EI logic, another look

[Grandtheftcow]

On October 25th I made a Poll Petition thread proposing that member guideline #5 be changed from.

5. No pictures of nudity or sexual or obscene material may be posted. This includes cartoons and illustrations. This rule is void in any of the Creative forums, so long as the thread is clearly labeled for content and has a legitimate purpose. Art is okay; porn isn't. If you have questions about your material, please contact the moderator of the forum in question before posting.

To.

5. No pictures of nudity or sexual or obscene material may be posted. This includes cartoons, illustrations, ASCII art, and the inappropriate use of characters to suggest an obscene gesture. This rule is void in any of the Creative forums, so long as the thread is clearly labeled for content and has a legitimate purpose. Art is okay; porn isn't. If you have questions about your material, please contact the moderator of the forum in question before posting.

As hopefully you can see my proposed change simply expands the guideline to include textual representations of images (ASCII art) and characters such as ( . )( . ) or ,!,,

Now that’s look at some of the arguments used.

I'm leery of this proposal because - language is in a constant state of change. Definitions alter over time (think gay) and as the French have discovered, trying to pin down exact interpretations and meanings is fraught with trouble.

I'd rather let the people make their own minds up what they like/don't like to see on a public message board with no age restrictions and have them post accordingly, instead of trying to strait-jacket the staff into becoming the spelling police.

Despite that liberal attitude, I'd much rather prefer not to see cussing here, but that's a personal thing.

This is the first attempt at an argument against the change. Chakotay suggests that since definitions and language change over time then any attempts to expand the (apparently perfect) guidelines will result in confusion when words change meaning.

This is exactly what I meant in the other thread, when I said that this forum's self-appointed crusaders of free expression are being destructive rather than constructive. They thought DS was treated unfairly, so instead of suggesting that the guidelines be adjusted to prevent it from happening again, they ask for the guidelines to be adjusted so that it always happens to everyone.

And they wonder why people think of them as trolls.

Here’s some bizarre thinking.

A member was warned for something previously never considered before. Attempts were then made to reverse the warning but the warning stood.

So what do you do next? Create a poll petition so staff can no longer issue the warning you just fought against and lost of course!

True, but I find that the tighter you try to draw the de finitions between allowed and disallowed, the easier it is for a smart lawyer to drive a sixteen-wheeler right thru the law.

Best in my opinion to keep your guidelines broad and flexible to allow for changing mores, software upgrades and common language use, and for the staff to always have the last word on what is okay on the board.

That’s right, expanding the guidelines is in reality constraining the staff and as a result allows members to slip through the expanded definitions, and it’s best to keep the guidelines vague so members can’t use them to defend themselves.

Considering the mods have already intervened to prohibit supposedly obscene ASCII art, it seems they already have that freedom. Thus the change would not give them anyone they don't already possess; all it would do is a) constrain the mods by spelling out something that ought to be a judgment call, and b) burden the membership with another hard-and-fast rule to worry about.

Unwritten rules are ok folks I’m sure those would be applied as evenly as the current guidelines are.

I don't mean to come down hard on this idea, because it's not the hugest issue in the world, but to me it's symptomatic of a larger problem plaguing ExIsle. Members and moderators alike have been attempting to regulate our way out of conflict, to reduce the moderation of this board to a series of precise guidelines that no one can complain about because they're the rules.

Yes because we all know how worried I am about conflict :roll:

But we haven't "rested easy." With each new attempt at codification we've degenerated; we've become more prone to complaints about the lack of equal treatment. And I think that's inevitable -- the more niggly little rules we try to enforce, the more difficult it will be to enforce them consistently.

Ignoring the fact that recent rule changes have been handed down by the staff and have not been voted upon by the membership.

Ooookay, so it's taken from October 25 to get about 2/3 the number of people in favor.

Does that tell you something? Cos usually it takes about 24 hours or so to get people on board, right?

You've already got the board record for longest poll request dragging on and on and having to be bumped because folks aren't that bothered. Isn't that enough?

Remember kids if you can’t come up with a sound argument then attack and question the rules, regulations, and environment itself.

BTW the thread was started on October 25th and the above post was made on November 2nd. Hardly the weeks on end vote collecting our brownnosing watchdog is suggesting.

Voted no. The phrasing "the inappropriate use of characters to suggest an obscene gesture" is too vague. "Suggest" to whom? Whether it suggests such a gesture to an observer may depend on the observer.

For that matter, different cultures have different obscene gestures. The thumbs-up gesture, innocuous in American culture, is seen in other cultures as an obscene gesture (with the same phallic connotation that the raised middle finger has in our culture). TrekBBS has a smiley giving a thumbs-up gesture; by the proposed new guideline such a smiley would have to be banned here, if we insisted on applying the rule in an unbiased, non-ethnocentric way.

He started off okay until his glaring fallacy of a second paragraph. Now EI should be pandering to every culture who could potentially be using a computer.

This needs to be voted to support of the ban. This is a step towards making porn acceptable to post here. They can say it's free speech but the truth is far from that.

If it isn’t passed then porn will run rampant throughout EI! Damn I wish I could think like that. :lol:

After that point everything just slides into character attacks better left for a thread on what a flame on EI looks like.

Isn't ExIsle such a fun place to read

 

[RobL]

After what I saw in that thread, it really made me wonder if the so-called "watchdogs" are really looking out for our welfare in the mod room. They've pretty much made their opinion of us clear, bashing us out in the open, and it doesn't take too much of a stretch of the imagination to see them looking the other way when a mod slams us behind closed doors.

 

[DarthSikle]

all I have to say is:

}( .!!. &^

 

[Utahraptor]

This is boring. Take it to EI.

 

[DarthSikle]

How many of your 276 posts have dealt with me?? I'd almost be impressed if you weren't so pathetic. Carry on nipping at my heels.

 

[Grandtheftcow]

This is boring. Take it to EI.

Nah I’d rather poison the well here then kindly point out the unnecessary confrontational posts made by fellow EIers towards me later on.

 

[Mary Rose]

Well for what t it's worth the motion passed so obviously a lot of people agreed with you.

 

[Pryce]

Nah I’d rather poison the well here then kindly point out the unnecessary confrontational posts made by fellow EIers towards me later on.

Excellent point.

 

[Captain Jack]

Give the cow a cookie...and a life.