Issues in YW that I have.

[Fireblade]

Before I started visiting Yellowworld, I was trying my damnedest to find a forums site not dedicated to just rapid bitching on levels that seems to gain focus over other important issues. Before, I saw activisim, and organization among the community of members, and everyone seems to get along on the same page. The place gradually evolved, and it was fine for a while.

Then one day, a person came along and popped my little naive soap bubble of a world. The use of "pureblood" hasn't been in my mind for a while now. The last time I heard it being used, was when I was in high school getting my ass beat, and that some neo-nazi punks who believe that I was a taint to their nation. They wanted me to know that white men were superior than me in all ways, and they did it to me physically, emotionally, and tore me down.

So naturally the term is not to be taken lightly with me, and I feel as though it is offensive. However, I never imagined such hate talk being tolerated within my own web community. Sure, opinons are to dealt with in an according matter, but to let racist speech go on, while other forms of opinions are censored doesn't sit well with me. If some forms of censorship is imposed that are petty and really have no effect to the discussion of the forums, to distractions that are formed from someone who just wishes to preach to the largest audience, I find it unjust.

Progessive unity is what this forum needs, and not superiority. Unfortantely, I see a lot of individuals who wish not to encourage unity, and instead impose ethnocentric values upon others. This of course can be tolerated to a certain degree, but I can’t tolerate terms that are used in hate speech like “purebloods”. I am opinionated, although I am a “pureblood” Chinese individual, but I have lots of friends who aren’t full asian, and even some family members who are otherwise.

Sometimes I have to take a step back and realize that sometimes the actions of one person do not constitute an entire board, or represent it. However I do expect some administrators to step in and take charge in what is being dealt with, and how some of the subject matter is presented. There was massive action taken against a person who was of other than asian, but I believed as well as many others as these actions were good for the community.

However I see the same type of speech being said from other members who are asian, and suddenly it seems as though we ignore these comments, and turn the other way. I don’t see how a type of speech can be eliminated for one person, and for another to continue without any dire consequence. I guess I expect too much from this web community. And I wonder if it’s because I’m fully asian, that I can get a larger response, than others who have complained in the past.

And I don’t speak for anyone but myself. These are all my own opinons, but I still feel as though they should be addressed.

[kimpossible]

Okay, more issues with what Chairman Mah has said in another thread.

First, I have read your post. I am not here to break down your obviously heartfelt reaction to another poster's opinion. But Chairman Mah does not represent YW, he is not a moderator, he is an intermittent poster. He is a bit belligerent and at times has been under disciplinary action when a guideline such as no personal attacks is violated.

I am mixed blood, he stated a negative viewpoint towards race mixing, I took it differently than you did. And no offense, but the racial purity neo-nazis are against miscegenation: mixed blood. Anything directed towards you is xenophobia or racism.

Mah, you're going to have to take a hit here, and I'm sorry this borders on a personal attack but, for chrissakes it's Chairman fucking Mah. To acknowledge any offense based on his fucked up opinions would mean I deem him a voice of authority as if he wields the power to persuade and rally others to his side. To the best that I can figure out, all he wants to do is piss and moan his arguments rather than take the time to construct them so other people will listen.

I read a lot of crazy shit on the internet. The old adage is true: opinions are like assholes, everyone has one. He may have an unsavory opinion but if I can register that the 'boy' (remember I'm quite a bit older than him) is an angry boy who doesn't always think too much before posting, it can't be that hard to see.

I'm not his mom, I'm not going to regulate every unpleasant twinge or feeling a poster might have. There are some people I must patently ignore because I have a personal issue with their opinions, or I feel they are false, etc., so even though I have the ability to mod, I choose to tolerate and ignore where necessary.

You have the tool to challenge him that you have always had at your disposal: well thought out debate.

[achtungbaby]

I hope no one takes the "pureblood" notion seriously.

[achtungbaby]

But Chairman Mah does not represent YW, he is not a moderator, he is an intermittent poster. He is a bit belligerent and at times has been under disciplinary action when a guideline such as no personal attacks is violated. To add: since when did the opinion of one person become an indicator of YW's own direction? We have plenty of characters on this board, and as ridiculous as some of their ideas might be, we've taken a stance towards a toleration of ideas, rather than their supression.

[Fireblade]

Really, all I want to know is why some people get shut down quickly about really stupid stupid things, and yet other times like racist speech is tolerated?

I know that we're supposed to give light to others, but if people see this continued, then what is the point of having censorship. I know that in this forum, we try not to bog our threads down with idiotic stuff, but sometimes we don't even get a chance to hear why we are being slapped with the "mute" button, and proceed to the next discussion?

This thread wasn't created out of my bitching of the use of pureblood. It was because I wanted to know why sometimes things are set aside and ignored, when we know it's just going to be a tired flame bait war, and other times things are just taken off, because supposedly they provide no direction.

Also I see more action taken against unpopular non-asians or hapas, and it seems a bit biased to me. Just because one person doesn't take offense to it, doesn't mean another person won't. I just wonder sometimes.

[mr. x]

pipsy showed me how to use the ignore feature. i don't think i'm going to put it into use just yet. i want to see what else mr. "you know who" has to say. he is a few minutes of free entertainment and at the moment i'm bored.


glad to see you're still with us. umm how come your ethnicity keeps changing?

i see you packed your things while you planned to leave but now that you're staying why dont you put your avatar and stuff back up?

i hope mr. "you know who" is not mr. x....

[kitty]

Really, all I want to know is why some people get shut down quickly about really stupid stupid things, and yet other times like racist speech is tolerated?

I know that we're supposed to give light to others, but if people see this continued, then what is the point of having censorship. I know that in this forum, we try not to bog our threads down with idiotic stuff, but sometimes we don't even get a chance to hear why we are being slapped with the "mute" button, and proceed to the next discussion?

This thread wasn't created out of my bitching of the use of pureblood. It was because I wanted to know why sometimes things are set aside and ignored, when we know it's just going to be a tired flame bait war, and other times things are just taken off, because supposedly they provide no direction.

Also I see more action taken against unpopular non-asians or hapas, and it seems a bit biased to me. Just because one person doesn't take offense to it, doesn't mean another person won't. I just wonder sometimes.

Well, I don't want to weigh in too heavily on this subject, but I agree with you here. I think though that mods aren't perfect -- sometimes mods will miss something, or not be on the board when stuff is going down, or maybe skim threads in order to stay on top of things. or also, they may be less inclined to come down heavily on people who've been around longer, or people who they personally like... it's inherently a difficult system to keep objective.

That being said, I think the best way to make this work is to not assume that the mods will catch and warn people who are doing things you think are questionable. I think you should report the post, or pm the mod, letting them know why you think something is wrong -- drawing their attention to it. That way, it makes the mods' job easier and keeps them from feeling too nazi-ish if they have someone else's concerns to base their actions on besides their own.

[kimpossible]

The first step in any of us being able to answer your very encompassing question is to get some more specifics. "Some" "things" "sometimes" and generalized observations aren't really going to give me or many others much opportunity to provide you with a simple answer.

You're basically asking us to explain in detail every mod decision we've made over the last couple of years. I'm going to bow out of this because I am a single mod, there is a team and furthermore I am not an admin or owner of the site, and don't wish to represent it in that capacity. Wanted to pass that on so you didn't get the impression I was ignoring your post.

[kitty]

The first step in any of us being able to answer your very encompassing question is to get some more specifics. "Some" "things" "sometimes" and generalized observations aren't really going to give me or many others much opportunity to provide you with a simple answer.


Agreed, but I don't think Fireblade is questioning all past mod decisions... rather just trying to discuss the objectiveness of the mod system.... unless i'm really mistaken?

[teaz0r]

hi clint. i'm reading your stuff.
i just don't have anything intelligent to add.

[achtungbaby]

Moving to Support.

[achtungbaby]

I think you should report the post, or pm the mod, letting them know why you think something is wrong -- drawing their attention to it.THANK YOU.

Use the "report post" feature folks. Not all the mods or admins read every single post and every single thread. There are over 186,000 posts here. And if you PM us, be courteous and leave a link to the thread or even better, to the specific post in question.

Regarding objectivity (if there is such a thing): like it's already been said, we'll try and be objective as possible. However, there is a difference between the idiots we've clamped down upon for trolling; the idiots who were too fucking lazy to get their facts straight; and then those whose posts are being called into question here.

[Fireblade]

Agreed, but I don't think Fireblade is questioning all past mod decisions... rather just trying to discuss the objectiveness of the mod system.... unless i'm really mistaken?

Correct.

[achtungbaby]

Correct.If you have a better suggestion, the mods are all ears.

[achtungbaby]

Here's a list of the banned folks from YW, for reference:

Cora
Endangered_Asian_Male
hormiga
ImrkevinpakI
Kevincpak
kongjubyung
MarilynManson
Markroc
notacopycat
notacopycat2001
RasFarengi
Tango_1
taz
alicat
beemer805
boycott
madison
radiobum
radiohum
The MaguS
weakasschinaman
XenEvo

[Fireblade]

Basically I think the mods are doing a great job. What does irk me, is that some comments are shut down without prior notice. I think at least a person should be allowed to edit their messages if you believe it to be nonsense, or what-not. Also if you really do believe some posts to be offensive, give a warning and a time frame of how long a person has to change it. Say like 2 hours at most.

I mean, this is not a democracy as some mods have said before, but at least let the little people say something.

[kitty]

added note... that list includes accounts that have been banned due to violation of the 'no multiple accounts' rule... so that isn't as many people as it looks like.

[achtungbaby]

Basically I think the mods are doing a great job. What does irk me, is that some comments are shut down without prior notice. I think at least a person should be allowed to edit their messages if you believe it to be nonsense, or what-not. Also if you really do believe some posts to be offensive, give a warning and a time frame of how long a person has to change it. Say like 2 hours at most.

I mean, this is not a democracy as some mods have said before, but at least let the little people say something.Okay, well now we're getting somewhere.

I'd say most of the time that we shut down comments or posts or threads without prior notice, it's primarily so that other people are not offended by those comments -- basically, the comments we'll shut down are usually mindless flames. And primarily this is done because the longer those comments stay up without taking corrective action, there's a greater chance that more harm will come of it.

So then, do we use our own judgment as to what is harmful or abusive? Yes. Is it perfect? No. Does it err on the side of trying to protect other members? Yes.

We have threads and threads in the moderator forum about questionable posts and threads, and I've always told the mods to use their best judgment in determining when something is harmful or not.

My own observation: where the system will break down is when a member is able to post some sort of hateful, offensive viewpoint in a well-thought, long, articulated and "intelligent" manner. There were a few members who were clever in doing this, and thankfully, they just have stopped frequented the boards.

[achtungbaby]

added note... that list includes accounts that have been banned due to violation of the 'no multiple accounts' rule... so that isn't as many people as it looks like.Actually I think our ban list is very small compared to other sites:)

[Fireblade]

My own observation: where the system will break down is when a member is able to post some sort of hateful, offensive viewpoint in a well-thought, long, articulated and "intelligent" manner. There were a few members who were clever in doing this, and thankfully, they just have stopped frequented the boards.

I think this is one problem that's quite apparent on YW. Long winded passages of how you hate this and that, and try to disguise it as intellectual "conversation starter" is just flame bait in disguise.

[achtungbaby]

I think this is one problem that's quite apparent on YW. Long winded passages of how you hate this and that, and try to disguise it as intellectual "conversation starter" is just flame bait in disguise.I agree. And that's where using the "report post" feature helps. We only have so many people to constantly monitor the boards, and according our server logs, we're most active around 2 - 3am in the friggen morning:P So using that feature can help us out a lot instead of looking at some garguantuan threads that we may not want to read in the first place.

[nonamerasian]

I'd say most of the time that we shut down comments or posts or threads without prior notice, it's primarily so that other people are not offended by those comments -- basically, the comments we'll shut down are usually mindless flames.

Instead of closing as many threads, could the mindless flames just be deleted?

[kitty]

Instead of closing as many threads, could the mindless flames just be deleted?

well, i think that the threads are only closed when the debate has completely devolved, and there's no real chance of resurrection... or if the mindless flame was what started the thread...

[SunWuKong]

as the person who probably does more censoring than anybody else, i suppose i should really chime in. :happy:

almost every time i take action against something, i'm weighing the importance of free speech and keeping a conversation civil. i won't go into a tangent on whether absolute free speech should be allowed, but needless to say, unmoderated forums can get out of hand and that's just not what YW is. this forum is a place for discussions. even amongst the mods there are plenty of disagreements, and hell, even AB and i disagree on certain issues and moderating actions. with that in mind, the mods here are susceptible to being bias, even though we try not to be. as long as you raise any complaints about censorship in a civil manner, we'll listen and consider. and i stress the "civil" part because there have been plenty of incidents when certain people just post empty flames when they've been moderated against.

most of the time we give members warnings if inappropriate comments were made, but there are certain comments that we feel are over-the-top and that need to be censored immediately. to be honest, i personally wouldn't delete something right away unless it is inflammatory and uncontributing. and i expect everybody here to know when they've crossed the line because we're all mature individuals here.

another issue you need to consider is that a lot of people take the comments of specific members to be representative of YW itself. i see this often on other sites that i browse. it is important that we don't give a false impression of what YW is all about.

[Faithless]

Actually I think our ban list is very small compared to other sites:)

Really. Knowing that other sites are just breeding grounds for flamers, I would say this site has a fair number of banned names. But there's nothing wrong that.

[Faithless]

Instead of closing as many threads, could the mindless flames just be deleted?

And what would a thread look like if it had nothing but deleted posts? :rolleyes:

[mr. x]

And what would a thread look like if it had nothing but deleted posts? :rolleyes:

just visit anything VBKao's been in lately

[Rogmok]

Can someone post a link to the thread where all this started from? (I'm guessing from reading this thread, the one where Chairman Mah used the term "pureblood")

[nonamerasian]

And what would a thread look like if it had nothing but deleted posts? :rolleyes:

There are so many threads composed only of mindless flames?

[mr. x]

err, thanks diluted, for um, being u!

[achtungbaby]

Closing. The issue's been resolved...