Good job locking the only discussion on sexism

This belongs in a different place outside of the P&R forum. This isn't the avenue to disagree with a mod/mods decision.

Some of you may disagree with the thread being locked. The truth is that the thread was causing multiple issues across multiple fronts ranging from private PM's, personal attacks, trolling, etc. Someone is taking a vacation from this board because of the resulting behavior.

The thread was not locked because of the topic but because of the behavior. Sexism is a topic worthy of debating and discussing, but not when an entire thread is nothing but one overwhelming pissing match between multiple parties.

 
Yeah, I guess I don't understand the lock either. Possibly because it had pretty much run its course and was venturing off into racism rather than sexism. Seemed like a very frank and friendly discussion of a valid topic to me. But consider the source here....I thought cheese fries were appropriate in that football forum thread  :lol:

Edit- Oops....nvm.

 
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Enhance said:
Some of you may disagree with

The thread was not locked because of the topic but because of the behavior. Sexism is a topic worthy of debating and discussing, but not when an entire thread is nothing but one overwhelming pissing match between multiple parties.
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The topic was nothing close to a pissing match, and because of that fact, locking it says the exact opposite than "it's okay to talk about sexism."

It's okay for men to be a$$hole$ to each other about football. Let that slide.

It's okay for men to be a$$hole$ to each other about politics or religion. Let that slide.

But when a few men complain about the only topic about sexism we have to lock that up.

If you really think any topic on sexism isn't going to have the same issues as the one that was stupidly locked (i.e. a mostly friendly discussion with a few people getting irritated and complaining to mods) you're nuts.

I don't feel welcome at Huskerboard anymore.

 
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Appreciate the response, Enhance. Moiraine also brings up a good point: it's hard to imagine any topic about sexism not inviting both spirited debate (which was fine, right? There was passionate disagreement but not bad behavior) and triggering a few (one?) instigators who like to cause trouble anytime anything remotely feminist is mentioned or advocated. Or in other words, going down a pretty similar road as this last one.

Those are valuable topics to have, and I hope we can keep having them in the future. This is one of the few I can remember.

Also, while it did veer off into racism, I think there are a lot of worthy intersections in these discussions. The Cam issue really highlighted some of that.

 
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zoogs said:
Appreciate the response, Enhance. Moiraine also brings up a good point: it's hard to imagine any topic about sexism not inviting both spirited debate (which was fine, right?) and triggering a few (one?) instigators who like to cause trouble anytime anything remotely feminist is mentioned or advocated. Or going down a pretty similar road as this last one.
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I agree that it is a topic fairly dispositioned to have some spirited debate and I completely understand why. The issue ultimately came from having multiple people issuing reports against one another, many of them PM'ing me to complain about the other and a conglomerate of poor behavior from many parties involved.

I don't personally view it as an action taken against sexism but against the overall poor behavior, but I know that's not how people in different shoes will view it.

For the record, I did view the Cam discussion as germane even if it did veer into racism. I know I mentioned racism earlier in the thread to draw a nexus between the conversations and some of their similarities.

 
I agree with you Moiraine, well except for the part about not feeling welcome at HB. You may feel that way but I don't believe that is the case or the intent here.  The discussion was civil and that should be enough to keep it from being locked. If there were out of line comments or trolling then those posters should've been dealt with and not the topic itself. Of course that is jmo and I am not privy to any sh#tstorm that may have been brewing behind the scenes or in PM's. But I still think the more appropriate way to handle it would've been to deal directly with any complaints or individual posters. The faster easier way is to just make the source of the problem disappear. I don't necessarily fault anyone for taking the easy path on it. It's unpaid volunteer work and when one topic begins occupying an inordinate amount of your time, well, I might do the exact same thing. Doesn't mean it's the best way or most fair way to handle it but it sure is understandable.

 
It's quite possible some of the PM's were made in order to "protect"/protect me. Just a guess.
 
And, no matter how many times you say it, it's not that relevant that there were complaints. The fact is the topic was docile compared to hundreds of topics on football/politics we've had here.
 
There are other ways to deal with people complaining to mods in PM than shutting down a topic where people were in my opinion being extremely sensitive and polite to one another overall, especially given the topic.
 
And it is important that it's the only real discussion about sexism on the forum that I remember, with 99% men, and I thought it was going great.
 
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Enhance said:
This belongs in a different place outside of the P&R forum. This isn't the avenue to disagree with a mod/mods decision.

Some of you may disagree with the thread being locked. The truth is that the thread was causing multiple issues across multiple fronts ranging from private PM's, personal attacks, trolling, etc. Someone is taking a vacation from this board because of the resulting behavior.

The thread was not locked because of the topic but because of the behavior. Sexism is a topic worthy of debating and discussing, but not when an entire thread is nothing but one overwhelming pissing match between multiple parties.
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All expenses paid or nah?

 
Y'all keep encouraging us to report offending/rule breaking posts, but this de-incentivizes me doing so, personally. 

Instead of locking the thread, you could just ban teach. At least ban him from P&R. Everyone seems to see what he is and what he's doing, it's pretty bewildering that he's still welcome with his trolling bulls#!t.

Not implying he was the only problem, but the rest of us were (for the most part) getting along fine. As Moiraine said, not a good look that the single topic talking about that problem was locked, when dozens of other threads that get way more testy go on freely. So, I'll stop reporting people.

 
As someone who only glossed over the first few pages of that discussion (and now wishes they were more involved, because it seems like a quality thread)...

I also don't understand why the thread was locked. I'm not trying to pile on any mod in particular, merely giving an opinion. 

If the thread is causing misbehavior, I'm all for frank reminders for the offenders on how they need to conduct themselves (and what isn't acceptable). Failing that, vacations are fine. 

Even if a thread is problematic and causing misbehavior, deal the misbehavior itself & not the thread if it isn't breaking board rules. It's a heavier lift for the mods, for sure, but we've got to ask whether the good discussion being had outweighs the extra work slapping wrists. It sure seems like the folks who were active in the thread were enjoying it.

 
The number of complaints received about this thread does not align with the claims here that there really wasn't anything to get excited about.

There were multiple complaints.  From multiple people.  About multiple other people.  Some of those complaints had some merit.  Other complaints were simply because they do not like another poster.

This is just my outsider perspective.  I only read the reports, I didn't go into the thread.  But this wasn't a decision made in any way,shape or form about the topic at hand.  It was because people were apparently unable to get along and we just mad at a bunch of things each other said.  So it was treated just like any other thread causing similar issues is treated.

 
Mavric said:
 It was because people were apparently unable to get along and we just mad at a bunch of things each other said.  So it was treated just like any other thread causing similar issues is treated.
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No.

It was not treated like any other thread. If it was, it wouldn't have been locked - that was a completely disproportional response. Were more than 2 posts deleted? Were even that many deleted? There isn't a single post from that topic in the offending posts thread. That's a little weird for such an awful topic, right?

I've seen dozens of topics go on infinitely where people's posts were moved or deleted

You admit you didn't even look at the topic. Enhance posted in the topic that no one had reported anything. Then, after he made that post, the reports started. The topic itself didn't cause the lock - it was that a few people complained about it in PM and some (including myself) reported teach because Enhance said to.

Should a topic about sexism be locked because some people complained about its existence? I've been told at least one of the complainers wrote a PM for that reason. That's really not the right thing to do.

This topic was locked because:

a) some people didn't like it just for what it was (not talking about mods but the complainers).

b) a mod came into the topic and told us we should report people, so people thought it was okay to start reporting each other when they otherwise wouldn't have.

c) The site is > 99% male. Maybe it's hard to relate to its importance and why it would make me feel like I'm not welcome here. I've been here 7 years. I don't talk about sexism to anyone except once in a blue moon with my brothers. I thought after 7 years people here knew me well enough that they would still respect me after I brought it up. It took that long for me to think I could make a post like that. Everything was going fine in the topic except for some PM's sent. Everything was fine. I looked at it this morning and there were no additional posts and the people who post in it hadn't logged on. Enhance told me there were 11 reports in 24 hours. 4 of those were mine just for teach and I know there were others for him too. But that was general trolling which he does to me everywhere. I don't report him all that often but we were specific told to report people in that topic.

I made the topic and the only person I ever reported was teach because I was told to report. Everyone else including people I completely disagreed with was fine. But the mods didn't feel the topic was worth moderating, and locked it instead. 

You've got multiple people who made posts in the topic while it was active saying they don't understand why it was locked. It was locked solely due to some sending reports and complaining in PM - not because the posts were even delete-worthy. Are you now going to start deleting/locking posts that are completely within the rules every time a few people complain? Is it against the rules to not get along? Is it really that hard to PM people to cool it?

 
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You're making a lot of logical leaps and assumptions.

Each thread is different.  An extremely vague "it wasn't treated like other threads" or "I've seen dozens of topics" doesn't prove or disprove anything.  There are literally thousands of threads on here.  Very few get locked.  The few that do are usually because they have veered significantly off topic or have become so much of a cluster that warnings/moving posts/asking people to cool down is no longer a viable option.  This thread was basically both of those.  I did go into the topic after my above post.  The last dozen or so posts were largely discussion racism which is not only not anything remotely on topic but anther issue that often brings out the worst in posters.  

The thread was not locked because someone complained about the existence of a topic on sexism.  That is a complete fiction on your part.  Even if someone did feel that way, it should be obvious that it does not come close to being even a significant minority of the people on this board.  To try to use everything that has happened as evidence that anything resembling a significant portion of the board is against you simply because you are female is as stereotypical of an attitude as the attitude  you are accusing others of having about sexism.

Being told that things can be reported is not the same thing as 'just report things you don't like'.  That's what probably 80% of the reports about this topic amounted to.  The reports didn't just start in the last 24 hours.  Those were only the latest ones.  There have been 18 reports from this topic.  From multiple people.  About multiple people.

No, we are not going to start locking threads just because people complain.  Very few threads ever get locked.  That will continue to be the case.  It is not against the rules to not get along. But if you (general 'you', not just you specifically) post a topic about a controversial issue, you should expect people to disagree and disagree sharply.  If they have a point you'd like to dispute, dispute it.  If you don't think their comment is worth the electrons used to post it, what good is it trying to argue with them?  If they have a position that you (again, general 'you') think is so stupid that they can't possibly be convinced otherwise, what good is is going to do to let yourself get worked up over it?  If they are breaking board rules, that needs to be handled.  But there is an extreme trend over at least the last couple years to label dissenting opinions as 'trolling.'  Yes, it is often presented in a snide or snarky way.  But many of the posts and reports I see that try to accuse people of trolling are more akin to "there's no way someone could be that dumb to believe that so they've got to be trolling."  

It would be nice if everyone would contribute to whatever discussion is at hand in a polite and civil manner.  But that's not reality.  If we only allowed people to post here who have the personality of June Cleaver it would be a pretty lonely place.  That's not making excuses for anyone.  That's dealing with the reality of the internet.  And that is especially true in the P&R forum.  I would love to contribute more to those discussions.  But I spend way to much time on here anyway and the time every few months when I make the mistake of trying to have a discussion there quickly reminds me that most people aren't really there for the discussion.  They are only there to tell the other side how wrong they are.  Even if they're doing it in the nicest way possible.  So it's not worth my time.  Kudos to those of you who care enough to try to have a discussion but then don't be surprised if there are some off-the-wall crazies who are on the other side of the issue.  Spending your time worrying about that is worse than non-productive.

 
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