A General Feedback thread

Monty Burnz

Jelle1880 wrote: »

Imo the word 'scum' is about right.
'Subhuman' however is something else, that makes it sound like supremacy.

Unfortunately we are not allowed use the term 'scum', regardless of whether it is appropriate or not.

I think 'knave' or 'varlet' are probably the best alternatives proposed yet, as I doubt they have appeared in a tabloid for at least 200 years.

So - what's the best approach to tackle these knaves? If the police resort to more heavy-handed tactics, the varlets might raise the stakes themselves. This is why I don't understand the reluctance to use water cannons - they won't seriously hurt the knaves, but it's a strong deterrent against large gatherings of varlets.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

FreudianSlippers

Scofflaw wrote: »

But what's the point of calling them "scumbags"? Does it somehow prove your point when the other people argue that these people are "protesters"? Hardly, so what does it add? Well, it annoys those who do think the rioters have some excuse, and it establishes you as a right-thinking member of the "call in the Army and shoot them all" brigade, which encourages mindless chants of support from others without two brain cells to rub together.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Actually, what happened was that someone was saying they supported the "protesters" and their fight against the police and objected to them being called scumbags stating that they were acting appropriately for the situation.
He was arguing with other posters calling them "scumbags"... all I did was gave an example of pretty foul behaviour and said that it was the behaviour of "scum".

I'm perfectly capable of rallying support with whatever words I choose, but lets call a spade a spade.

Dr Galen

Just another thing, unrelated to the scumbag debate, that I'd love to see clamped down upon.

It seems to me that pretty much every thread these days, a poster somewhere brings in the whole "the country is broke" line.

For example:

Thread about Palestine/Israel/Middle East

Sure, the country is broke, we're bankrupt. We don't have the time or the money to be worrying about them over there

Thread about the US Political Situation

Sure, the country is broke, we're bankrupt. We don't have the time or the money to be worrying about them over there

Thread about the Presidential Election Candidates

Sure, the country is broke, we're bankrupt. We don't have the time or the money to be worrying about them over there

Thread about David Cameron's tie

Sure, the country is broke, we're bankrupt. We don't have the time or the money to be worrying about them over there

Obviously I'm going a little over the top to illustrate a point here, but tbh I'm bloody sick of that. We all know that the economic situation is pretty grim. We've had countless threads on it, we'll have countless more. It doesn't need to be brought into every other thread as well.

FreudianSlippers

Dr Galen wrote: »

Just another thing, unrelated to the scumbag debate, that I'd love to see clamped down upon.

It seems to me that pretty much every thread these days, a poster somewhere brings in the whole "the country is broke" line.

For example:

Thread about Palestine/Israel/Middle East



Thread about the US Political Situation



Thread about the Presidential Election Candidates



Thread about David Cameron's tie



Obviously I'm going a little over the top to illustrate a point here, but tbh I'm bloody sick of that. We all know that the economic situation is pretty grim. We've had countless threads on it, we'll have countless more. It doesn't need to be brought into every other thread as well.

I used to post in this forum a lot, but in the past 6-10 months I've had to stay away because the place gives me a headache from this type of carry on!

Monty Burnz

OhNoYouDidn't wrote: »

The Mods point is that if all you have to contribute is to call someone scum, whether you believe it justified or not, you really have nothing to contribute.

That wasn't 'all I was contributing' - I was making an observation about the idiocy of their actions. Here's the post:

The galling thing is that these [knaves] will be collecting their dole money from the taxpayers whose communities they are destroying, and turning up as customers in the businesses they [reorganised*].

*(I've decided that 'looting' is also a bit too 'tabloid')

FreudianSlippers

OhNoYouDidn't wrote: »

The Mods point is that if all you have to contribute is to call someone scum, whether you believe it justified or not, you really have nothing to contribute.

Yes, I wholeheartedly agree with that as a general rule also.

What I disagree with is where one side states these are legitimate protesters and the other states that they're just out to cause damage and destruction for fun, isn't it valid to point out the mountains of evidence of making people strip naked, robbing old women, burning out businesses, etc. and stating that those are not examples of concerned protesters, but rather a more "s" element of society?

Laminations

nesf wrote: »

I'd agree with you if I thought that saying that a group should be baton charged added anything useful to the debate.

Of course it adds to debate. It is a course of action, you can retort with your suggested police response or say why you think these 'insert gentrified descriptor label here' don't deserve to be baton charged.

Lockstep

The Scumbag argument is probably better suited to the Discussion On the Rules thread rather than here.

FreudianSlippers

Lockstep wrote: »

The Scumbag argument is probably better suited to the Discussion On the Rules thread rather than here.

Mods can move posts to the correct thread to continue the discussion perhaps?

Scofflaw

Laminations wrote: »

Those words of course have meaning and are used to describe people's 'feelings'. Using more acceptable words is simply a cognitive clean up of an emotional issue, and therefore it weakens the sentiment. Looters and rioters lack any emotional judgements. It sanitises people's views and lessens the expressions of shock and the condemnations. Words can be powerful. By gentrifying our lexicon in these circumstances you limit our response.

Tut tut, I wholeheartedly condemn those lawless youths. Those words can be expressed more strongly and succinctly with one word - it just so happens to be the s word

You appear to be arguing that the only alternative to calling the rioters "scum" etc is to be completely milquetoast about it. Frankly, that's rubbish.

If all people want to do is call people scum, they're not contributing to the debate. If they have something to contribute to the debate, the word scum is redundant.

regards,
Scofflaw

Laminations

OhNoYouDidn't wrote: »

The Mods point is that if all you have to contribute is to call someone scum, whether you believe it justified or not, you really have nothing to contribute.

If that was all you had to add then yes I'd be opposed to that, as I am with most one word responses. If the s word is used within a longer comment and it fits the circumstance then I see little point in infracting the poster for their contribution

Colonialboy

OhNoYouDidn't wrote: »

The Mods point is that if all you have to contribute is to call someone scum, whether you believe it justified or not, you really have nothing to contribute.

isnt this type of attitude part of the problem that got the UK into this situation.

Scofflaw

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

Yes, I wholeheartedly agree with that as a general rule also.

What I disagree with is where one side states these are legitimate protesters and the other states that they're just out to cause damage and destruction for fun, isn't it valid to point out the mountains of evidence of making people strip naked, robbing old women, burning out businesses, etc. and stating that those are not examples of concerned protesters, but rather a more "s" element of society?

And you are, as you said yourself, quite capable of rallying support for your point of view there with whatever words you choose. The examples you gave demonstrated the point you were trying to make, and would have worked perfectly well if you'd said "protesters? suuure.".

cordially,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw

Laminations wrote: »

If that was all you had to add then yes I'd be opposed to that, as I am with most one word responses. If the s word is used within a longer comment and it fits the circumstance then I see little point in infracting the poster for their contribution

There are posts on that thread that use a hundred-odd words to say nothing more than the one-word response would have said.

cordially,
Scofflaw

FreudianSlippers

Scofflaw wrote: »

And you are, as you said yourself, quite capable of rallying support for your point of view there with whatever words you choose. The examples you gave demonstrated the point you were trying to make, and would have worked perfectly well if you'd said "protesters? suuure.".

cordially,
Scofflaw

Edit: I see what you're saying. You're right and had I remembered the "scum" rule I wouldn't have said it... it doesn't mean it's not a stupid rule! We have moderators to exercise discretion, not just hand out warnings (or in my case an infraction) - sure Black Swan probably set a record for warnings in an hour last night. Wouldn't the better solution been to have controlled the conversation and warned the posts which were non-contributing rather than just carding every time a word is used?

There is a difference between

scumbags

and

_____ behaviour is more akin to scumbaggery than protesting

as a contribution IMO.

nesf

Laminations wrote: »

Of course it adds to debate. It is a course of action, you can retort with your suggested police response or say why you think these 'insert gentrified descriptor label here' don't deserve to be baton charged.

Depends, the argument should be "is a baton charge reasonable here" not "I think they should be baton charged" imho.

Monty Burnz

Scofflaw wrote: »

If all people want to do is call people scum, they're not contributing to the debate. If they have something to contribute to the debate, the word scum is redundant.

Arrant nonsense. You can say that the scum are doing X because of Y, or the scum are scum because of X and Y.

I don't see any posts on this forum say 'These guys are scum, fullstop'.

'Protester' or 'demonstrator' are clearly ludicrous phrases to use here. There are no demonstrations or protests.

Scofflaw

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

Actually, if you look at the thread again, what I actually said was along the lines of [example of pretty poor behaviour] "this is the behaviour of scumbags, not protesters"

Or something along those lines.

And it would have worked perfectly well as "this is the behaviour of criminal rioters, not protesters".

Monty Burnz wrote:

Arrant nonsense. You can say that the scum are doing X because of Y, or the scum are scum because of X and Y.

I don't see any posts on this forum say 'These guys are scum, fullstop'.

'Protester' or 'demonstrator' are clearly ludicrous phrases to use here. There are no demonstrations or protests.

Monty, this isn't the Beeb. Nobody has asked you not to use "rioters", or to call them "protesters". So stop objecting to something that isn't happening here, because it's a waste of time.

moderately,
Scofflaw

FreudianSlippers

nesf wrote: »

Depends, the argument should be "is a baton charge reasonable here" not "I think they should be baton charged" imho.

... and the moderator's job is to distinguish between those two posts, not just ban mentioning baton charges, is it not?

Laminations

Scofflaw wrote: »

You appear to be arguing that the only alternative to calling the rioters "scum" etc is to be completely milquetoast about it. Frankly, that's rubbish.

If all people want to do is call people scum, they're not contributing to the debate. If they have something to contribute to the debate, the word scum is redundant.

regards,
Scofflaw

If it's all people want to do then I agree. But it's usually their description of the offenders within a longer comment.

http://news.discovery.com/human/f-bomb-swear-curse-words-biden.html
http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/62/1/dewaeleJMMD25.pdf

You can continue to argue against the fact they are strong expressive words, that cant easily be supplanted by more cerebral hifalutin phraseology

nesf

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

... and the moderator's job is to distinguish between those two posts, not just ban mentioning baton charges, is it not?

Mentioning baton charges isn't banned. Not by me anyway.

FreudianSlippers

nesf wrote: »

Mentioning baton charges isn't banned. Not by me anyway.

I was comparing to the "scumbags" logic.

Laminations

Scofflaw wrote: »

And it would have worked perfectly well as "this is the behaviour of criminal rioters, not protesters".
[/B]

Sorry but you are wrong. It wouldn't have worked perfectly well. It's a psychological fact that emotive language has greater impact and expressive sentiment than other cleaner descriptions.

Please provide a source to support them having comparable impact and effect

nesf

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

I was comparing to the "scumbags" logic.

Ah, yeah.

It's not that the mods can't distinguish between the two but that some posters see it being used in context A, don't get it's the context that makes it ok and go off and use it in context B where it's not welcome.

Monty Burnz

Scofflaw wrote: »

Monty, this isn't the Beeb. Nobody has asked you not to use "rioters", or to call them "protesters". So stop objecting to something that isn't happening here, because it's a waste of time.

But 'rioters' per se aren't always in the wrong, and lots of the scumbags in the UK may not be rioting. And presumably the rioters stop being rioters when they go home, or when they queue up to collect their dole. These are not equivalent terms.

Laminations

nesf wrote: »

Depends, the argument should be "is a baton charge reasonable here" not "I think they should be baton charged" imho.

Sorry I wasn't aware contributions needed to be in the form of a question. I was proferring an opinion that I think it's reasonable, if you disagree then feel free to retort. Your point that my opinion on baton charges adds nothing to the debate is shallow, my point invites debate

FreudianSlippers

nesf wrote: »

Ah, yeah.

It's not that the mods can't distinguish between the two but that some posters see it being used in context A, don't get it's the context that makes it ok and go off and use it in context B where it's not welcome.

Right, and isn't it the moderator's job to then punish context B?
Outright banning of a word or phrase does absolutely nothing to solve the problem here. You can see that in the London Riot thread at the moment. Use a different word with the same meaning... then you have to backtrack and say that "oh if it's used with the same intent then it's also banned".

It would seem to be moderation 101. Being naughty right? Dropping in with one word posts or with the intention of trolling is against the rules already.
Just saying "scumbag" or attempting to rile up other posters with inflammatory posts can and should be dealt with by the moderators; and if the moderators cannot keep up with the amount of work then they should be replaced or more should be added.

Monty Burnz

nesf wrote: »

Ah, yeah.

It's not that the mods can't distinguish between the two but that some posters see it being used in context A, don't get it's the context that makes it ok and go off and use it in context B where it's not welcome.

So we have a choice of unwelcome posts using terms in a context that brings down the tone of the establishment, or unwelcome censorship?

FreudianSlippers

Scofflaw wrote: »

And it would have worked perfectly well as "this is the behaviour of criminal rioters, not protesters".

I re-read your post and edited mine, probably while you were posting this.