Announcement: New Infraction System and Revised Rules

Nah. You see if you say: "A black man robbed them because I saw the man." It's not racist. If you say: "It must've been a black man that robbed them because all black men are criminals." Then that's racist. It's not a difficult concept because the difference isn't exactly subtle.

 

All you have is your opinion. That isn't evidence.

 

Neither whites nor blacks can ever put themselves in the shoes of the Other. There is no possibility for true understanding.

You use the allegation of racism like a sword don't you? It was meant to be a shield and not a sword.

 

It's been revoked.

 

And that issue illustrates exactly why moderators should never be called upon in any way the be the arbiters or 'truth' or 'fact' or 'accuracy', or the arbiters of whether something is 'substantiated' or just 'opinion'.

Aside from the fact that calling someone personally a 'racist' was and is against the rules, the definition of what actually constitutes 'racism' is a matter of opinion, and one often strongly influenced by politics. There are different sources and different definitions that can be found to 'substantiate' different opinions. For moderators to be deciding who has produced a definition to 'prove' their opinion, or who needs to produce something to 'substantiate' their claim about a 'fact' is wrong for that reason - it is a matter of opinion, and should be a matter for debate (as is the quality of any sources or evidence used). It is not an area that moderation should be straying into at all.

It doesn't matter whether the 'fact' is 'historical' or not either - different sources give different interpretations of historical events, and different versions of what those events were, and what they meant. That is something that members should be able to discuss (and disagree about) freely, without moderators having any potential involvement whatsoever in deciding who needs to 'substantiate' their claim, or what substantiation is sufficient for something to be considered a 'fact' rather than an 'opinion'.

It should be the role of moderators to determine who is expressing their opinion in language that conforms to the spirit of the Mission Statement, not to decide who needs to 'substantiate' their opinion, or who's opinion is 'fact' and who's is just 'an opinion', or who is making a 'questionable claim', or who is 'asking for frivolous cites' rather than making a justified request for a claim to be substantiated.

 

The "New Forum Rules" were posted today but there is no process to appeal an Infraction anymore. The Formal Appeal Process was a well thought out process that provided a pragmatic and fair means of addressing whether an infraction was warranted or not but apparently that has been scraped. The Formal Appeal Process was adopted based upon the unanimous consent of the staff but apparently it no longer exists.

I fear that Political Forum is going to become a "Police State" where any thought of fairness for a member is being thrown out the window.

 

Ahhh, but the study I posted is just the most recent study and not the only study on racial prejudice in America today. The results of the study posted are in-line with the previous studies on racial prejudice so it not just "one study" but several scientific studies that have been conducted on racial prejudice and none of them significantly conflict with each other. They do show a relatively annual minor change (increase) in racial prejudice over the years but the extensiveness of racial prejudice has been long established by hundreds of scientific studies going back over 50 years.

With all of these combined studies, all of which reflect the extent of the racial prejudice, that have been conducted by numerous different social scientists over the last 50 years, ALL support each other then someone making a claim that the most recent study is incorrect, when there is no evidence supporting that allegation, is merely living in denial of a fact and not disputing the fact.

 

would somebody please comment my post a bit back where i argued that one actually could call slashbeast a racist using dictionaries' definitions and logic?

 

We now have the "points system" defined at the end of the posted Forum Rules.

http://www.politicalforum.com/rules.php

I've previously address the problems with this "points system" for initiating temporary and permanent bans of members (that has gone unaddressed by Winter Bear) and anyone looking at this with those considerations in mind will understand why it's simply WRONG!!!

This system is so inherently unfair to the membership of Political Forum that it's beyond belief that the long time moderators of Political Forum that actually cared about the members of Political Forum and that spent thousands of hours of their time dedicated to improving Political Forum over the years would actually agree with it.

I've been a member of Political Forum since 2008 where I served in the capacity of moderator for several years dedicating thousands of hours of my personal time to Political Forum because I believed in the Mission Statement of Political Forum. In all of my time as both a member and a moderator I've never seen any proposal that was worse.

Political Forum had a "banning system" in place since 2009 prior to this implementation of the "points system" and it was fair. A search of the archives would find numerous threads addressing the problem of unjust member banning from late 2008 and early 2009 but those problems were behind us because the problem was addressed and resolved. There hasn't been a general membership complaint about member banning for the last three years to my knowledge.

That has all been thrown out of the window.

I challenge the staff of Political Forum to publically address the problems I've identified with this "points system" for the banning of members. We had a very fair "banning" process in place so why is it being changed to one that is inherently unfair to the members of Political Forum?

 

Calling another member a racist is a personal insult/attack which violates the Forum Rules. As former moderators we both know that and neither of us condones violations of the Forum Rules.

 

Bingo, we have a winner.

The issue is one of derailment when a member continually repeats the same demands for citations without providing rebuttal. This generally amounts to trolling which derails the thread and that is something the moderators have always dealt with. The moderators are no more capable of determining fact from opinion than anyone else and should never be in the position of being the "Truth Police" on Political Forum.

 

The previous version of the rules included this explanation:

What this meant was that any member who was being considered for a permanent ban was reviewed and discussed by the entire panel of moderators, who were able to consider the entire pattern of posting behaviour (not just posts that had been caught and infracted) and developments over recent posts to see whether they were actually making efforts to improve their compliance with the rules. Permanent band could ONLY be impose as a result of a unanimous vote by the entire panel of moderators following that review - ALL of them deciding that the member was not addressing the issues in their posting, and had no intentions of complying with the rules. This was for member protection, and to avoid any issues of some members having been reported/caught more than others.

This new system is an entirely simplistic statistical exercise depending completely on how many posts are reported/caught. It is based on flawed logic, relying as it does for fairness on an incorrect assumption that all violations are seen, and that all infractions that are issued for particular offences are equal, and does not address the overall pattern of behaviour or the full context and circumstances of issued infractions. It replaces member protection with simplistic calculations, is open to abuse by people searching and reporting particular 'opponents' to try to get their points built up, and is also open to abuse by those who would play the system by calculating exactly how many rule violations they are allowed to post before being banned (doing nothing to improve their overall compliance with the rules, or 'encourage members to follow the spirit of the forum's Mission Statement'.

In my opinion, it will do nothing to improve the forum, and will result only in some members being banned unfairly while other troublemakers escape attention because they know how to add up their points to perpetually fly just under the calculator's radar.

 

Such issues could be, and were, dealt under this former rule (my added bold to highlight the relevant passage):

Or under this former rule (again my added bold):

Depending on whether the issue was predominantly one of thread derailment or one of harassing a particular member, and without ever getting involved with whether the opinion of either 'side' was, or needed to be, more valid or 'substantiated'.

Absolutely, and thinking that they are suitable to be defining what is 'fact' and what is just 'opinion' that hasn't been sufficiently 'substantiated' to be considered as 'fact' creates a whole new level of potential political bias that the moderation here has always stayed well away from, and with very good reason. There is a reason that moderators from such diverse political viewpoints could generally work together so well as a moderation team, without ever getting into constant pitched partisan battles across 'party' lines - they (and the forum rules) stayed strictly well away from ever judging what actual opinions were valid or 'substantiated', and stuck very strictly to just deciding whether the language and form used to express opinions was in accordance with the Mission Statement. That was the way a moderation should work, and that is the only way that moderation can ever be even-handed to all members, regardless of their political opinion (which is something that this forum's Mission Statement certainly implies should be the case, and something that the former panel of moderators always strove to achieve by not getting involved in any way with acting as judges in matters of 'opinion substantiation' or 'truth').

 

I'm going to express an informed opinion for the members of Political Forum to digest.

I've personally known almost all of the former moderators on a first name basis since the founding of Political Forum including SenaxFlatulus who was the very first moderator. There is one common trait shared between all of us and that was our absolute commitment to the Mission Statement of Political Forum. We each dedicated thousands of hours of our personal time to Political Forum because of our common commitment to the Mission Statement of Political Forum.

We spent countless hours not just addressing Forum Rules violations by the members but also in addressing how we could, as a group, be consistent as a team in our actions and how we could treat all members fairly in our roles of responsibility. We spent countless hours addressing the Forum Rules, our processes related to banning of members, and the Formal Appeals process in discussions, sometimes quite heated, until all of our concerns were addressed and any differences were resolved.

We did this because of our commitment to the Mission Statement of Political Forum.

No one cared more about Political Forum than us.

Yet today we have a new set of Forum Rules that incorporate requirements for the Staff to act as the Truth Police. We have a banning process based upon a "points system" that removes moderator review and discretion from the decisions on banning members. There can be no more "extenuating circumstances" such as a member showing a significant attempt to modify their posting behavior because they'll be banned on "points" regardless of how hard they might be trying to comply with the Forum Rules today. Their past will haunt them and "one more slip-up" even if it's a rather minor violation of the Forum Rules can result in their being banned forever. The Formal Appeal Process has apparently been discontinued so while a member can "appeal" an infraction apparently a fair process for doing that no longer exists.

It is my opinion, and as I said this is an informed opinion, that the former staff members that have shown more dedication to Political Forum than anyone else can claim, would overwhelmingly REJECT these Forum Rule changes.

 

I think it's also important to note, for the information of members, that in the past had any serving moderator rejected any rule change, that rule change would not have been implemented.

 

The posts are there.

I invite anyone to read them and draw their own conclusions.