Reply #628: To most trolls here, a reprimand is just an indication they have succeeded

[muriel_volestrangler]

I thought that by 'social', you meant that the forum consisted of people that want to be 'social', ie generally friendly to each other (even if they occasionally have major disagreements about certain subjects). But DU is a forum that doesn't just attract people of a like mind; it's widely known, and despised both on right wing forums (such as Free Republic) and 'splinter' forums of groups who have some things in common, but who disagree with DU violently on some topics (Israel, socialism, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama ...) which have some members who were DUers but got banned after they became too disruptive. There's a reservoir of people who would like to come here and make normal discussion or argument next to impossible. For them, mods are pretty much the only solution - there needs to be a way of banning people. If you want to see how it can end up, try reading the comments on The Guardian 'Comment Is Free' commentary pages - although it's a left wing paper, they're full of right wingers, and not worth wading through the idiotic replies to get any thoughtful comments - and they are moderated as well (but comments are not deleted just for being right wing).

As far as language goes - DU is pretty liberal with 'neutral' language ('fuck' is not a problem, for instance, as long as it's not aimed at a person, while it would get deleted on some forums). It does have rules about language that imply groups with less power are somehow inferior; this is a fairly standard liberal stance, to protect those who have been getting a bad deal in society. The thing is that the restrictions are not really a problem - I can express strong hatred of any public figure with a wide vocabulary here, without using words that DU deems unacceptable. I am, after all, typing, not speaking, and it's not much of a problem for me to read it before hitting 'post message' and think if I'm unfairly denigrating some group with my language - especially an underdog. The 'censorship' of 'cunt' or 'nigger' is way, way down on my list of priorities - these are not words I need to use. I'm more concerned that you have to type several characters to get a decent formatting of a quote on DU, really.

I wouldn't say your argument is 'conservative' (many conservatives are in favour of greater censorship of words), but you might call it 'libertarian' rather than 'liberal'. Saying some words are unacceptable isn't because people have something to hide, and, if it's a weakness, then it's a typical human weakness - there's only so much hatred anyone can take against them, and, for some groups, they get enough of it elsewhere that they don't want it added to at DU, where they hope for consideration. I don't think that the DU rules on language hide any truth - but they do try to get people to avoid casual (emotional) hurt or dismissal of some groups that suffer it in other arenas.