The issue of censorship

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Standing in the Sunlight, Laughing
Originally Posted by Yoda
In my book, it means a lot when someone stands up and apologizes, and if Django (of all people) got as many chances as he did, I can't find much basis to deny this request.


I knew Django, I argued with Django, I was threatened with litigation by Django, and adidass, in my opinion, is no Django.
Adi originally posted that he apologized for everything BUT his argument with me. He edited it to say "wan't", but it was originally "will not apologize".
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Originally Posted by Tacitus
I guess what Cindy's trying to say is that when someone gets abused or hurt by another poster, it sticks in the craw a bit when arms get opened as wide as this so soon after an entire thread was devoted to the removal of another ne'er do well.
That could be. If so, it's certainly understandable, though as admin I obviously cannot give veto power over these decisions to one particular member. I'd like to hear more, from Sam and others, about why he should or should not be allowed to post here. And as much as I can relate to any emotional desire to sustain the ban, I think it'd be best if we kept the discussion in the context of what's most likely to help the community grow in both size and level of discourse.

I could be off base, but I think the basic question is this: do we think the same old problems will rear their head? If so, then it's reasonable to oppose the idea of reinstatement. But if not, then I don't think we can refuse it simply because we wish to see someone punished. The whole idea of the rules, and of bannings, is to maintain order and discourage certain types of behavior. In other words, if this is a parole hearing, then my job is simply to decide whether or not we're going to see a rehash of the behavior that started this.

I have several reasons to think we won't, and I'd be glad to elaborate on them, but I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts on this. Do we have reason to believe that this olive branch of sorts is either disingenuous or temporary?



Originally Posted by SamsoniteDelilah
Adi originally posted that he apologized for everything BUT his argument with me. He edited it to say "wan't", but it was originally "will not apologize".
Are you referring to this post? Because I still have the email notification from its original posting (before the edit), and I don't see any significant changes; certainly nothing where he says he "will not apologize."



there's a frog in my snake oil
Originally Posted by Tacitus
I guess what Cindy's trying to say is that when someone gets abused or hurt by another poster, it sticks in the craw a bit when arms get opened as wide as this so soon after an entire thread was devoted to the removal of another ne'er do well.
To be fair, the arms are more open to Adidas's film fandom and enthusiasm than his over-confrontational side. Besides, the Django 3-year-tenure seems to have set the bar in terms of tolerance for 'difficult' posters

But like Yods said, Adidas doesn't rank on the same scale.

He clearly did hurt Cinds with his comments though, yes. And altho i saw a lot of what went on as being based around misunderstandings, at first, not intent - i can see why it seems like a slight, or a double-standard, to welcome even a toned-down Adi back.

Well, if he can't play nice, and he and Cind can't rub along, then things'll get reassessed i'm sure. But as it is, they don't really have to talk at all. She can stick him straight on ignore.

Originally Posted by Yoda
I have several reasons to think we won't, and I'd be glad to elaborate on them, but I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts on this. Do we have reason to believe that this olive branch of sorts is either disingenuous or temporary?
Ad says he's realised the argument was mainly ridiculous/pointless and that he hadn't made any compensations for who he was talking to. I'm taking that to mean he won't be arguing-for-the-sake-of-it so much (over-forcefully defending his position no-matter-what and all that).

I imagine he'll still step on some toes, but he's a positive poster in other ways and we should see how it goes.

Sorry C.
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Standing in the Sunlight, Laughing
Originally Posted by Yoda
That could be. If so, it's certainly understandable, though as admin I obviously cannot give veto power over these decisions to one particular member. I'd like to hear more, from Sam and others, about why he should or should not be allowed to post here. And as much as I can relate to any emotional desire to sustain the ban, I think it'd be best if we kept the discussion in the context of what's most likely to help the community grow in both size and level of discourse.

I could be off base, but I think the basic question is this: do we think the same old problems will rear their head? If so, then it's reasonable to oppose the idea of reinstatement. But if not, then I don't think we can refuse it simply because we wish to see someone punished. The whole idea of the rules, and of bannings, is to maintain order and discourage certain types of behavior. In other words, if this is a parole hearing, then my job is simply to decide whether or not we're going to see a rehash of the behavior that started this.

I have several reasons to think we won't, and I'd be glad to elaborate on them, but I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts on this. Do we have reason to believe that this olive branch of sorts is either disingenuous or temporary?
Whoa.
I'm not saying he shouldn't be allowed to post here. I NEVER said that, in fact. What I'm having a problem with is the 'you were right to stick up for yourself' stuff. I never attacked him and the ticker tape parade for the prodigal son is looking an awful lot like he was a poor, misunderstood little boy, rather than the jerk that he admits he was.



The People's Republic of Clogher
I've got no problem with anyone being allowed back into the fold if their contriteness is genuine.

But...

Would the arms have been as open if more than one person had been hurt initially? That's my little gripe.
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Originally Posted by SamsoniteDelilah
Whoa.
I'm not saying he shouldn't be allowed to post here. I NEVER said that, in fact.
Fair enough; my mistake. I didn't mean to imply that, and I dig the nuance now.

Originally Posted by SamsoniteDelilah
What I'm having a problem with is the 'you were right to stick up for yourself' stuff. I never attacked him and the ticker tape parade for the prodigal son is looking an awful lot like he was a poor, misunderstood little boy, rather than the jerk that he admits he was.
Well, I can't speak for everyone here, but it seems almost everyone is taking the "yeah, you screwed up, but you had some interesting things to say and I hope we can move on" tack. That's certainly how I feel.


Originally Posted by Tacitus
I've got no problem with anyone being allowed back into the fold if their contriteness is genuine.

But...

Would the arms have been as open if more than one person had been hurt initially? That's my little gripe.
A fair question, but I think we already have the answer in the form of ObiWanShinobi. Like Adi, he had a couple minor run-ins, but his biggest was with Sam. You'll notice he doesn't post here anymore. Thankfully, he volunteered to leave before we had to resort to banning, but he did so in large part because no one was siding with him, even though most of us had not been personally hurt or insulted by him.

For that and a couple other reasons, I'm happy with our position on the rights of individual posters. I would not, however, totally disregard the number of people offended by a particular poster. The more people someone alienates, the less of the trouble can be chalked up to a temporary lapse of judgement, or contrasting personalities, or anything of the sort. So I think it's reasonable to take that sort of thing into account, so long as we don't end up with mob rule. And I think cases like ObiWan's show that we've largely avoided that particular pitfall.



Arresting your development
Originally Posted by Tacitus
Would the arms have been as open if more than one person had been hurt initially? That's my little gripe.
I'm not for anyone getting hurt through this journey of forum chatter and not everyone is going to agree with one another or get along in this fine community. If a fellow member tried to attack me and only me... I would still have open arms. I would embrace their return, hold em' close and gut em' from the back with a seductive blade. I'm just kidding. But I will let the past be in the past and make way for a better possible present... but that's just me. What I'm saying is that everybody should get chances.
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Dear Adidasss,

I hope by me stating that I admire you for sticking up for yourself does not make you feel cocky and promote any past negatvity. Because that was never my message. I dig the character of a person for being strong but I don't admire the attitude of not knowing when to walk away. Don't ever lose the strong quality in you. Just chickity-check yo self before you wreck yo self.

Yours Truly,

That 1 Guy










A system of cells interlinked
Man, That 1 Guy is mad cool in my book...
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Ok if (Addi) is really sorry time will tell, we you Sammi, if Addi gets to know you he will to.
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Originally Posted by SamsoniteDelilah
Adi originally posted that he apologized for everything BUT his argument with me. He edited it to say "wan't", but it was originally "will not apologize".
perhapse i shouldn't speak any more about this subject, let matters be, take the advice of half the people that posted here and just stay clear of you. but i'm a man that likes to get things done properly or not do them at all and i'm certainly not the kind of man that beats arround the bush.

so perhapse you felt my apology was too abstract or evasive ( i don't know where you got that "changed his mind" bit, as yoda said, the changes i made to the post were fairly insiginficant) . i admit, i have had a similar offer from yoda 3 months ago but back then i refused to apologise to you. call it pride or what ever you want. i say it was too soon and i was not in a position to see things as i do now.

so let's adress the matter that started all this, the argument. as i tried to say 3 months ago, my original post about the city of god and your reasons for it not doing so well was constructed very poorly and i now see how you might have felt that it was agressive or fairly insulting. i apologise, i never meant to imply your reasons for it failing were stupid, i simply felt ( as i still do ) that they were not the true reasons for CoG's not-so-brilliant box office results. i disagreed, that's what people do in debates, arguments or discussions. my intent was not to upset you and i was certainly not expecting you to reply the way you did ( i have gone over and over that post and can't help but to wonder what would have been if it were not for that " those are not valid reasons and you know it" part, possibly the worst case of ill chosen words in forum history, but like i said in the original apology, i thought we were on such terms that i could say what ever i wanted without thinking about it twice ). i was very much taken aback by your response and i went on the defense, as did you. and two people on the defense coupled with their unwillingness to back down equals disaster.

second thing i remember you taking an issue with was me stating i hated slovenians even though your friend was a slovenian. this of course isn't how i truly feel. i base judgement on people only when and if i get to know them. i'm sure your friend is a nice person, i'm sure plenty of slovenians are nice people, but what you have to understand is that i've met and have been arround thousands of slovenians, i live in a tourist village, they come here by the thousands, and honest to god, most of the young slovenians i have met are arrogant and unpleasant ( i stress the young part, older slovenians have more wisdom and are friendlier ). our two countries ( on a state level ) do not get along lately because of 3 things: open disputes about our borders ( and constant provocations on the slovenian side ) - this is the biggest issue by far, about millions of dollars stolen from our citizens by the slovenian national bank after the disintergration of Yugoslavia and Slovenia's constant refusal to deal with the matters in a court of law according to european standards. those political issues have transferred to a person to person level and are only escalating. combined with the fact that Slovenia is in the European Union and Slovenians somehow started to feel that makes them better than us ( nevermind the fact that unlike Slovenia, we were fighting a brutal war for 4 years and the last thing on our minds was our economic growth and a EU membership) , it has now come to the fact that we are careful in our relations to say the least and have a tendancy to judge the other party without getting to know them beforehand. i may not like Slovenia as a country, but that doesn't mean i hate slovenians as people.

third thing i remember you calling me out on was the issue of non christians celebrating Christmas. i admit, i was trying to bait you into an argument about it, you didn't take the bait. of course, in reality, i couldn't care less who or why celebrates christmas, everyone has the right to do it and take advantage of that very special time to celebrate life ,if nothing else, and be with their families. i celebrate christmas as a christian, you or someone else might not. certanly not something i would argue about right now.

if you have any other open issues you would like to discuss, i'm more than willing.

you may not have taken my apology as genuine, some other people might not have, but i can assure you it was just that, spoken from the heart. 3 months ago i may have taken my membership on this site too lightly thus behaving carelessly. but i can assure you, much like a child, i was burned and i have now learned my lesson and plan to be a lot more careful and more considerate.

i have argued heatedly with plenty of people over the internet, granted non of it got me banned, and i can tell you that i speak to half of those people now through msn and consider them friends. i believe that i am not a jerk ( although my actions on the internet sometimes say otherwise ), noone who got to know me better feels that way, and i'm a firm believer in the old " if we can just sit down and talk about it like adults, we can resolve anything" adage.

so this is more than a peace offering, this is my offer to wipe the slate clean and start over, you may just find that i'm not as bad as you think i am.



I am having a nervous breakdance
I naturally think the guy should be let back in, basically because I could never understand the ban in the first place. Well, ok I could understand why others wanted him banned - only I never agreed with it.

Originally Posted by dontworry
i may not like Slovenia as a country, but that doesn't mean i hate slovenians as people.
Your post suggest the opposite.... I can appreciate the fact that the war in ex-Yugoslavia have left you with scars by far not yet healed. Totally understandable. But your paragraph about Slovenians is a school book example of xenophobia. And even though what you've been through is breeding this kind of hate in you I would like to ask you to see it from our point of view. Replace "Slovenians" with "Africans" or "Jews" or "Arabs" and you would perhaps understand better why I and others get offended when you speak about Slovenians like that. Just keep that kind of thoughts to yourself.

Having said that, I think it was good of you to come back and apologize and, if you stay, welcome back.
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--------

They had temporarily escaped the factories, the warehouses, the slaughterhouses, the car washes - they'd be back in captivity the next day but
now they were out - they were wild with freedom. They weren't thinking about the slavery of poverty. Or the slavery of welfare and food stamps. The rest of us would be all right until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basements.



Originally Posted by Piddzilla
I naturally think the guy should be let back in, basically because I could never understand the ban in the first place. Well, ok I could understand why others wanted him banned - only I never agreed with it.

So you think anyone should be allowed to join MoFo, continually break the rules, and then suffer absolutely no consequences for those actions?
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AiSv Nv wa do hi ya do...
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i'm SUPER GOOD at Jewel karaoke
Originally Posted by Anonymous Last
I'm not for anyone getting hurt through this journey of forum chatter and not everyone is going to agree with one another or get along in this fine community. If a fellow member tried to attack me and only me... I would still have open arms. I would embrace their return, hold em' close and gut em' from the back with a seductive blade. I'm just kidding. But I will let the past be in the past and make way for a better possible present... but that's just me. What I'm saying is that everybody should get chances.

Originally Posted by nebbit
Get to know Sammi, read her interesting Insightful posts, you will end up respecting her like the rest of us.

i totally agree with both of these. Sammi is awesome...and as much as i hate to admit it, AnonymousLast is right! i am not familiar with the person under question but i have given a few generous second chances in my lifetime myself, and i would want to same treatment given back to me...

so thats mah two cents, yo.
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Standing in the Sunlight, Laughing
Originally Posted by dontworry
perhapse i shouldn't speak any more about this subject, let matters be, take the advice of half the people that posted here and just stay clear of you. but i'm a man that likes to get things done properly or not do them at all and i'm certainly not the kind of man that beats arround the bush.

so perhapse you felt my apology was too abstract or evasive ( i don't know where you got that "changed his mind" bit, as yoda said, the changes i made to the post were fairly insiginficant) . i admit, i have had a similar offer from yoda 3 months ago but back then i refused to apologise to you. call it pride or what ever you want. i say it was too soon and i was not in a position to see things as i do now.

so let's adress the matter that started all this, the argument. as i tried to say 3 months ago, my original post about the city of god and your reasons for it not doing so well was constructed very poorly and i now see how you might have felt that it was agressive or fairly insulting. i apologise, i never meant to imply your reasons for it failing were stupid, i simply felt ( as i still do ) that they were not the true reasons for CoG's not-so-brilliant box office results. i disagreed, that's what people do in debates, arguments or discussions. my intent was not to upset you and i was certainly not expecting you to reply the way you did ( i have gone over and over that post and can't help but to wonder what would have been if it were not for that " those are not valid reasons and you know it" part, possibly the worst case of ill chosen words in forum history, but like i said in the original apology, i thought we were on such terms that i could say what ever i wanted without thinking about it twice ). i was very much taken aback by your response and i went on the defense, as did you. and two people on the defense coupled with their unwillingness to back down equals disaster.

second thing i remember you taking an issue with was me stating i hated slovenians even though your friend was a slovenian. this of course isn't how i truly feel. i base judgement on people only when and if i get to know them. i'm sure your friend is a nice person, i'm sure plenty of slovenians are nice people, but what you have to understand is that i've met and have been arround thousands of slovenians, i live in a tourist village, they come here by the thousands, and honest to god, most of the young slovenians i have met are arrogant and unpleasant ( i stress the young part, older slovenians have more wisdom and are friendlier ). our two countries ( on a state level ) do not get along lately because of 3 things: open disputes about our borders ( and constant provocations on the slovenian side ) - this is the biggest issue by far, about millions of dollars stolen from our citizens by the slovenian national bank after the disintergration of Yugoslavia and Slovenia's constant refusal to deal with the matters in a court of law according to european standards. those political issues have transferred to a person to person level and are only escalating. combined with the fact that Slovenia is in the European Union and Slovenians somehow started to feel that makes them better than us ( nevermind the fact that unlike Slovenia, we were fighting a brutal war for 4 years and the last thing on our minds was our economic growth and a EU membership) , it has now come to the fact that we are careful in our relations to say the least and have a tendancy to judge the other party without getting to know them beforehand. i may not like Slovenia as a country, but that doesn't mean i hate slovenians as people.

third thing i remember you calling me out on was the issue of non christians celebrating Christmas. i admit, i was trying to bait you into an argument about it, you didn't take the bait. of course, in reality, i couldn't care less who or why celebrates christmas, everyone has the right to do it and take advantage of that very special time to celebrate life ,if nothing else, and be with their families. i celebrate christmas as a christian, you or someone else might not. certanly not something i would argue about right now.

if you have any other open issues you would like to discuss, i'm more than willing.

you may not have taken my apology as genuine, some other people might not have, but i can assure you it was just that, spoken from the heart. 3 months ago i may have taken my membership on this site too lightly thus behaving carelessly. but i can assure you, much like a child, i was burned and i have now learned my lesson and plan to be a lot more careful and more considerate.

i have argued heatedly with plenty of people over the internet, granted non of it got me banned, and i can tell you that i speak to half of those people now through msn and consider them friends. i believe that i am not a jerk ( although my actions on the internet sometimes say otherwise ), noone who got to know me better feels that way, and i'm a firm believer in the old " if we can just sit down and talk about it like adults, we can resolve anything" adage.

so this is more than a peace offering, this is my offer to wipe the slate clean and start over, you may just find that i'm not as bad as you think i am.
Thank you for taking the time to address these issues. These were exactly my concerns from your posting here before, and I'm very impressed at the change in just 3 months' time. I appreciate that you have done so much thinking and that you have come to value your membership here. The place (the people in it) is important to me, and I get a bit protective, which was part of what put us at loggerheads in the past.

Now that you have addressed this, it seems clear that the past IS just the past (though I suggest you take a look at Pidzilla's post about xenophobia) and I look forward to interacting with you in the future.

Welcome to Mofo, Newbie.



As a seperate issue, I think the moderator job is kind of tough at times, especially if you think (as I think was probably the case here) that someone is capable of better behaviour. The rules are there for a reason though, and being second-guessed sucks for anyone, at any time. Caitlyn has said on a couple of occasions that Adi wasn't banned for just a little swearing, and has said why he was banned. Anyone who still questions that should really look into it, rather than undermining her role here by questioning it time and again.

If I could make a suggestion about bannings: it might help if there was a thread in the Mofo Business Forum where bans could be posted, with the reason why. The reason this would help is that people come and go here, and often miss the actions that lead up to banning. A thread that gives the reason would:
1. Clear up any mystery about why a given poster was banned (the real reason, not any assumed reason)
2. Make crystal clear what is not permissible here and illustrate that the mods are actively enforcing the rules
3. Provide a place for people who have questions about bannings to ask for clarification



The People's Republic of Clogher
Originally Posted by SamsoniteDelilah
If I could make a suggestion about bannings: it might help if there was a thread in the Mofo Business Forum where bans could be posted, with the reason why.
Good idea. I've seen it on other sites.

Anyone remember the guy who claimed to be Julie Andrews' estranged son? The poor bugger was shown the door before I could bookmark the extremely weird homepage he had created.



Well I never mentioned it to you guys yet but I am Mel Torme's cousin in law..I am working on a site right now to prove this.
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