[Boston-editorial] flamewars

[Jonathan D. Proulx]

On Mon, Mar 14, 2005 at 06:41:19PM -0500, Matthew Williams wrote:
: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. 

In case it was clear in my first post, as far as I'm concerned the
current issue is delt with.

: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. 

Hmmm, what I was trying to bring up was the question of where speach
becomes "hate speech".  Clearly "we should kill all the <whoever>"
contains nothing but hate and has no place on the site.  The "On
Police Brutality" speech I linked to is, for me, right about at that
boundary where the rehtoric of violence balances the righteous out
rage and urge to change.

Defining that point in any meaningful way is like trying to nail jello
to the wall.  I've writen and deleted several attempts...

: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". 

I don't think a news outlet can be a safe place, reports on violence
are often triggering for survivors of violence, that doesn't mean we
don't report on war, police brutality, or sexual violence in (just
about every where).

It seems we have general agrement on the issue at hand, and have
tossed about our various ideological under pinnings...

-Jon