[Boston-editorial] flamewars

Mon Mar 14 15:41:19 PST 2005

I don't think we're disagreeing, Pete, at least not over anything 
major. As I repeated at the beginning of my post, I agree I overreacted 
with Sid--what he posted wasn't hate speech (just obnoxious) and I 
won't hide that sort of thing anymore. Jonathan was also raising the 
issue of whether we should hide clear hate speech, as by neo-Nazis, (at 
least that's how I read the end of his post) and that is what I was 
responding to--the sort of clear hate speech you agree should be 
hidden. I didn't expect everyone would agree with my point about the 
site being a safe space, which is why I began that particular sentence 
with the word "I". We have consensed on the editorial policy, but we 
each have different reasons for agreeing to it. We came up with 
something we could all live with for our various reasons.

-- Matt

On Mar 14, 2005, at 5:23 PM, Pete Stidman wrote:

> Matt-
>
> when we discussed this in the meeting we agreed that
> the posts in question were ambiguous- not definitively
> hate speech.  That is why I am concerned when you
> defend your action to remove it as such below.
>
> We also agreed in that meeting that we would refrain
> from reacting to posters in ways that would provoke
> flamewars.
>
> Sometimes I think it is hard for us to change our
> ways, because the consensus of the past year has
> generally leaned towards hands off with the comments
> exept in egregious cases and certain confrimed
> sabateurs.
>
> Your general gist of your post below seems to say that
> you are going to continue to be heavy handed, not
> lighter touch as you say.  I guess I also personally
> disagree with this concept of "safe space" you speak
> of.  In a forum, all things should be potentially
> discussed.  It is only when folks use racial slurs and
> definitively racist/gaybashing/other remarks that are
> designed to provoke flaming that we have decided we
> will act.
>
> That doesn't necessarily mean we will hide all racist
> thoughts or ideas,  which is exactly where we went
> wrong in this instance.
>
> Can you tell me/us where you're really at with it?
>
> -Pete
>
> --- Matthew Williams <mw21 at mindspring.com> wrote:
>
>> Well, I think we've all already agreed that Tim and
>> I overreacted to
>> Sid and Zoltar and we will hide articles with a
>> lighter touch from now
>> on.
>>
>> You're right that it's not immediately obvious how
>> our anti-hate speech
>> policy derives from our mission statement or the
>> global points of
>> unity, now that I look at them in that light. I
>> think the key word in
>> our mission statement is that we are "progressive";
>> the relevant point
>> in the points of unity is number 10, the
>> anti-discrimination part.
>>
>> We have the anti-hate speech policy for a couple of
>> reasons. The most
>> basic is that if we don't have it, neo-Nazis can
>> take over the
>> newswire. And that has happened to us, a couple
>> years ago. The other
>> reason, connected with point of unity #10, is that
>> we want to create a
>> comfortable environment for members of oppressed
>> groups. Some of them
>> may not mind the hate speech and feel fine arguing
>> back. Many others
>> might be alienated by an environment where such
>> stuff is allowed to
>> flow freely and not bother to go to a site where
>> there's a lot of it. I
>> want the website to be at least something of a "safe
>> space", where
>> people don't have to worry about that shit. Enough
>> people deal with it
>> enough in every day life that they shouldn't have to
>> deal with it on
>> our website. The tactic of arguing with
>> anti-Semites, white
>> supremacists, etc. has been tried and it doesn't
>> really make any
>> difference--they generally don't come here to engage
>> in dialogue, only
>> to harass us. This editorial policy hasn't been
>> developed so much based
>> on ideology, as on trial and error--problems come up
>> and we revise the
>> editorial policy so we can deal with them. We have
>> found that if we
>> don't hide hate speech, it just gets out of control.
>> Also, a lot of our
>> users prefer that we hide hate speech, since they
>> feel it has no place
>> on a progressive website like Boston Indy Media, and
>> I tend to agree
>> with them.
>>
>> There certainly have been occasional conservatives
>> who have come to the
>> website to engage in genuine dialogue--they are not
>> the problem. I have
>> no desire to see their posts hidden--it's the
>> trouble-makers we're
>> worried about, the ones who want to disrupt the
>> usefulness of the site
>> as a resource, for both news and discussion, to the
>> progressive
>> community.
>>
>> -- Matt
>>
>> On Mar 14, 2005, at 12:26 PM, Jonathan D. Proulx
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Not sure how useful my commentary is as I don't
>> think you know me well
>>> enough to judge where it's coming from, but here
>> it is anyway.
>>> Appologies in advance for the rant, apparently I
>> have issues around
>>> censorship :)
>>>
>>> I appreciate that editing needs to take place and
>> I can also
>>> understand where individuals were coming from in
>> there actions, so
>>> please none of this is meant as  personal
>> critiques but as comments on
>>> policy...so disclaimers aside:
>>>
>>> Zoltar on his own will come off looking like an
>> idiot, I say give him
>>> enough rope, and only point out factual errors
>> that are easy to
>>> backup.  It does my heart good that he's reading
>> this too...bet you
>>> think your clever joining a public list (oh I
>> suppose that is meant
>>> personally....oops)
>>>
>>> Sid on the other hand has the occasional point,
>> particularly in the
>>> Police Brutality article.  There seems to be an
>> "oh no you can't say
>>> anything bad about the black panthers" reaction
>> which is a bit
>>> absurd.  Even the strongest supporters of their
>> goals could have
>>> strenuous disagreements over their methods.
>>>
>>> Based on the two threads I can see that Sid is
>> antagonistic, but it
>>> seems to be a genuine disagreement and debate.
>> Perhaps this is
>>> because I haven't yet figured out how to view
>> hidden comments?
>>>
>>> I suppose I'm a little uncomfortable with the
>> underlying policy.
>>>
>>> Consider would you have hidden a post by Malcolm X
>> :
>>>
>>> "When a snake bites your children, you don't go
>> and look for the snake
>>> that has blood on it's jaws, any old snake will
>> do. Any old snake will
>>> do!"
>>>
>>> one location that has the speach
>>>
>>
> http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/malcolm-x/end-police-
>>
>>> brutality.mp3
>>>
>>> now in context the "snake" can be construed as the
>> LAPD or as white
>>> folk generally.  I've always taken it as a "The
>> White Man" and found
>>> it a rather chilling speach.
>>>
>>> I'd rather not censor this, which means in my
>> sense of fairness I
>>> could nod censor the converse (though I admit it'd
>> have a much harder
>>> time of it).
>>>
>>> The clause "...or violations of either the Boston
>> IMC's mission
>>> statement
>>> or of the Global IMC's principles of unity , such
>> as white
>>> supremacist, homophobic, sexist, etc. postings."
>> in the editorial
>>> policy is a bit dangerous (infact I don't see how
>> the ban on white
>>> supremacist,
>>> homophobic, sexist, etc. postings is derived from
>> the referenced
>>> sources).  How do we define these things?  Is it
>> really better to
>>> supress rather than debate them?
>>>
>>> If it comes down to name calling that's clear and
>> can be rulled under
>>> personal attacks, but should we pretend that ideas
>> that are offensive
>>> to us don't exist...
>>>
>>> -Jon
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Boston-editorial mailing list
>> Boston-editorial at lists.indymedia.org
>>
> http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/boston-editorial
>>
>
>
> 		
> __________________________________
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site!
> http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/
>