Sexism policy

VLM, I have made an effort not to make this about you so please don't start.

Moreover, I quote myself:

"What I am doing though is very purposefully excluding them from this discussion because every time we look at addressing gender equality in our society, men co-opt the argument to either make it about them or to cast a net so far and wide that consensus or progress becomes impossible."

Whilst I appreciate the effort to reinforce that argument with working examples, I'm reasonably sure it was solid enough without them...

 

Mr44, I think tom has covered the points here. With respect of your agents of SHIELD point though; if people think twice about assessing a female actress or character purely on the grounds she is "hot" or whatever, I'm not sure that's a bad thing. Even if banning is heavy handed, if people think "maybe actually this isn't an opinion I should express..." then I don't see the negative here..?

 

So by your definition woky shall be banned every time he comments about Natalie Dormer. And don't tell me not to start. You started this.

 

Not at all. I am not proposing that Wocky's disappointment with Ms Dormer's haircut be legislated against. There is no basis for this claim.

Moreover as per several remarks made by me I have ensured you are not singled out or attacked. I can reasonably do no more. If you insist on derailing the thread I shall be forced to escalate it. I do not want that.

 

Obviously if it were me I would start by banning all discussions of comic books and comic book movies, since the primary goal of that entire industry is to objectify women and perpetuate grotesque standards of female beauty.

Absent that though why not just encourage mods to get together and try to standardize an approach to enforcing the second principle of behavior in which the concept of respect encompasses overt sexism in posts. And if some of the mods have a gender blind spot, maybe we start off by encouraging women but also anyone else who thinks they are sensitive to gender issues to PM mods if they notice sexism in posts. This will help train the mods, who in my view probably need some training. Not all of them, obviously.

 

Just for the record: this kind of behavior is what I was calling for a zero tolerance policy. I really think that kind of blanket hateful statement (and again: sexist, homophobic, racist, I don't think there should be any difference) should at the very least merit a "warn, ban at next offense".

The real issue here is how to mod it. I've thought about this before. Many times, especially when I saw the disgusting trolling that sometimes goes on 7SA. Just an extension of the existing trolling policy? Adding "hate speech" to it?

Or would we want to go a step further?

 

That's not always true though. I had no idea this thread was about a specific person. If that's the case, then just make it a rule that you can't call anyone "darling" and be done with it. I'm not sure how often this would come up. Like what was mentioned, warn someone, then ban if they continue the behavior. That's the standard that has existed for years and years. What you're calling "obfuscation" is an attempt to look at the overall framework of what is being proposed here, because this is also an expansion of the above ideas. Your opening is rather ironic considering that your second paragraph just about duplicates what I asked about:

" wocky, you seem to be suggesting that we should put up with a certain amount of intolerance because we might be able to change that intolerant person's mind. i guess my problem is; do you draw the line anywhere? are outright racial slurs to be tolerated then? and if you do draw the line somewhere, how do you decide what level of bigotry is acceptable? are we really here to educate the most willfully ignorant among us and guide them to enlightenment (has this ever happened btw?) or can we benefit the community more by eliminating these malignant voices, which are thankfully extremely rare in our community?"

This is exactly what I'm asking about as well, so we obviously have the same concerns. So where do you draw the line with regards to intolerance in any form? What is meant by "zero tolerance?" You shouldn't advocate a rule that is an expansion of existing procedures, but then limit it to only a certain number of categories. Because a rule against intolerance should have many faces, and should be equitably applied.

I don't have a set conclusion, I'm trying to see the mindset behind this.

 

Zero tolerance means in this case that we don't ignore any case. That everytime hate speech is used there is some kind of repercussion. It's not the same to call someone a "sweetheart" than to advocate the genocide of all Bavarians, obviously, but both should have a proportionate answer. What we can't do is tolerate any of them.

 

Considering that a woman and a British man of African descent will be our leads for Episode 7, gender and race are only going to come up more and more often as this new trilogy begins. It's important we make a clear stand against sexism and racism now, or risk an explosion of both. And to stay more directly on topic, we should specifically address sexism, because I have seen it far more transparently and without comment on these forums. And Sweetheart is definitely a gendered term in the context it is most often used here, which is to infantilize female posters, which we shouldn't stand for. Plus it'd be rude and annoying even if it wasn't gendered.

 

Well yeah, that's what I was asking about. The initial posts made it seem like there was some sort of expansion being debated. The "zero tolerance towards chauvinism, sexism, and misogyny" aspect stood out because it seemed arbitrary. So, someone who posts "Wow, Regina looked hot today" in the Once Upon a Time tv show thread isn't going to have a thought crime police phalanx of mod action taken against them, because someone could just as easily reply with "yeah, and so did Robin Hood." No big deal. Someone who is intentionally being snarky by calling someone "darling," will be warned to knock it off because it's rude. So it seems like more of a re-focus on the existing policy instead of any kind of expansion.

I just think the potential for "mission creep" exists, because 50% of the JCC is rude to each other 90% of the time.

 

There are a lot of merits to the argument that people should be able to learn and grow on here, which would seemingly include an exploration of what's acceptable and what's not. I personally am more passionate about that argument. But I also have to agree that terms like "darling" and "sweetheart" are almost always sexist when they're used and that they present a very clear, black-and-white area where the law can and should be laid down.

 

Back to ender's opening post, I think expanding the no baiting rule would cover this issue in an acceptable way that allows mods some flexibility in enforcing it the way they would any other baiting instance.

6. Baiting or intentionally stirring up other users isn't allowed. Debates are fine, but argue with the point, not the person. Baiting includes, but is not limited to, any speech that attacks a person or group on the basis of attributes such as gender, ethnic origin, religion, race, disability, or sexual orientation.Threads with no purpose other than flaming, subtle or otherwise, will be closed. It's important to remember, however, that a person disagreeing with your opinion is *not* trolling. Try to keep it civil even if you're sure the other person is wrong.

the main drawback is that I assume most posters here think of hate speech as a statutory offense divorced from intent, in which case, you'd have to create an additional rule, and I'd put it right at the top above the other "No" commandments, lest someone believe it is a lesser offense than spamming.

1. No hate speech. Hate speech is defined as any post that attacks a person or group on the basis of attributes such as gender, ethnic origin, religion, race, disability, or sexual orientation.

 

I'd be okay with your second example, as it would give us an appropriate framework without adding an excessive amount of rules. The admin team has been rewriting the whole TOS and rule threads for the past months, by the way, so this would be the ideal time to append or change anything.

 

I also believe there's a lot of space between hate speech and careless talk corrupted by ignorant gender biases, and some of the complaints here in this thread are more about the latter than the former.

 

. No hate speech. Hate speech is defined as any post that attacks a person or group on the basis of attributes such as gender, ethnic origin, religion, race, disability, or sexual orientation.

That sounds like a pretty good starting point for discussion. However, I'd probably broaden religion to include 'lack of' to cater for atheists, secular humanists, etc.

 

I think that Jabbadabbado nailed it. What effectively we want is an agreed stance, an in-principle position that the JC does not condone the othering of posters on arbitrary grounds. If the point is to disempower or undermine a poster because of race, ethnicity, gender or sexuality then it's considered unwelcome on the boards as a whole. That's where the amendment to the TOS comes in; you effectively call out there that the behavior is banned. Users continuously agree to the TOS when posting, and if the rules of the JC are incorporated by reference you can flesh the point/definition out further there.

 

I don't disagree with this, but the point of having a statement to the effect that gender inequality is something the administration does not tolerate sets up a framework for mods to engage users who appear unaware. Moreover, the user base can also engage to this effect. I again point to the example of my being called out over white-knighting. I was unaware of it, harps and others pointed it out, and I was able to take the feedback on board and move on.

What you need though is a framework for when a person engages in gender bias, remains unaware (or unrepentant about it) and continues to behave as if they're in the right. That framework enables Mods to act around the behavior and engage the user in discussions about it first on an official front.

 

I've joked before that if we banned people for being condescending some users in here would end up in real-life jail. I don't know how realistic it is to make an special case for that kind of post instead of just considering it "baiting" and starting a discussion on whether we've become too tolerant of user baiting in general.

 

Unsurprisingly I'm less enthused about the idea of religion being included, since it's not an arbitrary choice. A person may be born into a faith, but if they're old enough to register here they're old enough to have questioned their beliefs and decided to retain them. At which point it's a lifestyle choice, and as was said earlier here people are choosing to bring their religious beliefs into a debate. If they were talking about a film and someone said "Whatever, bible boy' then sure, it's totally a bait because it's immaterial to the topic and an attempt to other them.

However, it's worlds apart from using terms like "darling" or "sweetheart" in a patronising manner to undermine an argument not on its merits but because the poster was female. I'd again point to the "boy" example as a logical counterpart to it.

 

And Tom, with respect to your question of me, this is why it's not an obfuscation to include these as part of a broad policy, and which is why I asked about if there were other examples. You could have, in a limited sense, a discussion on only about banning someone who uses a term like "sweetheart" and not examine anything else. But immediately, you would have related examples and situations that come up. Much better to examine how the desired goals relate to overall policy.

 

JoinTheSchwarz mentioned hate speech, and I don't know of any definition of hate speech that doesn't include religion. The Facebook policy (try not to laugh), for example:

I'd have a hard time with the national origin part, because I ****** hate Australians.

luckily all mods have the capacity to distinguish between serious and humorous speech

 

Of course, because we got the convicts, you got the puritans, and we had the foresight to remain in the Empire Commonwealth.

But actually that's a good starting point for us, Jabba #1. I think if we're othering someone just because they're religious, it's a problem. If they bring religion into a discussion, as Moviefan2k4 would do roughly 100% of the time, then it falls under the "challenge ideas, institutions" banner.

 

Facebook is of course a shining example of all things we'd hope to achieve with our new rules.