Misogyny unchecked in AH 'Try to rape' thread

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Dudess wrote: »

That "Either everything can be laughed at or nothing can be laughed at" line is a load of bollocks and I'm sick of people on Boards saying it's unreasonable for people to find some stuff funny and other stuff not funny.

That's not the original sentiment though. It's to do with your rights more so than your sense of humour.

Anyone who thinks otherwise is a serious retard becuase that implies that everyone has to have the same sense of humour when it clearly expresses the opposite. So there.

asdasd

Is it some sort of mathematical, logical conclusion or something? "You joked about football fans, therefore it's not out of bounds for you to joke about children being gang-raped"?

I think the Soutpark dude was engaging in the slippery slope logical fallacy.

As is Seamus.

seamus

Actually, that's not what I'm engaging in at all. Indeed, the "slippery slope" ideal falls down because it attempts to make long-term causal predictions without any qualitative evidence. It is however, not a fallacy to make short-term causal predictions where experience has shown us how things are likely to pan out.

Experience tells us that people who feel offended, feel as though their opinions carry more weight (naturally) and therefore by appeasing them, you justify that feeling and you will encourage more people to try for their particular grievance. Now, people only tend to get uptight about a particular set of issues, but my primary concern is that ringfencing a certain number of topics and saying, "These aren't OK, but everything else is", creates an inconsistent environment and simply causes people to feel like they're actively being censored for no good reason.

The basic fact is that offesiveness is overall a subjective topic, and I don't agree that anything should be outlawed purely on the basis of offensiveness.

Terry

Ok, here's the deal.
In AH there is a line, but the problem is that the line is blurred.

There is no way of unblurring the line without banning all jokes.

It's basically a judgement call on the part of the users who make these jokes, the users who find them offensive and the AH mods who basically have to make the final decision.

What I find funny or offensive is not always the same as the other AH mods. We don't all view things in the same way and we never will.
There is no way of finding a group of people who think the exact same on all things.

The comment which started this thread was viewed as a throw-away comment by me. I have no idea what the other mods thought of it.

If one of them were to delete it, I wouldn't object, but I won't be deleting it myself.

There's no clear-cut right or wrong when it comes to certain things.

I don't want to see AH turn into /b/, but I also don't want to see it turn into some sanitised and watered down thing that wouldn't seem out of place on American TV.

You have to take the good with the bad and sometimes that means biting your tongue and getting on with things.
By all means, if you are offended I/we urge you to report posts. They will be looked into. We do not ignore reported posts and your view will be taken into great consideration when we look at it.

themadchef

Some people find Black, murder, handicapped, suicide, jew, fat, ugly, Yore ma (in the case where people have a ma has actually died) jokes offensive. There's a whole load of things people can take offense to.

I think if someone is advocating or promoting a particular crime then infract/ban them. But i don't think joking about a serious a subject as rape should be off limits. If you make a rule for one you have to make a rule for all.

As a woman, i don't feel AH is anti woman. That is my opinion.
I don't want a Politically correct AH.

AckwelFoley

Ironically, i tend to veer away from commenting on rape threads in AH, i could spit my food up laughing at some comments and others perhaps yes, its clear they are just not funny. A very close friend was raped a few years ago (not by me), will i avoid finding a dark humour in some of the comments? Unlikely. Ive attempted suicide and spent time in the nut house - but will find humour in it, its my way of dealing with the hand i was dealt. I appreciate and i am mindful that i may be somewhat unique on this, but i think the comments by seamus and terry cover my feelings on moderation.

Silverfish

onewoman wrote: »

Why are misogynistic jokes in the above thread going completely unmoderated?

A vicious racist remark early in the thread led to an instant band, but several misogynistic comments have apparently not led to any bans. Is it boards' policy to tolerate offensive comments about some sections of society but not about others? Why the hypocrisy?

The anti-women comments create an exclusionary and threatening atmosphere in a forum that's meant to be open to everyone to enjoy.

Can I just say, fair play to you for starting this.

But you won't be heard. You'll be jeered at, joked about, have eyes rolled at you, and have lectures thrown at you.
You'll spot the difference in the genders of the people doing this too.

Here's my advice.

You might want to just stay out of AH, Motors, PI, and probably some more forums. Its simpler and easier.

You'll be told (and I will be) that this isn't the case, sure its only a joke, can you not take a joke love, ahaha, do you hear her now, ahaha, stupid woman....

... you know, the stuff we've been hearing all our lives from blokes who know they're not quite in the right.

Dudess

+1
It gets my goat the way it appears to be taken as red that you're an awful sanctimonious, holier-than-thou killjoy if you object to rape jokes. But that attitude is hugely prevalent, and... I wouldn't say "fostered" but certainly there's complacency.
Good example: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055296360

Earthhorse

Terry wrote: »

It's basically a judgement call on the part of the users who make these jokes, the users who find them offensive and the AH mods who basically have to make the final decision.

Do you think that when someone is posting a "joke" about a subject such as rape there should be an onus on them to ensure the joke contains some substance? Some degree of wit or insight? Some clue that they have put effort into their post and not just gone for a crude and lazy gag?

Is that too blurred a line to draw?

Nevyn

Terry wrote: »

By all means, if you are offended I/we urge you to report posts. They will be looked into. We do not ignore reported posts and your view will be taken into great consideration when we look at it.

Thank you for stating this Terry cos I was getting pms from people who were
offended and were asking would reporting it make a difference.

Rev Hellfire

Earthhorse wrote: »

Do you think that when someone is posting a "joke" about a subject such as rape there should be an onus on them to ensure the joke contains some substance? Some degree of wit or insight? Some clue that they have put effort into their post and not just gone for a crude and lazy gag?

Is that too blurred a line to draw?

Totally agree, while I'd agree with the premise that nothing should be granted an 'untouchable' status.
There's a world of a difference between satire/jokes on a confrontational topic compared to the same served up at the expense of the victims, common decency you would hope allows people to see that.

cornbb

Earthhorse wrote: »

Do you think that when someone is posting a "joke" about a subject such as rape there should be an onus on them to ensure the joke contains some substance? Some degree of wit or insight? Some clue that they have put effort into their post and not just gone for a crude and lazy gag?

Is that too blurred a line to draw?

In fairness to Terry, he has shown examples of where he has asked people to cut out the rape jokes in the past. After Hours is full of gags, whether they are "crude and lazy" is the opinion of the person reading them. Asking the mods to deny/allow jokes based on their level of insight/funnyness is a bit of a tall order. If they were to clamp down heavily on jokes that are perceived by some to be tasteless there wouldn't be much of a forum left.

FWIW I'm not a fan of the ole rape jokes either, along with many other opinions held in AH, in these cases I just go and read another forum.

Terry

Silverfish wrote: »

Can I just say, fair play to you for starting this.

But you won't be heard. You'll be jeered at, joked about, have eyes rolled at you, and have lectures thrown at you.
You'll spot the difference in the genders of the people doing this too.

Here's my advice.

You might want to just stay out of AH, Motors, PI, and probably some more forums. Its simpler and easier.

You'll be told (and I will be) that this isn't the case, sure its only a joke, can you not take a joke love, ahaha, do you hear her now, ahaha, stupid woman....

... you know, the stuff we've been hearing all our lives from blokes who know they're not quite in the right.

Nobody has been jeered here.
Two AH mods have posted here and given their opinions on the matter.
We have listened to this complaint.

Earthhorse wrote: »

Do you think that when someone is posting a "joke" about a subject such as rape there should be an onus on them to ensure the joke contains some substance? Some degree of wit or insight? Some clue that they have put effort into their post and not just gone for a crude and lazy gag?

Is that too blurred a line to draw?

It's After Hours.
You would have a better chance of someone writing the world's greatest novel and posting it there than reading a rape joke with a tiny degree of insight.

Most rape jokes go unreported. Christ, I'm writing this and the first thing that comes into my head is that someone will then go on a rant about how rapes go unreported and throw this whole thing off on a tangent. That's not what I'm getting at here.

My point is that more and more of late, AH has turned into /b/-lite.
I don't like the direction it has taken and I'm trying to keep that type of crap out of it.
I'm only one man though.
If people repot posts, then we can act on them.
We can't read every post on that forum.
I could sit at the computer all day and still miss one or two posts. There is just far too much traffic for anyone to keep up with.
That's one of hte reasons for the reported posts system. (note to self. Log into msn messenger to get reported posts notifications).

Then you have all the posts that are deleted without anyone saying 'hey, I've deleted a post which had a rape joke in it. I'm just posting here to let you know.'
That would be pointless.

Dudess, you were an AH mod. You know exactly how that forum functions and how difficult it is to draw a line.
Difficult is too soft a word. It's actually impossible to draw a line.
It's a general discussion forum. There are very limited boundaries on what can and cannot be posted there and we cannot go into people houses/ places of work/ schools/ colleges etc. and tell them what not to post. All we can do is look at the posts, try to see them in the context they were posted in and act according to our own definitions of what is acceptable.

We will never allow a specific rape joke thread. They have cropped up in the past and were promptly dealt with. In much the same way, we will never allow a thread with jokes about Jews, Blacks, Asians or anything else like it.

However, we cannot monitor every single post.
We're not machines. We are human and use human judgement to decide on what is and what is not acceptable. It's a system which has flaws and those flaws cannot be fixed.

We could go the road of filtering out the word "rape", but that would only serve to stifle reasoned discussion on the subject.

If anyone has any way of working around the current system, then by all means I urge you to speak up.
If you don't think the current mods are up to the job, then speak up.

This may come across as a bit condescending, but that's not at all how it is meant.
I'm genuinely looking for ways around this.

Silverfish has suggested not reading AH, but I see that as being as bad as the removal of all jokes from there. It's basically self censorship.
Besides, if everyone who finds something offensive in AH was to stop reading it, there would be nobody left to report posts or to even make posts in order for them to be reported.

Bob the Builder

Ponster wrote: »

Bob you can't honestly believe that reacting against rape jokes is being politically correct ??

I for one didn't bother to report the thread as I didn't bother to read it. The "Swallow it, bitch" pool in feedback went to prove that I was in the minority in not liking these type of posts.

No, the jokes referenced to from this thread were just sick. There was no PC hat, just how people interpreted them - and that was for the negative.

But I often see comments about how AH is a bad place and the "Swalllow bítch" thread been one of them, and the mods are often criticised for making certain decisions. When I made that post last night, I was talking about AH in general, and I should have made that clear.

Silverfish

Terry wrote: »

Nobody has been jeered here.
Two AH mods have posted here and given their opinions on the matter.
We have listened to this complaint.


.

I mean in general, by other posters, every time a subject like this comes up.

And don't say it doesn't happen, I can link you several threads off the top of my head.

Bob the Builder

Just putting this out here, but are people trying to be witty, sharp and funny by throwing out one-liners that are stupidly bad, in an attempt to get Thanks?

(in my experience anyway)

Kold

Racism is not the same as misogyny. Like.. at all really.

You say the posts were sick and hateful. I say that they were just poor attempts at humour. If there was a funny rape joke (The first buttrape one made me smirk) then I'd be more for backing this up. This is the internet, welcome. Unfortunately people will have different views to you. Some people are racists, some people are misogynists, some people want drugs to be legalised, some people believe in the death penalty. Now argue your point without the holier than thou "It's wrong!" or gtfo.

Terry

Silverfish wrote: »

I mean in general, by other posters, every time a subject like this comes up.

And don't say it doesn't happen, I can link you several threads off the top of my head.

Sorry, you're right on that one.
Here's hoping for no lolcats in this thread.

Bob the Builder wrote: »

Just putting this out here, but are people trying to be witty, sharp and funny by throwing out one-liners that are stupidly bad, in an attempt to get Thanks?

(in my experience anyway)

I'm finding that to be the case more and more.

Earthhorse

Terry wrote: »

My point is that more and more of late, AH has turned into /b/-lite.

The tipping point has been reached. You can't undo it by applying the same policies of old.

Terry wrote: »

If people repot posts, then we can act on them.
We can't read every post on that forum.

Wasn't the post reported in this case though? OP says it was anyway.

Terry wrote: »

It's actually impossible to draw a line.

It's a general discussion forum. There are very limited boundaries on what can and cannot be posted there and we cannot go into people houses/ places of work/ schools/ colleges etc. and tell them what not to post.

No, but you can change those limits and boundaries. It's not impossible to draw a line (otherwise no one would ever cross it and everything would be okay).

Terry wrote: »

If you don't think the current mods are up to the job, then speak up.

It's not that, but the current mods do appear to be unwilling to try anything other than what they have in the past. I accept there are reasons for that (you don't want to create more work, kill the fun in AH) etc. but it's the unwillingness to try anything different that means these threads will continue to crop up.

Kold

So what? The more complaints they get, it means that they need to change? I think the real problem with AH at the moment is that too many people are trying to be funny when they're not. So let's not have a ban anyone who dare utters a tongue in cheek comment but ban people who continually just try and fail in order to be a cool AH'er. The yorema ban seems like a better place to start.

briantwin

Silverfish wrote: »

But you won't be heard. You'll be jeered at, joked about, have eyes rolled at you, and have lectures thrown at you.
You'll spot the difference in the genders of the people doing this too.

I was wondering when the ugly little face of the gender war goblin would materialise. This is a question of how to gauge what is acceptable "joking" in AH and what is not. Some women took offense to some of the ridiculous crap that some people had spouted in that thread fair enough. Report it.

Racism and what you are calling misogyny are two different things. Especially in this day and age. The comments that were being referred to as misogynistic were just lame attempts at humour. Dreadful and immature attempts at humour.....And if you cant see the difference between that and a genuinely maslicious and harmful comment then i doubt you'll be able to decipher the intricacies of this gender war you imply is under way.

Earthhorse

Kold wrote: »

So what?

So buttons.

Kold wrote: »

The more complaints they get, it means that they need to change?

Nah, they should just ignore user feedback.

Kold wrote: »

I think the real problem with AH at the moment is that too many people are trying to be funny when they're not.

That's a problem alright.

Kold wrote: »

The yorema ban seems like a better place to start.

I'll be the first to cheer this if it ever comes.

The_Minister

I've never been on /B/, but tbh I don't think that AH is too bad. We have some decent discussions in there, and most of the time its fairly civil.
It's just a few topics like travellers that get people going

Kold

Earthhorse wrote: »

Nah, they should just ignore user feedback.

Well let's say I were to start a feedback thread about being able to say anything I wanted in AH and that thread got more support, should they then take what I say into account? The Feedback Forum is hardly democracy at work.

Earthhorse

They should take what everyone says into account, within reason i.e. not trolls. Whether that means they'll agree with it or not is another thing.

Terry

Earthhorse wrote: »

The tipping point has been reached. You can't undo it by applying the same policies of old.

What would you suggest we do?

Wasn't the post reported in this case though? OP says it was anyway.

Yes, it was. We looked at it and decided not to act on it.
That's not to say that we don't act on all reported posts. This particular post just wasn't deemed all that offensive.

No, but you can change those limits and boundaries. It's not impossible to draw a line (otherwise no one would ever cross it and everything would be okay).

The thing is though, we don't have many limits and boundaries.
We don't allow personal abuse. We don't allow porn. We don't allow racism. We don't allow sports threads.
With those four points there is still a bit of leeway given. It's not much, but we do let some comments slip through.
Other than that, it's pretty much a free for all.

As I said, we can't go into people's homes and tell them how to behave on the internet. All we can do is monitor their behaviour and act according to how we see the situation at hand.

There is a line, but that line is in different places for everyone.

What I find offensive might not offend you.

Believe me, I'm not a fan of rape jokes, but, as a moderator, I'm not going to try to impose my own moral ethics on the users of this site. I'll post my opinions on AH, but they are just my opinions and are not to be seen as set in stone. Most users can see that and will rebut if they think I'm wrong. That's what discussion is all about.
I/we can't go around banning anyone who disagrees with me/us.

I'll clean up things to a certain point, but I can't remove everything I find offensive, nor can I remove everything you find offensive.

It's not that, but the current mods do appear to be unwilling to try anything other than what they have in the past. I accept there are reasons for that (you don't want to create more work, kill the fun in AH) etc. but it's the unwillingness to try anything different that means these threads will continue to crop up.

What makes you think we are unwilling to try anything new?
We certainly don't want to kill the fun in AH, but we do try to keep the forum clear of highly offensive stuff.

What new things would you suggest we do?

Silverfish

briantwin wrote: »

I was wondering when the ugly little face of the gender war goblin would materialise. This is a question of how to gauge what is acceptable "joking" in AH and what is not. Some women took offense to some of the ridiculous crap that some people had spouted in that thread fair enough. Report it.

Racism and what you are calling misogyny are two different things. Especially in this day and age. The comments that were being referred to as misogynistic were just lame attempts at humour. Dreadful and immature attempts at humour.....And if you cant see the difference between that and a genuinely maslicious and harmful comment then i doubt you'll be able to decipher the intricacies of this gender war you imply is under way.

Exhibit A.

Thank you.

You miss the point that it depends on which side of the 'humour' you're on.
Like rape itself, I suppose.

Bob the Builder

Yep, I think that After hours is turning into a wannabe stand up comedy show that consistently goes over the line. It's not about banter and off-topic discussion anymore at all these days... It's just about who can be the funniest, or who can receive the most thanks...

Looking back on it, there has been occasion's where I wrote a post(well one in particular, thats all), and took out bits because I didn't think people would agree with them, not because I was trying to fit, but because I didn't want to take away from the part of the post that I thought was going to get a Thanks. And I did get a thanks in the end.

Never have I ever felt so durty.

Earthhorse

Terry wrote: »

What would you suggest we do?

Ban or infract low or no content "jokes" about controversial subjects. Like the one reported on the thread.

Terry wrote: »

What makes you think we are unwilling to try anything new?

What new things have you tried in the last (say) 2 years in AH?

Terry wrote: »

What new things would you suggest we do?

Ban catchphrases that have been run into the ground.

Terry

The_Minister wrote: »

I've never been on /B/, but tbh I don't think that AH is too bad. We have some decent discussions in there, and most of the time its fairly civil.
It's just a few topics like travellers that get people going

Thankfully it is not as bad as /b/ and that is a road we will never go down (as long as I'm an AH mod anyway. besides, I don't think the admins would want that either).

you are right in that threads about travellers (to mention but one topic) do get out of hand and we do tend to end up banning people and closing those threads. Some people just can't conduct themselves in a proper manner when it comes to certain topics.

Earthhorse wrote: »

They should take what everyone says into account, within reason i.e. not trolls. Whether that means they'll agree with it or not is another thing.

We do take everything into account.
While I was posting my last reply on this thread, two reported posts were made.
I looked at them and decided not to act on them
While typing up this post there were another two reported posts. By the time the second one had been made, I had already closed a thread.

Sometimes people can be a little overenthusiastic with the report post button, but this is better than not reporting a post at all. We appreciate all input from all users (except for the two or three who continue to re-register. They're just pests).

Just because something has not been acted on does not mean we haven't looked into it.

It's a judgement call and sometimes we get praise for it and sometimes we get abusive PMs. We just have to deal with everything on a case by case basis.


As for the recent increase in lame jokes, people seem to be skirting around it, but I'll say it. It's because of the thanks system.
People want to see their posts being thanked.

Now we could do one of two things here.
We could have thanks removed from AH or we could leave it there and wait for the novelty to wear off.

I'm leaning towards the latter.

The people seem to like it and as such I feel it should be left there.

As the Cmod of Rec, the final decision on whether to remove it or not will be left to Karoma, but I can put up a poll to see what people really think of it.