Well, I know I'm a pretty new member, but I'd like to think we can be a site of tolerance, even when other people demonstrate intolerance. I think the voting system does a great job in being an equalizer for people who are incorrigible assholes.

from the FAQ:
"# What can't I say in a comment?

We love a good fiery comment thread, but sometimes they go overboard. Please avoid personal attacks. It's okay to criticize ideas but refrain personal insults. Please avoid blatantly racist speech, threats, or other verbal abuse. This goes for comments in public arenas as well as private member profile comments. If a comment is bad enough it will probably be deleted due to negative feedback. If these types of comments are regular occurrences, we will probably ask you to leave the community."

probably lol. has this banination ever happened? if it has, where did we draw the line that time? who decides? is there actually any procedure or is it just "probably" ?

imo the only policy is NO adhom, ban follows single warning.

"please avoid" ??? wtf? how about "Do not ever". Sounds too fascist for you hippies?

how about "Do not ever". Sounds too fascist for you hippies?

Considering how close you frequently dance to the ad hom yourself I'm surprised you are complaining about this MINK.

Yes, I think the rules of this site were written by a certain type of people. They agree on certain types of tolerance which align more with a popular mindset (tolerance with conditions). I, however, believe in a near absolute tolerance, but then again I do not own or operate this site. I'm not a hippie. But, still, I don't think honoring true free speech and true tolerance is a sign of "hippism" (sp?). That's just retarded... unless you were being facetious.

...because in the course of virtual interpersonal relationships where facial expressions, body language, tone and timbre are left to the imagination, combined with the lag-time in response to thread posts and no actual face to slap, it acts as a suitable replacement???

besides, a few "hey assholes" or "Bite mees" are no reason to get a ruffled-repeated abuses on every thread by some tuber-troller, should be the ones we take to the group.....otherwise, has there ever really been a serious problem with it here....(this would be a good place for someone to chime in, and share with the group if that someone feels they were unfairly dealt a litany of mean-spirited, unwarranted abuse..hint hint) MINK, you're just bored again and are starting to cause problems.....what's wrong??? They run out of yer favorite brand down to the packaged goods store????

I'm not sure what your citing Mink, but lets face it. We're all assholes at one point or another. Words cut deeper then swords, especially if it's an attack on a subject we are passionate about. I've had people piss me off and I can guarantee you others on VS have wanted my head on the chopping block. Continuous abuse and harassment is one thing, I don't think there is room for that. But everyone has their pride or their feelings hurt at some point. Everyone feels taken out of context or advantage of at one time or another.

I say lets take a step back and find out what the real issues are.

Raven, perhaps i wouldn't dance so close to ad hom if there was actually any threat of action, which there isn't.

and if you can find one instance where i have just flat out insulted someone, let me know, i will happily submit to banination, because i find that kind of behaviour sickening, even when i do it myself.

Youtube sucks and one of the reasons it sucks is because it has crappy users.

The important thing is to make the sift not become like youtube.

a worse fate than a ban for ad-hom, is being forever relegated to the ranks of the undead-there are a few users here ignored for their past infractions, be they cloaked personal attacks, assenine world views, and the worst, inability to admit their own stupidity or tunnel-reality, with regards to an issue they are passionate about....no one wants to talk to me about Tesla, free energy, global warming, or politics, cause they know it's like climbing a greased telephone pole....(data, fact, or expert junkies) so, I satisfy the lonely hours with long-winded diatribes as a diversion at times, or use it as a spring board to shove everyone's sacred cows up the collective ass.

Where's westy when ya need him????

me too with the cow shoving.
and btw nobody insulted me to start this off, i am just as sick of reading other people insult each other as i would be if someone directed it at me.

the way people diss me, as choggie points out, is more subtle than "fuck you". and i am cool with that, it's part of the game. I post under a false name for this reason, it's a game.

but i think the "fiery threads" are much more fun if everyone accepts that descending into namecalling is strictly off limits.

you should read some of the shit on youtube about whether vilnius belongs to poland or not. daymn, it's a great debate, but on youtube the signal to noise ratio is ridiculous. I would hate to see "tolerance" end up as "laissez faire".

gorgonheap, of course people dislike things other people say, but there is a very very thick black line between "you're talking rubbish, x is ridiculous because y and z" and "stfu retard".

now, i am sure someone would be banned quick if they said "take your black ass outside and hang yourself by the nearest tree"... and thankfully that hasn't happened... yet.

but if someone says "stfu, you're just a brainless conservative troll" they get "tolerated".

MINK: here is an example of a user being banned for attacks and vulgar comments.

...beep beep.. beep.. dit.. dit... dot.. dit.. dit dit...

NEWFLASH! This just in... this is the internet. Quit thinking or bitching or even contemplating the nature of other people's comments. You are not the comment police, there is no comment police. There can never be a way for one person to determine what is acceptable language unless we have a dictatorship.

Screw this ad hom crap. You're (collective you) mom has warts. People that like Segways smell funny.

I find that being referred to as a 'hippie' because I happen to agree with the wording of that particular guideline is rather insulting... and, actually, you even calling those who wrote the guidelines (presumably dag and lucky) 'hippies' is an ad hominem attack, as you are deriding the characters and or beliefs of the people involved, rather than directly addressing the problem or argument... way to go MINK, excellent job exemplifying that which you have a problem with.

we've purged some users for racism, but in general we try to stay out of mediating internal disputes between users. We are not now nor do we ever want to be the decider's of acceptability. We're all pretty liberal, over zealous comment policing falls on the wrong side of the censorship line. Yes sometimes people go to far, but in general that's a bad way to make friends, and people that frequently cross that line have dwindling returns on their input to the site.

In short we don't really do it because there hasn't bee a need for it. When it gets to the point where every other user is discussing my mother and their lewd desires for her then maybe we'll take another look, for the time being everybody seems to be perfectly pleasant for the most part.

Alternative title: "Free speech still tolerated on the Sift"

^modified alternative title: "Conditional free speech still tolerated on the Sift." Hey, this is a site, not a free country. They have every right to ban whomever they wish, even if they wish not to.

Many of us have thick skins and don't care when they see inflammatory comments, I have a pretty thick skin after blogging about politics and religion for the last three years, but not everybody tolerates being called names on a daily basis. As the sift grows we will have to be more careful with personal attacks, because people do leave websites that aren't inviting. Major Social sites like youtube don't have to worry because their business is not about developing a community, Videosift is literally marketed as an alternative to youtube.

With that said, the Sift used to have a reporting button for inflammatory comments, I wonder if our Sift overlords can amuse us by telling us if that button was ever used, because it's since been removed. If a fellow sifter feels they have been personally insulted I think we should have a flagging option so users can easily bring attention to the comment, that way the perp can be warned of his actions and maybe banned if he is a repeat offender. If the sift is to lose members due to personal attacks, I would rather have the attackers leave over those who were victims.

And yes JoeDirt, this is the Internet, and the sift is in the business of bringing in traffic, I think we all agree Free Speech is a wonderful thing, but It's rare for anybody to take a stroll down the street and have random people hurling insults at them. You can't walk into a church or a school or a business and just start shouting random insults without getting kicked out, why should the sift be any different, if we punish those who insult (by censoring or banning) that doesn't make us a dictatorship, it makes us a good website.

/my two cents

Raven sez:

and, actually, you even calling those who wrote the guidelines (presumably dag and lucky) 'hippies' is an ad hominem attack

Soooo right! Degrading to hippies everywhere!

Mink, stop being such a pussy.

fed, this isn't a church or a school. Maybe closer to a pub. At any rate the internets is pretty anonymous and hence people behave differently when they can speak anonymously. I won't go so far as bring up bathroom stalls, but you get the idea.

If you want to be thought of as an asshole, then go ahead an call people names. Just like on the playground you won't have any friends and some people are fine with that. I get really, really sick of these whiny calls for policy changes because people need rules and bans and can't handle trolls. Every month or so someone wants comments banned, people banned, etc. Boo fucking hoo.

I can't tell you how many times I hear the words 'ad hominem'. It is the lamest tattletale thing and I hope people never turn on FOXnews or read blogs or newspapers. At any rate, if people want to put up posts about community and calls for up'ing the level of discourse, fine. But seriously, it's a slippery slope when anyone starts deciding who gets banned for their comments and what is acceptable (of course there are limits and this site has never had any problem dealing with people at the limits ie. racism, blatant trolling, etc.)

(BTW.. it appears that lewd comments about JR's girl are allowed! Or maybe just lewd desires. At any rate keep the mom out of your dirty, dirty thoughts.. focus on the hot girlfriend.. RRRAWRR!)

well, i am an admin of an enormous forum full of kids and adults, and the strict no ad hom rule works amazingly well.

but if that's a suggestion that is not suitable for the community here, then so be it.

"I can't tell you how many times I hear the words 'ad hominem'. It is the lamest tattletale thing"....here,here

britches on nails

Lucky James said:
"When it gets to the point where every other user is discussing my mother and their lewd desires for her then maybe we'll take another look..."

sounds like it's a bit too late to do something if it gets that far.

Lucky didn't say that... i said it

and yeah we would probably take a look at it before that, but seriously most threads i click on are people having good conversations. There is the occasional social troglodyte, but usually such members get tired of the sift when they find that we don't enjoy fart jokes.


/does actually enjoy a good fart joke
// (poot)

MASSIVE PUSSERY AFOOT.

YOU'RE ALL A BUNCH OF NITWIT DOO-DOO HEADED HIPPY-BAG CHEESEPUFFS.

But I still love you all (well, almost all of you).

All of you go to hell.

I mean, let's have tea and cake.

It's far too late for me to try anything serious on Sifttalk tonight.

sorry james and lucky, i was tired...

lol at the ad hom in this thread, looks like some people (myself included) needed to let off some steam

*promote

Invocations (promote) cannot be called by imstellar28 because imstellar28 is not privileged - sorry.