Friday, October 8, 2010

New Comments Policy: Don't be a Massive Douchebag

Gandhi vs. Hogan
As anyone who has looked at the comments on this blog knows, I am averse to censoring comments, even when they are filled with profanity and insults. But in recent days there have been a couple of comments -- literally two, out of a total of 439 on the site -- that have crossed the line, and I've deleted them. There have been several others I have considered deleting as well. 

So I'm instituting a new comments policy, and here it is, in a nutshell: Don't post shit that is so gratuitously nasty it would cause Gandhi himself to punch you in the head.

I'm not demanding that you refrain from salty language, or that you be politically correct or even that you try to be polite. What I am demanding is an end to gratuitously nasty personal attacks on other people who post comments here. Threatening people, also not good.

Calling someone an "idiot," fine. Calling someone a "douchebag," fine. Not so fine: calling someone a cunt, whore, "lezzo," or cumbucket. That sort of thing. If you really cannot make an argument without calling your opponent one of these things, or something similar, you should probably read up a bit on the fine art of argument. I'm not going to debate why certain terms are acceptable and others aren't. It's my blog, my rules.

If you post something that isn't gratuitously nasty and it doesn't appear on this blog, it's not because I have censored it. It's Blogger's less-than-perfect spam filter at work, and I will un-spam it as soon as I see it in the spam box. Sometimes this will take a while, because, you know, I don't live in front of the computer.

Lest anyone get up in arms about how I am censoring free debate or "unpopular opinion," I would like to point out again that up until this point I have deleted only two out of 439 non-spam comments for crossing the line. Neither one actually advanced an argument of any kind.

I would really like to never have to delete a comment again. But that's really up to you guys.

Oh, and to everyone who posts interesting, funny, substantive comments here without resorting to the "c"-word: Thanks!

18 comments:

  1. OT, but can I ask why AntiPornMenProject is on your enemies list?

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  2. Good question. I'm not a fan of anti-porn feminism, and I think that project is sort of backwards, so I put it up there, but that's not the focus of this blog, and it's sort of confusing to have it there, so I'm going to remove it.

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  3. We massive douchebags are offended by this new comment policy. I can't threaten people? That's crazy talk.

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  4. "Calling someone a "douchebag," fine. Not so fine: calling someone a cunt, whore, "lezzo," or cumbucket. That sort of thing."

    In other words terms that are primarily offensive to women are out. Terms that could be used against men, so what. How feminists of you.

    Random Brother

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  5. No anti-male slurs exist because there's no systemic oppression of men. Sorry. I know you wish you really wish there was.

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  6. "No anti-male slurs exist because there's no systemic oppression of men."

    That deserves no response apart from ROFLMAO.

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  7. Anonymous: "No anti-male slurs exist because there's no systemic oppression of men. Sorry. I know you wish you really wish there was."

    So calling someone a tool, or dick or knob doesn't exist? What world do you live in?

    Random Brother

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  8. Calling somebody a tool, a dick, or a knob is as inflammatory and marginalizing as calling somebody a whore or a cunt? What world do you live in?
    It's like calling a white person a honky. They don't actually care and the word has no broader societal implications, but the white folks who rilly rilly wish anti-white racism was a real thing put on this act like it's the equivalent of the n word. They know damn well they're full of shit.

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  9. "Calling somebody a tool, a dick, or a knob is as inflammatory and marginalizing as calling somebody a whore or a cunt? What world do you live in?"

    Ooh goal post shifting! A feminist favorite! First you state there are no anti male slurs and then when I point out some, you completely ignore that and then claim that they aren't as hurtful as anti female slurs! Why don't you first, acknowledge that anti male slurs exist, as I've shown you, then we can start evaluating them versus anti female slurs, okay?

    No, forget it, in fact, I know you'll do the feminist thing and completely ignore what I previously wrote and do more goal post shifting.

    So let me state, I personally belive that the word cunt is more vicious that dick or tool, but the main point still remains that Der Fuher David Futrelle has done what all "equality" loving feminists do. Tried to spare women's feelings and completely ignore the feelings of men. If he were as fair as he likes to pretend then he would have insisted on banning the usual claims towards anti-feminsts like "You can't get laid." "You must be gay." "You all hate women." but he didn't and do you know why?

    It's not because he cares about free speech, it's because he is a bitch. (Am I allowed to say that Dave?) A sissified wuss who has no sense of justice or honor and only cares about women's feelings. Prove me wrong Dave! Show me the equality that you feminists are always squawking about. Ban the tired anti male slurs also or will you continue to grovel behind some man haters hairy legs?

    Now, I'll wait patiently for some "fair" feminists to now acknowledge that there are anti male shaming words.

    Random Brother

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  10. Apparently it's also ok for David himself to make racist comments like "they[Asians] all look alike."

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  11. Coldfire: You either are incapable of reading, or you're being completely dishonest. (Or both.) That line was clearly from the POV of a potential purchaser of thst idiotic app, not my opinion.

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  12. Random Brother: At this point I have banned all of 3 non-spam comments out of a total of 492 comments. Two of them involved gratuitously nasty personal attacks on a particular woman, one was a gratuitously nasty personal attack on a man.

    The foundations of free speech have not been shaken.

    You are free to start your own blog on which you can call anyone you want whatever you want and ban whoever you want for whatever reason you want.

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  13. You're the one being dishonest, trying to claim that there is an unmarked POV shift for one line in the middle of your post. Then again, maybe there's a two word POV shift in the middle of my last sentence. If there is and you don't see it, then you must be incapable of reading or completely dishonest.

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  14. "No anti-male slurs exist because there's no systemic oppression of men. Sorry. I know you wish you really wish there was."

    Ha! it's funny how the word "dickhead" is 100 percent socially acceptable. But the word "cunt" is not acceptable in most cases.

    I also find it funny how there are degrading names for men who masturbate such as words like wanker, tosser. But no degrading names exists for women who masturbate.

    This pretty much shuts down your ridiculous opinion

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  15. David Futrelle said: "At this point I have banned all of 3 non-spam comments out of a total of 492 comments. Two of them involved gratuitously nasty personal attacks on a particular woman, one was a gratuitously nasty personal attack on a man."

    If this is true I commend you, but that has little to do with you setting up a system that is on it's face slanted towards women. Let me try to explain it to you this way:

    If I had a blog that discussed racial issues and then allowed insulting words towards minorities, while making a rule about how certain words, all of which being insults towards whites, would not be tolerated then I would be being unfair. Especially if I claimed I was about equality and fairness as feminists are always wont to claim.

    You later add this gem, "You are free to start your own blog on which you can call anyone you want whatever you want and ban whoever you want for whatever reason you want."

    In other words your house your rules. Fair enough, but in doing so you show yourself as the feminist hypocrite that you are. Again words that hurt women = not tolerated. Words that hurt men = fuck men. So why can't you just admit that you are a pro woman anti male bigot and be done with it? Instead of you feminists always having the word equality drop out of your mouths like vomit. Stormfront doesn't hide what it is. Neither should you.

    Random Brother

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  16. Again words that hurt women = not tolerated.

    Uh, no. Gratuitously nasty personal attacks on other commenters not tolerated. The issue is less the specific terms used than the nastiness of it. As you can see if you actually read the comments here (including your own) I don't automatically ban people for using anti-woman slurs. Or anti-men slurs.

    I'm not hiding anything. I'm stating this policy plainly.

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  17. The MRM is full of cracker-ass honky dick knobs.

    ReplyDelete

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