Double Standards?

Red Hand

Hi all!:)

I'm not a regular contributor to boards in terms of posting material, but I do take an interest in the site, and often find myself looking at a thread without actually logging, as I am working on the computor as I'm sure many do.

This evening, I was looking at a few personal issues threads, and saw one particular contribution that seemed a little suspect in terms of boards and liable (and just basic politeness). Now, I understand that PI forum is heavily moderated and that the mods are not Gods and cannot be everywhere at once but this particular post smacked of more than just a little nastiness and bullying, which are in direct violation of the forum rules.

I'm all for giving my opinion, but if someone suggested that I had an ambiguous attitude towards rape (without providing evidence), I would be, at the very least, irate. Now, the person who wrote this piece of, what I can only describe as bile, was an Smod, and a regular contributor (with advice that I would normally think is sound) to PI. He seems to have taken a particularly virulent view of a poster in this thread in my opinion. Which is all well and good (after all its his opinion, right?), only that the rape comment seemed very much over the top.

Would that be tolerated if, say, an ordinary member of boards said such a thing in PI, and not an SMod? If I suggested that person X generally implied that women asked to be raped, or in so many words as this Mod did? I think the PI mods would ban me if I said it, for it would certainly count as a personal attack, if not border on liable. The PI mods keep quite a tight lid on personal attacks as far as I have seen, and personal abuse will not tolerated is a theme that is reinforced again and again.

In case you might want to look at the thread in question, it is the 3th or 4th page Relationship Advice thread (I think thats the name of it). Sorry, I cannot post a link to it.

Again, if I had posted this on PI, I would be banned. Is there one rule for Smods and another for ordinary trollers/bullies?

Thanks for reading!

Pappa-eat-peach

Linkeh, please?

OP, I'm a bit confuzzled and think u must be exaggerating, or just blowing a little wind out your bottom, frankly.

Their SMods, ffs! They didn't get to be SMods by making stupid statements about boardsies endorsing rape on PI of all places!!:rolleyes:

Like, what exactly did he say, this SMod?

the_syco

As already siad, link? Also, did you report their post? I'm guessing you didn't. Well, thats what the "report this post" button is for.

Nevyn

http://pie.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=52809587&postcount=12

Is the post where blue lagon blamed the rape victum by saying they would have known better and if they had kept better company not have been raped.

I have read the threads and certaintly Talliesin did get hot headed and will be
taking a break from the Pi forum for a while.

Talliesin wrote:

I've reached my saturation. Time to ban myself from PI for a day or two again.

But I certainly agree that in many thread blue_lagon's posts have been trite and esp in the case of being in a relationship with a bisexual partmer thread mudding the waters by posting about things they certainly don't have a good grasp of.

Nevyn

The post was reported already.
I would assume due to the timing this is one of blue_lagon's friends as mentioned in the lenghty reported post
adding thier 2 cent.

cast_iron

Any chance of a link to the thread so we don't have to go hunting?

ecksor

I eventually found the thread. I don't know why you can't just link to it. Talliesin doesn't seem to have provided the example you asked for but it's safe to say that the example in question would be on another thread if still visible. I'm a bit confused as to why this thread was started without waiting to see the example in question unless you're familiar with the circumstances?

hullaballoo

Jeremiah 16:1 wrote:

This evening, I was looking at a few personal issues threads, and saw one particular contribution that seemed a little suspect in terms of boards and liable (and just basic politeness).

Aside from the rest of your point that will be dealt with by those who feel the need to deal with it, I will deal specifically with this point.

I have twice this evening seen people refer to what Talliesin said as "liable". Now, I can only assume that "libel" is the offence to which you refer. If that is the case, I would strongly suggest to both you and anyone else apt to bandy this term around that you go and read a book or two on the subject.

Therein you will find that accusing someone of libelling you is equally as actionable in court as a statement that may be determinable as libel.

That means that if you're going to accuse someone of committing an indictable (albeit civil) offence, you'd better be prepared to defend that claim where it counts.

I'm sick and tired of people complaining on this site about having been libelled whenever user X asserts an opinion on their behaviour. Both the admins and myself have previously issued site bans on this before.

Neither Boards.ie, nor its users will be threatened with legal action. Especially not where threats are ill-founded and misconceived.

Red Hand

Thaedydal wrote:

The post was reported already.
I would assume due to the timing this is one of blue_lagon's friends as mentioned in the lenghty reported post
adding thier 2 cent.

Yes, I am a friend.

And, in that link, I don't think she blames the rape victim-its more a suggestion to being more aware of one's surroundings and the company one keeps. Quite an important rule in self-defense, as I understand.

ecksor

It's judgemental crap.

Nevyn

oh so you don't think so, so it all grand.

Blue_lagoons posts in the thread about relationships were either ignorant or bisexualphobic and Talliesin took offense and even after trying to explain she still persisted posting about a topic she appears to know little off and derailed the thread with the arguements.

Upon reflection those post were not helpful but at the time I let them stand as to answer them and make corrections to the appaling assumption in them.

Upon futher reflection perhaps I should have banned blue_lagoon for them,
this may still happen after I consult with the other PI mods.

Hulla wrote:

Neither Boards.ie, nor its users will be threatened with legal action. Especially not where threats are ill-founded and misconceived.

Isn't threatening to sue or take legal action against boards a site bannible offense ?

Beruthiel

Jeremiah 16:1 wrote:

I don't think she blames the rape victim-its more a suggestion to being more aware of one's surroundings and the company one keeps. Quite an important rule in self-defense, as I understand.

Ya, because every rape victim puts themselves in that situation on purpose and have only themselves to blame for it, right?
That's exactly how the comment comes across to me.

As for the comment made in the bisexual thread, again, commenting on something she clearly has no clue about.

Thaed wrote:

Isn't threatening to sue or take legal action against boards a site bannible offense ?

Yes, someone who threaded legal action before got site banned, rightly so as Boards cannot take any chances with regards to this and I recommend that it's done again in this case.
I'll leave it to an Admin to take the decision on that one though and I suggest that both Blue L and Talliesin take a little rest from PI until us PI mods come to a decision and the Admins say their piece.

Talliesin

Thaedydal wrote:

Isn't threatening to sue or take legal action against boards a site bannible offense ?

Oh, if it had been anyone else mentioned I would have sitebanned her for that. As it is the conflict of interest is clear, so it wouldn't be appropriate for me to act on that.

I was generally pretty good at ignoring her posts. I did see the unbelievably callous one in the rape thread and was glad I did because that meant someone addressed it and tried to help the OP not take such comments on board and make the self-disgust and self-blame she'd already mentioned suffering worse. When someone is in the height of that it's not time for an objective analysis of their personal security procedures (not that the advice given there was much good in that regard either). To tell someone who is expressing self-disgust and self-blame something like that is unbelievable.

There are actually real people behind the posts in PI sometimes. It's one thing to read it as entertainment, another to post without thinking about the fact that someone else will read it.

All the more culpable to express it in such a twee throwaway fashion. If I'm disagreeing with an OP on PI I'll be clear that I'm disagreeing with them, and they can take that disagreement on board or not - some will just think I'm an asshole, some will weigh up my opinion and then reject it, and sometimes when I think "man, I expressed that a bit harshly even for me" I'll get a PM from them thanking me. The only reason I can think of for sliding in a comment blaming someone suffering from self-blame is perhaps if I knew them, really hated them, and hoped I could help push them towards suicide.

Really. I'm pretty expressive at times, but I can't find words to describe someone who would post contemptible bile like that.

Now, that doesn't mean that I was right to refer to that when addressing her biphobic rambling in another thread. Still, I addressed the posts and not the poster, even if the aside was off-topic.

Still, most of the posts from this person are just drivel. You could replace them with quotes from a thought-for-the-day calendar and nobody would notice (well, if the calendar had "join a soc" once a month). The two offensive posts damaged my mental ability to just filter them out.

Instead though, I've just added her to my ignore list (I don't like ignore-listing people since I should be able to see any posts that might need to be dealt with at S-Mod level, but at this stage a bias would be believed if I did so, so someone else can deal with it if that happens).

Zombrex

Jeremiah 16:1 wrote:

And, in that link, I don't think she blames the rape victim-its more a suggestion to being more aware of one's surroundings and the company one keeps. Quite an important rule in self-defense, as I understand.

Yes but the post implies that she wasn't being aware of her surroundings and the company she was keeping.

I imagine what was being objected to was the underlying assumption that this girl should have anticipated this and taken action to prevent it, because her boyfriend does drugs, as if everyone who does drugs ends up raping people.

The_Minister

I haven't read the bisexual comment yet, but about the rape one:
I don't think that she meant it the way you all seem to be taking it. Taken on its own, it is a horrible thing to say to someone who has been raped, but I think that you have to look at it in context. The OP was raped while consuming drugs, by a "lad that is into hard drugs or heavy drinking."(edited for grammer). I think that, while her response was absolutely useless, she was saying that the OP should be careful to never put herself in that kind of situation again, to learn and move on. I don't think that she was implying that it was the OPs fault.

Still, siteban for legal threat anyway.

r3nu4l

Jeremiah 16:1 wrote:

And, in that link, I don't think she blames the rape victim-its more a suggestion to being more aware of one's surroundings and the company one keeps. Quite an important rule in self-defense, as I understand.

I saw the post on the day it was made and I read it as blaming the girl for being raped because she hangs around with people who do drugs and get drunk.

Whatever way it was meant by Blue_Lagoon, that's how I interpreted it and I thought it was a despicable comment as a result of my interpretation. Why couldn't she have said, "try to be more aware of your surroundings to avoid potential trouble"? That would have been the way to put it.

When I was at University I hung around with people who smoked hash on occassion and I was drunk plenty of times as are hundreds of thousands of people every weekend! To suggest that the girl avoids drunk people was stupid, naive and childish in the extreme, ignorant at best!

I didn't see the other threads about bisexuals but if they were anything like that post about the rape then I would have a hard time restraining myself tbh. I'm not defending the SMod (Talliesin) in question in any way, I'm just saying that if you're going to post crap then you deserve crap in return. We all get hot-headed and make stupid posts, mods (me anyway) included and get stick for doing so.

It's difficult to physically ban an SMod from a specific forum due to site-wide privileges but Smods can voluntarily step away from posting in certain fora if asked to.

Beruthiel

Update.

Talliesin has been asked to not post in PI for one week of his own accord (I cannot ban him)

Blue L will be site banned for one month for threatening legal action.
Boards has enough legal crap to deal with, we don't need more and threatening legal action on this site is a sitebanning offence.

This issue is now closed.

Anti

*edit*

Never mind loike.

Vexorg

Closed.