Proposal - Ignorance as bannable offense

it seems a clear statement to me, however you look at it.

according to the creator it didn't happen.

but i won't debate futher,

and thanks for answering the question.

 

yes, i have read the interview as stated, and yes the question involved what he thinks of the EU.

you see George Lucas never gives clear statements what he thinks of EU, which is why context is given.

IMO, Lucas does this not to really get involved and divide fans, he has in a way stated that parts of EU are absolutely bonkers, he doesn't need to say it, but it's obvious what he's hinting at.


context goes both ways, i read the statement as fact, this in itself does not make me (or you for reading it another way) ignorant.

 

Sure, but the question being discussed there was whether that constituted "G-canon" and thus made the EU not exist. In the context not only of that article but his many previous comments, it's clear that what he meant isn't "It doesn't exist!" but rather "It's not my shtick." Over the last 15+ years (really since the Thrawn trilogy came out), he's made that very clear again and again, and this, despite the initially inflamed response, is just the same sentiment slightly repackaged. It's something we're familiar with, because we've been dealing with that sentiment for a very long time.

- Keralys

 

I shudder to think that I could be banned for posting that nothing in Star Wars is literally true.

 

Let's clear the air. The rules on canon for the EU forums originated in 2001, the same time that the rules for PSA/3SA on discussions about the EU and the "3 strikes" policy was created for CT. It was a laying down of the ground rules for the forum to kill the numerous flame-threads people were having about what was "Star Wars". In the movie forums, what happens in the movies was it, and everything else - including the EU - was speculative. For Lit and the other EU forums though, since they were forums about the "Expanded Universe", the ground rules were that all that happened in the EU actually happened.

In short, in the CT forum, Vader and Luke first met on Bespin while in Lit they first met on Mimban. In PSA Boba Fett was simply a child clone of Jango Fett; in CT he was a bounty hunter of ill-repute and "son" of a past hunter; whereas in Lit his history was all sorts of screwed up (until LotF finally pulled it all together). If you went into the Spoiler forums and insisted that the Geonosians could not have created the DS plans, you'd be warned for trolling and action taken from there as appropriate. If you went into Lit and said that Bevil Lemesk had no part in the creation of the Death Star, same thing. You could argue interpretations of events, but you couldn't go in and say that something either was or wasn't true because you either followed the EU or didn't.

It wasn't (and shouldn't be) that arguing against it was automatically a ban, any more than breaking a general JCC or FF or Senate or any other forum rule is not an automatic ban, unless the circumstances dictate that it should be based upon the situation at hand because of the way a person decides to post. Anyone that wants to argue that it should be an automatic ban really needs to have a look at why it is they are under that delusion.

There are legitimate questions/concerns, and then there are just wildly outrageous ones. One is helpful, one is not. Application of logic is generally appreciated.

 

So the original request was to make ignorance a bannable offense and this thread diverged into a discussion about (as best as I can tell) the policy regarding EU/Canon discussion. Fascinating.

I don't have an opinion on the latter discussion given I have no vested interest in the topic.

But on the original subject, I just thought I'd throw in that I think it's a rather silly idea to seriously talk about banning stupidity or even offensive speech. I think the balance we have so far regarding flaming/baiting is a fairly good one--at least in the JCC--and I'd hate to think that anyone would really want to crack down on people expressing their opinions, no matter how ignorant said opinions might appear.

 

If you want to draw a YJCC parallel for the EU/Canon debate - if someone thinks that, for example, Muslim and Islam are two different religions and it comes up in context, then that's not really bannable. However, if that person then enters every thread that mentions Islam to stir up the Muslim v Islam debate, it gets bannable because it's disruptive, off topic, and beating a dead horse.

This is my best guess at a parallel, though maybe it isn't 100% accurate. But maybe it kind of works?

 

Yeah, but there's a difference between arguing your interpretation of EU material, and flat out spamming every religious thread you can find. I'm not saying that putting your opinion in ten separate threads in a short amount of time in a lit thread can't be seen as spamming, but it seems to me that civilized disagreements on content leads to debate. Debate, leads to discussion, discussion leads to more traffic.

I really don't see a problem with that, if it doesn't get hateful or nasty with users.

 

It's a different culture in the Lit forum. Some rules - including the one we're talking about - have been around for a long time. They've always been there. Each board has their own culture. You have to understand the Literature forum in order to be able to understand the rules and what their practicalities are. If you're looking for logic in the Literature forum through the lens of JCC, you're not going to understand. If I look at the JCC through the lens of the Star Wars Prequel Forum, it's hard to understand. Each board - joined together by this site - has their own dedicated community and dedicated purpose and I promise you there are good reasons for some rules. We're not trying to suppress someone's right to speak an opinion. That's not what we're trying to do. The Lit rule that we're talking about is enforceable on a more extreme basis. If someone in Lit is being extremely outrageous and just posting pointless arguments, the rule allows us to warn them that they need to correct themselves and if not, we can take action.

 

Doesn't that make other forums more inaccessible to users that aren't used to that kind of tight nit community though? If forums are going to be elite, shouldn't there be some sort of forum rules posted on every single forum on the board, just to make sure a newbie might be able to find out in advance what is and isn't accepted in that forum.

I mean, that pretty much leads us to the original post. I don't know what the guy said, but he was under the impression that it wasn't a banable offense. It was a lengthy offense, and if it was truly his first offense, I can understand why he's upset.

 

Wrong thread

 

It really isn't elitism. It's a rule for a community that needs that rule. We're not running around looking for ways to ban people. We're not in MS trying to make a rule that says if your name starts with 'A' we're going to ban you. Banning is typically not the first action we take against an offense. We educate through PMs, point users - especially new ones - to the rules and that's usually as far as it goes. It really doesn't end in bans as much as you think it does.

 

No there's not. Both will get you banned in Lit if you keep up both long enough.

With few exceptions, I tried to keep religious-analogues out of discussion in Lit because, frankly, they would all end badly. Hell, even political-analogues end badly these days in Lit, but that's not up to me (though I saw R_F crack down on one the other day which was a good plan, IMO). In addition to that, the reason people will typically get banned for arguing their interpretations of EU is because -- their interpretations a) don't matter and b) don't advance any discussion in most cases.

There's one thread for "What have you added/subtracted from your personal canon" where that can go on freely but in a situation like:

Poster 1: "I don't like that Luke turned to the Dark Side in Dark Empire."
Poster 2: "Oh, don't worry, I don't believe that it happened, so Luke's okay."
Poster 1: "But it did happen. In Dark Empire!"
Poster 2: "Not in my world!"

And so on... this is usually where things go downhill. Basically, in Lit, anything that is canon is canon (exactly how this is defined at the moment with LFL changing the canon at whom every 6 seconds, I do not know) and stating unequivocably that something that is canon is not canon is likely to get you into trouble. You may not be BANNED instantly, but you will start to dig a hole, most likely.

 

Anyone who feels the Lit rules are too draconian should take a gander at the Invincible thread. You'll see why the rules are necessary.

As for posting hate-speech, I don't think posting that someone should die should be allowed.

 

Where do you draw the line, though?

 

Identify personal flaming, see if the argument has turned to the person and not the point, make sure there is no deliberate baiting, and always take context into account. Disagreeing with someone isn't bad or bannable. It's the nature of the posts that could be a problem.

 

That almost sounds like current policy. I like it. Let's stick with that, shall we?

 

I draw the line at "Person A should die." Now the person who posts "Person A should die" shouldn't get automatically banned, but a warning instead. Repeated trolling should get that person banned.

I'll give you an example.

"Fidel Castro should drop dead" should not be allowed. "I hate Fidel Castro" is should be allowed.

 

Why?

 

Why is flaming not allowed?