Freedom of Speech?

from PolMach Forums
Why can I no longer post on the discussion Another Way to Look at Taxes?

Can other people post to that thread? My last post was #37. It mentioned that Draginol should not ridicule poor mathematical skills in others and then in the very same thread make math errors himself. I checked about 15 minutes after I posted it and it was there, but no replies. That thread was deleted sometime this evening and Draginol's new #37 put up in it's stead saying that this discussion isn't focused on percentages. Furthermore, although I can post in other threads and can start this thread, I can no longer post to that particular thread.

I'm hoping that "miraculously," everything will be "fixed" in the morning.
politics
5,039 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from JoeUser Forums Top
Likely you've been blacklisted.
Reply #2 from PolMach Forums Top
Wow. That sends a cold, cold chill down my spine...

Farewell and "mission accomplished" to the censors.
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Reply #3 from JoeUser Forums Top
Inigo,
any article writer has the right to delete replies to their articles and to ban any user they want from replying. While people may get upset about this, there is nothing wrong with using this right. You can likewise use it on any article you write. I suggest you write a new article outlining your views on this subject.

Paul.
Reply #4 from PolMach Forums Top
Solitair,

You say there is nothing wrong with censorship as long as it I can censor too. There is something wrong with censoring if you censor because you don't like the idea. I understand moderating a board for offensive language or outright rudeness. But censorship because you don't like the political ideology, when the postings are to a political message board, is wrong. It is even dangerous. Paul, by you continuing to read these boards and allow them to affect your perspective, you will unknowingly be influenced. For example, let's say you read a thread that says that Bush turned water into wine. Multiple people post that it is true. Hundreds of people say it is a lie with outstanding logic and stong evidence (links, references, books, etc), but those posts are deleted. You only see the posts where it says that it is true Bush turned water into wine. Being skeptical, you don't fully believe that Bush turned water into wine, but now you have moved from firmly rejecting the theory, to wondering whether or not it is true. This is the tactic Karl Rove has perfected - attacking opponents on their strength. People start off believing Kerry has more balls than Bush because Kerry went to Viet Nam. All Rove needs to do is just get people to question whether Kerry has more guts. And when people can delete postings purely for political reasons, they can engage in Rovian tactics.

Do you still support censorship of ideas just because you don't like those ideas?
Reply #5 from JoeUser Forums Top

People who write articles have the right to decide who can participate in the subsequent discussions.

Based on your previous responses, you are what we would call a "Semantics Debater".  That is, rather than debate a particular issue, you tend to debate the meaning of specific words.  Simply put, I don't have time to waste on that kind of user and don't want them muddying my articles with discussions arguing the meanings of specific words.

For example, you hijacked one of Little_Whip's discussion to debate the meaning of "attack".  Little_Whip had written that Germany had not attacked the United States.  It was a minor point in her article and most people understood what she meant. But instead you hijacked the thread to discuss what constitutes attacking (such as the Atlantic naval engagements in the Atlantic Ocean prior to December 7 between the US Navy and German Submarines).

Similarly, you hijacked a discussion about whether welfare recipients would vote for Kerry into a semantical discussion over what exactly is welfare where you insisted that even tax cuts were welfare.  Most people know what welfare is. Hijacking her main discussion to try to argue your particular definition of welfare was rude and inconsiderate of the rights of others.

And finally, you tried to hijack a discussion on labor for the government (another way to look at taxes) into a quibbling over percentages of income (one which you were unwilling to provide any evidence to support and was irrelevant to the discussion anyway).

If you wanted to start your OWN semantical debates you were free to do that. But time and time again you demonstrated that you have no respect for the rights of the person who writes the article to discuss the issues and ideas of the article and instead try to turn it into a semantics discussion.

Semantics debaters are not very common on the Internet but they do pop up from time to time. I simply don't wish my discussions to get polluted with off-topic segways into what specific words mean. So I prevented you from participating in my articles.

Your rights end where the rights of others begin.

Reply #6 from PolMach Forums Top
Damn, Draginol, I wrote a nice little piece, on that in theory using Inigo's link that in theory because of the FDR's increased activity in the Atlantic caused us to go to war with Germany, I mean come on you stick a ship in the water a U-Boat sees it at night or even day in the waters it's patrolling, stops to say "hmm that's a U.S. ship I shouldn't attack it even though IT's in the delcared patroling zones of U-boats by Germany to the U.S....Bah, Firing Solution, Fire Tube 1, Tube 2." So in theory even using the link provided you can see the whole attack was because FDR put the target their to begin with, so FDR put us onto the road to war, we could of stayed out of the German patroled waters and avoided war with Germany (though ultimately it was the right thing to do because Hitler was a downright nutter) Japan was the only nation that attacked us outright, when we were nowhere near their patrolling zones, we put our boats in German waters and expected them to what, float safely back forth between Britain and the U.S.

Oh well, believe what you will, but logic is the key to all reasoning.
Reply #7 from JoeUser Forums Top

That's why I black list people. People think this is some sort of terrible thing but people need to ask themselves this question: Which would you rather have? The people who take the time to write insightful articles giving up on writing due to having their articles hijacked by trolls and semantics weenies or to give those people the ability to eject the trolls and semantics weenies?

I'm not a professional writer. I don't get paid to do it. So I can honestly say that if every time I wrote an article I was going to have to deal with people nit-picking the meaning of words that are commonly understood or outright trolling I just wouldn't let people respond at all.

That's what OTHER blog sites do btw.  Bloggers like Steven Den Beste actually removed his forum that he once had because he got fed up with people hijacking threads.  When we designed JoeUser, we were determined not to let those kinds of people do the same here.

Sometimes your choices are between a bad and worse solution. We have to deal with the world as it actually is, not as we wish it was.

Reply #8 from JoeUser Forums Top
There is a problem with the blacklist and delete features. There is a fine line between what the article writer feels is off topic and a valid counter arguement. Many times an article writer makes a statement as fact and then because that particular statement was not the point of the article feels right to delete or blacklist those that challenge it. This is wrong. Inaccuracies should be challenged when made and the current deleteing and blacklisting method fails to allow this. If a writer makes such a statement, then there needs to be a means for the article writer to accept that their may be some arguement over this point, while keeping the discussion on the points the writer wanted to discuss. Too often I see the article writer fail to acknowledge a legitimate point and just delete or blacklist because it's not 'on topic'

What I would like to see are some alternative options. While I totally understand and agree that an article writer needs the ability to delete articles or blacklist to keep an article on track (or remove abuse), there should be a way of doing this that acknowledges someones valid, but off topic contribution.

An obvious approach is for article writers to acknowledge the initial point, state that they understand there is disagreement, but that the point is now off topic and then delete further responses. Many don't do this though which causes much of the problems.
A second option would be to allow the article writer to convert an entire reply into a link (labelled off-topic), thus removing clutter, but leaving those that wish to read the replies free to do so.
A third option would be to allow the article writer to mark any reply as filtered off topic. Anyone looking at the article would only see the non filtered replies, but could click on the filter list to see all replies.

Either way I think that it is important that readeers be aware when an article has been censored. People should know if replies have been deleted or a user blacklisted. Then they can at least make up their mind as to whether everyone agrees with a response or not.

Finally I believe that any article featured on the front page should acknowledge dissent. To have articles on the front page with dissenting views deleted changes the bias, ethos and direction of the entire site.

Paul.