Thanks to all the comments here. Based on the responses I have:
1 - removed the topic
2 - banned the individual who created it.
ETA: The user in question (flapjack) had been warned about bad-faith posting in the past, they were not just removed for making this post. I realize I had not been clear on this point.
Iâm old enough to remember that trans peopleâs rights are always being decided right now and open for discussion.
Thatâs how disenfranchisement of trans people works.
Right now people are discussing trans people and public accommodation- doesnât matter that it was decided 30 years ago.
Right now people are discussing whether trans people should be allowed to change their birth certificates - doesnât matter that this was decided decades ago and that the first LGBT positive piece of legislation in the US was a birth certificate bill in 1956.
Right now people are discussing trans people serving in the military- yeah that was revoked. Funny how that hasnât happened to LGB people.
Right now people are discussing trans people being allowed to seek medical care and transition.
Right now people are discussing whether trans people should be allowed to use homeless shelters- except that was decided years ago.
Right now people are discussing trans people in sports even though it was settled in 1976 - if youâre a millennial Renee Richards is your grandmaâs age. I even have one of her sports trading cards. The Olympics decided this about two decades ago and I can show you my copy of Look Magazine from 1936 with an FTM athlete. Itâs the one with Himmler in the cover.
The thing is - we never let trans rights be considered settled and every few months someone brings up every single piece of trans rights to have a discussion about trans people as if we have no fucking agency or history.
Cis people need to decide which side theyâre on.
This cis person is on the side of equality and respect for every group*, regardless to any superficial physical differences. Thatâs the only way we truly overcome, by standing together.
* Individual assholes are another matter, all together.
Ken, I think youâre incredibly dedicated to this board and making this place safe for all who participate here⌠and youâve done a great job doing it. Youâre patient and impartial to a fault. I appreciate that, I always have, and I trust in you. Itâs a hell of a job, especially since youâre the only full-time moderator here, and you always do your best.
On the now-deleted topic: I actually missed the blowup, so I canât comment on whatever went down at the end. But I was trying to monitor that thread since it started, because it had strong potential to go downhill quickly. I agree with you that we should be able to discuss sensitive topics here, as long as all parties are respectful and follow the Guidelines in good faith. But something about that thread felt off to me from the start. As others have said, certain comments seemed to be arguing a case for exclusion, rather than inclusion, without ever quite crossing the Guidelines in a way I could see to Flag. While there were some positive and supportive comments made there, Iâm not sorry to see that thread disappear.
Thank you for listening to our concerns and doing your best for us. I appreciate it.
I do think thatâs worth discussing, in part because it illuminates whatâs wrong with the whole discussion about trans women in sports. Divided leagues based on gender, age, disability are not because God told us people should get to compete with their peers on some biological or genetic plane. Boxing has weight categories but basketball does not have height categories. There are womenâs chess tournaments and rankings (same for pool and esports and on and on) but I donât think any of us would give time to a discussion about a biological basis for that.
Which is why people claiming physiological advantages for trans women in sports is just plain old anti-trans. If the gender division in sport was really about the scientific and logical necessity of separating those with Y chromosomes before running then obviously things would be the other way. But what itâs really about is whether a little girl thinks that tennis is something she should try or whether she thinks, âOh, thatâs just for boys.â And transphobia is, as usual, about telling that little girl she shouldnât try anything because she shouldnât exist in the first place.
The point is that this particular thread is actively excluding and talking about a particular group, as if they should not be a part of the discussion about them and THEIR lives. The conversation was being aimed AT trans folks instead of centering them and including them.
I try to be on the side of supporting transrights and lives, and Iâd hope Iâd be corrected if I said or did something hurtful or offensive.
The thread was phrased and presented like this undeniably transphobic ad at the same time that the ad was circulated and celebrated in right wing circles. The ad is lying about everything it says, but is still being strongly considered as a valuable conversation piece.
The whole conversation is just a new Gamergate but sports fandoms are a much more socially accepted identity than gamer. It was never about ethics in sports officiating.
And itâs really appreciated- from everyone here. We all flub things from time to time. And standards and language evolves- but I really appreciate the intent and support of my peers and the bbs team and moderation here.
Itâs a very difficult job to navigate so many different issues, peoples and interests- and Oren does a bang up job.
It would clearly be beyond me to handle all that and do so with such grace.
User d_r has been given a timeout for suggesting that it would be âtoo much effortâ to âtrackâ a users chosen pronouns on a public forum, and that somehow not doing so would result in âpiling onâ and a âbanâ.
Somehow several thousand active BBS users every month manage to be respectful to one another, but the idea that one would be required to be respectful is a bridge too far?
If you feel that being forced to make an effort to show respect to users is too much to ask for in a âpublic forumâ, then I respectfully suggest that this may not be the forum for you.
I assume that the tattooed teacher thread went downhill fast. I went and had a shower and came back to post something and it had been moderated down to nothing.
On the other hand the U in menu is now whole.
Within the first ten posts the topic devolved into users chastizing each other for supporting, or decrying, the decision made by the school, not the topic itself. Given our limited moderation availability and recent revelations about vulnerable members of our community I see no point in a topic continuing to stand that serves as a way for users to snipe at one another.
This site exists as a place to discuss Boing Boing stories, not for our members to question each otherâs virtues.
Indeed, some progress finally.
While I concur with the point here, then isnât the solution to simply turn off ârepliesâ? My point is the bbs attached to any BB post is essentially a comment space. Now sometimes those comments are discussionary, sometimes they are just an opinion (i.e. âYeah, I canât agree with what they did hereâ or âYeah, I canât ever justify what they did hereâ). And while I am in favor of doing away with the very fruitless and frustrating âHOW DARE YOU AGREE/DISAGREE WITH THAT!â because it doesnât help anyone nor is it fruitful to a dialogueâŚdoesnât that just undercut comments entirely?
Just sorting out loud what the actual intention/solution is here.
The situation is not as nuanced as you make it out to be here. We have literally hundreds of open topics on any given day, and most manage to have productive discussions. Some do not. Some are salvageable (in fact Iâd say most are salvageable), but some are clearly going to derail so far from the original discussion as to make attempts to âsalvageâ them a waste of both reader time and moderator time. The number of topics where this has been true has been small.
I suspect with the current social climate and amount of overt bigotry in public discourse emboldening assholes that this number will probably increase some, but overall Iâd hardly say that closing out discussions prematurely is exactly âcommonâ here. But it has, and will continue to occur.
As Iâve said countless times, the best way to prevent that from happening is to flag early and often, but not respond in kind, so we have the ability to remove derailing or inflammatory comments (or comments that otherwise violate our guidelines) before the topic is a lost cause.
makes sense. its more âthis is the exception not the normâ response. I donât think I have ever noticed a thread completely deleted like this beforeâŚcertainly I have seen some look like a nuclear wasteland before though.
kinda hard sometimes not to. but I hear you. and do understand.
I understand the impulse, I said it above - people are stressed right now, the urge to retaliate is strong. My point was mainly about discourse here, though, and the realities of moderation. If you find yourself unable to keep from lashing out at other posters, so be it, but itâs important to understand that the consequences of your decision may be the collateral closure (or eradication) of a topic. I canât make these decisions for the community, I can only tell it like it is - there are only so many moderator hours in a day after all.
Would you be willing to expand on why you felt deleting the thread was better than simply closing it?
In this case the number of posts to remove exceeded the number to save. I deleted it to, hopefully, avoid the often complex work of disentangling posts from each other, especially when folks reply to multiple people at once and some of those posts are moderated and some not (this involves manually editing posts directly).
Ironically, Iâve now spent far more time explaining the decision than if I had just done the work in the first place. Best intentions and all that. *sigh*
Exact same here (except for the shower). My attempt to post yielded âarchivedâ. A small part of me is relieved, though: Given the ugly trajectory of the thread, my opinion would have been very much in the minority⌠which could have prompted even uglier counter-responses and greased the downward slide.
User kb7rky asked not to return after lobbing insults at the community and Authors here.
