Nakura. I think he seems to be nice and was always polite. The problem was his posts, the way they completely dismissed anything said previously, the way he asked for a discussion endlessly and when he got one, he dismissed every single point offered with the ****tiest of evidences and arguments.

When told that this behavior was not proper,  he continued doing it. He didn't seem to care. We also didn't know him very well, he could be just a troll (and The_E basically confirms this to us) that was here *not* to have a discussion but to have fun riling us up. I think HLP isn't remotely interested in being such a place. And we didn't know him "well" because he posted nothing other than that pile of trolling stuff. It's not that it was somewhat against the "ideological environment" of HLP, it was also that it was deliberately designed to be so, the ideas he showcased were not even remotely thought through before he posted them here (and then valiantly and stubburnly defended, this was also obvious), etc.

We have (I think) no interest in incentivizing these kinds of absolutely unproductive discussions where people are just shouting arguments and facts to an unmoving wall. Want to discuss how Conservatism is actually a much more valid point of view than many here believe in? Great! Have fun with it, try your best, be polite, address the arguments, don't be stubborn, admit your mistakes and move on with the strongest points you have, and eventually you will get to a point where perhaps no one has really changed his mind about the core issue, but everyone is better informed and, why not, entertained. This is what is called a productive discussion.

Nakura posts were just annoying, irritating and disruptive. And deliberately so. This is unacceptable.

[InsaneBaron]

@Battuta: We each have a slant, but we're both civil and don't insult eachother over it. I wish the same could be said for the rest of HLP. Also, I'm not endorsing everything Nakura says. I'm making the point that he's treated differently than people with different standpoints.

@Nightmare: exactly. People argued against Nakura rather than his points, and he was banned on that logic. I'm not petitioning that he be unbanned, I brought him up as an apparent example.

Ultimately, Nakura is a tangent to the discussion that I'm ready to drop. It's not going anywhere.

Having said that, I'm running out energy to continue this debate. I've made my point, and I believe I've been fairly civil about the matter. I don't have much to say that hasn't been said, and unless something comes up that I really ought to answer, I'm going to leave things as they are.

[General Battuta]

I think your point has been countered. Luis Dias' post in particular was valuable. You should read it carefully.

The problem has less been with conservative posters than with the fact that they do not engage with fact and debate in a productive, informative way.

[InsaneBaron]

I'm leaving things in Goober's hands at this point. I don't having anything new to say. Hopefully the very fact that we had this discussion will encourage moderators to be more careful.

Finally, no hard feelings. I don't harbor any ill will to anyone over this, and hopefully no one harbors any to me.

[General Battuta]

No ill will, but I think your point is unsubstantiated, and I think your request for a mostly Christian moderation team to be more careful towards Christians is spurious.

[Nakura]

InsaneBaron: You are not seeing the bigger picture. Nakura had a nasty habit of posting long screeds like the one you linked to, filled with bad statistics and even worse preconceived notions, then defend them to death against anyone who would come up to actually call him on his inaccuracies (Note: That wasn't an external article he linked to. That was an essay he himself wrote!). There's also a few instances where he crossposted posts on several forums around the internet, with the expressed intention of trolling. He himself told me that was why he was doing it.

Nakura has, in his time here, expressed little to no interest in the "meat" of this board. Given that a large portion of his posts in GD were quite trollish, we felt that a GD ban was in order.

So yes. You can bring up any political viewpoint you like. You can and will be challenged on them though, by people with vastly different political outlooks. If you bring up the same points with the same arguments again and again and again though, you will not be considered a good poster. Keep up that behaviour long enough, mix in a bunch of real weirdness, and we can and will decide that we do not want to hear from you again.

While there is a degree of truth to what The E says, I have never "trolled" on Hard-Light. I used to intentionally post controversial posts on MMO-Champion and d2jsp (other forums), but if you look at my recent posts on those forums, I haven't been doing that at all, as I've grown as a person. It was never my intent to rile people up and I never "changed my views," because I believe that I am right and that the evidence shows I'm right. I'm not right about everything, of course, and I have conceded points before; like in the discussion on IRC in regards to universal healthcare. I'm a very opinionated person, but I don't try to start fights; debates, yes, but not fights.

[MP-Ryan]

OK boys, back on topic -and away from Nakura

Dogpiling

While this can be an issue, I think it comes under the "be respectful" blanket.  I don't see a problem with five or six people debating one if they raise separate points of debate from each other and do it in a respectful manner.  If it just happens to be a "Me-too" scenario, then that's something the mods can deal with as a respect issue.  I don't see an issue that needs explicit mention.  Again, the rules are designed for maximum flexibility in moderation while defining a few boundaries, and this is such a case-by-case issue that it isn't appropriately dealt with in any other way.

Stereotyping

Since this is basically what StarSlayer's suggestion is getting at, let's call it what it is.  Again, this is covered under be respectful - it's inappropriate to disparage an entire group of HLP users based on what one person says, and this comes back to debate the issue, not the individual.  I lean against including yet another tip to deal with something that's a respect issue and is a case-by-case matter.

Perceived double standards

The important word is the first one - perceived.

The guidelines, as drafted, are designed to protect who and what a person is - essential characteristics that are traits, not choices.

Religion is a choice.  Anyone here has the right to choose whatever beliefs and religion they want to follow (or not); similarly, anyone else has the right to question/debate those choices because they are choices and not pre-determined.  So, while some religious members of the board and some of various political slants may feel picked on, ultimately they have one of two choices:
1.  Engage in respectful debate - the forum guidelines embrace most of the principles of free speech, so you always have the option of MORE speech, so long as it is respectful.
2.  Disengage and ignore the discussion entirely.

Among those is not "3.  Report the thread because waaa waaa someone on the Internet disagrees with my views/choices and I have the right not to have anyone else discuss them."  No.  You have the right to be treated and debated respectfully as an individual, you have the right to refuse to debate, and you have the right to hold whatever beliefs you wish.  Your beliefs do not have the right to be free from debate or scrutiny, whatever they may be.

In short, the rules cover this - if someone is being disrespectful to someone else, we have moderation for that.  If someone is disparaging a belief set and not an individual, they are free to do that.  The way the guidelines are written, you are protected from offensive personal remarks or attacks.  The same is not true of a belief you hold.  Examples:

Not OK:  Battuta, you're an overly-analytical scientifically-bigoted bastard and should be shot into a black hole.
OK:  Battuta, I have to disagree with the science behind your views, and frankly I think the science responsible for the theory of gravity should be shot into a supposed black hole.

Not OK:  Goober, you're a conservative Christian asshole who deserves to be smacked.
OK:  Those Conservatives and Christians who belief homosexuals deserve unequal treatment before the law are collective assholes who should be smacked.

Not OK:  MP-Ryan, you're a liberal commie-loving douchebag.
OK:  Liberals are practically Communists, and history shows that a lot of Communists are douchebags.

I think this quite adequately demonstrates the difference between an attack on a person, and an attack on a series of beliefs.  You'll also note that there is no shortage of ways to debate these attacks on beliefs and make it abundantly clear that anyone making those sorts of generalized attacks is being pretty facile/foolish in their methods, and counteract those points entirely.

In short:  I don't think changes are required.  People are free from disrespect toward their person; they are not free from being offended because someone disagrees with beliefs they happen to hold.  Any attempt to reverse that smacks of anti-blasphemy laws, wherein people seem to think they have the right not to be offended by someone else who isn't disrespecting them individually.  The "double standard" is one where people confuse criticism of traits with criticism of choices; the first rightfully is protected, the latter rightfully is not.

[Luis Dias]

OK:  Those Conservatives and Christians who belief homosexuals deserve unequal treatment before the law are collective assholes who should be smacked.

OK:  Liberals are practically Communists, and history shows that a lot of Communists are douchebags.

I just ask the audience if you are ok with both of these, I am unsure. The second one is probably a pass because it doesn't really logically imply anyone in particular, but the first one does.

Am I being oversensitive? A very good chance of that, so I ask thee.

[StarSlayer]

Sounds good to me for the most part.

Though I would argue there is grounds, that, for many people religion isn't as cut and dried as "free choice" but that's probably a sidebar discussion.

[Nakura]

Sounds good to me for the most part.

Though I would argue there is grounds, that, for many people religion isn't as cut and dried as "free choice" but that's probably a sidebar discussion.

I'm agnostic, but I agree with you. Isn't it odd that criticizing homosexuality is against the rules, but criticizing Muslims, Christians, etc. isn't? To many people, religion isn't just a choice.

[General Battuta]

This argument is happening in two threads at once. The difference is clear: one is a trait with no external or social relevance beyond which consenting adults you seek out. The other is a moral system whose prescriptions are EXTREMELY consequential for how you value the moral worth of others. The fact that religion is socially and morally consequential opens it to discussion of those social and moral consequences.

[Mongoose]

I think that, in the past, there have been some (relatively isolated) cases of people getting piled-on primarily because they were expressing viewpoints that were in the decided minority here, where the criticism went beyond the views involved to the people stating them.  However, I think that the guidelines as-written (particularly the first paragraph) provide an adequate framework for dealing with those incidents, and I feel like they're something that the mods will be able to recognize and address if they occur in the future.

More in general, after getting the chance to read through the current write-up, everything looks fairly comprehensive, and I think it leaves plenty of leeway to address situations at the individual level.  And if there's any sort of recurring issue that comes up that hasn't been addressed here, we can always amend them as necessary.  I think we're good to go.

[MP-Ryan]

This argument is happening in two threads at once. The difference is clear: one is a trait with no external or social relevance beyond which consenting adults you seek out. The other is a moral system whose prescriptions are EXTREMELY consequential for how you very the moral worth of others. The fact that religion is socially and morally consequential opens it to discussion of those social and moral consequences.

Precisely.

The converse argument - that religion is a part of identity that isn't subject to the same sorts of examination that other beliefs are - means that suddenly we're going to codify the need not to offend people on religious grounds?  So we're going to have forum guidelines that ensure equal protection of all religious belief sets from scrutiny and possible discussion?  Not only is that unrealistic, it's an untenable position.

People may feel that religion is part of their identity, but it is not a fixed trait than cannot be changed.  Therein lies the difference.  To use the example of democratic countries, virtually all of them codify freedom of religion and association; virtually none of them codify freedom from critique for religion.

Much as some people may feel otherwise, their religious views do not enjoy protection from discussion, debate and critique any more than do my views on evolutionary biology, politics, or a myriad of other topics precisely because they are a chosen affiliation, not a permanent and unchosen part of their identity.  I don't think we would be having this discussion if it hadn't been triggered in a thread about homosexuality instead of something less politically-controversial, like racism.

Ultimately, religious people enjoy the same protections on HLP under the proposed guidelines as everyone else - they have to be respected, even when disagreed with.  That said, someone criticizing the views of their religion is not and should not be subject to moderation because a person belonging to that religion might be offended by a respectful discussion.

I guess what I'm really getting at is another distinction we should all be familiar with:

All Muslims are terrorists.  VS MP-Ryan is a Muslim and therefore a terrorist.

The former statement is a stupid generalization that deserves to be roundly condemned, debated, and discussed in order to be shown how wrong it is.  It does not deserve to be moderated out and buried to be perpetuated in other channels.  On the other hand, the latter statement is a bit of ignorant bufoonery that was also a personal attack and therefore deserves to be moderated.

[MP-Ryan]

I think that, in the past, there have been some (relatively isolated) cases of people getting piled-on primarily because they were expressing viewpoints that were in the decided minority here, where the criticism went beyond the views involved to the people stating them.  However, I think that the guidelines as-written (particularly the first paragraph) provide an adequate framework for dealing with those incidents, and I feel like they're something that the mods will be able to recognize and address if they occur in the future.

More in general, after getting the chance to read through the current write-up, everything looks fairly comprehensive, and I think it leaves plenty of leeway to address situations at the individual level.  And if there's any sort of recurring issue that comes up that hasn't been addressed here, we can always amend them as necessary.  I think we're good to go.

 

[Spoon]

Not OK:  Goober, you're a conservative Christian asshole who deserves to be smacked.
OK:  Those Conservatives and Christians who belief homosexuals deserve unequal treatment before the law are collective assholes who should be smacked.

Okay wait, so.
Saying, 'Goober you're a conservative Christian asshole' is not okay because its a direct personal insult but saying 'Those conservative Christians (that you, Goober, are part of) are assholes' is okay? I dunno man, but that just seems to open up a whole bunch of ways to indirectly insult a person. "I can't directly insult you as a person, therefor I shall insult the things you hold dear instead"

[Black Wolf]

Pretty sure MP Ryana examples were deliberately OTT, and they're not binding by any stretch. It's sometimes tough to tell a personal insult, but I'm pretty sure that in 90% of contexts, those would all get a response.