inVectiVe

Standard disclaimers: I've never questioned an administrative decision before - certainly not one handed down from the very top. Many of the points I'm about to make are rehashed from what I stated in the thread after it got ugly. And I probably wouldn't be addressing this issue at all but for the fact that a post I had made started the whole mess. Finally, if this thread gets locked or even deleted, or if I get suspended right along with El-Kabong, so be it.

OK. With that out of the way, I'll be right up front in conceding that El-Kabong's comments were extremely provocative and in-your-face. But keep in mind: the topic at hand was already about comparing chickens and Jews. Actually, let's generalize that - it was about comparing animals and humans.

So let's recap what happened. The fit hit the shan when El-Kabong was poking fun at a quote from PETA that I had supplied: Six million Jews died in concentration camps, but 6 billion broiler chickens will die this year in slaughterhouses. The implication of this quote is, presumably, that The Holocaust and a broiler chicken "holocaust" are of similar, questionable morality. To which most of us would reply: "You're nuts." Based on this quote, one might infer that PETA's ideology also maintains that eating at KFC is morally equivalent to cannibalizing a human being. Again - say it with me, folks - "You're nuts."

It is my belief that El-Kabong's post, while clearly controversial, only slightly raised the stakes of the argument at hand because the main theme of the thread was inherently offensive (to carnivores like me, at least): chicken slaughter and Jew slaughter, or more generally, animal killing and human killing, are ethically similar. El-Kabong wanted to poke fun at the idea that cannibalism and chicken wings are indistinguishable by stating, in a *very* sarcastic manner, what amounted to, "Yep, PETA's right. Killing animals for food is no better morally than killing humans for food. The reason we do one, but not the other, is strictly because of taste."

I feel the purpose of this intentionally ridiculous statement is to hammer home the point: Of course it's not about taste. Of course there is a moral difference. Because of course comparing animals to humans is fundamentally flawed - which is precisely the point of the thread.

Now, let's flip the scenario around a little bit. Imagine there was a thread about the Holocaust that made no mention of animal rights. Now if El-Kabong (or anyone) came in and joked, "Anyone who lost relatives in the Holocaust should hope that they were shot in the head before they starved to death. Because that way, at least there would have been some meat left on their bones so they'd make a nice meal." That would be way over the line. The key difference, as I see it, is that in the PETA thread the cannibalism remark came from taking PETA's own words one small step further. And really, isn't that the debating tactic of choice in PETA threads ("Well, if it's wrong to eat chickens, is it wrong to eat plants? Aren't they living creatures too?")?

How do I think the situation should have been handled? It would have been nice if a mod had stepped in earlier and deleted the offending post. But since that didn't happen, things quickly got nasty: lines were drawn, people picked sides, and nobody wanted to back down. By that time, sure, closing the thread seemed like the only option. I just think that suspending El-Kabong seems a bit excessive. I probably wouldn't have said what he said; at the same time, I think I know what was going through his mind when *he* said it, as well as the point he was trying to make.

That is all.

Seeker

I'm a little afraid to say anything, given my last attempt at forum feedback, but I'll try something short:


As in all things, it is usually a comparison of intent vs how something is interpreted.

And those two items (intent/interpretation) can often be very far apart in the minds of people, and can cause a lot of misunderstanding.

That's what makes a moderator's job on any forum hard in handling things like this.

GeoffK

First of all, THANK YOU for your feedback. We've never suspended anyone for constructive criticism, and we never will!

The situation with El-Kabong was a difficult one, I'll agree the PETA thing in itself was offensive, but EL-Kabong's comments went beyond discussing how insane the statements by PETA were into something more.

Reguardless of his intent, the comments were both defamatory and offensive. So on those grounds I felt it was apropriate to suspend his account for a week, give him an opportunity to think about his posts and punish him for breaking the rules of our forum and offending many members. Taken out of the context of that thread those comments probably would have resulted in a banning over a suspension.

While I would have loved to have myself or another mod jump on the thread sooner, it's just not reasonable. El Kabong posted his comments yesterday and the first time I was made aware of them was this morning. So if concerend members had Reported the Post we could have acted sooner.

inVectiVe

Edit: This part of my post I started writing before The Founder had entered the thread.
gkleinman, you've made your decision, and I respect that. Like I said, I have no idea what it's like to try and balance the various concerns that you guys deal with every day. I'm also grateful that you guys provide a forum for us to air our grievances.

Anyways, I've said my part. I'm out.

movielib

My comment is that El-Kabong was given numerous chances to explain himself reasonably and apologize even if he had no intention of offending. Instead he dug his heels in and defended himself on unreasonable grounds.

It was only after you jumped in with your comment that he latched onto it and, in effect, said, Yeah, that's what he was doing. By that time, given what he had posted before, that defense of himself seemed totally disingenuous.

Anyway, that's the way I see it.

BTW, inVectiVe, although I disagree with your interpretation of his motives, I don't think you did anything wrong at all.

inVectiVe

I'm back.

movielib: Thanks. For me, this whole thing boils down to my not liking to see people shoot themselves in the foot. Especially when I provided the gun.

I stand by my interpretation in the sense that I don't think the subject would have turned to people-eating had PETA's rhetoric not suggested that KFC = cannibalism (which I gather from the implication that The Holocaust = broiler chicken "holocaust").

At the risk of beating a dead horse, I'll come up with one of my typically stupid and probably invalid examples. Let's say that right after the Columbia tragedy, some Otter jumped in the thread with something like, "Well, the upshot is that human flesh cooked with rocket fuel tastes a lot like honey BBQ ribs!" The rest of us would be like, "Where did that come from?!" My point (if I have one) being that in *this* example, the people-eating reference doesn't flow from previous statements nearly as naturally. It would simply be a cruel, tasteless joke. Whereas in the PETA thread, it was the result of taking the existing rhetoric and stepping it up a notch. Because again, if meat = murder, then KFC = cannibalism.

OK. I'm done now. I think I've typed the word 'cannibalism' more times in the past few hours than in the entire previous 23 years of my life.

Bushdog

After I told him I knew it was a joke, I pointed out why it was offensive. The usual response for a mensch would be to apologize for offending anyone's sensibilities and dropping it.

But no, after multiple people told him it was offensive, and after I pointed out a little thing like the joke he made related ditrectly to dead family members of mine, he saw fit to continuing to defend his decision and suggested anyone who disagreed with him had a thin skin.

With all this, Quaid, what should have happened?

Also, please respond to this:
What was I supposed to back down from? I'm curious. I started very polite (far more polite than anyone saying the things he said deserves) and he just wouldn't back down.

Suspension is the right decision in this situation. Could he have gone without a suspension, sure. But that's a call Geoff made and I don't think there is a clear enough line to question this decision.

joltaddict

I think thats the bigger issue. I have no problem with somebody over exagerating to make a point but you do need to be respectful when you push something that far (as opposed to blaming the people who were offended).

inVectiVe

Things I must get out of the way immediately:

1. You were a mod; I never was. You know far more than I do how the rules should be applied, what level of offensiveness necessitates what kind of punishment, etc.

2. I am only "defending" El-Kabong to the extent that I believe that his (admittedly offensive) post resulted from taking the "next step" in an already absurd line of thinking ("Animals are people, too").

3. Part of the reason I'm going to bat for him is that I feel partially responsible for what happened. I mean, did my initial post contribute anything meaningful to the thread? Not really. Just another "Haha PETA is stupid" cheap shot. If I had resisted the urge, maybe.......

4. I'm many things, but Jewish isn't one of them. So I can't say anything along the lines of "I actually *lost relatives* in that massacre." Maybe if I could, my perspective would be different. Then again, maybe not. Like I pointed out, the "Jew vs. chicken" analogy easily generalizes to the "human being vs. chicken" analogy.

OK, let's begin.

I don't know what a mensch is, but I'm with you so far.

Like I said, ideally the post would have been reported and a mod would have gone in and deleted it. Failing that, you're right - El-Kabong should have said something like "OK. If I genuinely offended you, I'm sorry. I'll delete/alter the post myself."

My intent was never to paint anybody else in the thread as the bad guy; it was only to suggest that El-Kabong - clearly designated the bad guy by most - might not have been quite so bad if you took his remarks in context.

Again, I haven't read the thread in hours, but I can't recall *anything* that any of you guys (you, movielib, Surf Monkey...) did that I found objectionable. Quite the opposite: you guys all showed admirable restraint. As far as my quote that you highlighted, that was a deliberate attempt on my part to gloss over everything that happened in the thread after the offensive post. If anybody should have backed down, clearly, that person was El-Kabong. I'll concede that his conduct after you called him out further fanned the flames. My original argument was merely that *maybe* the fire shouldn't have started in the first place.

By "nobody wanted to back down," I was implying that El-Kabong quickly painted himself into a corner where he felt compelled to keep defending what he said rather than admit he was wrong. I mentioned that I probably wouldn't have said what he said, but if I *did* say it, I believe I lack the maturity that would have been required to admit I was wrong. The impression I got was "Christ, the guy's crashing and burning. And if I was in the same situation, I'd probably be doing the same thing." Just made me want to help him out even more.

I feel kind of like a defense lawyer who represents his client without actually knowing whether he's guilty or not. I have no clear concept of what is warning-worthy, suspension-worthy, or ban-worthy. I was only presenting my case that the outrageousness of El-Kabong's comments must be measured relative to the outrageousness of the ideas already kicked around in the thread. Particularly the quote I handed him, and he played off.

In short, I was trying to lessen El-Kabong's burden in the form of the blame that had been assigned to him. But I was not trying to shift the blame onto somebody else. Except maybe onto myself, in a way. Definitely not onto you guys though.

In rereading this mess of a post, it has come to my attention that my writing skills suck. If *anybody* has any other questions they want to ask me about why I'm doing what I'm doing, feel free. Hopefully I'll be more coherent next time. I will keep checking this thread (unless it's locked) over the next few days because I feel what we're doing here is very constructive. A lot of people are probably thinking, "How can Quaid/inVectiVe and El-Kabong possibly defend those reprehensible comments?" It's a valid question, and I'll try my best to explain myself (and E-K).

No offense meant to anybody, and once again, my sincerest apologies for this linguistic monstrosity.

Bushdog

I think we've argued this out.

I don't think anyone believes his intent was malicious. I will echo Jolt's point, the real issue was his refusal to back down at all. Even to give the slightest courtesy apology.

Mensch doesn't translate directly to English. It's like saying someone is a real human being. . .Someone who is a decent person. If anyone ever calls you one, consider it a compliment.

inVectiVe

Yeah, we're kind of arguing 2 different points: the offensive nature of the post in question, and the reactions that followed when its offensive nature was pointed out. I tried to limit myself to addressing the first because I believe that's where a "misunderstanding" started, and where I was most "inVolVed" in the locked thread.

And thanks for the vocab lesson. I will tuck my new word away in my brain, and deploy it as needed.