why is there suddenly a plethora of racist threads?

[Frank]

Originally Posted by daisym

They are nothing but a platform for vilification of Jews and people of African origin (probably others as well if you look closely).

Why are there no constraints on this man creating new threads, since they are all effectively an excuse to spread racist poison on the web?

Does USPO really want to be a vehicle for this man preaching hatred?

If you do not like it Daisym why don't you leave? I do not like threads that promote Israel, diversity and George Bush but I suck it up, respect the privilege people have to post freely on this forum and debate the issues.

This is not Soviet Australia where debate is shunned in favour of silencing opponents of diversity using Orwellian thought crime laws. You better get used to the fact that people of all political persuasions are allowed to post here; this is not Canberra Daisym.

Originally Posted by Mrs. M

LOL I have to admit guilt, too. The good thing is that Brett is easily riled, making him very careless so it won't be long before he's gone permanently!

While USPOL does allow people to post freely on political issues certain forces are not above arranging situations so dissidents get themselves banned.

I have noticed that certain diversity-proponents who rile him up are not receiving the same punishments Brett receives when he fights back?

Originally Posted by Jefe

As far as I can tell, they aren't breaking any forum rules. It is boderline spam, though. I would encourage everyone to NOT click on any of the links in these threads, because that is exactly what they are hoping for. Please don't increase the hit count on their sites.

Using this reasoning anyone who posts a link to a special interest site is borderline spamming. For example if an opponent of the Iraq war links to antiwar.com is this borderline spamming?

[moon]

If Moon's against it, it's gotta' be a good idea...

Careful. You'll end up with four years of Hillary.

Frank;

If you do not like it Daisym why don't you leave?

Leave it out, Frank. Daisy has every right, under the free speech you promote, to try to mold the site according to how Daisy would like it. That's everybody's prerogative.
Not only that but Daisy stands opposed to the posters of right-wing mush. Yay Daisy !! Lol.

Frank;

I have noticed that certain diversity-proponents who rile him up are not receiving the same punishments Brett receives when he fights back?

Well, that's human nature. Only Buddha rejects leadership. Lol.


Edit: I have to stop posting now, I'm approaching my cap. Rofl.

[Jefe]

Originally Posted by Frank

Using this reasoning anyone who posts a link to a special interest site is borderline spamming. For example if an opponent of the Iraq war links to antiwar.com is this borderline spamming?

Is this same person also sticking around and discussing the issue? Or are they just here to post links to their favorite websites every chance they get, under the guise of carrying on a discussion?

To be honest, I'm not up on the forum rules and definitions of spam. However, it sure seems to me like the recent influx of racists (one in particular) is trying to "sell" something. OTOH, we're all here trying to "sell" our own ideas and values to some extent, aren't we?

[Frank]

Originally Posted by moon

Leave it out, Frank. Daisy has every right, under the free speech you promote, to try to mold the site according to how Daisy would like it. That's everybody's prerogative.

Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from speech Moon. Daisy created this thread to state her dissatisfaction with the USPOL allowing people who do not share her views on multiculturalism to post.

In return I offered her an option to deal with her dissatisfaction; in addition I do not appreciate her trying to get her opposition banned with threads in which she tries to guilt the moderator staff into silencing people like Brett in the name of USPOL not becoming a site that serves as a vehicle for promoting 'hatred.'

Answer this one Moon where is her self-righteous indignation against 'hate' when USPOL posters openly support the racist Apartheid state of Israel? Where is her outrage when people advocate bloody wars in the Middle East? Kinda strange that her righteous indignant anti-hate attitude ends with white 'racists' isn't it?

[Frank]

Originally Posted by Jefe

Is this same person also sticking around and discussing the issue? Or are they just here to post links to their favorite websites every chance they get, under the guise of carrying on a discussion?

Clearly Brett has been discussing issues; he has created 497 posts since arriving here since late November. He is not doing anything different from other posters who discuss issues and post links to websites they deem useful or worth examining. The difference is the multicultural crowd does not like what he is posting; Brett has stepped on a sacred cow in tackling political correctness, race and diversity.

[Frank]

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.

I always said that all that has to happen for me to leave is for one moderator or administrator to ask me to do so. Many of my fellow 'racists' take the same attitude. Instead of worrying about the creation of rules to curb our participation why not drop the pretense and simply ask us to leave or make a policy forbidding promotion of racialist views.

Like it or not folks; people like good ole Brett are going to come here and create threads if you permit it. His crime is that he is more dedicated to his cause than his opponents are dedicated to their causes so you may end up with 90% of your threads being racialist in nature.

Daisym is whining and crying about the number of racialist-oriented threads that appeared on the forum; how many threads has she created about Australian politics or other issues to add a variety to offset these threads so to speak?

[Jefe]

Originally Posted by Frank

Clearly Brett has been discussing issues; he has created 497 posts since arriving here since late November. He is not doing anything different from other posters who discuss issues and post links to websites they deem useful or worth examining. The difference is the multicultural crowd does not like what he is posting; Brett has stepped on a sacred cow in tackling political correctness, race and diversity.

I pretty much agree with you that Brett has been discussing the issues, that's why I referred to it as "borderline" spam.

However, you and I both know that he is not really here to discuss the issues. As you put it:

Originally Posted by Frank

I have to bow to Brett; Brett took an anti-racist and turned him onto the Vanguard News Network! This guy is much more skillful than I am at winning souls. I am the least of the racists; the spammers win out!

What's Wrong With Whitey ??

[Frank]

Originally Posted by Jefe

I pretty much agree with you that Brett has been discussing the issues, that's why I referred to it as "borderline" spam.

However, you and I both know that he is not really here to discuss the issues. As you put it:

Notice the little smilie face at the end of the sentence; that should tell you that I was speaking in jest. Second, even if he is here to convert people how is that any worse than other posters who come here to convince people that their political candidate is the best presidential nomination or that their religion is right?

[Jefe]

Originally Posted by Frank

Notice the little smilie face at the end of the sentence; that should tell you that I was speaking in jest. Second, even if he is here to convert people how is that any worse than other posters who come here to convince people that their political candidate is the best presidential nomination or that their religion is right?

I did see your smilie (it didn't carry over in my original cut & paste for some reason - I just edited my post to include it). It appeared as though you found it amusing (that Steve had visited one of the links), not that you were joking. My apologies if I read it wrong.

I agree that what Brett is doing is not much different than when other members come here to "sell" their favorite candidate or religion. However, there are subtle differences in Brett's style. For example, a high percentage of his posts have links and references to other sites (and there's nothing wrong with that) - but when his responses are nothing more than "you should check out imaracist.com" - and he responds this way repeatedly, several times a day - it sure does seem like he's got an ulterior motive for being here.

I suppose we all have ulterior motives to some extent, though, so as long as he doesn't break the forum rules, I really don't care what posting style he chooses. But the minute he starts trying to sell us Nokia phones, I'm reporting it.

[Traveler]

Originally Posted by Speakeasy

Such a system wouldn't be too hard to implement, if I understand correctly. There are quite a lot of vBulletin hacks that allow you a lot of flexibility when it comes to thread capping.

Yeah? I don't have much expertise with VB hacks but you seem to know more about it (i think you mentioned about it before to do with other technical issues) but ifit doesn't require individual coding or need to be created from scratch i say go for it man, that would be a good solution, its just setting the policy that may be akward. What i'm suggesting seems to sound like a sort of progressive marketing idea ("The more you post the more you can post some more") sort of thing and that's not really the way i meant it to come accross. I think you get the general idea of what i mean though.

[Traveler]

Originally Posted by Crystal

About the 30 day/30 post rule...O'Sullivan and I have the abilty to manually adjust a new members account should they request it and that will give the the ability to start threads. Our only rule when granting such approval is that they are not here to sell cell phones, lap tops, x boxes, viagra, etc.

I'm really hoping Marc can install a captcha program and it would be nice if we could ban a certain email address from registering (mail.ru) to help limit the amount of spam. BTW, Marc should be back around over his Christmas break. He has been very busy working on his Ph.D. He will be upgrading the forum software at that time and any changes to board policy will also be made at that time.

Seeing as Marc has been tied up lately can't the secondry administrators change the board's configuration to require admin approved registration? I assume its just at e-mail verification right now? Or can only Marc change that setting? I guess also you would need access to the e-mail account of which the e-mail's generated for the welcomming of new users to actually activate them unless you had a way to see latest registered users and manually approve them one by one from the member's list? Tedious i know but easier than a mod queue for all new users no?

[Speakeasy]

Originally Posted by Frank

I always said that all that has to happen for me to leave is for one moderator or administrator to ask me to do so. Many of my fellow 'racists' take the same attitude. Instead of worrying about the creation of rules to curb our participation why not drop the pretense and simply ask us to leave or make a policy forbidding promotion of racialist views.

Like it or not folks; people like good ole Brett are going to come here and create threads if you permit it. His crime is that he is more dedicated to his cause than his opponents are dedicated to their causes so you may end up with 90% of your threads being racialist in nature.

Daisym is whining and crying about the number of racialist-oriented threads that appeared on the forum; how many threads has she created about Australian politics or other issues to add a variety to offset these threads so to speak?

My apologies, I wasn't as clear as I intended in that post.

No one is going to be asking anyone to leave. You are more than welcome to remain and share your views, Frank. I think your long stay at this forum is evidence enough of that.

I didn't intend to single out racist threads in the post above, but to use them as a topical example. I would have the same concern if our board was being flooded by pro-choice advocates, flat tax advocates, flat earth advocates, etc. It's not the topic that my concern lies with, it's the way people attempt to get their topic across by attempting to 'drown out' the competition. I know that if I was looking for a well rounded forum to debate politics on, I'd be immediately turned off by a forum where 70% of the threads were pro-gay marriage threads. I'm even pro gay marriage myself, but such a site would look like it lacked variety and had an obvious bias.

Even you just seemed to suggest that to 'combat' these threads, people should begin posting more non-racist threads. That's the problem. We aren't here to win our arguments by seeing who can post the most threads to drown out the voices of others. We shouldn't need to have people post threads just for the sake of 'evening things out'.

[moon]

Frank;

Answer this one Moon where is her self-righteous indignation against 'hate' when USPOL posters openly support the racist Apartheid state of Israel? Where is her outrage when people advocate bloody wars in the Middle East? Kinda strange that her righteous indignant anti-hate attitude ends with white 'racists' isn't it?

Daisy does more than her fair share of dragon-slaying, Frank. Perhaps in this instance she has a lower tolerance threshold than others. She'll tell you, no doubt.

[Malvolio]

I think a thread limit would be a good idea. Scarcity makes things more valuable and people take better care of them. In my ideal forum such a limit would be linked to a kind of reputation-system. Posters with a good reputation would have the right to post a lot, posters with a bad reputation less.

[daisym]

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.

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.