COMMUNICATING THREATS OF VIOLENCE ON ATS…

Please stay on topic.

This BB&Q thread is about threats of violence and how they will not be tolerated on ATS.

It's not about Christian persecution or fellow members.

originally posted by: kosmicjack
Please stay on topic.

This BB&Q thread is about threats of violence and how they will not be tolerated on ATS.

It's not about Christian persecution or fellow members.

with all due respect, semper asked the question

Have people really been threatening others on ATS?

Sheesh...

a reply to: Stormdancer777

And I left your specific reply, now, with all due respect, please - let's stick to the topic at hand.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

a reply to: semperfortis

No. Most to all of the Christians so assaulted do not prefer to alert staff. We prefer, most of the time, to take it in the groin and go on.

I'd guesstimate that 40-60% of the time we have had our fill and do alert staff, nothing is done.

That's not exactly motivating.

a reply to: kosmicjack

Perhaps it would help for you to draw the line.

How do you think a certain values orientation would respond,

if say--HYPOTHETICALLY FOR ILLUSTRATION . . . oh . . .

a large Christian Motorcycle Association bloke stood close to them and said in harsh tones something like.

"We don't like (insert epithet here) in these parts. We REALLY BELIEVE they ought to be removed from the planet."

And how would said values orientation on ATS respond if some such known Christian posted something like that?

I wonder how threatenED THEY WOULD FEEL

Where is the line between explicit threat and implied threat and contextual threat and 'in-between-the-lines-fairly-clear-threat and . . . ???

I assure you that I FEEL as PERSONALLY threatened by some folks hereon as I do by some Jihadi's--who used to have a prayer room within a short walking distance. I feel such threat with good cause.

There are LOTS of ways of communicating threat--even online--without explicit words of threat.

So, if you want us to stay strictly on topic, please tell us where the topic lines are.
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originally posted by: BO XIAN
I'd guesstimate that 40-60% of the time we have had our fill and do alert staff, nothing is done.

That's at best, an inflated if not misleading number.

1- Not every complaint represents an actionable T&C violation.

2- Just because you see no visible signs of activity, doesn't mean no action was taken. We frequently interact directly with members via private messaging and sometimes those conversations are in conjunction with a posting ban. Neither of those actions are visible to the membership, at large. We don't share the private message correspondence outside the staff forum, and don't broadcast who's post banned. An effort is always made to reconcile issues with the least amount of public drama possible.

To say 'nothing is done' is a huge misstatement. Something is ALWAYS done, even if it stops at a staff discussion resulting in no action.

a reply to: yeahright

Sorry. I stand corrected.

Let me just note, then, that it often APPEARS that little to nothing is done.

Yet, with some other common sorts of things, it APPEARS that the slap-downs are fierce, pervasive and instant.

I don't think any Christians object to fair treatment for equal misbehavior. It is the APPEARANCE of an extremely stacked deck that has been troubling--for a very long time.

Thankfully, it has gotten GREATLY BETTER--toward more even-handedness. It does not APPEAR to have gone away entirely.

a reply to: BO XIAN

Appearances can be deceiving.

No the things that trouble us will never go away completely. And we're all troubled by different things. Bottom line, we're not going to take responsibility for how anything makes someone feel. That's way too subjective for us to ever be able to monitor.

We'll moderate the site based upon the posted Terms and Conditions. If you want to assist by alerting the things that look like violations, that's a help. If you'd rather not, that's ok too.

If you're looking to have everything sanitized to your specific criteria, you're going to be sorely disappointed. That's just the nature of an open forum. It would be great if everyone here was intelligent and polite. But I'm not counting on it.

a reply to: yeahright

I understand each of those well made points. And have for a long time.

It just gets . . . the brazen contradictions and . . . stacked deck stuff . . . just gets almost overwhelming sometimes.

Just for the record--I certainly understand the things that are reasonable and doable in terms of modding and a public forum like this. I'm not asking for nor expecting the unreasonable.

a reply to: BO XIAN

I doubt this will come as a surprise, but we get pounded equally by both sides of virtually every issue. That's my personal bellwether for telling how even-handed we're being.

Christian-non-Christian
Theist-atheist
Conservative- liberal

You name the dichotomy, and we've been pilloried by both sides. It doesn't hurt my feelings, it's the price we pay for having a forum where opposite sides can have reasonable discussions. Things get heated, sometimes people go over the line and then regret it. In fact, they most often regret it.

The ones who do it repeatedly with no regret tend to not last too long.

There IS no underlying ulterior motive to the way we moderate. We have a very diverse staff and sometimes things get a little heated in the staff forums, as well. But we all respect each other enough to be able to step back and resolve the differences.

Probably won't help, but that's the way it is. We're encouraged by the participation and hope to foster as much civil discourse involving as many perspectives as possible. It really is that simple.

I have never been one to alert a mod to a poster, in 7 years I bet I did it maybe three times, I don't like that.

But I am going to start because I see a lot that they obviously miss, and I also would like to know what they consider a threat.

thanks

a reply to: yeahright

I've long assumed/understood that, too.

And certainly these are fuzzy things. No one has a micrometer out.

Lots of these issues are extremely arguable by reasonable people.

Thankfully, some of this is an empirical issue that could be clarified with some searching. Don't know that it's worth it but it is an interesting issue, psychologically and sociologically.

Thanks for all y'all do.

originally posted by: BO XIAN
a reply to: jrod

I'm keenly aware of the cop-bashing.

I'm a bit . . . only a very slight bit . . . shocked that you seem so unaware of the massive amount of Christian/Christianity bashing and the huge troop of dogpilers who routinely, chronically engage in it on ATS.

If I may put my 2 cents' worth in?
You are making a mountain out of a molehill. Grilling someone about the validity of their faith isn't hostile, nor is simple mockery. Of course people from one sect or faith or none are going to mock another, and Christians do it just as frequently as the other guys, only with bible quotes in hand. No one is a saint in that arena.

To be blunt, the Christian members on here have it good. It's the Muslims members that catch far more flack than the Christian ones, and even more so, the Jewish ones. No one is calling for the extermination of christian countries, but say Israel, Iran or Pakistan, and someone else says "make it a parking lot!" I read at some point in the past on ATS someone jokingly calling for making Mecca a smoldering hole during the pilgrimage. That could be construed as a threat to the people based on religious demographic. Has anyone ever suggested the same for, say, Christmas mass at the Vatican? No. They haven't. Look at how much crap the Muslims and Jews on here have to put up with just on ATS. "Bomb Israel off the planet!", "Jews are evil moneygrubbers", "Muslims are Sharia-driven cavemen", "Both of them want to dominate the West", "You can't trust the word of a Muslim/Jew". Come on Bo, if any groups need recognition for horrendous treatment, it isn't the Christians.

As for the cookie reference from Kandinsky, that is very apt. Outside the religious forum, no one's particularly interested in a broken record religious take on every single thread in every other forum. That's a tunnel vision approach to everyone else, and it gets very old, very fast. That kind of poster will either be glossed over & ignored as a regular nuisance poster, or people will have enough & say something about it one way or the other. It's not always going to be a nice smackdown, but it's not outright in-the-crosshairs threatening & hostile and violating any TOS, either.





Edit: Eep, that's what I get for not reading a whole thread before posting, I just saw the mod asking to stay on topic. I hope this post isn't removed, everything I pointed out about our Muslim & Jewish members is concerning to me. I can;t believe how much blatantly hostile anti-Muslim & anti-Jewish stuff stays up. Yes, a number of it is removed, but it seems like a lot slips through the cracks. I suppose I should remind myself to alert the mods on those posts.

a reply to: BO XIAN

Well, BO, I see what you're saying but I can't agree. I'd ask you read through my reasoning too. I put a little thought into this and it particularly fits to the thread topic and core issue of getting so worked up, we'd resort to calls for violence.

When I first came to ATS, I had the very distinct impression it was a liberal bastion of Left entrenched positions. As a Conservative here, I felt outnumbered and outgunned. Under Siege at times in threads, would be a term I might use....and I was totally misreading it from the bias of personal perspective too.

That didn't become crystal clear until months after I'd been here and settled in to see the oddest thing happen in this bastion of liberals. The people on the left were complaining! They were complaining about being attacked, and hounded and run off threads by packs of raging conservatives. Why...golly..just what I'd damn sure been feeling myself...those I saw doing it..sounded so damn sincere about feeling it to! They were sincere, because it was genuine from their perspective.

------

To get straight to the religion? There was a time, not that long ago, where there were a series of very sharp, hard and aggressive Christian threads popping up on a fairly regular basis. Believe it or not...non-christians felt down right put upon by it and like their opinion wasn't entirely valid for the LOUD screaming over top of it. In that case, I'm among those who felt that way at times, so it's by personal experience I can say folks like me existed.


We swing back and forth...now perhaps it's not so much Pro-Christian this month, but may come back to that next month.

Just remember, like I learned here early on with politics? Perspective can be EVERYTHING...and however persecuted one group may feel? The OTHER side on ATS may very well feel the very same thing...and the damndest thing? Depending on what time of day or what threads? BOTH sides may be right at any given moment.

Just my thoughts to add.

originally posted by: Stormdancer777
I have never been one to alert a mod to a poster, ....

You've gotta'. Otherwise antagonism grows and the boards become a mess. The offenders get bolder and bolder and do more damage. Hit the button. Let the mods figure out if it's a problem or not.


That being said ... .I agree with Semper .... there is a lot of unnecessary cop bashing that goes on here. When people post stories about a bad-cop .. that cop gets nailed and with good reason. But then the conversation slides into the broad brush stroke of 'all cops this' and 'all cops that'. It's extreme ...

There was a post here earlier this morning and I see that it's been removed. I cut it out and saved it, though I didn't include the posters name and I can't recall whether it was by StormDancer or BaneofEvil. I won't quote the post since it was removed, but I'd like to see the mods/admins respond to it, if not here than some place else, as it stated that the poster, (and the posts?) were deemed intolerant but posts by other members "wishing death" upon the "intolerant" member were allowed to remain. I didn't read every post in the thread I think was being referred to, but in the ones I did read the "intolerance" didn't appear to me to be one sided. Perhaps wishing death on someone isn't considered violent or threatening here? Maybe the accusations made in the removed thread weren't accurate?

Much is made of the "privilege" of posting here and I understand the point. However, posting here is also both an investment in and a contribution to this site by its members. I'd like to know just what I'm investing in and contributing to. If the removed post is accurate and reflects the way things are going to be measured here, then I'd like to know that.

a reply to: Nyiah

I'm not talking about merely even fierce grilling about one's faith.

I started to agree with you about Muslims and Jews.

Certainly the Jews take a fair number of hits. And on some Muslim threads, so do the Muslims.

However, I still think it's considerably less than some flavors of Christians/Christianity take hereon.

It's an empirical question. Perhaps we can get a study done by some university of the issue.

a reply to: Wrabbit2000

I think you make many excellent points in great language.

I certainly believe that perspective and FEELINGS about perspectives are likely to ebb and flow a considerable amount in a diverse group.

However, I'm not talking about feelings, per se. I'm talking about objective assessment of word use that is quantifiable. Now to get such tabulations done in a quality objective way might take some doing but it is doable.