Suggestions

[sd_admin]

First an announcement: While modbot seemed like a good idea at the time, it's proved to be unpopular with members. From now on we'll be using it only for admin posts, so that they can be edited by all members of the mod team.


We know that some members have had issues with the community and the mod team, and felt like they couldn't bring them to our attention. Here is your chance. If you've got a question, concern or suggestion about Scans Daily, here's where you can post it.

This post will be linked to in our profile, and checked regularly by the mods. Comments won't be screened, so you can suggest amongst yourselves.

Comments

[angelophile]

Because shemale didn't demand you out aspects of your identity. You did not raise that as an issue, but what you did do was attempt to police another member on her tone and miscategorised her comment as a personal attack. These are the reasons that you were Mod Noted. You didn't even raise the issue of outing your identity at the time.

[buttler]

"Sycophant" is a personal attack.

The reason I didn't raise the issue of shemale's demand for my queer qualifactions at the time was because in context (that is, the context of being told that I wasn't allowed to question the way a transwoman spoke to me or to anyone else), it seemed like it might be a valid question of whether or not I was in the same protected class of people who could toss insults around like that.

[angelophile]

No, sycophant is not an insult or personal attack. It's not a nice word to be labeled with, perhaps, but it would not fall under our definition of a personal attack.

[buttler]

For clarity, does that apply to all personality-based not-nice-words-to-be-labeled-with, like idiot, asshole, crybaby, loser, etc.? They're all not insults?

[angelophile]

Those words would fall under the definition of insults, as I'm sure you are aware. None have the legitimacy of a word like sycophant, which merely means you are being obsequious.

[buttler]

The problem is that I'm aware of all of them as insults and none of them as legitimate, but that's where subjectivity comes in. You could just as easily say that idiot merely means you're being stupid or crybaby merely means you're being overly sensitive. They're all lazy ways of labeling people when you dislike how they're coming across.

It's certainly true that you can't avoid a certain level of subjectivity in these matters, and different people are going draw the line in different places. I'm always going to avoid anything that smacks of an ad hominem attack and address what people are actually saying rather than call them names, but it's useful to know what words can object to and which ones I just have to shut up and take.

Anyway, asked and answered, and added to the lexicon of freebies. Thanks for the clarification.

[kingrockwell]

or crybaby merely means you're being overly sensitive

Just want to note that telling someone they're being "overly sensitive" is usually a bad idea to begin with, especially in a calling-out situation.

[buttler]

Right. I wouldn't ever call anyone obsequious either, but my standards for how to treat other people are clearly stricter than most.

[buttler]

As for "demanding," shemale asked me in the same way that moneyless_jew asked above, as a way of saying that I should put my cards on the table. Either both cases are demanding or neither are.

[freddylloyd]

I agree. I don't see how Shemale wasn't demanding Buttler reveal aspects of identity.

Shemale's question may have been a rhetorical tactic, but any equivalent question—e.g., in a political forum, "Are you even black, or are you just on the Tea Party payroll?"—would be immediately recognized as a demand that someone state personal information.

In the current community rules, there's no exception in rule #3 about protecting "our members' rights to privacy and control over their online identities." Since the moderators have said that they see no need to change that rule, I hope it will be applied.