Complaining about the content posted by the publisher or the authors isn’t ever going to end well; it’s not only off topic, it also all too often devolves into people making passive aggressive insults towards TPTB. As @Mindysan33 already noted, BB isn’t a news site - it’s a forum where we are all essentially guests who agreed to abide by the stated terms.
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Beautifully put! Thanks!
And there are threads, such as this one, for expressing discontent and asking for clarification on moderation decisions.
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and those comments did occur and deserved to be pruned (mine included)
however upon re-reviewing the community guidelines: Forum Rules | Boing Boing
“Constructive criticism is welcome. Hostile, whining hand-wringers will be censored by elitist hypocrites.”
I see a line that supposedly encourages constructive criticism, not demands it’s deletion. many of the pruned comments definitely seemed to be constructive criticism - not hostile, whining hand-wringers
yes, I understand BB is not a news site, that’s why i referred to the article as a news byte i.e. “content”, not current, breaking news, but an article that is interesting and possibly news-worthy. which is totally a definition I made up just now.
BB isn’t a hive-mind. As I noted above:
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From the Guidelines:
- Stay on topic. Don’t hijack threads, repeat yourself, post walls of text, or generic talking points.
The posts were hijacking the thread from a discussion of the post’s subject to a discussion about BoingBoing itself. That’s off topic in that thread.
- Enforcement may be lax or draconian as befits the whims of the Entity. The rude will be eaten first.
Some of the comments involved were rude.
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The moderators disagree with you. 
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Rules lawyering also usually goes swimmingly…
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Not to be confused with topical relevancy lawyering…
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Not much chance of such “confusion” happening - one behavior is in keeping with the terms of service and one goes against those terms.
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@orenwolf, is there now a limit on the number of flags we can use? Because I’m not sure how that’s helpful if you’d like us to flag rather than engage.
Some clarification would be helpful on this. Thanks!
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I’m not sure. There probably is a limit to ensure one user can’t flag a bazillion posts and ensure that a plurality of users flags are considered, but I’m not aware of the specifics.
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Okay! Thank you!
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Is it off topic here?
I know that it’s been a while since this happened, but it’s only now that I feel I can address it without getting banned again. 
Please add me to the “disappointed” list.
I’m not sure, even after all this time, where to start.
First; yes, it is my belief that the entire concept of “race” is bullshit and serves only to divide. We are all people. The sooner everyone figures this out, the better off we’ll all be. Yes, I see colour, I just don’t ascribe any more importance to skin colour than I do to hair or eye colour.
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orenwolfBB SysAdmin / BBS Moderator
bryan
Mar 26
I remember the post and am pretty sure I hearted it, as I read it in the anthropological context. Of course, I am notorious for giving people way too much benefit of the doubt.
Context matters. In a post about the anthropological history of humankind, that statement is very different than in a post about racism , which this one was.
The same way that saying “all lives matter” in, say, an ER is a very different thing that at a BLM protest.
Indeed, context matters. I’m curious as to why you left out the most salient part and misrepresented the bit you did include.
The OP was not about racism. It was about a mass-shooting that may or may not have had to do with racism. There was a photo of the suspect who looked pretty white yet had a middle-eastern sounding name. A poster had asked “Well, what race was he?” (or something to that effect). And that is what I responded to. (That’s the salient bit)
After reading the first response, I don’t know if there were any more, I started formulating a reply to more clearly explain myself. Before I could even start writing it I was suspended for a month. And then, my post was deleted, lol. The order of operations amuses me.
I was really surprised. I’ve been posting for quite a while. Nothing much, usually a comment on other poster’s comments, probably under the radar a bit. (which is why I’m currently sporting my title ) I’ve read your posts about “good faith”, and reviewing posting history to verify gut reactions, and I’ve seen others that speak of warnings.
I’m curious as to why I didn’t benefit from this. I don’t think you looked at my posting history, if you did I’d love to know what in there supported the notion that I was being a racist dirtbag in this instance.
Since you took the time to explicitly inform me that racism exists when you suspended me I would assume you could have also told me that I may want to edit, delete, or elaborate upon my post due to a preponderance of flags, without kicking me to the curb for a month.
Just because I don’t think “race” should be a thing does not mean that I don’t think racism exists. With all due respect that’s just fucking stupid. I know that racists, bigots, fascists, and white supremacists all say that but they say a lot of shit to which I give no credence.
Mostly, I guess, I just needed to vent, should maybe have put it in the griping thread. (ETA: And here it is. )
I just had to protest my suspension. I feel much better now.
(Edit: Added a missing “may”, and removed an excess “not”. Maybe I should go to bed, lol.)
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@orenwolf I see my post was approved (by you?), thank you, and my comment here removed. But I would very much like to know what it was about my post that flagged it as needing approval. Maybe there’s something I need to avoid in future. Or was it a glitch/error that should not have happened?
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Umm … thanks. I am still mystified as to what “terms” in that post could conceivably have triggered it.
(There is ambiguity in the text you quote, where it says “the terms in question … used in derogatory posts … by new users” possibly implying that you hold such posts by new users for moderation, but the ambiguity is resolved in practice. I am hardly a new user. 
)
Hey-ho.
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fwiw: ive been caught up before by referring to the creatures that live under bridges by their proper name. there’s maybe a small list of trigger terms behind the scenes.
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Then better for us all if we don’t know them.
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They don’t publish their list of keywords lest, uhm, ghouls, use the list to come up with ascii or other work arounds. Attempting to reverse engineer the list would result in a rather obvious trail of held for moderation posts.
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