Question on ban announcements

[OverratedSanity]

I'm not advocating a perma or anything, but I have to say I'm disappointed it took this long to give him a slap on the wrist. He got away with loads of rubbish for way too long. It wasn't just his views I had a problem with, but he has a way of subtly pushing his rubbish agenda and posting sometimes with a complete lack of basic empathy (like that time he responded to np10 saying him being a victim of racial profiling is because Obama didn't deport enough people). Whether or not he's a white supremacist or not is utterly irrelevant to me. If he can't frame his opinions without coming off as a piece of ****, then he deserves the crap he gets from us.

 

[cnerd123]

Yea I was going to try and articulate that later, but we can certainly punish him for bringing up his agenda on unrelated issues, cherry picking 'evidence' to suit his views, and being stubborn/condescending to contrary arguments

 

[Black_Warrior]

I think the main problem with 'what to do about Watson' is exactly the way we are framing this. From the perspective of CW Forum Rules and Regulations, the person/user name should be irrelevant. The actions should be taken not based on who it is but what the posts are. The penalties should be based on the posts themselves, not the person.

I don't participate a lot in the Politics thread so I am not familiar with a lot of the posts, but the question here should be 'were the posts racist/hateful/demeaning in nature'? If so, how does CW as a forum plan to treat them? slap on the wrist? a 1 week ban? 1 month ban? 1 year ban?

How Watson is as a person and whether he is a western supremacist or white supremacist or Nazi are beside the point. Judge the post.

 

[Shri]

Thats bs. Why is it beside the point?

 

[Adders]

AWTA. (@ BW)

Like BW I don't spend a whole lot of time in the political threads but I see enough to know that Watson does cause a bit of a ruckus. But (and I may be wrong here) my impression of him is that his views and posts, whilst going total against the grain of what the majority here believe in he doesn't (or very rarely) cross the line into blatant "racist/hateful/demeaning" posts................even though it is obvious that these are indeed his thoughts.

Yesterday he crossed that line (hate that term........sound like ****ing David Warner ffs) and he got dealt with appropriately. I can't recall him even copping a ban before so it's obvious to me that despite holding these views he does temper his posting to remain with the forum rules.

 

[Adders]

Thats bs. Why is it beside the point?

Because it's a dangerous business to start banning people over what they think rather than what they post.

 

[Ausage]

Because it's a dangerous business to start banning people over what they think rather than what they post.

To adjust this slightly, it's dangerous to start banning people over what other people think they think rather than what they post.

 

[Prince EWS]

I think the main problem with 'what to do about Watson' is exactly the way we are framing this. From the perspective of CW Forum Rules and Regulations, the person/user name should be irrelevant. The actions should be taken not based on who it is but what the posts are. The penalties should be based on the posts themselves, not the person.

I don't participate a lot in the Politics thread so I am not familiar with a lot of the posts, but the question here should be 'were the posts racist/hateful/demeaning in nature'? If so, how does CW as a forum plan to treat them? slap on the wrist? a 1 week ban? 1 month ban? 1 year ban?

How Watson is as a person and whether he is a western supremacist or white supremacist or Nazi are beside the point. Judge the post.

Yeah exactly, which is why:
1. He hasn't been banned until now despite the fact that we've been aware of his views for a while;
2. Now that he's made an outlandishly racist post he's been banned for a long period.

 

[Adders]

To adjust this slightly, it's dangerous to start banning people over what other people think they think rather than what they post.

TBF, Watson has shown enough of his hand that we all know that he holds racist beliefs........you yourself classified him as a Western Supremacist. He's a racist.

So on that basis I guess anyone here is entitled to judge him on it and dislike him for it, just he as he is entitled to these views (however abhorrent most of us find them) As far as this forum is concerned though it's about what we post. Sri can despise Watson for his views (and I wouldn't blame him for it) but he can't go around attacking him on the forum......Watson could be the grand wizard of the KKK, but he can't come on here posting hate and racist content.

 

[Ausage]

TBF, Watson has shown enough of his hand that we all know that he holds racist beliefs........you yourself classified him as a Western Supremacist. He's a racist.

So on that basis I guess anyone here is entitled to judge him on it and dislike him for it, just he as he is entitled to these views (however abhorrent most of us find them) As far as this forum is concerned though it's about what we post. Sri can despise Watson for his views (and I don't blame him for it) but he can't go around attacking him on the forum......Watson could be the grand wizard of the KKK, but he can't come on here posting hate and racist content.

The reason I phrased that clarification the way I did is because that's the way it would work in actuality. None but Watson know what's in his head. We only have our own interpretations of the thoughts that provoked his words. In some cases it's clear, in other cases not. I'm certainly not going to suggest anyone shouldn't draw whatever conclusions they deem fit about the guy, I don't even think they're necessarily wrong. I basically just agree with PEWS/BW that you can only judge the content of his posts.

On the bold, I think those two things are different though. There's a lot of crossover between the two and Watson conflated culture and race enough times to suggest he crossed over in that way, but it's perfectly possible to believe Western societies are the best on the planet and not be of the view that has anything to do with race. In fact the west's multiculturalism could count in its favour though I'm sure many would argue otherwise.

 

[Spark]

Watson is a strange cat indeed.

On the one hand his views on politics and life are the polar opposite of mine and some of the stuff he came out with was truly abhorrent.......especially the post that got him 3 months. But on the other, as you say in CC he is a valuable contributor, but I also sort of admired him in a way because despite setting himself up as public enemy No1 around here, I don't think I ever saw him lose his ****. He rightly copped a lot of flack for some of his opinions but he never seemed to retaliate and all the **** that came his way just seemed to wash over him. Very few of us would have that self control IMO.

Anyway, 3 months is just for what he posted and I'm glad the mods took that action. I was wondering though if and when he comes back does this forum have the facility to allow the mods to ban members from specific sub forums rather than the whole site? If so IMO anyway he should be warned that this forum does not and will not tolerate the sort of posting that got him banned and if he errs even slightly then he will be permabanned from Off Topic and the Politics forums.

Theres my 2 cents.

This sounds like a great idea and is similar to ideas that have been floated in the past wrt ****blocking and the like, but I don't think we have the functionality to do that sort of thing right now.

 

[Prince EWS]

Subforum bans are actually rather easy without any additional modifications. Not that I'd support one in watson's case, but it's a lot easier done than a thread ban.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

I'm not comfortable with the idea of telling Watson he can only post here as long as he doesn't post like a Nazi, since he isn't posting in that manner to annoy us but because he genuinely holds that stance and those beliefs. Telling him he cant post his genuine thoughts here while the rest of us can is kind of unfair.

Not really sure what the right way to handle this is. He's already despised by a lot of the community for his posting in political discussions, and generally speaking thats how societies deal with people with his sort of beliefs. Punishing him for expressing them in a civilised manner seems wrong

I've never read his political posts. But if someone is a racist they have no place in any society, and if they express those beliefs they should be dealt with accordingly no matter how polite they are while doing it.

 

[Furball]

Watson is a strange cat indeed.

On the one hand his views on politics and life are the polar opposite of mine and some of the stuff he came out with was truly abhorrent.......especially the post that got him 3 months. But on the other, as you say in CC he is a valuable contributor, but I also sort of admired him in a way because despite setting himself up as public enemy No1 around here, I don't think I ever saw him lose his ****. He rightly copped a lot of flack for some of his opinions but he never seemed to retaliate and all the **** that came his way just seemed to wash over him. Very few of us would have that self control IMO.

Anyway, 3 months is just for what he posted and I'm glad the mods took that action. I was wondering though if and when he comes back does this forum have the facility to allow the mods to ban members from specific sub forums rather than the whole site? If so IMO anyway he should be warned that this forum does not and will not tolerate the sort of posting that got him banned and if he errs even slightly then he will be permabanned from Off Topic and the Politics forums.

Theres my 2 cents.

I'd say this is a black mark against him because he evidently doesn't care about the effect his words might have on others.

 

[Spark]

Subforum bans are actually rather easy without any additional modifications. Not that I'd support one in watson's case, but it's a lot easier done than a thread ban.

the_more_you_know.gif

 

[sledger]

The problem with the play the post not the poster mantra is that it's not easy to reconcile with the "forum atmosphere" infraction.

Whilst it make have taken until now for Watson to make an overtly racist post, there are a litany of other examples of his general direness that have been dragging the forum atmosphere down for months at least.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

Forgetting Watson for moment, was Firebreaker a previous poster with a new name? He just seemed to turn up, post crap and be banned within a couple of weeks. Quite an achievement for a totally new poster.

 

[Furball]

Yeah exactly, which is why:
1. He hasn't been banned until now despite the fact that we've been aware of his views for a while;
2. Now that he's made an outlandishly racist post he's been banned for a long period.

This isn't a first, this post is just a continuation of posts he's made about immigration to Australia and how Australia's culture is under threat from all the nasty non-white immigrants flooding Australia and destroying its culture (while being openly hypocritical about the effect white immigration had on indigenous Australian culture). Off the top of my head, as well as this **** just being offensive on a general level, there's at least 6 posters I can think of who would be entitled to be offended on a more personal level by the racist **** he spouts.

 

[cnerd123]

Forgetting Watson for moment, was Firebreaker a previous poster with a new name? He just seemed to turn up, post crap and be banned within a couple of weeks. Quite an achievement for a totally new poster.

TBF he's from pakpassion so that was to be expected

 

[Athlai]

This isn't a first, this post is just a continuation of posts he's made about immigration to Australia and how Australia's culture is under threat from all the nasty non-white immigrants flooding Australia and destroying its culture (while being openly hypocritical about the effect white immigration had on indigenous Australian culture). Off the top of my head, as well as this **** just being offensive on a general level, there's at least 2 posters I can think of who would be entitled to be offended on a more personal level by the racist **** he spouts.

That said if moderation used things like subforum bans it may never have got to the point where Watson seemed quite so dire.