Quote:
Originally Posted by Speakeasy
Our intent isn't to limit free speech, but to make people think a bit harder before posting a thread about everything that crosses their mind.
It's true that clamping down and putting more restrictions on posters may be bad for the site and result in members leaving. However, we also believe that allowing certain groups to invade the board would result in members leaving or not joining in the first place. A new member browsing the board may be quite turned off if 90% of the articles in the Breaking News section are racist rants against black people, for example.
It's kind of like we'd be encouraging people to focus on particular debates a bit more and make them talk with other members, rather than trying to 'yell' and flood the board.
In addition, a lot of these people that invade the board aren't interested in debate or discussion. Their intent is to 'win' their debate by clogging up the forum with threads that reflect their stance on issues, not through reasoned debate and exchanging ideas.
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This is exactly what prompted me to start this thread. At the time I posted the OP, the top 4 threads on culture and media were racist threads. It is possibly that the first whole page could be dominated by these threads, in which case anyone browsing may conclude that the forum is primarily a single purpose forum.
In addition - the promotion of hatred against people based on ethnic/racial origins is really vile.
social psychologists have known since the 30's what this stuff does - and so should we all by now. It is a form of hysteria that can be rapidly spread.
I do not want to be party to a group that encourages it to this extent.
If it is contained then its OK - it gives people the opportunity to express their opinion, but the more it begins to dominate a site, the greater influence it has.