[GEN] Discrimination online: is it possible?

I have been wondering for the past few days if it is at all possible to be discriminated against or be knowledgable about discrimination on online discussion boards.

For example:
User A= A friendly member who from pictures posted in threads and general discussion, appears to be a white male.

User B= A friendly member who from pictures posted in threads and general discussion, appears to be an African-American female.

Both Users are almost always well behaved an popular. Neither has ever broken the TOS. One day though, as many users have done, they break the TOS by flaming the starter of a thread which is in the wrong forum. The mod who bans them, with full knowledge of the race that each appears to be, gives the supposed white male a 24 hr. ban, but says the black female did worse and gives her a week's ban. In reality, both commited the same act of neglegence.

Is it possible for anyone to come forward and claim discrimination from a moderator or even from users?

My assumption is since every member can't be met face to face by other members, it is impossible to say one is discriminating. A member could always lie about their race and possibly even their gender.

Thoughts, please.

 

People are discriminated against all the time on this forum due to their national origin.

What would be the point of coming forward if you felt racially discriminated against ? A class-action suit or something ? No-one ever said it had to be fair on these boards, did they ?

What are you actually driving at ?

 

Yes, The boards could face a suit for discrimination. Happens all the time with other corporations.

 

If you think a moderator wrongly banned anyone, take it up with our Supreme Chancellor, or one of the other administrators.

There's no need to go waving "lawsuits" around wildly when things could be taken care of much more easily through discussion.

(Edit: Grammar)

¤Night

 

There's a mod here who makes inappropriate comments towards French Canadians ...

 

Oh please, please tell me this is a joke.

The good and bad thing about the boards is NO ONE really knows what age/race/gender a poster is.

Age is the number you fill in in your profile, pictures are all over the web. That 17 year old Brunett with the massive bust and tiny waist you're trying to pick up is actually a 45 year old Star Wars Geek who lives in his parents basement...

If you feel you were treated unfairly even with a similar post history, take it up with the Mod who banned you first, then move on to the admin like any other poster, but starting to throw out things like 'discrimination' and 'law suit' over a message board means that perhaps you should really reconsider your priorities.

 

There's a mod here who makes inappropriate comments towards French Canadians ...

Stop making it so easy then!

But people say worse things about America than I ever say about French or French Canadians, and that's perfectly okay apparently.

However, the point here is whether discrimination exists based upon supposed e-power and bans, and I've never banned anyone more than anyone else for their heritage, religion or nationality, despite the nationality jokes. I don't think anyone else on the MS has either.

 

Yes, The boards could face a suit for discrimination. Happens all the time with other corporations.

Settle down before you sound too silly. Who would raise a case, and on what grounds ? What outcome would you be looking for ? Do you expect to get equal distribution within the modsquad of race, colour, national origin and sex ? How could you prove or enforce it ?

TFn is not a corporation.

I think you've watched too many episodes of "L.A. Law"
edit - or maybe "Ally McBeal"

 

Actually, TF.N is a limited liability corporation.

 

yeh, "limted liability"

 

The day someone decides to sue TF.N is the day that person truly has no life.

 

There's a mod here who makes inappropriate comments towards French Canadians ...

That implies that it continues to happen. To my knowledge, it happened once. So, unless it's happened repeatedly, it would have been better to say "made an inappropriate comment".

Edit: Well, shows you what I know. I'd reconsider your comments, David.

 

That implies that it continues to happen. To my knowledge, it happened once. So, unless it's happened repeatedly, it would have been better to say "made an inappropriate comment".

No, he's correct. I continue to make the same types of jokes (not often, but it does happen) about the French as others continually make about the United States. The one time he got offended was about French CANADIANS, not France/French. Nor do I believe my comments were ever inappropriate, given the tolerance of those types of jokes about other nations, including the US.

It's certainly never been a directed personal attack against anyone.

 

But that sort of thing has generally been acceptable on the JC as long as it doesn't cross the line too far. I'm sure w_k has made his fair share of anti-american throw-away comments just as much as I've received comments about my nations inappropriate fascination with four legged fluffy farm animals.

I don't think its at all inappropriate for mods to make the same jokes - despite them supposed to be setting a good example or whatever - its setting a good example of having a sense of humour, often lacking in the MS in general.

However, isn't that entirely off-topic ? Having an opinion, and even sharing your opinion is not an act of dicrimination.

Deliberately excluding someone from the MS purely because their origin, race etc would be an act of discrimination, but I'm pretty sure that doesn't happen. (They let Aussies in for goodness sake).

However, the MS is effectively a private club with reserved membership controlled exclusively by the current members. They can promote whomever they want (and frequently do) and there's nothing you or I can do about it.

Recently there have been claims of positive discrimination of promoting people who belong to specific JC groups. While you can speculate and shout conspiracy all you like its still up to them who they promote.

To clarify - while I've not been happy with the results of some votes, there's nothing illegal about anything the MS have ever done. They could even make a rule saying that no blacks could ever be promoted. While I doubt this would ever happen, and I'm confident no-one would like that idea there's really nothing stopping them doing that.

There are still all men golf clubs, women-only nights in gyms, and no matter how many times I apply I still get refused to join the UCLA cheerleader team.

edit - I've just re-read my post, and seem to have focused on the discrimination towards electing MS members, which isn't really the focus of this thread.

If you do have genuine examples of when people have obviously been banned because of their race then you should take it to the Head Administator, perhaps even Phil Wise.

However, while I'm sure its unfair, is there actually any law thats been broken ?

 

[i[Deliberately excluding someone from the MS purely because their origin, race etc would be an act of discrimination, but I'm pretty sure that doesn't happen. (They let Aussies in for goodness sake). [/i]

Exactly. And, while we're trying to get rid of as many Aussies as possible to replace them with Kiwis, if I ever saw something like that take place I'd be the first one to be making sure people were kille-- er, demoted.

Recently there have been claims of positive discrimination of promoting people who belong to specific JC groups. While you can speculate and shout conspiracy all you like its still up to them who they promote.

And, while I acknowledge that perception, I can only speak for myself when I say: I have no clue who belongs to what and I only nominate and/or vote on people whom I think would do a good job.

 

There's a mod here who makes inappropriate comments towards French Canadians ...

I make inappropriate comments towards everyone. It's neither personal nor racist on my part. I hate everyone equally, especially the French.




I'll try to make a more serious post either later this afternoon or tonight, if and when my eyes start working properly enough for me to read without pain.

 

Discrimination online is very possible, as it is anywhere and with anything. However the chances of it happening online as very unlikely as people are unlikely to know what someone truly looks like except if a picture is provided. Speaking from my own experience I have no idea what 98% percent of the users on the JC look like and even if I did, it wouldn't play a factor in banning. Breaking the TOS is breaking the TOS whether you're black, white, brown, yellow, purple, or blue.

 

I have never bashed American citizens, I only bash the American gov't and it's policies. I have never made any generalized comments about American citizens, such as "American's are dumb" or anything like that, unlike dp4m's comments about French Canadians being cowards, which is not only insensitive but also damn ignorant because French Canadians have nothing to do with France during WW2 (which was the implication in his remark).

And when I complained about it, I ended up getting banned. Nice.

 

That was your own misinterpretation that caused you to think what I said was an insult to French Canadians. I can't help that.

And my comments about the bashing of Americans and/or other nationalities wasn't directed at you (wild_karrde) but more of a comment on the state of nationality jokes on the JC in general.

 

You're not French-Canadian, but you should understand what "surrender" means. (dp4m to AT60)

And how is that not insulting to French Canadians?

 

And how is that not insulting to French Canadians?

It's insulting to the French. I'd expect the French RSAs to be all over me for that.

And how is that any worse than Scottish jokes about sheep?
Or drunken Irish?
Or fat, dumb Americans?

 

It's insulting to the French. I'd expect the French RSAs to be all over me for that.

You said French-Canadian, not French. We're about as different as America and England.

And how is that any worse than Scottish jokes about sheep?
Or drunken Irish?
Or fat, dumb Americans?

No difference, none should be allowed.





EDIT: If I said "I might not be black, but I know what fried chicken tastes like" to Tiger Woods, he'd sue my ass.

 

Despite the fact that TFN is a limited liability corporation and can be held liable for copyright infringements, etc., it's still a privately held site. Therefore, the owners have the right to say what they want posted here and who they want as members.

If the MS was comprised entirely of white males between the ages of 16 and 25, I could raise a concern that there are no females or people of color represented, but I would not be able to sue the forums for discrimination. Don't take what goes on in corporations in terms of labor law and try and translate it to a private website. They're just two different entities.

I would expect that should discriminatory issues happen here, that those concerns would be brought to an admin and dealt with appropriately.

 

"If the MS was comprised entirely of white males between the ages of 16 and 25..."

What about GriffZ?



Anyways, I've never watched any of those stupid law shows malkie, so don't bring them into this discussion. I don't even know who or what Allie McBeal is.

The point of "no knowledge" was what I said in the opening post: You don't know what race anyone really is. But, I didn't know that TFN was a limited liability corp., and that pretty much answers the question.

 

You said French-Canadian, not French. We're about as different as America and England.

Semantically: I said French-Canadian, not French Canadian. One would imply French and Canadian heritage, while the other would imply being Quebecois.

Like German-American.

All of this is irrelevant however to the topic of does discrimination occur with regards to moderator actions and selections. And the answer is still "no."