A forum conduct discussion (split from Re: HTLAL might be gone)

[SladeWilson]

So, so far, the rule is, to cite the classic.
Jam tomorrow and jam yesterday,
but no jam today.
That means no politics, no religion, no jokes, no nothing, even in your own personal language log.
I'm mainly interested in politics and religion.
Those are the reasons why I'm learning English and try to learn Pashto.
That's a pity, in a sense, I'm sure my log would be a hit - people do like scandals, even though they're not inclined to admit it.

I've had disagreements with the admin of the site I used to mod at before, but he gave me a canvas to paint on. There was one forum where he was vehemently opposed to male mods (but why male mods?) having anything to do with the forum because of several instances where it went wrong. But he gave me a shot, and I succeeded not only in modding the forum but he made me global mod, and when I decided to step down for a bit he actually started to appoint other male mods to the forum. He was also against a religious forum that people were demanding but when I spoke to him he gave me a chance with it and appointed me as mod again. We ran that forum up until some months after he sold the site, and a company took over which made some bad decisions and everyone left.

I just want to point out to the admins here that yes, you guys ultimately control the site and can do what you want or not do what you don't want. But sometimes you are meant to be challenged (not because you're wrong to have your opinion, but because the demand exists and we are competent people). Yes, the subject we are talking about seems to have drawn a controversy. But some of us want what we want. Let us carve our own niche. Not everybody has to, wants to, or even will ever participate in it. The community of religious/political discussion won't be big, though if people who say they don't want politics and religion here actually do participate in the beginning, the numbers will dwindle. I've seen it happen. This is a language learning site, which is why the religion/politics won't be big. People mainly come here to talk about language.

This is the last I am going to say. I really hope you reconsider the direction you are taking.

[Φιλόσοφος]

What will happen then when a discussion branches off into a conversation that is interesting, stimulating, and enriching, but that is determined by someone to no longer relate to language learning directly? Is it going to be simply locked up and deleted?

Locking up a good discussion for arbitrary reasons seems to me the worst possible alternative, and quite frankly I would not wish to participate in a forum that is subject to such action. Again, we know from experience on the old forum that this leads to disagreement about moderation and deleted posts, grudges, and eventually disgruntled members leaving altogether.

Language is a most human phenomenon, and its discussion will be entangled will all forms of human subjects such as literature, culture, history, politics and religion. If someone finds some of these subjects objectionable, they can simply choose not to participate or read discussions relating to them. Why ban everyone else though from doing so?

[James29]

If we end up with a new site, and more control over how things are run, I'm suggesting that we think of the forum as a voluntary private association with a set of specific rules about what behaviors are appropriate. These rules might include things like "No politics and religion" (which is certainly a popular rule in many other private associations). Everybody would have the choice to live within the forum's rules, or to leave. But individual posts that broke those rules could still be removed by the moderators. I don't think this qualifies as "aggression" in the technical libertarian sense of that word, does it? Private associations can and do establish rules, as a (sometimes informal) version of freedom of contract.

As for gender neutral language, I do understand that different groups of native speakers have widely divergent opinions about using "he" to refer to persons of unknown gender. I do indeed believe that your colleagues might cross-out singular "they" as a grammatical error. But in other US circles, the use of generic "he" would seem to be both grammatically odd and also deliberately rude, or even be against written corporate style guides. Do you have any concrete suggestions about how a diverse private association could resolve this question in a way that treated everybody with respect? Is there any common ground here, or is this an irreconcilable difference?

You have a very good understanding of the issue. I think of it as more of a pacifist point of view than a libertarian.

If we want to get technical, rdearman (or whoever owns the site) gets the final say, period. It does not really matter what anyone else wants to do. He can do whatever he wants and that's that. I am fine with him doing whatever he wants because there is no other alternative. That is how the world works. As you point out, that is a different issue than whether or not someone chooses to participate in the discussions on the website under his rules.

To the extent you are seeking guidance on rules rdearman wants to impose on his website, we are having a nice discussion. I had no problems whatsoever with the rules or moderators of the previous website and suggest not doing things much different (the one possible exception I can think of was there was a very useful - but blunt - poster named Cainntear who was banned for some reason. I have no idea why he/she was banned and it could have been for a very good reason, but the absence of Cainntear's posts was quite a loss). I even recall myself making a one sentence post where I simply said who I supported for president and I have no problem with the fact that it was justifiably deleted as political.

Rdearman, through the moderators, can do whatever he wants. I, personally, don't like to see other posters resort to the use of aggression, coercion or guilt if someone disagrees with them on a legitimate point. Your question about whether there is a "concrete suggestion about how a diverse private association could resolve this question [about using a singular "they"]" is an example of exactly what I am talking about. If I, or anyone else, have an honest opinion (or in this situation, a perfectly legitimate use of the English language) that someone else chooses to find "offensive" that is a problem the person has with the English language and not me. If that person chooses to resort to aggression by calling me "uneducated", "discriminatory" and a "micro-aggressor" I don't think the aggressive posts should be deleted, rather, I'm just going to call it for what it is in hopes that an honest dialogue helps make progress on reducing likelihood of well-intentioned people resorting to aggression and coercion when they are confronted by an opinion that is different than their own. Jumping to conclusions about what some other person thinks in their mind is very dangerous... especially when the conclusions are drawn from generalities about what ethnic/cultural group the "offending" individual belongs to.

My suggestion is to not change things much as the previous site worked fine. Be very cautious about deleting/banning posts/posters because you never know what someone else thinks and they have an absolute right to believe what they believe. Before you arrest the person who yelled "fire in a crowded theater" check your assumptions and ask if there was actually a fire.

[SladeWilson]

What will happen then when a discussion branches off into a conversation that is interesting, stimulating, and enriching, but that is determined by someone to no longer relate to language learning directly? Is it going to be simply locked up and deleted?

Locking up a good discussion for arbitrary reasons seems to me the worst possible alternative, and quite frankly I would not wish to participate in a forum that is subject to such action. Again, we know from experience on the old forum that this leads to disagreement about moderation and deleted posts, grudges, and eventually disgruntled members leaving altogether.

Language is a most human phenomenon, and its discussion will be entangled will all forms of human subjects such as literature, culture, history, politics and religion. If someone finds some of these subjects objectionable, they can simply choose not to participate or read discussions relating to them. Why ban everyone else though from doing so?

I think the crux of the issue here is ... they don't want to deal with it, even if it ends up a forum of six people by the time two weeks go by (which it will). I've now offered my time and service to try to rectify the issue. The trust it takes to hand power (no matter how little that power is, truly) is probably not there, seeing as they don't know me. I've chosen to make no more pleas, as I don't mean to bump heads with them.

[Doitsujin]

@Takra jenai:
IMHO, you misunderstood the purpose of this thread. Pretty much all technical forums have a no politics and religion rule, and for good reason. (Pretty much the only forums that don't have this rule are forums specifically set up for discussing politics and religion.)
And like all rules there are, of course, exceptions. For example, in Québécois French, certain religious terms are used as swear words and a Québécois French speaker or learner could certainly discuss nuances of usage of these terms. The same goes for learners who study religious texts in their original languages.

I'm sure my log would be a hit - people do like scandals, even though they're not inclined to admit it.

Fun fact: very few logs are actually read by other members, and it's usually the logs of language learners that write about interesting new language learning ideas or materials, not scandals.

So go ahead and set up your log. I'm pretty sure that you can write about pretty much anything as long as you show common sense and don't deliberately attack specific members or specific groups.

[Serpent]

Where did I say that refusing to use singular "they" is uneducated or a microaggression? That would be more about subtly sexist/racist/homophobic remarks that don't contain certain rude words but are still pretty mean, especially when they're essentially personal attacks. Really a key topic for me here is that personal attacks may get dismissed as merely political/offtopic under the current rules (and that officially racism is seen as worse than sexism or homophobia).

[tommus]

HTLAL is about learning languages. There are infinite numbers of very interesting topics to discuss other than religion, politics and other obviously hot-button issues.

Our purpose here is not to solve or discuss all the world's problems. Most of us just want to learn languages. Look at all the time that has already been wasted within this thread in English, by people who already appear to be fluent in English. Think of how much actual language learning could have been achieved using the same amount of time and passion.

I suggest that the only real measure that moderators should be expected to use is: "Is a discussion disruptive to our objective of learning languages?" If so, some guidance, recommendations, warnings, and ultimately, based on discussion among the moderators, shutting down the thread and if really necessary, removing the person(s) causing the problems.

Let's focus on learning languages in a very pleasant, friendly and productive environment.

[Φιλόσοφος]

Again, what will happen to discussions that are civil and respectful, lively and stimulating, but don't meet some strict content criteria?

I just received a publication from Dunwoody Press, Arabic Religious Rhetoric: The Radical Saudi Sheikhs: A Reader, which though my Arabic is nowhere near the level that would allow me to tackle it right away, I found utterly fascinating and look forward to reading, hopefully not too far in the future. Will I not be able to discuss it here when I do?

[SladeWilson]

Most of us just want to learn languages. Look at all the time that has already been wasted within this thread in English, by people who already appear to be fluent in English.

Kind of a contradiction there, if people are so passionate about this thread that they waste their time with it, when they just want to learn languages.

Again, "most of us" just isn't inclusive of the minority. Majority rule doesn't always work, which is why emk wiped his hands of having a poll about leaving HTLAL for this board.

[Serpent]

Everyone is making a voluntary choice to consider the ideas and opinions of other people. If someone chooses to get "offended" by what someone else thinks that should not mean the "offender" is wrong in the way he/she chooses to think.

I'm also very uncomfortable with this kind of posts, and specifically the idea that not feeling offended/insulted is an easy choice for everyone. Believe it or not, it's actually much more pleasant not to feel offended. I kind of miss the time when I enjoyed most jokes I came across, blissfully oblivious to their horrible racist, sexist, homophobic implications. (sex jokes are particularly bad - I'm no sweet angel and I don't consider them inherently tasteless, but many of them hint at rape when you really think of them) Laughing it off can be an effective coping strategy, but this requires a safe environment. And nobody owes privileged/WASP'y people an opportunity to laugh at their expense.

People who face any kind of oppression actually choose *not* to get offended more often than you can imagine. Don't tell them that they need to make that choice even more frequently This feeling is essentially an impulse, which you may or may not suppress, and which will go away on its own if it's nothing major. Most of the time I actively suppress it, I still need to tell someone who understands. (and I'm generally open to this kind of rants too)

Also, emk once posted a great link about how it's not okay to just shrug and tell people not to look at what upsets them, but I have no clue how to find it anymore.

@James29, do you also think people can easily choose not to be offended by racism?