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Why the censorship?

Streetwalker

How come this site is avoiding the main news issue of the week and indeed the year as in terms of the refugee crisis? I'm not interested in this thread being about the actual refugee crisis but I am very interested in where does censorship begin and end on boards.ie? This is a massive developing story and yet debate is being stifled and moved to a section of the site rarely visited (humanities).

Surely the mods on the site have a responsibility to encourage debate on the issue (I was brought up believing debate was healthy) and not hide it away so the contributions are negligible

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KomradeBishop

K-9 wrote: »

Or the standard of debate isn't what it used to be.

Soap boxing is a hard one to prove, hell, a fair percentage of posters in political discussions could be accused of it often enough, blind to failings in their particular party or ideology. That usually doesn't mean soap boxing or trolling, they just often blindly follow whatever their brand of politics with little or no self criticism. Look at US political debate in particular to see what I mean.

Isn't making an argument you know is false or fallacious, to obstruct other posters - is that not trolling/soapboxing? (or some other infractionable " 'ing ")
Emphasis, on the poster making the argument, being fully conscious that it is false/fallacious.

Also, if somebody does not initially know their argument is false/fallacious, how many times pointing it out to them does it take (10? 20?), before they have to be considered, as being 100% conscious that they are using a false argument?

I understand what you're saying though, you're right that there is a lot of that kind of tribalism, but there are also absolutely loads of posters, who appear to know that they are making false arguments.

I think mods need to appreciate, that if enough posters engage in the above, they can actually control debate on the forum. Not just disrupt it, but control it - and it acts as a form of censorship in itself.

One eyed Jack

KomradeBishop wrote: »

Actually, the debate about logical fallacies, is inherently intertwined with the debate about censorship:
Allowing posters free-reign to e.g. throw endless straw-men, without any standard of debate, means that if enough posters start doing the same and grouping up (happens often) those posters can effectively censor minority views on the forum.

I don't think you have anything to show that, outside of pisstaking topics, anyone likes debating with someone who uses logical fallacies as guide to argument - there are quite a lot of debates that happen on AH really, and that doesn't mean posters there have a preference for having no standard of debate.

The nature of the beast really, not everyone is as au fait with logical fallacies as you seem to be, my own posts are often unconsciously littered with colloquialisms and if fallacies could write themselves... but it doesn't matter because I'm not taking any online discussions that seriously that I feel a need to bring my A-game. I accept the nature of After Hours for what it is and I choose to work within that more relaxed framework.

I did go into the Politics Café last night just for a look, and one poster was wishing another one be beheaded! I didn't stick around too long, After Hours may have terrible standards of debate, but at least it isn't nearly as dramatic!

jackofalltrades

Cold War Kid wrote: »

How is it not proof if it's there on the threads?

That's not to say there isn't sniping by those pro the refugees, or that any of those concerned about the influx aren't being reasonable (plenty are).

But if we're talking about the direction most of the sniping and thread-spoiling and provocation and lack of interest in discussion is coming from, well it's plain as can be.

Saying something is "undeniable" or "it's plain as can be" isn't proof.

To make the claim that one group is more disruptive/uncivil than another group, you would first have to quantify this disruption and then show one is worse than the other.
That's how you prove it.

Overheal

weisses wrote: »

Ohh so if you are in a "minority" you don't have a say in the discussion ?

You make it sound that only people who are in favor of this mass migration can post on these threads

How the hell can you even have a discussion when there is not an opposing side

If people are uncivil ban them

If people are racist site ban them

You know when you say OHHHHHhhhhhh it makes you sound like Homer Simpson when he went to Burns' office in a flashback to get his job at the Power Plant. "OOHHH NOW I HAVE A JOOOOB. Wait what?" (Burns liked the cut of his jib or something)

so if you are in a "minority" you don't have a say in the discussion ?

Ironically, the minority you're referring to were a gang of bigots and racists, making bigoted and racist remarks - many of which are not all that bannable (eg "Heads will roll") but are nonetheless the tinder before the flamewar.

One eyed Jack

jackofalltrades wrote: »

Saying something is "undeniable" or "it's plain as can be" isn't proof.

To make the claim that one group is more disruptive/uncivil than another group, you would first have to quantify this disruption and then show one is worse than the other.
That's how you prove it.

By that standard then, anyone claiming censorship of any kind on Boards, has yet to provide proof.

Dan_Solo

jackofalltrades wrote: »

Saying something is "undeniable" or "it's plain as can be" isn't proof.

To make the claim that one group is more disruptive/uncivil than another group, you would first have to quantify this disruption and then show one is worse than the other.
That's how you prove it.

Which is a rather apt example when the discussion is fallacies that are repeated no matter how many times they are demonstrated to be such.

jackofalltrades

One eyed Jack wrote: »

I find it somewhat amusing that you would ask for proof of anything from other posters, when you present nothing but speculation, fearmongering, paranoia and doomsday scenarios as "proof" of anything, and expect people to take that seriously over their own experiences?

And there you go again with the fallacies.
There's no qualifying standards required to ask another poster for proof of a claim.
I'd ask you to prove your other wild claims in the quoted section above but I feel you're just going to use it to take the thread off topic.

K-9

KomradeBishop wrote: »

Isn't making an argument you know is false or fallacious, to obstruct other posters - is that not trolling/soapboxing? (or some other infractionable " 'ing ")
Emphasis, on the poster making the argument, being fully conscious that it is false/fallacious.

Also, if somebody does not initially know their argument is false/fallacious, how many times pointing it out to them does it take (10? 20?), before they have to be considered, as being 100% conscious that they are using a false argument?

I understand what you're saying though, you're right that there is a lot of that kind of tribalism, but there are also absolutely loads of posters, who appear to know that they are making false arguments.

I think mods need to appreciate, that if enough posters engage in the above, they can actually control debate on the forum. Not just disrupt it, but control it - and it acts as a form of censorship in itself.

Somebody derailing threads constantly with stuff like that will likely get banned or warned about it in politics, not sure about AH or the cafe, we've less tolerance for it. But it would take a fair bit of derailing and generally being a nuisance to get banned though.

Take a hard line Socialist or Libertarian, you can point out logic fallacies all day long and its unlikely to make any difference because well, its just details or, they'll probably just ignore it anyway. We can't ban everybody like that because it would become an echo chamber.

Mods are here to well mod basically,

One eyed Jack

jackofalltrades wrote: »

And there you go again with the fallacies.
There's no qualifying standards required to ask another poster for proof of a claim.
I'd ask you to prove your other wild claims in the quoted section above but I feel you're just going to use it to take the thread off topic.

You can surely see the problem then when a poster makes claims without proof, and then asks other posters for proof of their refutation to those claims?

It becomes a never-ending time-sink of a thread with no resolution in sight when all posters are being as disingenuous and obtuse as each other.

FWIW, I do think there are a minority of extremists with an agenda in ALL discussions, that will post the most hateful crap for thanks fishing and playing to the crowd. There's a bigger crowd in AH, so the minority try to outdo each other almost, for thanks, to have their hatred validated. The best way to deal with them is to ignore them, carry on with the discussion around them, they'll soon realise they're not getting any thanks and they won't bother any more.

By even acknowledging them, posters make it worse for themselves, and turn what could be a good discussion into a mud flinging match reduced to unnecessary personal attacks. That gets nobody anywhere, and I can understand why moderators, unpaid volunteers, wouldn't want to be spending their time dealing with that.

Old Jakey

I'm banned from After hours and Humanities for not being liberal enough. Meanwhile certain posters seem on the left are allowed troll to their hearts content. What a joke.

K-9

Not being liberal enough?

Seriously! You believe that?

The Randy Riverbeast

The Randy Riverbeast wrote: »

If the mods infracted and banned people instead of locking threads we would still have people coming here claim there is censorship counting the number of pro and anti immigration people who have been infracted or banned.

I need to subscribe and change my name to The Randy Prophet.

Old Jakey

K-9 wrote: »

Not being liberal enough?

Seriously! You believe that?

Well I was banned from humanities for talking about the Swedish rape epidemic.

K-9

Old Jakey wrote: »

Well I was banned from humanities for talking about the Swedish rape epidemic.

That's between you and the mods and C-mods and Admins if you decide to appeal it.

I handed out a ban recently and probably would have cut it or rescinded it, never got the chance because of the abusive pm I got.

Menas

Most people get banned for behaving like Dicks IMO. But easier to blame everyone else!

Overheal

Old Jakey wrote: »

Well I was banned from humanities for talking about the Swedish rape epidemic.

That's what the Dispute Resolution Procedure is for: use it.

You weren't banned for the reason you claim, and on the contrary you make a fantastic example of why sometimes it's better just to lock threads - but that's none of my business.

nesf

K-9 wrote: »

That's between you and the mods and C-mods and Admins if you decide to appeal it.

I handed out a ban recently and probably would have cut it or rescinded it, never got the chance because of the abusive pm I got.

Rescind the first ban, then give a longer ban for abuse. Fairest way.

Cabaal

Cold War Kid wrote: »

Proof? Read the threads. No matter what side you're coming from this is undeniable.

This is the same sort of logic religious people use for belief in their god.
"Read our holly books, its all the proof you need."

There's a difference between a belief in something happening and it actually happening. Sometimes people only read what they want to read in order to suit their belief.

Eugene Norman

KomradeBishop wrote: »

*Sigh*...no actually, many of the forums on Boards are about debating, and specifically have rules referencing 'standard of debate'.

Who the fúck wants to discuss a topic with someone, who thinks logical fallacies are acceptable? That's the opposite of debate - deliberate use of logical fallacies is what destroys quality of debate, and it's arguably trolling/soapboxing when the poster is aware of their use of fallacies - and when posters know they are using fallacies, that means they inherently know they are lying/being-dishonest.

That style of debate, liberal use of logical fallacies (rather than just straw-men, one type of fallacy, like I mentioned earlier) - people who use fallacies as a guide to debate, rather than something to avoid - can be generalized as being the problem with poor quality of debate, on the whole site.

I can't actually think of how to fully and properly express, just how antithetical acceptance of logical fallacies is, to discussion itself - posters who seek to knowingly use tactics like that to control/disrupt threads, should be sanctioned and eventually banned, if they keep that up - enforcing that may not be practical though, as there are so many grey areas in debate.

Quite. There's no comeback to the logical fallacy of strawman or other logical fallacies.

In a thread I was in where I opined the U.S. is mostly reponsible for ISIS because of its war against Iraq and Syria ( a trivially true claim) I -- and you -- were accused of exculpating Isis, of having Che Guevara posters on walls.

The fact that I pointed out that a right wing European nationalist of my acquaintance opposes both the immigration of Muslims and hates on the U.S. ( and that's a common position on the paelo right ) makes no difference to the idea that blaming the U.S. can only be a far left position, and I'm accused of crying in front of the non-existant Che Guevara poster. I just boldified this response, said I was out and left.

There's very little response from mods on those diversions.

In the migrant debate however the anti-migrant posters didn't seem to be doing that, they were just being un-PC in their choice of language.

Eugene Norman

Another example is KB worrying about autonomous drones making drone warfare easier. Cue ten posters suggesting he's living in a fantasy world about sky net , self aware AI, lizard people etc. Totally disingenuous since his meaning was clear.

What followed was pages of responding to these straw man arguments rather than the morality/legality of the drone killing.

KomradeBishop

Eugene Norman wrote: »

Another example is KB worrying about autonomous drones making drone warfare easier. Cue ten posters suggesting he's living in a fantasy world about sky net , self aware AI, lizard people etc. Totally disingenuous since his meaning was clear.

What followed was pages of responding to these straw man arguments rather than the morality/legality of the drone killing.

Ya exactly - and that was a really tame/obvious example of a straw-man; a lot of other topics, are just chock full of constant straw-men (the same recurring ones that go back years/half-a-decade in the case of economic threads - my username is a pisstake of the 'Marxist!/Communist!' one, it's so common), and sometimes there are so many of them that it's actually not possible to point them all out, without your post becoming a wall of text, and so normal/rational members of the forum end up getting convinced that the straw-men accurately represent your views (which unfortunately means, you have to keep rebutting them, and some posters just never stop with repeating the same straw-men...).

When enough of that goes on, especially when in co-ordination with multiple posters (as the drone thread is an example of - though the straw-man was too stupid to be convincing to anybody), that's how debate on forums gets disrupted/controlled, by small groups pushing an agenda.

On most topics it gets such posters nowhere, but on some topics - where there seems to be a critical mass of posters doing this or backslapping/lending-credibility to it - it's enough to alter the tone/bias of an entire forum (and sometimes even completely censors certain topics that those posters oppose, indirectly, from a forum).

OneOfThem

Zaph wrote: »

Political threads get moved from AH to (mostly) Politics Café these days. So I fail to see why people are surprised or see some sort of conspiracy when a debate on what is clearly a humanitarian issue is re-directed to Humanities.

But of clarity wouldn't go amiss in relation to this. Loads of politically themed threads are left in AH, loads of humanities leaning ones too. What's the criteria for moving or leaving them?

Cold War Kid

Cabaal wrote: »

This is the same sort of logic religious people use for belief in their god.
"Read our holly books, its all the proof you need."

There's a difference between a belief in something happening and it actually happening. Sometimes people only read what they want to read in order to suit their belief.

I'm not sure why I'm getting this rather disingenuous response.

Someone said the majority of the thread-spoiling (inflammatory comments, getting personal, making crude statements with no back-up, no interest in discussing - only in shouting the loudest) is being caused by people who are opposed to assisting asylum-seekers. Logically this is therefore a matter of numbers. So if you read the thread, you will see that the number of posts causing a headache are mostly by a particular type of poster.

There's no "belief" or "feeling" in something happening - it is a case of solid numbers, evidence in front of you.

Comparing with the bible is not comparing like with like, as that content relates to something for which there is scant or no evidence.

(Plenty of people concerned with who Ireland takes in are not being inflammatory/abusive btw - most aren't; and not all those in favour of Ireland letting in asylum-seekers are being angels. The majority in both cases are arguing reasonably though, and from a moderate standpoint).

Overheal

OneOfThem wrote: »

But of clarity wouldn't go amiss in relation to this. Loads of politically themed threads are left in AH, loads of humanities leaning ones too. What's the criteria for moving or leaving them?

What if users post on thread that they would like the thread moved, and others thanked it/reported that posted request? It's an option to consider if you're just being bludgeoned with strawman arguments in AH for example.

OneOfThem

Overheal wrote: »

What if users post on thread that they would like the thread moved, and others thanked it/reported that posted request? It's an option to consider if you're just being bludgeoned with strawman arguments in AH for example.

Well I dunno. That's why I'm asking. Is that the criteria? If x number of people want it moved it's moved? Is that the only one? Are there others? What are the others, if any?

Overheal

I only invented the suggestion, I don't think it's ever been a standard practice, but could be handy.

Dan_Solo

Overheal wrote: »

I only invented the suggestion, I don't think it's ever been a standard practice, but could be handy.

Really? Moderation decisions based on open votes? Gwan then...

Overheal

Not as if there would be a fixed metric needed, it just would help flag a thread and note that several of the thread's contributors would rather discuss it elsewhere, for instance.

jackofalltrades

Cold War Kid wrote: »

I'm not sure why I'm getting this rather disingenuous response.

Someone said the majority of the thread-spoiling (inflammatory comments, getting personal, making crude statements with no back-up, no interest in discussing - only in shouting the loudest) is being caused by people who are opposed to assisting asylum-seekers. Logically this is therefore a matter of numbers. So if you read the thread, you will see that the number of posts causing a headache are mostly by a particular type of poster.

There's no "belief" or "feeling" in something happening - it is a case of solid numbers, evidence in front of you.

Comparing with the bible is not comparing like with like, as that content relates to something for which there is scant or no evidence.

(Plenty of people concerned with who Ireland takes in are not being inflammatory/abusive btw - most aren't; and not all those in favour of Ireland letting in asylum-seekers are being angels. The majority in both cases are arguing reasonably though, and from a moderate standpoint).

You still haven't actually provided any evidence or "solid numbers" to back up your claims.

nesf

Overheal wrote: »

I only invented the suggestion, I don't think it's ever been a standard practice, but could be handy.

It's essentially what Slashdot/Reddit/et al do with voting on threads and posts/replies. It's got upsides and downsides. For hotly debated political issues it doesn't work very well. The bigger side basically shuts down discussion by the other one.