The rules say:

Be civilized
Don't create offensive, vulgar, obscene, threatening, abusive or excessively profane posts. Do not instigate, engage in, or encourage 'flame wars'. Do not post racist or 'hateful' material.This means no racist/homophobic comments, period. Discussions of racism itself in the proper forum are OK. Making hateful comments, directed at a person or group, may get your account immediately suspended. We are extremely serious about this. prince.org is not a place for racial bigotry or hateful speech.
Don't post trolls/ads/spam/get-rich-quick schemes/other junk.Don't make posts that are inflammatory just to get people riled up.



I do realize that I probably am considered an Org wet blanket but I am really tired of the shit that goes on here sometimes. While I am no innocent bystander, mainly because I refuse to hold my tongue on certain subjects, I nonetheless do not go out of my way to start shit here. I consider most of the race threads on here to be hateful and at the very least tasteless. Even if the Org were mature enough to handle a thread on the subject, sooner or later, someone will come along on the thread and say some hateful bullshit. We have trolls and baiters, sometimes people with personal shit against others who hide behind online screennames instead of manning up or womaning up enough to say what they need to say as themselves. Trolling that goes on for months.

While I do appreciate the mods have a hard job babysitting, I also think some things go unchecked for whatever reasons. Could I report people/posts to moderators? Yes. But I feel that I shouldn't have to. I'm here way less time than most of the mods are and I see stuff so I feel someone else must be seeing it too. Any thread with a reference to the N word probably should be watched.

Freedom of speech, some will cry. At what expense?

I realize nothing may come of this post. I don't care. I've decided not to say anything else about things from this point on. I'm done being hypersensitive now.

what's a troll (other than the steadwood kind)?

You're right to speak up. But how do you always end up in the middle of all this nastiness?

Maybe you should be a mod. You know where the nonsense is going on. What do you think?

Stymie said:

Copied. saved

Heiress said:

I end up in the middle of the nastiness because I refuse to remain silent on some issues. If someone in GD starts a thread about AIDS or about the N word, I go to add my two cents and unfortunately, some of the things said offend me. I think that some of the things don't offend the mods, some not all of them, so it goes on. I realize they ultmiately have last say.

For the record, I would never, ever want to be a mod here. I'm barely wanting to belong to this community anymore.

PANDURITO said:

Typical.

Keep on doing what you do. you've been a member of this community long enough to kow what offends people. You baiting and trolling on such threads demonstrates this.

Stymie said:

I'm surprised because I find you, quite honestly, to be one of the least offensive people around here!

Maybe it is better to take a break from here, if you feel the need to protect yourself from some of this nonsense. But keep in mind it would be our loss.

Keep the faith!

I understand where you're coming from, and I do not think you're being hypersensitive. Maybe some people think that (though I'd be the wrong person to ask, as I mostly confine myself to Music: All-MJ), but that's what happens when you decide to call people on their nastiness. Part of the problem seems to be what threads are determined to be unacceptable. My perception is that individual words are deemed offensive and not necessarily sentiment. What I mean is a thread that uses the word "nigger" would presumably get the axe, but a thread that's going to generalize an entire race/ethnicity/sexual orientation/blah/blah/blah does not get the same treatment. It can go on and on without interference, because somebody isn't necessarily using offensive words.

It doesn't seem like something that's ever going to change here for various reasons; it would require more time and commitment from moderators, the elimination of Org alter-egos that members hide behind so they can show their true colors (I was going to start a thread on this whole nonsense, but decided against it...in a nutshell, get rid of the daily post total rule, and limit accounts to one per IP address so that individual members are accountable for their actions), and more tattling from other members. In the end, a lot of people are just here to talk about certain topics, and they ignore everything else. There's nothing at all wrong with that. It just makes you feel like the squeaky wheel when you're doing all the complaining.

I know it's easier said than done, but just ignore the bull crap, Ivy. There's nothing people are saying, feeling or doing here that people don't do in their private lives. The difference is that the internet - and, indeed, prince.org - eliminates the need for social filters and allows people an unadulterated opportunity to display their ignorance. It's always going to be there, but you and anybody else, including me, will just have to make the choice to either ignore it or continue to call people on their mess. Besides that, I won't let you go anywhere. I love having you here too much.

Stymie said:

I have NEVER offended anyone here on purpose. You may believe it or not.
It's YOUR problem.

I believe for a word to be offensive it must be said with that intention.
Otherwise it's just a word.

I can call my pal:"Come here son of a bitch" while I hug him and it's totally different than if I said those words in a traffic argument to the guy who bumped into me while talking on the cell phone.

PANDURITO said:

I couldn't disagree more. The beginning of this topic referenced the N word. This word's creation and use for hundreds of years have carried violence, hatred, rape and murder with it. You cannot change that with good intentions. It is a fact, not an exaggeration, and you can't fully understand the impact of that if it's something you or your family hasn't experienced. If the word is used and it hurts someone, you can not take that back and you can not blame the person you have hurt.

Stymie said:

I'd much rather have a bunch of unruly 3121/Black Sweat threads than a bunch of topics where white folks freely use the N word or other offensive speech. Like it or not, white folks, if you are white and you use the N word, it is hateful. Period. If you find yourself clinging to your "right" to use it, then I strongly suggest you examine your reasons for doing so. Does your "right" to use this word outweigh the damage you cause? The racism you perpetuate (whether or not that is your conscious intention)? Does it?

I implore the moderators (who's doing GD these days?) to be tougher on racism in the General Discussion forum. Please.
[Edited 2/10/06 8:09am]

FunkMistress said:

Are you implying the moderators are permissive about racism now?
I don't think so

I bet if there were real racist commentaries here that particular orger would be banned for life
... and I would applaud that

PANDURITO said:

Militant's thread was racist.
Being delighted over watching a white man use the N-word repeatedly is racist.
Making a photoshop image that employs the N-word being used by a white man, for humor, is racist.

I'm not implying anything negative about the moderators, so don't cast me in that light. I'm making a request of them with all due respect to the amount of work they do, unpaid, to keep this site running. To me, this is one of the most important issues they could direct their attention to.

FunkMistress said:

It was deleted, wasn't it?

PANDURITO said:

No. 117 replies and still going strong.

Sorry. I don't know what thread you're talking about then.


I thought you were talking about the The usage of the N Word! thread.
Now I've seen it. You're talking about the thread where people that disagree with you are called ignorant I see.
[Edited 2/10/06 9:06am]

PANDURITO said:

You were the first person to post on it!

See? 3 days later and had totallt forgotten about it

stymie,

tahnks for sharing your thoughts....i encourage more folks to do the same..sometimes we as mods get into lulls (or personal lives start to distract us from our job here) and we simply miss moderating things...

from time to time we all need reminders.

People do drag some weird ass shit out of the closet when discussing race issues Stymers dltmfbobgyd!

sosgemini said:

Thanks, SOS. I know there's a lot to do, but hopefully this kind of stuff will be more strictly moderated now that some attention has been shed on it.

BTW, I'd rather see these threads locked than deleted. I think it would serve as a warning and proof that mods mean what they say, and wouldn't have the effect of "sweeping it under the rug." I think deletion is good for duplicate/nonsensical threads, but not for this. What do you think?

I'd love to hear from other mods on this too...

I for one hate racism and won't put up with it if it's obviously intended to flame bait and get a rise out of peeps. I have no problem racist threads.

Org Rules state:

"Do not post racist or 'hateful' material.
This means no racist/homophobic comments, period. Discussions of racism itself in the proper forum are OK. Making hateful comments, directed at a person or group, may get your account immediately suspended. We are extremely serious about this. prince.org is not a place for racial bigotry or hateful speech."

im curious as to why these threads are remaining in gd in the first place...if ts a race discussion then it needs to be moved to p&r....where the nuttcases are afraid to speak out.

whats the nature of the threads?

sosgemini said:

I agree with you on that

luv4u said:

What if it's not-so-obviously intended to flame bait but is still racist?

sosgemini said:

Good point. Militant's thread would fit that criteria, since it's specifically about use of the N word. That would fall under politics. But there are other threads that are created under the guise of humor ("Post a picture of something BLACK!" is a past one that comes to mind) which quickly degenerate into thinly-veiled racism.

FunkMistress said:

Then report it to a mod and let us deal with it. We can't be everywhere 24/7.

luv4u said:

No need to be defensive. I was asking for the sake of clarity. I want to be clear on the mods' stance on this instead of making assumptions.

luv4u said:

thats true...but i think the gd mods probably needed a reminder that some of these "gray area" threads dont belong....i know your good at moving stuff to p&r. hopefully other mods will start to keep an eye out too.

on that note, do we have enough mods now in gd and prince music? thoughts folks?

(ps..im just curious..im not representing the mod team when i ask this question..)