Political avatars

Enhance

Enhance

Administrator
We had this discussion once in relation to a @macroboy avatar of Trump kissing Putin.

@Dewiz has updated his profile photo to a photo of Trump and a couple of members have PM'd me asking if we can "keep P&R in P&R" similar to how we have decided this should be the case with political status updates. One of them was @knapplc.

Thoughts on this? Dewiz has a checkered past with P&R of course, and has (from time to time) done subtle things like this to try and flex his muscles. I don't really have that big of a problem with someone using a political figure as an avatar in general, but I also see the point about keeping P&R in P&R.

 
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It continues to be the case that people complain about it when it goes one direction but not when it goes the other direction.

One user - can't remember who now - had a 45 circled with a slash sign through it for quite awhile and no one apparently complained about that not being kept in P&R.

 
There's probably half a dozen or so people who are doing it, like @NM11046. I'm fine with removing it, for the same reason we tell people to keep that stuff out of their signatures.

 
I never even really read NM's avatar. Good point.

I'm a fan of consistency so if one has to go then all of them have to go, I think. Fascinating that NM's has gone unchecked for months, yet Dewiz changes his and almost immediately draws negative reactions.

 
Enhance said:
I never even really read NM's avatar. Good point.

I'm a fan of consistency so if one has to go then all of them have to go, I think. Fascinating that NM's has gone unchecked for months, yet Dewiz changes his and almost immediately draws negative reactions.
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It's because of the which side of the political aisle people sit on. I have little doubt that Dewiz did it as a rebuttal, but like you said, nobody is saying that about people who have had political avatars for years. Hell, it was the same thing when we cracked down on that stuff in the status updates.

 
A couple of people in the Woodshed are supportive of making it a blanket rule (they claim they didn't know @NM11046 had an anti-Trump avatar because they had never read it. If they're telling the truth, I can sympathize since I too never read her avatar).

From our standpoint, we only ever really outlined political status updates as being out of order. We didn't say anything about avatars. It's sort of up to us (maybe I'll add a poll to the topic?) I'm fine with removing them, too, but the situation is undoubtedly cheeky. Dewiz does one thing and it's immediately a problem, but other unchecked avatars that have happened before were just blindly ignored...

 
I think it should be everything political should stay in the P&R Forum.

I just think it's amusing that some people like knapp try to come across as just wanting to treat everyone fairly when they are actually about the most biased ones out there.

 
Mavric said:
I just think it's amusing that some people like knapp try to come across as just wanting to treat everyone fairly when they are actually about the most biased ones out there.
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I agree. It's 100% hypocritical, but good luck to us trying to convince them of that. At least I didn't have to read some ridiculous excuse from them when I pointed out NM's anti-Trump avatar to them.

I'll send a message to those few people whom I know have politically-themed avatars and ask them to change them. @Dewiz and @NM11046 are the only ones I can think of. Will give them to the end of the week before I remove it and replace it with the blank image.

 
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Well, if we regulate political avatars, we should do the same for signatures and usernames. @NM11046 has some political quotes that should be removed. Also, the username @45timesbetterthanemptysuit is a reference to "President Trump > Hilary Clinton". If we start looking, I am sure we will find many more violated the use of political content in avatars, usernames, and/or signatures.

 
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Message from Dewiz.

"Enhance,

I refuse to change my avatar so you or the other mods will have to change it for me. I refused to be bullied like this...pathetic. 

I find it odd and ironic that after I changed my avatar yesterday, there’s a new avatar policy on this board after several posters here who have had anti-Trump avatars for months if not for a year or more and nothing was said or done about it. Gee I wonder why"

Of course, NM was totally gracious when I asked them to update their avatar to something less political. Meh, I changed it for him. Easy enough.

 
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I knew there was going to be pushback from the pro-Trump crowd.

I wonder how triggered Dewiz will get seeing a D next to his name.

 
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I don't think anybody's wrong, really. I think Dewiz has a point. I think the people who complained have a good point, too, even if they were a bit blind/ignorant of what other people had done in the past.

Ultimately, though, Dewiz has no reason to play a victim card. He's a major reason for the P&R crackdown in the first place and, since that crackdown, he has tried to flex his muscles by posting vague status updates that were clearly political in nature but vague enough to avoid trouble. He's anything but a victim here; perhaps, at best, an unfortunate catalyst.

 
They weren't ignorant or blind.   That's a cop out.  Perhaps with NM's because to be honest I hadn't read it either.  But to try to claim that they hadn't noticed any other political avatar over the past several years is laughable.  They were just fine with it because they agreed.  Their attitude only changed when the shoe was on the other foot. 

As in the thread you linked above, a Photoshopped picture of the President kissing another foreign head-of-state is to be let go as a "strong political statement" and left for months but a simple picture of a sitting President with nothing close to the intent to demean barely lasts an hour before people are complaining about it.  It's ridiculous and stupid.

He is the victim here.  Everyone else was allowed to do what they wanted but when he did something that was much less controversial all of the sudden people complained and everything changed.  That doesn't mean he is innocent of all the other things but just because you have a past doesn't mean you can't be the victim of something else.  

 
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