The funny thing is that people who are genuinely not racist never seem to find themselves needing to say the words, “I’m not racist” (with or without the but). Which makes that simple phrase quite a big red flag in and of itself.
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This is very convenient from a moderation perspective.
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And you never hear the opposite, “I am racist…but…” (Maybe I would if I joined Parler? Nah, It’d be all “I’m racist” without the but… :-/ )
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Probably not. I don’t think most racists see themselves that way.
Maybe it’s the same as how rich people almost never see themseleves as rich? – “I mean, I have money, but not like that guy over there!”
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Sigh, probably not a lot of “Are we the baddies?” self-reflective moments there…
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Part of it is that they have weird goalposts for what constitutes racism. They be like: “I can’t be racist. I believe slavery was wrong, after all.”
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User MemyselfandI has been banned after providing a rare but spirited attempt to take on the entirety of their discussion partners in a battle royale that reinforced why one of our policies happens to be that “The rude will be eaten first.”
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Here’s a good general tip: If one of your comments gets flagged, don’t go, “Huh, I wonder why I was flagged. Oh well, I guess I’ll try saying pretty much the exact same thing to somebody else. Let’s see if this one gets flagged too!” If only they had heeded my warning in time…
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I think you’re really onto something here! It’s rare to see white USians connect the dots between. privilege and race. Money is somehow considered colorblind.
Angrily reposting a deleted post will get a user banned.
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Or they might even say “I’m racist - I have cognitive biases that mislead me when I see someone is of a particular race - but I do my best to reduce and overcome those biases and treat people fairly anyway.”
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Love that. And going to use it.
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I do believe that there is a cure for racism, and recognizing one’s cognitive biases is the first step. Somebody who is able to say all of that is well on their way to being cured, though the success of treatment is still far from assured.
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I honestly don’t think the List of People Disappointed in Boing Boing is a wonderful thing, but feel this paragraph surely deserves immortalizing therein.
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Just in the last hour or so, I’ve seen two separate, freshly minted accounts posting perfectly innocuous comments, but then when you look at the accounts themselves, the whole thing is just a big old advertisement for their shady ass websites.
I’ve gone ahead and flagged these, but could someone please refresh my memory: is there a clear stated policy against putting straight-up advertising in your account profile (as opposed to actual comments)? It’s been so long since I signed up, I honestly don’t remember if that came up in the account creation process.
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A mod once said they more than a hundred of these new spam accounts a week. I’m not sure what the current policy is on spam in profiles (a misguided and pointless attempt at SEO) for accounts that don’t post comments, but legitimate flags are the preferred way of handling any spammer.
If the comment from such an account is innocuous but adds no value (e.g. a generic “I like this article”) and is from a clear spam account just flag it as you did and the mods will likely delete the comment and the account.
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Always have when I’ve flagged. Usually they are gone before you get to read the topic I think. First person to see it flags it and obvious spam is obvious.
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User spin1 has been banned for spreading COVID-19 misinformation.
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I wonder if, at one point, @codinghorror and many other developers will have to integrate a standard reporting/flagging option for this.
I am so tired of this. I haven’t seen much around here, but everywhere I do see it (e.g., on other services and sites), I have the strong urge to 
in the direction of the poster. Expletives don’t help, so: thank you for your work, @orenwolf. Otherwise, I might already have had an aneurysm.
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One suggestion, the spam flag is a bit stronger than the others, so if @orenwolf is OK with that ruling, you can classify the COVID-19 misinfo as spam when flagging – that would expedite matters.
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