Suggestion for stickam chat room
Offline Hello all,
I'm hoping to start a conversation, not a flame war, about the chat room we all hang out in. Late last night (my time), anon and goat were joking with each other, all in good fun, calling each other gay. Then mikey the gay atheist showed up and was insulted by people using the term gay as an insult. A conversation started which resulted in mike leaving in disgust. Goat and anon felt they did nothing wrong since they had meant no harm.
Personally, I can see how both sides looked at it, but if it had been me, I would have taken down the comments simply out of politeness, if I had ever made them in the first place.
As far as I understand, the stickam chat room is supposed to be a friendly place where we atheists can hangout and talk. It didn’t seem that way to me last night, I got the impression that mike was genuinely insulted.
Now, since we have already made some rules about what people can and can’t do in the chat room (remember Karla?), I would like to propose we figure out a code of conduct so that we 1) don’t send away people who want to support the RRS and 2) Don’t get our collective asses kicked off of stickam.
Frankly, I think since we made rules for modesty after several of the ladies who weren’t flashing people were disgusted by some of the ones who were (I’m thinking of Karla and fyre86). It would only be fair to have standards of conduct that make everyone feel welcome.
SO, do you guys think this would be simple manners? Or a way to cripple the free flow of debate?
Ed- Login to post comments
I agree Zombie that the g0at Anon situation did get out of hand and that with mikey being there it did add insult to injury.
People need to chill out and seriously need to start beign more respectful before everything starts goign to shit. I had a convo with River run erlier today regarding policy in the chat room and the boot on site policy that we have implimented for certain people (st michael, qxdc, presup, and others). I think it is time we re-examined how we go about things in the chatroom.
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Agreed. Unfortunately some of this comes from the fact that if there are people who are banned on site types, due to how stickam works we can't ban them forever so we run into issues with that. Also, I think more care needs to be given in regards to theists. Im relatively new compared to many others around but I have noticed that it seems when new people who are unknown to anyone come in, some tend to immediately ask "are you a theist or atheist?" and if they are a theist then it sometimes turns into a "OH MY, fresh meat!" and I think that is bad.
First it makes it look like all we do is attack or wait for theists to jump down their throats. As it is, more than likely they will be outnumbered so if they are truly in their to learn or whatever and 10 people start drilling them with questions on why they believe what they do, I think it makes us seem like we have nothing better to do then debate or attack theists.
Two, and Jake had mentioned this earlier today in the stickam room related to this subject, if we tell a theist that their world view is wrong and we bring up evidence, emotionally they may be defensive when we tell them that god (and as Jake alluded to, their Father) does not exist. Im generally in the camp that goes more with the debate should be civil and going "You fucking moron how could you think that." makes us seem again unintelligent if we can't keep our cool.
My take on the stickam room is this: If we want to have it open as we do now (which I think is best) we need to be more discrete on who we kick and we need to watch what we do and not look like children. If we want to make the room truly where atheists ONLY want to hang out and we generally want to do whatever and don't care how others besides other atheists view us, then the rule needs to be put out that says theists are not allowed or create another room. I would like to however others opinions on this so keep posting.
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I was there for the tail end of that stuff. I personally just undocked anon and ignored him. Goat's comments seemed a bit more tame, but then again, I wasn't paying much attention.
I'm there most of the time for "highbrow intellectual discussion" as Sapient calls it. I hang out and joke around sometimes, but amidst the more silly things, like flame wars and/or stuff I don't necessarily like, I mute/ignore people or just leave the room.
That said, I have a heart of stone, and I doubt many people could offend me. I try not to offend others unless they make really poor arguments and it annoys me to a breaking point.
Others on the chatroom may not be so liberal and apathetic about "objectionable" material as I am. To those folks, I would tell them to simply leave as a personal action, rather than staying around and subjecting yourself to something you don't like. Come back an hour later. It's like flipping a channel on TV you're not thrilled with. Flip the channel. Perhaps that's what mikey was doing.
Nonetheless, with as much traffic in the room that there is, it might be good to "police" ourselves a bit more... If one needs to get into more graphic conversation, one can certainly just go live in a new room and continue with no censorship.
As for the main room, I know we don't want to be on guard all the time, and censorship certainly has its problems if taken to an extreme. That's why I would recommend both self-censorship and careful "nudging" by those in the room when someone gets unruly.
I hesitate to have a banning rule for certain infractions...
The thing about freedom and the internet is this: With great freedom comes great responsibility.
As an atheist, I realize there's no God watching over me. There's no absolute basis for my morals. There's no ultimate authority.
That said, I COULD kill someone and get away with it -- and face no consequences in an afterlife.
That doesn't mean that I ever would, even given that I could get away with such a thing.
The point is that simply because we're in a realm where there are no rules doesn't mean we should act without consideration for others and abide by certain codes.
Thus, I would be less in favor of a set of RULES, and more in favor of a set of guidelines that are enforced by each member of the group on themselves. Self-censure if you will.
I think the details and speculation about the incident the other night are vague at this point. I don't even know if mikey was really upset. To tell you the truth, I don't know him. Never talked to him.
I do know a few women who were upset by the flashing... And the simple solution is to go live, invite whoever you want to be there, and leave it out of the main room.
I think there's a difference between censorship in society at large -- such as the media -- and censorship within a group of friends, which is how I view the chatroom.
In a physical room in the real world, if you're gathered around a table with a group of friends of diverse backgrounds, you're probably going to be a bit more civil. The internet is not simply a license for "everything goes" because there are no ramifications in the real world.
That said, I would say that we should simply act as though we were in a hotel lounge. You have plenty of people who you know and don't know coming in and out. You don't know if someone is your friend or is out to harm you. You don't know if lewd comments are going to be perceived poorly by other people in this hotel lounge -- who are all within earshot -- and ALL a part of the conversation.
Thus, I think if you KNOW everyone in the room, and you know what's going to offend and what's not, feel free to let it all hang out.
For some of the more questionable stuff, I see no reason why one can't just either A) Go live and invite your buddies or B) take up a private dialogue with the person.
You don't have to censor yourself completely, just funnel your wild side into the appropriate room of the hotel.
Once again, I don't have strong feelings on this issue, since I'm really hard to offend. In the interest of keeping our sincere friends on the board from being offended and losing some valuable allies in the war against atheism, some cause for self-censure might be advocated. In this way, I agree with Zombie to a large extent.
--My two cents
REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum
I was in the room when it went down. I think that type of high school "your gay" talk is not only juvenile, but offensive and insensitive,especially in light of the fact that we are an inclusive group.
The defense was brought up that it was "comedy".
No.
Comedy is when you make a joke. when you are posting videos trying to insult people by calling them gay, that is not comedy, that is potentially offensive.
Anyway, I hope the people who offended Mikey learned something. Then the whole thing wasn't in vain.
Peace out.
Excellent analysis Doc, I agree completely
I agree with you as well greg, lets hope all this drama is behind us.
I got kicked out of the Stickam just because my display name was Frank THE FART Walton.
Is that the reason they gave you?
It's most likely because the person that booted thought that I was THE Frank.
But I didn't even do anything! I was just kicked out and most of the people in the room knew it was me. I couldn't get back in, I had to wait for one hour!
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Well, I suggest talking to the person who kicked you, when you get kicked it should tell you who did it.
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