Politics forum infraction

philologos

I'm here to make my case against my recent infraction on the politics forum. The thread can be found here.

Firstly - I genuinely did not see the warning that was given on thread by Scofflaw. What I often do when I post is I search for my username, or I look at posts that were sent to me. I sometimes don't necessarily read all of the previous posts before posting.

Secondly - I don't feel the warning was justified, or that this shouldn't be open for discussion if it is on topic, and it was given the thread of discussion. My posts (I'll quote below) and were genuine responses to posters on the topic [1] [2].

Bannasidhe was responding to studiorat saying that it would be fair enough if he was supporting banning building for worship in any religion. I responded to her if that were the actual policy it would be similar to state atheism. This comparison is fair, considering that this is what happened in the USSR. See this article on Wikipedia for more consideration. This is a political policy, and it seems quite fair to raise it if someone's post bears a strong similarity to it.

Now, Bannasidhe responded to my post. I checked the thread on my phone an hour later, saw that she had responded to me. I responded to her, I didn't see the warning that was given on thread because I just searched and responded. I explained the logic behind my point to her.

As a result, I was infracted, but I don't see how I should be infracted for giving a genuine opinion on the posts that were in the thread. I genuinely feel that there is a bias in respect to this moderating decision, and I think this should be reviewed.

Thirdly - the entire body of my posts on that thread, were for the most part helpful I think. I described my experience living with Muslims in Britain and what I've learned from getting to know them better. I described how denying religious freedom and worship is a fundamental denial of human rights (This is why I also brought up the state policies of the USSR or Mao's China later). I think most of the posters would agree if you asked them that my contributions were fair, and that they added something to the discussion at large.

I think that if certain topics are anathema on a thread about religious freedom in the politics forum, they should be listed clearly in the charter. Although I can't for the life of me see that. I was genuinely making a response to posts which were directed towards me.

In order not to violate boards.ie policy - I need to ask is it OK if I can quote a mods private messages?

It might be useful to invite K9 and Scofflaw to the thread. I'm genuinely looking for a resolution to this issue, but I do genuinely believe that the infraction was unjustified when there was behaviour which genuinely violated the charter on that thread which went unlooked.

Scofflaw

This is just to confirm that philologos has discussed the issue with me by PM before starting DRP.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Dades

Hi folks, sorry for the delay - have been virus struck and frankly couldn't face DR.

philologos - I hope you trust me to be impartial here.

I've read back from the offending posts through the thread to get context, and I have to honest, your first post about State atheism is a complete fresh air. The post you quoted suggested nothing along those lines. It refers only to a hypothetical questioning of those who wish to build and operate faith schools in the State.

The second (infracted) post - made after a warning - builds on this by again quoting something, ignoring the actual content and repeating this nonsense straw man of "banning church construction or any other place of worship".

I'd be inclined to infract this even if there hadn't been a warning to not go there posted an hour before.

Sorry, but I don't see any reason to overturn this.

philologos

Dades wrote: »

Hi folks, sorry for the delay - have been virus struck and frankly couldn't face DR.

philologos - I hope you trust me to be impartial here.

I've read back from the offending posts through the thread to get context, and I have to honest, your first post about State atheism is a complete fresh air. The post you quoted suggested nothing along those lines. It refers only to a hypothetical questioning of those who wish to build and operate faith schools in the State.

The second (infracted) post - made after a warning - builds on this by again quoting something, ignoring the actual content and repeating this nonsense straw man of "banning church construction or any other place of worship".

I'd be inclined to infract this even if there hadn't been a warning to not go there posted an hour before.

Sorry, but I don't see any reason to overturn this.

Thanks for coming back to my post, but I need to respond to your objections because you're genuinely misunderstanding my point.

1. State atheism did not come out of fresh air actually. studiorat's point involved not "allowing another bunch of indoctrinators" into the country. The thread isn't only about the construction of a school, it is about the construction of a mosque. Bannasidhe replied to say, well if you were opposed to all religions doing this, that would be fair enough. I said it wouldn't be fair enough because it would be very similar to a state atheist policy which shouldn't be tolerated in any free society. That was a fair response to her post. This wasn't just about faith schools.

2. If you genuinely think my post went off topic, and that this is a serious argument for infraction. Why was no infraction made when Bannasidhe talked about a case where a lesbian committed suicide because of the alleged preaching of a Baptist church in London or when she was talking about a Turkish lesbian group ? Why was that on topic? Why didn't Scofflaw hold her to the same standard as he held me? If anything my analogy was far more on topic to the subject of religious freedom than Bannasidhe's post was. That's just one example.

3. Why didn't Scofflaw use the yellow card system that exists on boards.ie? That way I would have known about the warning to begin with. It would have arrived in my PM box. I simply searched through for replies to my post as I commonly do to respond.

4. If drawing this analogy (to another political policy that existed in the last century) is anathema, can Scofflaw please list the analogies that I am not allowed to draw on thread? The thread was about limits to religious freedom. I find that Scofflaw was illegitimately stifling discussion on that thread, and I find that he didn't hold other posters to the same standard as he held me to. Instead he accused me of holding to a hobbyhorse when I was doing nothing of the sort, and he accused me of not reading the entire thread when I had been contributing to the thread from post 1.

5. I am genuinely concerned that I've racked up this because of bias, because I've made this comparison, and that Scofflaw knows that I'm an evangelical Christian. Hence the "hobbyhorse" comparison when it wasn't even applicable. I think there are genuine concerns about new-atheist bias on boards.ie, and I would genuinely like to see this properly reviewed. I fear I may be wasting my breath on this, but I'd like this looked over properly.

6. Even if my post was "nonsense", and I genuinely don't believe it was. There are many posts on that thread that could be considered "nonsense" to somebody which were left uninfracted. In fact Scofflaw found it necessary to infract my post, when there were several other posts which violated the charter and posts which genuinely did go off topic on that thread. I find that thoroughly disappointing, and I genuinely believe there is a bias on boards.ie to new-atheism. Is it really Scofflaws job to determine whether or not my view is nonsense, or is it Scofflaws job to enforce the charter to ensure polite and civil discussion (look back to any post of mine in that thread and tell me seriously I was uncivil).

Dades

philologos wrote: »

1. State atheism did not come out of fresh air actually. studiorat's point involved not "allowing another bunch of indoctrinators" into the country. The thread isn't only about the construction of a school, it is about the construction of a mosque. Bannasidhe replied to say, well if you were opposed to all religions doing this, that would be fair enough. I said it wouldn't be fair enough because it would be very similar to a state atheist policy which shouldn't be tolerated in any free society. That was a fair response to her post. This wasn't just about faith schools.

Bannasidhe did not say "fair enough" to banning the construction of religious schools and mosques.

She said:

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Fair enough - as long as we also ask every other religious group.

As a response to this:

studiorat wrote: »

So why let another bunch on "indoctrinators" into the country without asking who's paying?

There's no mention whosoever of banning anything. Only of asking questions.

You did then ignored Bannasidhe's subsequent clarification and posted the same straw man again.

For me, it's not the off-topicness of your post that deserved the infraction, it's the misrepresentation followed by the dumping (twice) of the State atheism nonsense into the thread.

I'm done here. An Admin will take a look if you request it.

philologos

1. The warning I was given on thread (which I didn't see until long after my second response due to searching for replies as I generally do) was this:

Scofflaw wrote: »

People, this thread is in the process of likely closure as a piece of circular trench warfare, so hold your horses. Any further comments along this line, in particular, will be treated as thread derailing because they're bringing in an additional epicycle.

moderately,
Scofflaw

He says any further comments along this line will be considered as derailing. How is it derailing to bear similarities between posts and past historical political policies on the politics forum? It's not even an additional epicycle, it's still on the same topic as the thread was.

2. Even if I did misunderstand someones post. Misunderstanding is not an offence in any of the charters on boards.ie. If I genuinely misunderstood a post, I would have been happy to be have been corrected on thread. I think in the general context of the thread, the topic was about far far more than schooling. It was about whether or not a mosque should be constructed. In line in respect to the rest of my posts concerning civil liberties in society, I brought up an instance.

3. I did not ignore her clarification, I responded to it. By the time I responded I missed the warning and gained an infraction. By the by, even if that is true (and it clearly isn't) ignoring a clarification given by a poster on thread is also not an offence by the charter. In fact we had one poster who ignored several clarifications one after the other without getting infracted.

4. I think consideration should be given to my general argument on the thread.

5. Is it possible to ask K-9 to comment on the thread in particular as he probably looked at more of my posts than Scofflaw did before infracting?

In the future if Scofflaw is going to do this, I genuinely believe that if he is going to tell me that I can't draw analogies between past political decisions taken by Governments in respect to the topic that he should clearly list them in the charter. Drawing analogies with historical and political decisions taken in the past can hardly be considered anathema to the politics forum.

EDIT: Also, I'd see a lot more sense in this decision if 1) this were actually in the charter, 2) Scofflaw used this standard in respect to the forum. Neither were the case, and it doesn't seem like there are any good grounds in respect to his decision.

Dades

Dades wrote: »

I'm done here. An Admin will take a look if you request it.

To clarify in case you misunderstand this line from my last post - it means this dispute has moved beyond the CMod stage (see here).

If you want an Admin to assess your infraction you need to request that now.

philologos

Dades wrote: »

To clarify in case you misunderstand this line from my last post - it means this dispute has moved beyond the CMod stage (see here).

If you want an Admin to assess your infraction you need to request that now.

Honestly, I really don't need that sarcasm Dades, and I think it's uncalled for given that I've shown you the respect you deserve as a CMod on this thread so far. I'm following the correct process, I've waited for your response, and I've responded to your response to show how I feel it to be lacking given the context of that thread, and the conventions that exist in the form of the charter on the politics forum.

But yes, I would like this to be reviewed by an administrator.

Dades

Apologies for the possible sarcasm. Scofflaw is going to answer some of your points, which may assist whichever Admin picks this up.

Scofflaw

It seems useful to clarify some of the "context" and some of the points raised, although it's not really my place to dispute here. However, for the sake of clarification:

1. the thread in question was on the road to becoming a trainwreck purely on the original topic, which is why I have stepped heavily and repeatedly into the thread

2. as part of the above, I issued a notice on thread to the effect that I didn't want any further new topics broached, particularly the topic philologos raised, which is that of "state atheism"

3. I'm well aware of how discussions on "state atheism" go from my days posting in the Religion forums, and the immediate appearance of old favourites like Mao and Stalin indicated that this one would go straight to trench warfare

4. "state atheism" is not a topic we would usually accept as appropriate for the Politics forum at the best of times, let alone as an off-topic discussion on a thread that already had all the makings of a trainwreck, because it's primarily a religious discussion, not a political one

5. philologos did not receive a yellow card for his original raising of the topic because I didn't see the original raising of the topic as something that needed sanction of any kind. Certainly it was unwelcome, but I covered that in my note on thread.

6. mod notes on thread are standard practice in the Politics forum, and posters are expected to read and follow them. We accept the "did not read" excuse in one of two circumstances - a post that follows the mod note within a very short period (under 5-10 minutes), or a post that follows after a very long separation of pages. Neither was the case here.

moderately,
Scofflaw

philologos

I'm confused as to how drawing a legitimate comparison between restriction of constructing places of worship, and state-atheism which was a political policy under the USSR is unwelcome on the politics forum. Moreover it was a thread where there was a debate about whether or not a mosque should be constructed, which comes down to a religious freedom issue. Are you suggesting that posters can't raise comparisons with actual political events that took place in certain governments? If so, perhaps a list of unwelcome comparisons to political regimes or events would be warranted on the politics forum?

philologos

Just to bump this up. I'm just wondering if any conclusion has been reached in respect to this. If there's still stuff happening in it, please take your time and post your conclusion when ready. I'm just making sure this hasn't been just forgotten about.

Much thanks,
philologos

LoLth

sorry for the delay.

I'll post here tomorrow with an admin decision.

LoLth

hi,

philologos, I've read through that thread from start to lock and while you are right that many of your posts were informative you admit yourself that you tend to search for your own name and post a response without reading the rest of the posts in the thread.

imho, thats

a: not a good way to hold a discussion as you are ignoring points made by other posters that may disprove or disqualify a point made by you

b: dangerous as you have seen, you missed a mod warning (and there had been several warnings previously on thread to other users along the same line)

c: is exactly the sort of behaviour thats not wanted in a politics discussion as you are only interested in responding to those posters that directly ask a quest of you , by username. Searchng for your own name wont turn up the general responses that are posted that encompass points made by you.

I'm afraid that the mod did post a warning, well in advance of your infracted post (an hour before) so no leeway can be given on the possibility fo you responding while the warning was given.

honestly, I cannot see any good reason to overturn the mod decision.

If I might suggest, if you are participating in a debate in future and you want people to take your posting seriously and give it the consideration that you feel it deserves, that you do the same and actually make an effort to read the posts made by the other participants in the discussion. Its a bit disingenuous to the other posters who take the time to respond to a point you raise and it can easily be mistaken for trench-warfare type posting. In this case, it caused you to miss a mod instruction and resulted in an infraction.