Dawkins sounds off. Lots of atheists upset.

Dades · 09-08-2012 04:19PM

UDP wrote: »

Correcting someone's grammer or spelling is just being a dick but it is not a personal attack all the same.

In my experience here, grammar or formatting of posts is only ever attacked when it becomes clear the content is sub-standard or incapable of being interpreted in the manner in which it's presented.

We've had several cases here over the years of users whose posting manner was so annoying it couldn't not be addressed.

MagicMarker · 09-08-2012 04:23PM

UDP wrote: »

I think it is fine to attack someone's belief. Correcting someone's grammer or spelling is just being a dick but it is not a personal attack all the same.

As long as someone is not attacking another person directly e.g. "you are stupid" then I don't see an issue.

Grammar. :pac:

Northclare · 09-08-2012 04:25PM

Well that's true I learned my lesson by being told off for my behavior and getting banned in the process lol

robindch · 09-08-2012 04:27PM

^^^ Magic, that's the spirit

Northclare · 09-08-2012 04:28PM

Magicmarker was my no 1 teacher on this forum the amount of times she put a stroke through my posts was awful,then to top it all off I had a crush on her.

She still doesn't recognise me :'(

Zombrex · 09-08-2012 04:34PM

Dades wrote: »

LOL - I thought the exact same thing as soon as I saw your post!
I refer of course to 'established' blogs (or those that consider themselves to be...)

I promise not to shun yours unless it gets too big for it's boots.

My last blog had a total of 5 comments after a year, so fingers crossed :P

decimatio · 09-08-2012 04:41PM

Michael Nugent wrote: »

Would you apply the same criteria to discussions about tackling racism or homophobia?

Absolutely because I believe that's the only way to wipe racism and homophobia out. I honestly don't care what ethnicity someone is, or what sexual orientation they are, or what gender they are. I treat everyone as fellow human beings and I strongly believe that everyone should do the same.

Michael Nugent · 09-08-2012 04:52PM

decimatio wrote: »

I honestly don't care what ethnicity someone is, or what sexual orientation they are, or what gender they are. I treat everyone as fellow human beings and I strongly believe that everyone should do the same.

I agree with all of that, but there is an additional issue. While we both believe that everyone should do the same, the reality is that everyone does not do the same, and that that some of this is caused by prejudices that people are not consciously aware of. So women, gay people, and people of different ethnicities face specific discriminations that have to be addressed as specific discriminations in order to bring about the outcome that we both want.

oldrnwisr · 09-08-2012 05:13PM

Michael Nugent wrote: »

I believe that we should design positive policies to make the atheist and skeptical communities as inclusive, caring and supportive as possible for people of all races, genders, sexualities and abilities. This will include policies on how to help people to feel safe and enjoy themselves at our activities.

I think that the sentiment above is a laudable one and I fully support it, however there is a problem here which I think you accidentally walked into the middle of in your Skepchick article:

Skepchick wrote:

We should not tolerate, in any of our online or offline communities, any sexualharassment or abuse or threats of violence against women that we would nottolerate if they were directed against our family or close friends.

There is an attempt to conflate online and offline abuse which is wrong. There is a demonstrable problem with abuse on the internet and I don't see that sexism, while needing to be tackled, is alone in this. There are problems with racism, homophobia etc. which all need to be tackled. The problem is the abuse, not who it's happening to or why it's happening. There is also an ongoing feedback thread dealing specifically with the Boards response to this issue.

The problem though is that since this whole Elevatorgate problem got kicked into high gear with the TAM controversy a claim has been forwarded by certain members of the skeptic community whereby any attempt to challenge the claim has been met, as Zombrex found out, with relentless abuse. Any amount of evidence of internet abuse is not sufficient to demonstrate any kind of real world problem. The internet affords people a measure of anonymity and safety from reprisal that makes any attempt to link internet abuse to real-life harassment utterly fallacious.

While Michael has provided links sufficient to demonstrate that online abuse is a problem which requires tackling, I have yet to see similar evidence for a RL problem at conferences, meetings etc. apart from a few scattered anecdotes. It's not just that anecdotal evidence is insufficient it's that the level of anecdotal evidence itself is insufficient.

If we're going to make real progress in tackling problems like this then we need to ensure that we find out the causal factor in whatever harassment there may be. Then we can bring in policies which will actually help towards eliminating the causes of abuse rather than just treating the symptoms. For example, if we find that there are a significant amount of drunken abuse incidents then maybe a restriction on alcohol may be required. On the other hand, it may be more productive to institute an over 21 age policy. However, tackling the problem in the way that the Skepchick/Pharyngula camp have done is not really helpful and it's not that nice either.

In summary, there is a problem with personal abuse on the internet. However, as Zombrex and others pointed out, the solution is rather simple. Basic ground rules like "Don't be a dick" and "Attack the post, not the poster" as well as level-headed moderation result in online communities which are safe, inclusive and downright enjoyable. There is however, a stepping stone argument being made by certain members of the skeptic community which is fallacious and insufficiently supported by evidence*.

*If, like Zombrex, someone can link to evidence to support a real-life problem I would be grateful.

Nodin · 09-08-2012 05:19PM

What he said.

It has, however, brought into stark contrast the fact that even a community dedicated to skepticism and rationality suffers from many of the same failings that have plagued human discourse over the millenia. In a way, its actually funny.

Zombrex · 09-08-2012 06:10PM

Michael Nugent wrote: »

I agree with all of that, but there is an additional issue. While we both believe that everyone should do the same, the reality is that everyone does not do the same, and that that some of this is caused by prejudices that people are not consciously aware of. So women, gay people, and people of different ethnicities face specific discriminations that have to be addressed as specific discriminations in order to bring about the outcome that we both want.

I can still see how it would be viewed as rather patronising by many women (as I think "T-Shirt-gate" demonstrates).

Internet trollage has been around on the Internet since it was first made open to universities. My very first online game of Quake back in college someone said they were going to cut out my eyes and skull-f**k me. Charming

Threats of violence by trolls have been being made against men, and a lot of women, for decades. The idea that this has suddenly got super serious because the threats are increasingly made against women and include sexual violence in among the previous common types of violence, is again a little patronising, both to men and women.

Women are essentially being told When this happens to you you are going to be more upset, more hurt, more scared and more harassed than when it happened to someone else, because of this we need to do something special about this to protect you specifically.

To paraphrase Southpark, if you are going to make a violent threat against another Internet user you better make damn sure he is a straight man. Jim DeMint's comments at the end are good two, how can a persons race or gender inform on the severity of the crime committed against them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLotehGgbiE

Channel Zero · 09-08-2012 06:25PM

Curiosity got the better and decided to have a read of that blog to see what the fuss was all about.

I tip my hat to you Zombrex for raising some good points in a calm manner. Your intentions were sincere, of that i have no doubt.

In saying that, imo your first post on that blog showed a measure of insensitivity to the problem, and the criticisms directed towards you had some merit.
Michael sort of hit the nail on the head with his contribution about three quarter ways down the page.

Michael Nugent · 09-08-2012 06:28PM

oldrnwisr wrote: »

I think that the sentiment above is a laudable one and I fully support it, however there is a problem here which I think you accidentally walked into the middle of in your Skepchick article:

Michael's article wrote:

We should not tolerate, in any of our online or offline communities, any sexual harassment or abuse or threats of violence against women that we would not tolerate if they were directed against our family or close friends.

There is an attempt to conflate online and offline abuse which is wrong...

That was the opening sentence of my Skepchick article. I intended it as an uncontroversial starting point to contextualize the points that I was going to make.

Online and offline harassment are related, in that the consequences of online harassment are not confined to the online world, but also leak into real life.

However, I should have started the second sentence...

Michael's article wrote:

On the Internet, many women face a pattern of online sexual harassment, including rape threats, in the technology, business, entertainment, atheist,
skeptical, pop culture, gaming and many other online communities.

...with “As one example of this...” to avoid the appearance of conflating (a) online harassment and abuse that has real-life consequences with (b) harassment and abuse that happens only in real life.

But the article itself doesn’t conflate these two issues. I suspect that some people may be reading the article through the filter of their opinions about the ‘elevatorgate’ controversy, and assuming that the article is making points about issues that it does not address.

I’ll be writing later about the extent of sexism and harassment within the real-life atheist and skeptical communities. I wasn’t doing that in this particular article. But whatever the extent of the problem, we should deal with it as a problem.

Zombrex · 09-08-2012 06:49PM

Channel Zero wrote: »

Curiosity got the better and decided to have a read of that blog to see what the fuss was all about.

I tip my hat to you Zombrex for raising some good points in a calm manner. Your intentions were sincere, of that i have no doubt.

In saying that, imo your first post on that blog showed a measure of insensitivity to the problem, and the criticisms directed towards you had some merit.
Michael sort of hit the nail on the head with his contribution about three quarter ways down the page.

I agree with you, and I apologised to Ophelia and Michael.

So, er, take that! :P

Sarky · 09-08-2012 07:00PM

So can we make "f*ck off troll" a thing, or is it too soon?

Zombrex · 09-08-2012 07:08PM

Michael Nugent wrote: »

we should deal with it as a problem.

I think one of the biggest question marks I have over the who issue is what people are proposing for this.

I think it would be great if we could deal with internet harassment, not just for women but for everyone. I don't think men should have to face threats of violence online any more than women do (I appreciate you agree).

But again trolls have been doing this for decades. The whole thing reminds me a bit of pornography on the internet. Everyone once and a while some anti-pornography group or child-protection group, or social conservative group suddenly discovers the Internet exists. And OMG there is sheds full of pornography on it. Something must be done! Quick, we need government intervention, we need child filters, we need ISPs blocking sites, won't someone please think of the children.

And every time this happens the same two points are made 1) none of that will work and 2) pornography has been on the Internet for decades before you found out about it, and the world hasn't destroyed itself.

You do get the impression some what that a host of new female bloggers who may not have been using the Internet all that long, and who may have been writing for magazines or news letters if they came of age 10 years ago, have started using the Internet and OMG there is sheds full of trolls on it. Something must be done!

There seems to be this some what naive assumption in some circles that Internet trolling either didn't really exist until prominent female bloggers started to appear, or if it did the male dominated Internet were just sitting back not really doing all they could because its not really the same thing when a male troll threatens to another male that he is going to burn his house down and rape him to death.

Or to put it another way, its not like people weren't trying to get rid of trolls for the last 25 years. It is that it is very very hard, and probably impossible, to do so.

So I would love to hear how people think this can actually be achieved. The Skepchick solution seems to be "Well, we will shout abuse at them until they go away". Now that does certainly make them look like they discovered the Internet 2 years ago.

Others have suggested that we need to combat this when we discover it in our community. While I'm sure some of it is coming from people who are genuinely in the sceptical community, I would imagine the vast majority of it is not and thus these people our out of our reach to save.

So what do people think can be genuinely done about this (that is a some what open question not necessarily directed specifically to you Michael)?

oldrnwisr · 09-08-2012 07:12PM

Michael Nugent wrote: »

And the two issues are related. If you read the research that I cited, one of the significant points about online harassment and abuse is that its consequences are not confined to the online world, but also leak into real life.

However, I should have started the second sentence...

...with “As one example of this...” to avoid the appearance of conflating (a) online harassment and abuse that has real-life consequences with (b) harassment and abuse that happens only in real life.

But the article itself doesn’t conflate these two issues. I suspect that some people may be reading the article through the filter of their opinions about the ‘elevatorgate’ controversy, and assuming that the article is making points about issues that it does not address.

I’ll be writing later about the extent of sexism and harassment within the real-life atheist and skeptical communities. I wasn’t doing that in this particular article. But whatever the extent of the problem, we should deal with it as a problem.

I think the important part of my previous post as far as this debate in concerned is "accidentally walked into the middle of."

I understand what you're saying about the real-life effects of cyber abuse. As you put it in your article:

"This can cause women to feel hurt and frightened, to hide their female
identity online, or to retreat altogether from the Internet. And this can
in turn affect other aspects of their lives."

I totally agree. Unchecked abuse in the form and quantity it takes in places like YouTube and Reddit can lead to women feeling unwelcome online and withdrawing from online activity including social networking. This can in turn lead to women staying away from real life social events like meetups and conferences because of the reception they get online.

However as I touched on in my post, this is not what kicked this issue off. Forgetting elevatorgate for a second, the real escalation in this debate came in a spat between DJ Grothe and Rebecca Watson over the anti-harassment policy at TAM. Watson stated:

"“I thought it was a safe space,” Watson said of the freethought community. “The biggest lesson I have learned over the years is that it is not a safe space and we have a lot of growing to do. The good news is there are a lot of people within the community who are interested in making it better and getting rid of our prejudices.”

Watson is clearly making the claim here that there is a serious problem at conferences like TAM with gender based harassment. Watson got called out on it by people like Paula Kirby, Thunderf00t and others. Then the battle lines were drawn and the whole thing blew up into a major clusterf*ck. There have been people on both sides of the issue making claims about whether TAM and atheist/skeptic conferences are safe places in general. The thing that seems to be missing however, is evidence, which as Zombrex pointed out in his opening comment, is kinda funny considering we're talking about a skeptic community.

In summary, I accept that there are real world consequences to online harassment and as I stated earlier that is why we need to advance Boards.ie and indeed the AI forum as examples of safe online communities. However, the claims being made of women actually being harassed at conferences and meetups don't seem to be backed up by any substantive evidence. If there is evidence I will happily change my mind, I try and tend to consider the evidence more than my own opinions or bias.

I applaud your article, Michael, really I do. It just seems to have been used deceptively by Skepchick to support a claim which otherwise seems to have little evidence.

Channel Zero · 09-08-2012 07:21PM

Sarky wrote: »

So can we make "f*ck off troll" a thing, or is it too soon?

If that was a comment on my view, i hope you understand that wasn't what was meant.

Sarky · 09-08-2012 07:23PM

It wasn't related to anyone's view, no.

strobe · 09-08-2012 08:09PM

Michael Nugent wrote: »

So women, gay people, and people of different ethnicities face specific discriminations that have to be addressed as specific discriminations in order to bring about the outcome that we both want.

I'm not saying you're wrong Michael but what are some specific discriminations that women or gay people or people of different ethnicities face in relation to online harassment or harassment in the skeptic communities? And how would they be addressed as specific discriminations?

Nodin · 09-08-2012 08:10PM

Sarky wrote: »

So can we make "f*ck off troll" a thing, or is it too soon?

It's a bit impersonal. Change it to "fuck off wicknit" for the loving touch.

Zombrex · 09-08-2012 08:11PM

Channel Zero wrote: »

If that was a comment on my view, i hope you understand that wasn't what was meant.

I think he is just looking for a new meme

fitz0 · 09-08-2012 08:17PM

What a very high horse those (some not all) Skepchicks are astride.

I broke my tolerance threshold at "God you're a dishonest ****."

Although, when the red mist of outrage subsided I noted with some amusement how she proved Wick's point in five words or less. What an utterly moronic post.

OpheliaBenson · 09-08-2012 08:21PM

I'd like to correct one factual item.

"“I thought it was a safe space,” Watson said of the freethought community. “The biggest lesson I have learned over the years is that it is not a safe space and we have a lot of growing to do. The good news is there are a lot of people within the community who are interested in making it better and getting rid of our prejudices.”

Watson is clearly making the claim here that there is a serious problem at conferences like TAM with gender based harassment.

No, she isn't, and that's not clear at all. She said that to a reporter for the newspaper USA Today a year ago, soon after the explosion of misogyny directed at her over the elevator/Stef McGraw/whatever. TAM had nothing to do with that, so there's no reason to think she was talking about TAM when she said that.

What happened is that a few days after the Women in Secularism conference in Washington DC last May, DJ Grothe claimed that the decline in attendance at TAM was partly due to women talking about harassment at conferences. Rebecca asked him for examples, and he gave part of the above passage as an example. He ended at "safe space..." and so left off the part where Rebecca said things were already getting better. More to the point, the above passage is a very bad example because it doesn't fit - Rebecca wasn't talking about conferences in general or TAM in particular in that passage.

One result is that people are now deeply confused about what Rebecca said, when she said it, what she said it about, and her reasons for saying it. People are also deeply confused about what had been said about TAM before DJ blamed the talking women. Here's the answer to that: nothing. TAM wasn't the subject until DJ made it the subject. Some of us had talked about conferences and conventions in general, but no one had singled out TAM.

09-08-2012 08:21PM

giggle, they deleted my comment

Nodin · 09-08-2012 08:25PM

fitz0 wrote: »

What a very high horse those (some not all) Skepchicks are astride.

I broke my tolerance threshold at "God you're a dishonest ****."

Although, when the red mist of outrage subsided I noted with some amusement how she proved Wick's point in five words or less. What an utterly moronic post.

....considering the person who compared TAM to the nazi party wrote a book called "Why Facts Matter?" , I think we're in irony free satire central already.

Nodin · 09-08-2012 08:27PM

bluewolf wrote: »

giggle, they deleted my comment

You keep quiet, Gender Betrayer.

OpheliaBenson · 09-08-2012 08:28PM

As long as I'm here anyway...

@ 1014 - when I called Zombrex a dishonest ****, it was because he quoted something I'd said without mentioning that the wording he objected to was simply echoing the comment that immediately preceded mine, and ignored more than one reply where I pointed that out. (Along with the fact that he was rebuking me for that when the guy in question has been cyberstalking me for more than a year.)

Just for the record. And you'll notice that he ended up apologizing for that (and other things), and I thanked him. You could decide to go from there, instead of going backwards.

OpheliaBenson · 09-08-2012 08:31PM

Another factual correction - I did not compare TAM to the Nazi party. That's a carefully fostered distortion of what I said.

You peeps appear to be getting all your "information" from some fairly unreliable sources.

09-08-2012 08:35PM

OpheliaBenson wrote: »

Just for the record. And you'll notice that he ended up apologizing for that (and other things), and I thanked him. You could decide to go from there, instead of going backwards.

I did go forwards, we saw all the abuse that continued on after that. One person coming in to say "but i thanked him omg" doesn't exactly wipe that out

Nodin wrote: »

You keep quiet, Gender Betrayer.

New title?

Dawkins sounds off. Lots of atheists upset.

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