Are the mods taking this as a "free speech" point?

"Welcome to DVDTalk -- a dying forum dedicated to a dying medium, where the moderators are OK with white supremacy but don't like it if you tell a bigot to fuck himself."

I'm not familiar with signature rules. Which rule is it breaking?

The sig speaks truth.

I'm not OK with white supremacy.

Not a damn one.

Sadly true.

Rules are up to the interpretation of those enforcing them, but it wouldn't seem like a stretch to decide that the signature in question may at least fall under the purview of one or more of the following rules:

• Posting of personal attacks against another member, moderator or administrator in the forum.
• Continued posting in a manner that antagonizes other members such as trolling, making posts difficult to read or comprehend, repetitively posting the same thing, or posting in a style that lowers the overall quality of the forum. This determination will be made on a case-by-case basis by the moderators and administrators.
• Moderators reserve the right to remove any posts, signatures, or avatars that violate forum rules, that may antagonize other members, or for any other reason they deem appropriate.

I think the "loophole" is that no member is directly referenced in the sig. Those who witnessed the event in question know who it is referring to, but I don't think if that alone is breaking any rules?

Trying to rat people out, mspmms? Thought you were better than that.

I think it could be argued that the signature specifically antagonizes the moderators of the politics forum, even though it doesn't call out each of them by name.

Some people want more heavy handed moderation here. At the same time another group will crucify the mods and admins if they start to get more heavy handed and start handing out quick suspensions and bans for in thread remarks. Some here want the mods to police thought. There are active campaigns to have users banned here. I get complaints that the forum is too liberal and at the same time I get complaints that it's too conservative. At the end of the day, it's all about the rules. Does the post/comment in question violate one of the rules? I try to let people express themselves here even if I don't agree with the sentiment. Maybe the other mods would like to chime in. Having a shitty opinion is allowed here, but calling another poster a piece of shit isn't. kefrank's rules quotes provide enough gray area to shut down the sig. If this were the first comment about the sig, I don't know if I would do anything about it, but now that I've had multiple people bringing it to my attention, I'm removing the inflammatory language in the sig. It's probably not a good idea to champion personal attacks in your sig.

That's a good one to note given how little attention it gets around here.

I didn't like the sig. But if I got rid of everything I didn't like, most of the Political Forum would be 86'd. So I just ignored it.

I figured sooner or later, the posters sporting that sig would end up breaking rules again. And when the mods were deciding on a warning/suspension/ban, it would come back to haunt them.

Good point, I didn't think of it that way.

Yeah I get that, I certainly don't envy the tightrope you guys need to walk at times. On a personal note, I've done some thinking and will try to be more civil, I don't want contribute in making your jobs as mods more of a pain in the ass than it already is.

Is trying to improve the forum considered "ratting people out?" We're told to use the report function or feedback forum when posters deliberately stalk other members, post solely to provoke/bait, personally attack members & mods, etc. rather than pointing those repeated & frequent incidents out in threads. But when those procedures are followed, it's "ratting out" others?

Sounds like a no-win situation.

FWIW Vin, I very much appreciate this approach of moderating with objectivity rather than ideology. Thanks for the time you and the other moderators spend taking all of this on.

I would rather this forum NOT be a safe haven for bigots.
Though I've done my part by putting on ignore the few who I think are bigoted. If you have a problem with being called a bigot, instead of indignation, you should maybe ask why you're being called that, and more importantly listen when they say why.

If you wanted me to edit the sig, all you needed to do was ask.

I stand by the sentiments. Some posters have said absolutely vile racist things and you just let it slide. I don't know why, but this seems to be the sort of forum you want. Are you not OK with white supremacy? You seem like a kind, open-hearted and open-minded person and I don't believe you're racist at all. But you look the other way with respect to some absolutely disgusting posts. I don't know why it would be forbidden to say "msmpms is a rapist," but it's OK to say "Mexicans are rapists." But I guess that's the way it is around here.

Anyway, I appreciate your devotion to the right of people to say shockingly offensive things in the name of free speech. Except for in my signature, of course.

I stand with slop, though I do agree with kefrank in feeling grateful for the time the mods spend on policing this place. I just wish you maybe got a little more uncomfortable knowing that you're giving people a home to spew bigotry.

In the no-win situation, I err on the side of not being a white supremacist douche.

I didn’t see anything wrong with the signature as it originally was.

Myself and many others post here far less than we used to (and some have left entirely) because of how much putrid right wing fascistic/white supremacist garbage gets posted, from posters who repeatedly engage in trolling behaviors, but nothing happens. Then, when someone who is either a member of a marginalized group, has friends/family in a marginalized group, or is just a empathetic person, gets understandably upset at the racist/sexist/homophobic/nativist comments, they’re the ones who end up getting in trouble.

I recognize the difficulties in moderating the shit sandwich that is the politics forum, but I think at the end of the day the mods and admins have to decide what kind of forum they want to foster. Right now the constant needling by right wing trolls is just going to end up driving away people who make substantive, interesting content.

I agree with this, but it’s clear positive change isn’t going to come from the top down. It’s too bad more people don’t use the ignore function. If I was having a conversation in public and some moron jumped in to let me know they think current democrats are more aligned with violent murderers than republicans are with white supremacists, I wouldn’t get sucked into engaging with them. I’d just ignore them and their intentionally asinine, inflammatory point and move on. If everyone here would do that, we’d likely end up with one or two essentially invisible threads of circle jerking, followed by those types of folks eventually taking their ball elsewhere.

As a registered independent, I see posters on both sides of the political spectrum engaging in escalation/shutdown/extremist language in the political forum fairly regularly. None of that invites meaningful dialog, in my opinion. It's tiring and it's why my engagement there ebbs more than it flows, generally.

But I would rather the mods spend their time addressing that kind of thing, which is what the rules are intended to address, than trying to parse out acceptable ideological lines. That said, right now there is a rule about "no political party generalizations" and I don't think it would hurt for that to be expanded to "no generalizations about entire people groups, including ethnicities, religions, socio-economic status, etc". If that rule was in place and actually followed, it would improve the dialog on the political forum dramatically, because it would push people toward discussing the nuances and complexities behind their ideology (backed up by linked supporting content), instead of going straight to things like "evangelicals are mentally ill, bigoted assholes"* or "homeless people are worthless pieces of shit that deserve to die"** or "atheists are amoral baby-murderers"***.

* a mostly hypothetical example
** a mostly hypothetical example
*** a mostly hypothetical example

Taking the high road is hard. Many would say completely ineffectual.

I would just like the thank the mods for putting up with all of us assholes.

Here's the problem with taking the high road: if someone posts that Latinos are animals, and I ignore it and post about other shit, then I'm the guy who posts on a forum where they call Latinos animals and doesn't seem to care. The advice you're giving is tantamount to saying "They have really good recipes on the Stormfront site; you should check those out and just ignore the white supremacy stuff."