What. The. Fuck?

[cleanhippie]

SO I posted an OP in R&T that was story from a Christian blog a few minutes ago. It was not MY blog, it was not MY opinion, and yet it was just hidden by a jury.

This system is broken. There needs to be an appeal process. This system allows the majority to oppress the minority, the VERY thing that liberals and progressives are supposed to be AGAINST.


Here is a link to the blog. Enjoy some good christian values.

http://christiansforamoralamerica.blogspot.com/2012/01/how-to-deal-with-atheist-and-homosexual.html

[AlbertCat]

1. This system allows the majority to oppress the minority,

I disagree.

5 people is not a majority. It's just the opposite. A minority is censoring things for the majority.

5 jurors are not enough to get a real consensus, IMHO.


BTW... the blog post is hysterical and scary at the same time. After lumping atheists and homosexuals together and calling them vile and predatory, it asks "what would Jesus do?"

Atheists and homosexuals have forced Christians to shut up???? (I wish!)

[Goblinmonger]

2. What did the jurors say?

Because I don't get it. Well, I think I do, but I don't want to.

[Skinner]

3. Please post the results of the jury.

You should have received a DU mail explaining the deletion. In it, the alerter and the jurors would likely explain their votes.

This was not locked because the jury was oppressing atheists. It was locked because the jury thought you were a bigot who actually agreed with what you posted. After all, it was *your* post and you gave no indication for why you posted the thread.

[Goblinmonger]

5. But rug does that all the time

and nothing happens to those threads.

I know, I know, then alert on them. But I'm not going to be that person. If people are mad about what they perceive as supported bigotry being posted, then the trend is clearly that the understand when a believer posts something bad as not being what the poster supports but not when a non-believer does (or it is fine when it is about atheists but not when it is about believers).

The monkey's running the zoo sounds like an awesome idea, but may not always be so.

[cleanhippie]

8. Maybe I need to master my passive-aggressive posting abilities.

I guess I'm just not subtle enough, where others seems to be quite proficient at it.

[cleanhippie]

6. The message I got only says that a jury voted to hide it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12185071


Skinner, there really needs to be some kind of appeal process put in place. An opportunity to explain, or modify, or delete the post in question. Some accountability and REASONING for the jurors.

[Skinner]

9. You should have received a DU Mail message in your inbox.

Click the "My Inbox" link at the top right of any page.

Then copy the entire contents of the message and post it here so we can see it.

[cleanhippie]

10. Ahh, yes, here it is. I think it proves my point.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=inbox&view=58532

At Fri Jan 6, 2012, 07:41 AM, an alert was sent on the following post:

How to deal with Atheist and homosexual cyber-stalkers

REASON FOR ALERT:

This post is disruptive, hurtful, rude, insensitive, over-the-top, or otherwise inappropriate. (See <a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=aboutus#communitystandards" target="_blank">Community Standards</a>.)

ALERTER'S COMMENTS:

bigoted hate speech

JURY RESULTS

A randomly-selected Jury of DU members completed their review of this alert at Fri Jan 6, 2012, 07:56 AM, and voted 5-1 to HIDE IT.

Juror #1 voted to HIDE IT and said: No explanation given
Juror #2 voted to HIDE IT and said: Discussing the bigoted speech found at other sites is fine, and often will involve quotes. But absent any framing discussion, this OP is merely regurgitating despicable content from elsewhere - which is disruptive and unlikely to trigger productive conversation. (-- Petronius)
Juror #3 voted to HIDE IT and said: I'd do more than hide this; what was the point of posting it, and that site should be banned imo.
Juror #4 voted to HIDE IT and said: Like the alerting member said, "bigoted hate speech".
Juror #5 voted to HIDE IT and said: No explanation given
Juror #6 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: No explanation given

CONSEQUENCES OF THIS DECISION

You will no longer be able to participate in this discussion thread, and you will not be able to start a new discussion thread in this forum until 8:56 AM. This hidden post has been added to your <a href="/?com=profile&uid=260446&sub=trans">Transparency page</a>.



Juror #2 makes the only valid point. Maybe I should have added some commentary. But if that is going to be a requirement, then half the posts on DU are gonna need to be hidden.

[Skinner]

11. This proves your point?

What point is that?

[cleanhippie]

12. Seriously?

Nevermind, things are just peachy.

[ZombieHorde]

18. You had the administrator's ear, and you blew it off.

What a waste.

[cleanhippie]

20. If my point was not apparent before, I had already wasted my time.

And others have already had the exact same conversation with him. He is fully aware of the situation, I'm positive that any change that was to made was not hanging on my argument.

I guess I feel like I have been swimming against the current, ad many othets do Maybe it's time to start swimming for the bank instead.

[JNelson6563]

34. I was Juror #4 on that jury

I am completely unfamiliar with your posting history, first of all, not that that really matters on this judgement call.

If you had put some commentary, maybe "Check out this bigoted, hateful article" or whatever then maybe it would have looked differently. To post the article alone and no comment, well, just the article is hateful and bigoted.

With zero comment it was just a nasty bit of writing thrown out there to stand alone. Sorry but that's how I saw it. I don't want to hear about what other posters may do or get away with, that is unrelated to this.

Julie

[darkstar3]

25. That a very visible bias has shown itself

in the alleged pure democracy of DU3, and that any expression of unpopular minority views can be easily subject to censorship through tyranny of the majority.

CH may have a problem with spoonfeeding people. I, having taught octogenarians how to use computers, have no such limitation.

[cleanhippie]

28. Thank you DS3.

I feel like after all this time, anyone who is not getting the point by now is being intentionally obtuse.

[RueVoltaire]

39. I get it - and thank you for submitting that delusional blog post -

perfect example of what we're up against.

[Renew Deal]

13. Members have difficulty "reading minds."

It can be difficult for members, jurors, admins, etc. to know what you mean when you post something. So if they take it literally you can end up having a problem.

[cyberswede]

14. I thought you posted it to make fun of the blog.

Is that right? If so, it seems that the alerter didn't get that. Nor did some of the jury members.

[cleanhippie]

17. My mistake was assuming that.

[Goblinmonger]

15. I resposted in R/T with a tiny bit of discussion at the end

and put the quoted text in a block (would be nice to have the html codes for those not overly familiar with it linked here as it was on DU2).

We shall see what people think.

[darkstar3]

26. Yeah, after reading the post and realizing that an outsider might not know CH's position,

it became clear that at least a little context would have been helpful.

I stand behind an earlier comment you made in this thread, though. Context is often not provided by our believer friends in RT when the post similarly flaming shit, and those posts never seem to get shut down...

[stuntcat]

4. what a weird disturbing page

full of hate. and of course I see in their topics on the right they love guns.

humans horrify me. I bet religious fighting will just get worse every year of my life. A lot of Christians seem ready to fight their own fellow Americans just for being Atheists.

[Ian David]

7. Poe's Law

Poe's Law states:[1]
“ Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that SOMEONE won't mistake for the real thing. ”

Poe's Law is an axiom suggesting that it's difficult to distinguish between parodies of religious fundamentalism and its genuine proponents, since they both seem equally insane. For example, some conservatives consider noted homophobe Fred Phelps to be so over-the-top that they argue he's a "deep cover liberal" trying to discredit more mainstream homophobes.

More:
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Poe%27s_Law

[Warpy]

16. To tell you the truth, I might have voted to hide this one

because you didn't start the discussion. While it was one of those sites that initially struck me speechless, I'd probably have waited to post it until I got those powers of speech back enough to comment on it and start a discussion about extreme paranoia on the Christian far right.

[pokerfan]

19. The jury system is broken

Tyranny of the majority.

[Deep13]

21. The fact that there was a link to an outside blog ought to have tipped them off...

...that they were not your ideas.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

22. Just got an alert on this thread as being against the SoP

Carry on, I say.

[laconicsax]

23. That alert was sent less than an hour after the OP was made.

While this OP is technically outside the SoP for our group here, there's historically been a "complain about R/T" component to the A&A group, and because of it I will continue to not lock this thread.

[darkstar3]

24. second.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

27. I completely agree

I didn't realize how quickly the alert was sent.

I'd argue that this post is certainly within the A&A SoP because it discusses an issue important to DU atheists. The issue being the poor treatment in other groups on DU, and its effect on us.

[Quartermass]

29. You guys do understand that the jury is randomly determined, right?

Or do you want to have a system everyone lists their beliefs and the jurors are selected according from how they believe?

With a random Jury selection, I just can't see how there can be a majority, such as a religious majority, happen.

The jury system does have its faults, such as no appeal system, but it does sometimes work out in the end and can be fair at times.

[lazarus]

36. easily

if 80% of DU is religious, the same way 80% of America is religious, the odds that one will get a jury that's over 60% religious go way up.

And "sometimes fair" is a very low bar to be aiming for, don't you think?

[Scuba]

30. I start my jury comments with "generally opposed to censorship", then vote "Leave it".....

.... but without some preamble (e.g., look at how hateful these SOBs are) this post deserves a "Hide it" vote.


Did you include such a disclaimer?

[Odin2005]

31. I think the Jury fell victim to Poe's Law.

They misinterpreted it as your own opinion.

[MarkCharles]

32. Two major faults I see of the jury system are:

Jurors often do not know the full context of the remark, nor the full nature of the facts under discussion.

Jurors often do not care to spend much time engaged in acting on a jury, more often than not choosing NOT to justify their vote with a comment. Most comments come from those votes to HIDE a post, few if any comments come from those wishing the post to remain.

Perhaps jurors should be required to comment as to why they voted as they did, otherwise their vote wouldn't count. Also, perhaps jurors should read the entire thread before voting.

I know, I know, that's asking a lot!

[skepticscott]

33. I agree that having jurors read the whole thread

and seeing the context of the post in question before deciding would be best, but I'm not sure how you enforce that. Sometimes the threads can get long and involved, and it's a lot to absorb.

As far as comments, I don't find it worrisome that more comments come from people voting to hide a post, because I think that requires more justification. The default position should be to keep a post visible, and the burden should be on those who want to suppress a post to show why that should happen.

[Curmudgeoness]

35. And a third fault, as I see it,

is that there is no way for a juror to know whether they are judging a post on a "safe haven" group like A&A, or a free-for-all forum like GD or Religion.

It would be beneficial to have that distinction specified when you are serving on a jury.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

37. I think that's up to the person sending the alert

Were I to alert on a post here in A&A, I would certainly point out the fact that this is a safe haven forum, and how the post violates the principles of the safe haven.

[laconicsax]

38. There's an even more fundamental fault.

Jurors don't always read. As a result, they don't understand what they're doing or why they're doing it.

I just made a TOS alert with the comment, "This is a TOS alert. Poster's comments in this thread may constitute a TOS violation," or something to that effect.

I fully expected a 0-6 'leave it alone' result, as I've gotten on TOS alerts in the past, but the majority of the juror comments were along the lines of 'why was this alerted.' Here are my favorites:

It seems a perfectly reasonable discussion for this forum, there is no personal attack that i see

As usual, I see nothing here than can be remotely construed as offensive or hurtful. Hiding this would be beyond ridiculous.