Trolling? That’s not fair. But I’m going to back out anyway. . Like I said this piece isn’t worth it anyway.
Nothing wrong with comedic relief…
1 Like
Not fair is claiming to be above both the oppressed and the oppressor while being completely unaware of the privilege you exuded in the process.
Lucky you, you get to back out whenever you want.
3 Likes
In addition to the WND stories about Obama’s army of gay lovers, you can find homophobic slurs against pretty much every female democrat.
But I’d have to disagree with your premise since nobody made fun of GW Bush for being a male cheerleader with a flamoyantly gay college roommate, or Condi Rice’s open lesbian relationship, or Chief of Staff Josh Bolten, or single gal Harriet Miers…or well heck, the Bush White House was gayer than a revival of The Fantasticks.
5 Likes
personally i don’t care for the insult being flung at him that he “blows dick”, i mean if there is nothing wrong with a guy blowing dick then it isn’t an insult, the part that makes it the insult is the same kind of bigotry that he is being accused of. pot meet kettle. at least that is my take.
100% certain, huh? Obviously you aren’t, and obviously the situation isn’t, otherwise we wouldn’t be discussing this, now would we? 
For what it’s worth, I vote for “Innocent until proven guilty”. Currently, the only thing the poster you comment about is guilty of is making a single, unconstructive post. Any future behavior is as yet undetermined, and your own personal moral certainty of it counts for nothing objectively.
Consequently, if you’re honestly considering banning them for what they might say in the future, even what they may be likely to say, you are in effect considering punishing them for crimes they have yet to commit. I would ask that you to reflect on that.
-Disclaimers-
No, I do not support unconstructive posting.
Yes, BB reserves all rights to moderate their comments however they see fit.
No, I do not share the viewpoints of the poster in question - I’m not even certain I know which exact one Mr. Beschizza is referring to with his post, I’m speaking purely from a point of philosophy.
Et cetera.
2 Likes
Huh? It’s called “making a joke”, and I’m not sure who you think it’s intolerant towards, I don’t think the gay community would be offended (correct me if I’m wrong), and it’s not mocking him because of his Southern roots or because he is straight, but because he is intolerant.
Or are you making the old “we must be tolerant of his intolerance” argument?
Yes, I’m sure this photoshop job offends him, he offended lots of people with his own comments, seems like fair play to me.
2 Likes
Can I like this post like . . .seventeen times or something?
5 Likes
On the contrary, I think it’s obvious when someone new is just in to wring their hands and faint at the disappointing snarky hypocritical lowly patheticness of it all, and I can’t remember any such entrant ever maturing into a productive commenter. Antinous was a particularly brutal crusher of this sort of new commenter; it’s the newer “innocent until proven guilty” attitude that’s letting them get to play for a while. Good flagging systems, such as Discourse’s, tend to get rid of more obvious trollies, but it’s a process of natural selection: drive-by smarmings become the problem precisely because the trust/flagging system is good at quickly sniping others.
The thing is, though, that among established and productive commenters, the same behavior is just a sign of people getting tired and frustrated. It’s often hard to spot the point where the subject matter slips from what was said to how it was said, and that often seems to be the point where discussions subtly break down prior to a flame-war or some other thing that draws all the oxygen out of the thread.
But you do notice it when, say, someone joins up and theatrical disappointment at the forum, the site, comments, other commenters, etc., is the first and only thing they do. The eyeroll.gif moment.
It’s more like: is it a good idea to ban someone for one example of something for which they would certainly be banned for after three examples, in the absence of any other postings?
I’m talking about left’s comments here. They’re really good examples of passive aggressive tone-policing that doesn’t really say anything at all about the subject other than that it is being discussed incorrectly. Other posters have dealt well with it here (including people who presumably find the Dick Caller an inappropriate response to homophobia) but it would have been nice if they didn’t have to.
1 Like
Well, I never!
Interesting benchmark you’ve set for “progressives” there…
Anybody who’s not a raging bigot like the DD guy = Progressive…
At first I was really into this and thought it was hot. Then I realized this is nothing more than an immature hit piece. There are true fans out there writing quality homoerotic fan fiction, and you insult their craft by pumping out this drivel. Even the casual observer knows they license out their name to MOSSBERG™ shotguns, not Savage Arms™. For shame.
4 Likes
Yeah this just screams tolerance. It’s self defeating to smear the opposing viewpoint while claiming the high ground for your own.
So what I’m getting from this post (and your earlier and more snarky “we have a winner” one) is that a new poster should only make a positive comment. But if it’s a negative one, it should be verrrrry carefully worded. Otherwise, that first-time poster is fair game. Fair game to be accused of being a sock puppet or astroturfer or a grief troller or whatever. As I was accused of being, when, on a previous post (the one about the Africa / AIDS / twitter girl a week or so back?) my first comment was “Well said. I totally agree” and my comment (supporting someone who was also a new poster, and making a point that not too many people cared for) was ridiculed and eventually deleted. That’s a great way to have a seemingly popular and homogenous site: only positive comments are encouraged, and the regulars are there to scare off anyone who questions the accepted shibboleths and to clap one another on the back and (if needed) look around for dogpile support and “like like like” each others posts.
Speaking of likes, Iquitos46 has 13 likes for what is, arguably, a hypothetical revenge-rape or punishment-rape scenario: of where he’d “like to stick that wooden dildo so old Phil could make some meaningful noise.” 13 likes. The mind boggles.
For the record, I’ve been a reader of this site, off and on, since the late 90s. I (and I would imagine most people) don’t comment on every single thing they like here, because if they did, they’d be typing all the time. I, fairly infrequently, post a negative comment about something I really really don’t like. So, since I’m not here 24/7, posting away day after day after day, it might seem as if I’m a stranger, trying to start trouble. That’s not the case. Usually. I’m guessing that’s the case with at least some of the “negative”, “new” commenters. To assume that they’re disingenuous, or assholes, just because they’re new posters not all gushy and gee whiz, well, it’s doesn’t seem right.
Also for the record: the subect of this thread, the ad in question, makes me kind of ill. That’s an opinion, and an honest one at that. The hatred I see from all sides of every issue makes me sick, too. And when I see both sides seeing their hate as acceptable, justified, and righteous, it just makes me wonder if either side has a freaking clue. Many people here are making fun of the rednecks for being rednecks. Great. They’re rednecks, so they say rednecky things, which are hateful to some. What’s ya’lls excuse?
4 Likes
Some of this should probably have been moved to a meta topic. I think two things:
- It is fair to hold new users to the “your first post should attempt to meaningfully advance the discussion and/or be totally hilarious” rule
- Everybody should have at least two posts to prove they can do the above, under the City Slickers everyone gets one do-over rule.
If it is a super digressive, contentious aside, fine to delete it. Then we need to show track records, e.g. if we have to delete every third post by this user (or they are getting a ton of flags over time), are they really worth having around? Staff can sort of see this by viewing post history on their user page, deleted posts look deleted, but you have to do the math in your head and there is no Early Warning System if three different staff members are doing the deletions independently of each other.
You could also follow the Discourse party line and flag their post to threshold (either naturally or with admins nudging it there), which would hide it and PM them inviting them to edit and improve the post, at which point it is automatically unhidden. But these sorts of posts do not strike me as the salvageable-through-edits kind.
This isn’t what I wrote at all. I really think you’d benefit by just reading it again and thinking about the difference between criticism that addresses content, and criticism that addresses tone.
Well maybe you should! It’s lots of fun! (ta dah dum!)
1 Like
Unfortunately communities aren’t monolithic, so I think the only thing we can say with any certainty is that some people in the gay or LGBT community will be offended and some won’t, just as in the straight community there are some who find this hilarious and some who are crying, “Hypocrites! Help! I’m being bashed!”
I must say that one of the things I enjoy most about coming here is that I can see something like this and laugh without giving it much thought, then come to the comments section and, thanks to many different people, find myself giving a lot of thought to whether this kind of satire is useful or warranted, and also laughing some more. Thanks, BoingBoing community!
2 Likes
Perhaps I’m wrong, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard Limbaugh, Beck, O’Reilly, or a host of other conservative icons ever called “gay”, so you are painting with a very broad brush here. And calling this a “slur” implies that you are offended because it denigrates homosexuals (I’m not sure it does) whereas I think you are offended because you have decided to root for the conservative team, and whatever Robinson says is OK with you as long as he’s not a liberal.
1 Like
Which is surely what makes us better than him, no?
Otherwise we’re all just different flavours of asshole… which I guess we are anyway.
I’ve forgotten what my point was.
