In an effort to keep the discussion going.

[Skinner]

First of all, I want to thank Prism, dsc, and Smarmie Doofus for getting this discussion going, and refusing to take "maybe later" as a response. I also want to thank everyone who has participated in the discussion so far.

As you all know, I posted an OP earlier this week, entitled http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=221&topic_id=173419&mesg_id=173419">Mending fences. If you haven't read it, I hope you will. The responses were excellent. I want to apologize for the fact that I did not reply to everyone in the thread. If I gave each post the attention it deserved, I would be writing for the rest of the month.

Instead, I picked some posts which I felt raised important issues, and did my best to respond to those posts. It took me two days to start posting my replies, and I hope my delay has not served to stop the discussion. Since that other thread is getting very long, and since my late-posted replies were not getting a lot of attention, I thought perhaps I should start a new OP in an attempt to keep things moving.

I am hoping that my replies can be a jumping-off point to continue the discussion.

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Response to my own OP. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=221&topic_id=173419&mesg_id=173419">Full post

Hello again everyone.

I just wanted to let you know that I've been reading this thread throughout the day and thinking about what everyone has had to say. I don't really have anything else to post just yet, mainly because there are still people out there who haven't had a chance to respond to the OP yet.

However I do think that the the idea of a targeted amnesty is probably a good idea at this point. I've already reached out to Vanje. If anyone else who was banned on May 3 or May 4, 2009, would like to return, all they have to do is send me an email asking for reinstatement -- no strings attached, no questions asked.

[e-mail]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=221&topic_id=173419&mesg_id=173487

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In response to La Lioness Priyanka. "you should ts (tombstone) people when they behave like assholes repeatedly." http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=221&topic_id=173419&mesg_id=173435">Full post

Yes, we should tombstone people when they behave like assholes repeatedly.

I think we permitted some very rude people to stick around for far too long, and that has had a lot of bad consequences.

Over the last three months, we have been much more pro-active in getting rid of toxic personalities. During my 10-year tenure as DU administrator, I don't think I have ever tombstoned so many long-term DU members. And I am going to be honest, it is not fun to do. Yes, they represent some of the worst-of-the-worst, but somehow even they have friends and allies who believe they brought some value to this community. And, to be honest, when they weren't acting like complete jerks some of them could be good people. They were all real people, and whenever anyone gets tossed out it is a little bit sad. It is an admission of failure.

Despite the large number of people banned, there are still lots more people that could be tossed out. I have access to a list of who gets the most posts removed, and every time one person gets tossed out, it seems like someone else steps up to fill their place. It is very hard not to be affected by it. And yet, I keep doing it. But I can't help thinking "At what point does this end?"

I believe these bannings have made a big difference, but they have come at a cost. I believe there is a better way, and as I mentioned in my OP, we are going to try to completely change the way we run this place.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=221&topic_id=173419&mesg_id=174001

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In response to Prism. "Part of it is the death of a thousand insults and hypocrisies." http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=221&topic_id=173419&mesg_id=173436">Full post

There are so many things we could talk about from this post.

I completely understand and sympathize that you feel disrespected. And I am sorry that you do. I am especially sorry that you feel disrespected as an LGBT person.

I would like to explore this idea of a thousand insults and hypocrisies a little bit. If I may, I am going to try to temporarily remove it from the context of discussion about LGBT issues, and instead consider it in a somewhat broader context.

As you know, this is a discussion forum, not very different from any other discussion forum going back into the early 1990s. As Internet technology goes, Democratic Underground is basically old school Web 1.0 stuff. Despite the name "discussion forum," trying to have a really "good" discussion on a discussion forum is surprisingly difficult. We can try to have a "good discussion," but the de-personalized nature of the interaction, the lack of face-to-face contact, the anonymity, and everything else are working against us. Even with rules and moderators, I would argue that the default mode of interaction is not pretty. At best: Point-scoring, word-twisting, subtle mocking (or worse), and low-level nastiness. At worst: Outright flaming, crude insults, contempt. No matter how hard you try, there is always someone who will show up and (deliberately or inadvertently) cause the interaction to escalate to something worse than it started. Here on Democratic Underground, our challenge is made worse by the topic we discuss: Politics.

But the really insidious part is that these behaviors come from otherwise "good people," who are perfectly capable of engaging in productive and respectful communication in their real-life interactions. In You Are Not A Gadget, Jaron Lanier argues that we all have an "inner troll":

"Troll" is a term for an anonymous person who is abusive in an online environment. It would be nice to believe that there is only a minute troll population living among us. But in fact, a great many people have experienced being drawn into nasty exchanges online. Everyone who has experienced that has been introduced to his or her inner troll.

I have tried to learn to be aware of the troll within myself. I notice that I can suddenly become relieved when someone else in an online exchange is getting pounded or humiliated, because that means I'm safe for the moment. If someone else's video is being ridiculed on YouTube, then mine is temporarily protected. But that also means I'm complicit in a mob dynamic. Have I ever planted a seed of mob-beckoning ridicule in order to guide the mob to a target other than myself? Yes, I have, though I shouldn't have. I observe others doing that very thing routinely in anonymous online meeting places.

This is what we are up against. And I'll be honest: We try very hard to moderate this place, but the end product of all that hard work is still garbage. Because it's damned near impossible to do.

So, given all that. Let's imagine a hypothetical discussion that is NOT about LGBT issues. It doesn't really matter what it's about. It could be about whether President Obama is ever going to get out of Iraq. Or it could be about whether Barack Obama is a corporatist warmonger. My point is that it doesn't really matter what the discussion is about. As long as there is the smallest potential for disagreement, the end result will not be pretty. At best: Point-scoring, word-twisting, subtle mocking (or worse), and low-level nastiness. At worst: Outright flaming, crude insults, contempt.

We all know it to be true. Despite our best efforts, we see it happen here all the time. Online discussion is not pretty.

Here's where I'm going with this: Can we possibly expect this familiar pattern to *not* show up when the discussion is, say, whether President Obama is a homophobe?

Of course it will.

Now, I want to be clear, I am not excusing or justifying this behavior. I'm just saying that it is what it is.

From The Blank Slate by by Steven Pinker:

Social psychologists have found that with divisive moral issues, especially those on which liberals and conservatives disagree, all combatants are intuitively certain they are correct and that their opponents have ugly ulterior motives. They argue out of respect for the social convention that one should always provide reasons for one's opinions, but when an argument is refuted, they don't change their minds but work harder to find a replacement argument. Moral debates, far from resolving hostilities, can escalate them, because when people on the other side don't immediately capitulate, it only proves they are impervious to reason.

Does that sound familiar?

So, given all that... My ultimate point is this:

1. If we have a discussion about whether President Obama is a warmonger, these behaviors come out.

2. If we have a discussion about whether President Obama is a homophobe, these behaviors come out.

In both cases, we feel that we have been disrespected. In the first case, we call these behaviors "human nature." In the second case, we call these behaviors "homophobia." But how do we know for sure that the second case is not also "human nature"?

And here is a related question: Let's just assume for the sake of discussion that we can actually compel people to NOT give in to their worst online behavioral impulses. If so, would it be okay to permit differing opinions on the question of whether President Obama is a homophobe? Or is the question itself off-limits?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=221&topic_id=173419&mesg_id=174017

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Response to Lyric. "this enforced silence (after the gay purge) was (and still is) probably the biggest contributing factor to the long-term problems we've had." http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=221&topic_id=173419&mesg_id=173447">Full post

This is absolutely true.

The reason why no discussion was permitted is because, as a rule, we did not and do not permit discussion of banned members.

But that does not change the obvious truth of your post: It was an enormous blunder for us to do that, for all the reasons you stated. And it was piled on top of plenty of other enormous blunders. The entire situation was mishandled. And it was mishandled entirely by me. Everything about how the situation was handled adds up to an enormous breach of faith.

I do not have any good excuse. I was coming from a place of hurt and anger, and I let those feelings get the best of me. I am deeply ashamed about it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=221&topic_id=173419&mesg_id=174028

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Response to Renew Deal. "Isn't the consensus approach cumbersome?" http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=221&topic_id=173419&mesg_id=173769">Full post

Yes, the consensus approach is cumbersome.

The idea behind the consensus approach is that if one moderator has a differing opinion, he or she will be more willing to speak up and make their case if they know they can reasonably effect the outcome. Another idea behind it is that it's better to leave a potentially rule-violating post on the board, rather than remove it in haste and make a mistake.

Our overall approach to moderating the site has not changed much in eight or nine years. The emphasis was on caution rather than swift action. It is a luxury which was well worth it when DU was smaller. But the inefficiencies do exact a cost now that DU is much larger.

I said in my OP that we are completely changing the way the site is run, and I really mean it. I'm not talking about changing some rules. I'm talking about looking at all the assumptions that got us here and being willing to tear it up from the foundation and put something new in place. It may be a radical change, but it is a necessary change, as this entire discussion makes clear.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=221&topic_id=173419&mesg_id=174038

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Response to terrya. "If this amnesty thing is serious, if it's genuine, then it should be extended to all former LGBT DUers who have been purged." http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=221&topic_id=173419&mesg_id=173670">Full post

I know that people do not like seeing anyone banned.

I don't like it either. Banning people is a blunt instrument, but unfortunately it's the only effective tool at our disposal under our current system.

Just to be clear, nobody is ever banned from Democratic Underground because of their sexual orientation.

What happened during the "gay purge" was unfair. I painted everyone into a corner, and left myself no way out. I am committed to make it right. That is why we have offered this targeted amnesty. But that does not mean we should let everyone back who was ever banned who happened to also be gay. I can't really think of any rational argument for doing so. If we did, we might as well just forget about trying to hold anyone accountable for their behavior and let everyone back who we ever banned.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=221&topic_id=173419&mesg_id=174046

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Response to Duncan Grant. "Is this paragraph the bottom line? <snip>I'm not sure I can promise you much relief, at least not within the confines of Democratic Underground and how we currently run it.</snip>" http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=221&topic_id=173419&mesg_id=173525">Full post

Is it the bottom line? Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: I have come to this discussion with the intent of listening to your concerns and doing my best to understand and sympathize. But so far, I have not asked anyone to give any thought to how difficult it will be for me to make a significant difference -- especially if I am doing it entirely by myself.

I understand that many LGBT DUers feel hurt and angry. It bothers me very much that you feel that way, and I want to do what I can to help make things better. That is why I am here trying to mend fences, and to lay a foundation for reconciliation. Nobody should be made to feel unwelcome on Democratic Underground.

But I believe we will not make much progress unless everyone thinks a little bit about how complicated this problem is, and what will be necessary to fix it. I can promise you greater sensitivity from me and the moderators, and you will get it. But sensitivity alone is not going to be enough. I also need some concrete direction on how I am supposed to decide what or who is bigoted.

I posted http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=221&topic_id=173419&mesg_id=174017">a reply to Prism higher up in this thread which, I think, gets to the heart of the matter. I am really hoping that someone here will be willing to engage with me on the merits of my post. Not because I am looking for an argument. But because I am looking for some clarity.

There needs to be a clear standard for us to make these decisions. I am stuck in the middle here. It may sound self-serving for me to say this, but I believe that you might feel a little bit better about this situation if you give some thought to the difficult position where I find myself. Not because you like seeing me in a difficult situation. But rather because you might better understand the choices made by the moderators and me.

In an effort to better illustrate the position I am in, let's consider a related issue that has come up in this thread: Whether some DUers who criticize President Obama are racists. Obviously, people do not like being accused of being racists, and rightly so. We are all good liberals here, and we each know better than anyone what is in our own heart. And yet, there are some African-American DUers who believe we have a racism problem here on DU. As the administrator, is it my responsibility to take their claim at face value, and ban any person that an African American DUer tells me is a racist? Or do I have a responsibility to give the accused person the benefit of the doubt and evaluate their posts on the merits to see if *I* think they are racist? These are not rhetorical questions -- they are real questions.

Further complicating matters is the fact that I am a straight, white male. I do not know what it is like to be gay. I also do not know what it is like to be African-American. Or a woman. Or Jewish. Or Latino. You see where this is going.

So, if anyone would like to engage with me in a discussion about practical changes we can make to address the problem, I am ready and willing to have that discussion. I would encourage everyone to think of me and the moderators as a partners to work with in this effort, rather than as obstacles to be knocked down.

Having said all that: I would like to point out that may statement, "I'm not sure I can promise you much relief," was qualified by saying, "at least not within the confines of Democratic Underground and how we currently run it." As I said in my OP, we are going to completely overhaul the way the site is run, so much of this may end up being moot six months from now.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=221&topic_id=173419&mesg_id=174217

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Response to LonePirate. "I am trying to become more tolerant of my fellow DUers and Democrats who are not fully supportive of civil rights for LGBT Americans." http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=221&topic_id=173419&mesg_id=173572">Full post

I would like to make clear that we expect DUers to support full equal rights for LGBT Americans.

It is true that there are plenty of Democrats out in the real world that do not support full equal rights. But here on DU in 2011, if you express disagreement with the goal of full equal rights for LGBT Americans, you will get banned.

Members are permitted to disagree on the political strategy to attain that goal. But they are not permitted to disagree with the goal.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=221&topic_id=173419&mesg_id=174219

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Response to Sapphocrat. "For that post, I dug up scores of posts from DU to illustrate my point. Here are just a few." http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=221&topic_id=173419&mesg_id=173647">Full post

I am embarrassed and sickened by some of the posts that you have linked in your message.

And I know that the numerous posts you highlight are just a tiny fraction of the truly awful stuff that has been posted here. This discussion forum is more than a decade old. At the moment I write this sentence, there have been exactly 53,648,048 messages posted here (and counting). 53.6 million. And I own every single one of them.

I try very hard to keep this discussion forum clean. And in the course of 53 million posts, I missed some. For many of them, it's too late to go back and figure out why they were missed. But if we are going to judge this community as a whole, is it fair or accurate to base that judgment on the very worst-of-the-worst posts? Shouldn't some consideration be given to the other 53,600,000 posts? How many of us would want to be judged based on our very worst posts ever? There are some very awful posts in your message. I cannot deny it, and I won't try to. I would insult everyone here if I did.

Running Democratic Underground, and balancing all the competing interests, and trying to be sympathetic to the concerns of everyone -- especially DUers who are hurting -- is not an easy thing to do. I do not do it as well as I think I ought to, but I get up every morning and try. I think that your own experience running Lavender Liberal does provide some context for this discussion:

Four days after the New Jersey decision, on October 29, 2006, I launched the Lavender Liberal Forums. That's no secret now: I launched a private, by-invitation-only message board where those of us so distraught by the shit we were asked to swallow on DU in the wake of the New Jersey decision could let loose and vent. It was never set up as an "anti-DU" board -- it was a decompression chamber. We couldn't talk here about what was going on here, so we let it all loose there.

There was a need for it. And I would bet money that LLF, serving as a place to vent, kept 1/3 to 1/2 of our membership from being banned from DU during LLF's existence. (Not surprisingly, after LLF's demise, a good number of LLFers were TS'ed from DU. I honestly believe LLF postponed those tombstones -- mine included -- because we had somewhere else to go.)

LLF lasted about a year and a half, during which time there was a steady core of some 30 DUers (and another 30 or 40 who came and went), mostly LGBTs, along with some very loyal straight allies.

What killed LLF? Two (main) issues:

1) LLF was too "nice," so I was told. People craved conflict -- the kind of conflict found at DU (and not the sort -- then, at least -- that would have resulted in banning; in the "old days," everyone got away with far more than they do now. There was much more leeway than there was before The New Rules were implemented).

2) Obama. As admin, it never occurred to me that every LGBTer did not see what I saw. I was wrong. The percentage of LLFers swept away by TeenBeat Obama Mania matched, I would guess, about the same percentage on DU. As you said, David: "As I watched events unfold, from the start of the Democratic primaries and through the beginning of the Obama administration, the ferocity of the disagreements seemed utterly nonsensical to me" -- but for an entirely different reason: How could anyone LGBT not see right through Obama?

When the impasse between Obama supporters and everyone else became clear, LLF was dead. I killed it officially in 2007.

Before I continue, I want to make clear that by holding your post up as an example, I mean no disrespect to you or anyone who may have been a member of Lavender Liberal. But I think you tell an important story. Think about this:

Lavender Liberal was a small forum, 30 to 70 people, all hand-picked by the Administrator, all LGBTs and very loyal straight allies. The community was made up entirely of people whose lack of homophobia and commitment to the LGBT cause was beyond repute. The administrator was a member of the LGBT community. And yet tension between pro- and anti-Obama members caused the community to fall apart before the Iowa caucuses even happened.

DU is ten years old and as I've said repeatedly in this thread, I'm not denying that I've made some big mistakes along the way. But perhaps your experience can give everyone some perspective on just how difficult it is to keep something like DU -- a forum with more than 53 million posts and tens of thousands of members who all have a variety of issues and interests -- going day after day.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=221&topic_id=173419&mesg_id=174222

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Response to Behind the Aegis. The GLBT sub-forum. What had been a safe space was now ground zero for baseless attacks and provocations. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=221&topic_id=173419&mesg_id=173578">Full post

About how we handled the GLBT forum.

Your post covered a lot of issues. I hope you do not mind if I respond to only one of them. I think I have discussed some of your other concerns in other posts in this thread.

It's clear in hindsight that we probably should have treated the GLBT forum differently than we did. First, let me explain how we handled it and why.

The GLBT forum was created at the same time we created a whole bunch of other forums on a range of issues. Like those other forums, its purpose was discussing issues, and we did not consider whether the scope of those discussions should be limited in some way, beyond the limitations imposed by the DU rules and the purpose of each forum.

So, in the case of the GLBT forum, the purpose was to discuss a broad range of GLBT issues. To be clear: On Democratic Underground, members are NOT permitted to argue against full equal rights for LGBT Americans, so that would not be permitted anywhere on DU, including the GLBT forum. So, the permissible scope of discussions in the GLBT forum did not include discussions against gay rights. But they could include, for example, discussions about strategy to achieve LGBT rights, or discussions about whether President Obama was going to keep his promises about gay rights. By our thinking, it seemed to follow that if the forum was going to host discussions like the examples I provided, then disagreement on those issues should be permitted. So, for example, if someone is arguing that President Obama is not going to keep his promises on gay rights, we should also permit someone to make the argument that they think he will.

So, this raised an obvious problem when regular visitors to the GLBT forum would come to me and ask me to block people out of the forum whom they felt did not belong there.

Many of the people who frequent the GLBT forum see it as a safe space, and the existence of these contentious disagreements was not at all conducive to a feeling that the space was safe. The fact that some of the people making these arguments were straight did not help matters at all.

I was very dumb. Rather than trying to split the baby in half, I should have just let go of my preconceived notions of what should be permitted. I should have just said to you all, "Tell me who you don't want here, and I'll block them out." (Of course, this begs the question, "Who in this forum gets to choose?" But hopefully that could be figured out.)

Another issue that has been a point of contention with regards to how we run the GLBT forum is that we don't permit you to post stuff in here to go after other DUers on other parts of the website. I honestly don't have a good answer for that one. What I want to do is just throw up my hands and say "Go for it." but that doesn't seem very fair to the people being attacked. If anyone has any thoughts on how this should be dealt with, I'd like to hear them.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=221&topic_id=173419&mesg_id=174225

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I apologize if this is overwhelming, or if you all had something else in mind. I'm just hoping to keep the discussion going.

[xchrom]

1. recommend

[tandot]

2. K & R

[QC]

3. Thank you, David, for this discussion and for bringing back so many good people.

DU is becoming that home again that it was back in the dark days of the SCOTUS coup, when this place was such a refuge for so many of us trapped in Bushevik hell.

Thank you again for what you are doing here.

[yardwork]

4. I appreciate your continued efforts and would like to offer some suggestions

First, I would be very happy to see a strong statement from you and the other Admins, supported by the mods, that pervasive disrespect for LGBTQ posters on DU will not be tolerated, anymore than pervasive disrespect toward any minority group will be tolerated. If you still doubt that such pervasive disrespect was tolerated, I ask you to do a search for the number of times the following phrases and images appeared on DU in the months following the 2008 election:

poutrage
pony
images of pink cartoon ponies

Second, I hope that you will consider creating a safe place and time for there to be a constructive discussion on DU between LGBTQ posters and African American posters - preferably facilitated by posters who are both LGBTQ and African American - to air out some misunderstandings, bad feelings, and disagreements. For this to be successful, I think that anybody who doesn't belong to one or both of our communities needs to stay out of the conversation. In other words, this would not be a good time for straight white posters to condescend to "help" us communicate. We've had more than enough of this kind of "help" already. (And by the way - many of us are well aware of some DUers who pretend to belong to one or more minority groups but reveal through various slip-ups that they are actually straight white guys. We know who you are. Really.)

Third, I think it is important for there to be some kind of acknowledgement on DU that LGBTQ people in the United States have fewer rights than everybody else, and that the people of this country are in the midst of a battle over whether or not those rights are ever going to be granted or whether, in fact, we are going backwards in enshrining still more inequality in the constitutions of many states. The right of a DUer to be protected from having their feelings hurt by another anonymous poster here is NOT equivalent to the legal discrimination endured by millions of gay people and their families.

Fourth, I would like to see an acknowledgement from you and EarlG that you were mistaken in assuming that all LGBTQ people supported Hilary Clinton and were therefore disappointed when Obama was elected. This is a pervasive DU myth that obviously comes from the top down. It's totally false. Many of us - including me - supported Obama with money, votes, and volunteer work beginning in the primaries. Something like 80% of all LGBTQ voters supported Obama in 2008. That is a huge percentage. Even in the recent 2010 election where support for Democrats among LGBTQ dropped to 70%, that's still a huge percentage of us who got off our butts on election day and voted straight Democratic. (By the way, the percent of LGBTQ white people who voted for Obama and vote Democratic is much larger than the percent of white people overall who supported Obama and vote Democratic.)

These suggestions are offered with respect and in good faith. Thank you for your consideration.

[cate94]

7. wow

Great post. Great points all around.

I agree 100%, esp on your fourth point.

Wish I had seen this before I posted.

[yardwork]

8. Thank you. Your post is great too. You made some important points nobody has said yet.

[cate94]

10. thanks

:)

[thanks_imjustlurking]

30. Thank you.

:hug:

[LiberalAndProud]

37. Second ...

Is likely to be a short conversation.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=258

[Skinner]

40. Thank you for these suggestions.

1. It is true that "poutrage," "pony," and pictures of ponies were posted on DU after the 2008 election, and I am sorry about that. We came to understand how hurtful those comments were, and have removed them ever since.

2. I am more than happy to create a safe space to help facilitate discussion between LGBTQ posters and African American posters.

3. It is true that LGBTQ people have fewer rights, and we do acknowledge this in the way we run the site. This is a discussion forum, and we disagree on a variety of issues. But out of all the important issues of the day, we permit members to express some degree of disagreement on every one EXCEPT gay rights.

4. We did not assume that all LGBTQ people supported Hillary Clinton. I am sorry if we gave that impression.

[yardwork]

53. Thanks, David. I appreciate your acknowledging these issues.

I don't know if there is interest in suggestion #2, and I don't know if the African American and other non-Anglo GLBTQ I had in mind would be at all willing or even interested in helping to facilitate such a suggestion. If there is enough interest and if everybody participating feels safe and comfortable about the ground rules, then I would be very happy to participate.

As shown in an old thread that Ruggerson linked in the Mending Fences thread, this conversation was beginning to take place in the spring of 2009.

[Skinner]

74. Feel free to find out if there is interest.

If there is, I can set up a separate forum for the discussion so it can take place on neutral ground.

[Very_Boring_Name]

72. Don't forget "PUMA"

[La Lioness Priyanka]

5. in most poc queer activism leadership workshops, we generally get to talk about privileges

for instance, i have privilege in some respect over trans spectrum queers, because i am cisgender.

i wish there was a way for people on du, to acknowledge and own their privileges. so that they can really understand and empathize with others less privileged than them. instead of doing that du'ers tend to dismiss each others privileges a lot. i find that both sad and non-productive for building community and fostering activism.

[yardwork]

9. Great idea!

[TygrBright]

16. It's additionally hard for anyone who in ANY respect has experienced...

...the opposite of privilege, to perceive where they benefit from privilege.

You can run a balance sheet (as it were) but it doesn't capture what's going on within you at any given time.

For instance, I enjoy these kinds of privilege:

I'm white
I'm educated
I was born in America
I was raised by my birth family
I was raised in a Christian denomination
I was brought up in the upper Midwest
I am heterosexually married
I have a fairly prosperous (but not secure!) middle class income.

On the other hand, I am less than privileged in that:
I was born female in the 1950s
My family was poor (not deeply, but definitely)
My family was Catholic in a town where Protestants were the majority and the privileged
My parents divorced when I was very young (NOT DONE then, esp. in a Catholic neighborhood)
I was bullied severely throughout school and am socially awkward, at best
I am mentally ill and asthmatic
I am ambisexual and spent much of my youth "outside the mold" sexually in socially unacceptable ways (let's say I'll never run for public office...)
I was date-raped
I am an outsider, a transplant, an Anglo in an area where the power lies with a 400-year-old Hispanic community

At any given time, the privilege I undeniably enjoy at all times is offset to a greater or lesser extent by the effects of past or current lack of privilege. And it takes a lot of effort to be perceptive of what is influencing my experiences and actions at any given time.

For instance: I am ALWAYS aware of the privilege I enjoy based on my melanin deficiency. Yet when I am trying to help a client address a bureaucratic or political problem in this community, I'm aware of how ineffective I am based on that same melanin deficiency, combined with an Anglo name and my incomer status.

I am ALWAYS aware of the privilege I enjoy based on my status as someone who was born a citizen in this country, especially as I live in an area with lots of immigrants who experience the most disgusting bigotry, oppression and injustice.

On the other hand, I am (almost) always aware of the prejudice and bigotry I experience based on my lack of a Y chromosome, especially living in an area where the traditional culture is, to say the least, HIGHLY misogynistic.

I truly believe that some of my social awkwardness is based on a consciousness of my relative privilege or lack of privilege and how that equation changes constantly and affects my dealings with others. It is a huge temptation to just shelve the whole thing and try to deal with others based on present perceptions of their humanity without consideration of the privilege/lack of privilege equation.

But when I try it, I often run into trouble, as members of the GLBT community can attest.

I don't know the answer. Empathy is part of it, but think that consciousness of privilege/lack of privilege, and what that means to a person's life and experience and humanity, doesn't always guarantee empathy.

Regardless of my own experiences, I can't really grasp on a core empathetic level the experience of (for example) having a high melanin level. The idea that your very appearance is generating prejudgments, assumptions, and bigotry SHOULD be familiar to me to some extent since I have no Y chromosome and that is obvious from my appearance. But it's a whole different experience on a whole different level. It's easier for me to be empathetic to individuals based on common human experiences than it is to generate empathy based on a lack of privilege I don't share.

I believe we must strive for (excuse the term) "wholesale" empathy based on the assumptions and pecking orders our society, cultures, and communities establish. That is essential both to achieving greater individual humanity and to building more evolved communities. But inevitably the experience of "retail" (person-to-person, common human experiences) empathy will always be more powerful.

That's why I believe it's important to create spaces and opportunities for that "retail" empathy to happen: For people with different privilege/lack of privilege characteristics, different life experiences, etc., to interact with openness to each others' experiences. That's why I've found the last few days in this forum such a great gift and a wonderful experience, and why I am so very grateful for the opportunity to share them with the GLBT community.

thoughtfully,
Bright

[yardwork]

18. I had to look up ambisexual. Are you saying that you are bi? In that case you are part of the LGBTQ

The B stands for bisexual. The Q is for people who identify as Queer, which can mean any kind of sexuality that falls outside what the majority considers to be "normal."

It sounds like you are saying that you ARE a member of the LGBTQ community. Am I misunderstanding? It depends entirely on how you personally identify. There is no set of guidelines for membership. No faxes containing the daily "gay agenda." I was promised a toaster when I joined but it hasn't arrive yet....

[TygrBright]

19. Ambi is MY word, for me.

I'm not claiming any kind of LGBTQ status.

Basically, my sexual attraction to people isn't based on gender, but it does seem to reorient occasionally. I spent a good many years in the kink world exploring a whole range of options. They all had their points. They all had drawbacks. Gender has always been a real weird thing for me, I've never really "gotten" sexual attraction based on gender.

However, I was lucky enough to meet the World's Most Wonderful Human Being, and he just happens to have a Y chromosome. So I've lived a heterosexual life for a long time now and am fine with it. I am accorded the privileges that come with heterosexuality, so I'll take the label for as long as this is my life. I don't reject the notion of being part of the LGBT world but I think I would feel hypocritical identifying with it since I enjoy the benefits of being "mainstream."

Sex is pretty complicated in America. I'm lucky enough to be happy the way I am now, and also lucky enough that the way I am now is "mainstream" or whatever. It hasn't always been that way, though, and there are definitely some scars and attitudes that come from conflict with the crazy sick perverted sad sexual culture that is America.

diffidently,
Bright

[yardwork]

24. Everybody gets to choose their own identifications, etc. I didn't mean to pry.

What's interesting to me is that everybody is actually unique. There is no normal. Nobody - or practically nobody - matches the corporate package that is sold as "normal."

I identify as lesbian and to a lot of people that word conjures up images that are not "normal." But I'm actually very vanilla. Not kinky at all. I mean, I have nothing at all against kinky but I'm not. So far, anyway! And I look ordinary too - typical lipstick lesbian, business suit, makeup. Yet people rail at me, well, not me specifically but anybody like me, or what they think is the most important aspect of like me,, which is that I love another woman. For 20+ years I was married to a man so I happen to have experienced both sides of this equation and love is love, loving a woman isn't different from loving a man except that it is apparently incredibly threatening to enough people that there are laws against it.

Weird, huh.

Anyway, thank you for sharing this and thank you for your posts and recent thread in GLBTQ. That thread of yours was really incredible. Thank you very much for that.

[TygrBright]

29. "No normal." You got that right.

(Notice I never use the word.)

My sister is lesbian and her life choices and her appearance have been close to one common stereotype. She has experienced some serious bigotry, up to and including assault and abuse, job discrimination, etc. That has had a definite long-term, negative impact and it simply enrages me that people couldn't just let her be who she is. I do think that if she hadn't suffered the kind of discrimination that came from growing up lesbian in the 1950s, and coming out in the 1960s, her opportunities would have been different, and some of the wonderfulness that is deeply buried or truncated in her would have been out in the open-- a great gift to her, to her family, and to the community.

I'm sort of a coward on my own behalf but I'll plow in with everything I've got if someone pops off about her. The thing I'm trying to overcome is the sense of being overwhelmed by how big and ugly and pervasive the evil is. That leads me to avoidance, denial, and taking refuge in my own current privilege of a fairly mainstream life. I gotta stop that.

This week in this forum has been an enormous gift to me in that respect. You and others have shared things that have really inspired me. I guess I'm trying to give back what I can.

hopefully,
Bright

[thanks_imjustlurking]

78. "overwhelmed by how big and ugly and pervasive the evil is"

That is exactly how I often feel. Thanks for the hit of courage.

[Skinner]

42. I think the biggest obstacle to this type of interaction on DU is the medium.

You can get dozens of people interested in a discussion like the one you describe. But all it takes is one person and the entire thread blows up. The mods can swoop in and remove the disruption, but the damage is already done, everyone has already been polarized.

Without getting into the details, our hope is that DU3 will make it easier and faster for members to exclude perceived disruptors from discussions.

[ThomCat]

66. That would do a hell of a lot of good

Every time the issue of privilege comes up we get people denying that any such privilege even exists, or could exist.

This needs to be driven home as a foundation issue.

[cate94]

6. K & R

Thank you for starting a new thread, the last one was more than a bit cumbersome.

I also want to thank you for taking ownership of the mistakes you made and recognizing your own privilege in the process. I think both those admissions go a long way towards healing wounds here.

As a person who primarily lurks, I feel as though I am overstepping boundaries by offering up opinions on the whole issue, but I was here and I was affected. And as a person who was called out as a troll -for arguing against civil unions and for the full rights of gay marriage- by a respected member of this community, I understand the eggshells we sometimes walk upon.

I came from the DNC site where there was essentially NO moderating. DU looks pretty damn efficient most of the time. Unfortunately, your frustration with any specific community will come with a cost. You say that DU3 will be handled differently. Okay. But in what manner will the changes prevent this sort of crap from happening in the future? In other words, if you have issues with the community will you direct your comments to the whole community so we can respond before people get banned?

The whole "pony and poutrage" thing just frosts the hell out of me. I get the feeling the people who use those phrases would rather be able to just call us a bunch of "fags and dykes". I suspect they would -if you would allow it. They are bullies using bullying language but they get away with it. I wonder if there is some way to address that covert type of bullying?

"Another issue that has been a point of contention with regards to how we run the GLBT forum is that we don't permit you to post stuff in here to go after other DUers on other parts of the website. I honestly don't have a good answer for that one. What I want to do is just throw up my hands and say "Go for it." but that doesn't seem very fair to the people being attacked. If anyone has any thoughts on how this should be dealt with, I'd like to hear them."

I really wish you would provide a link that shows an example of what you mean. If there is a discussion involving my rights in some other area of DU, I want to know about it. Is that what you mean? Certainly it is appropriate to link to a message in another area so as to include responses from the people that are impacted by the discussion. I wouldn't view that as an attack. I know in ASAH links are provided to posts that are ASAH related, isn't that the same thing?

[RKP5637]

11. Recommend and Thank You!!!

:yourock: :yourock: :yourock:

[Maven]

12. "Reasonable people can disagree."

I'm going to post this here, since, due to the demands of work, I was unable to do so in the other thread. Thank you for starting a new thread to hone down the discussion a bit.

You should recognize the title of my post. It's the last thing, I believe, I was allowed to post before being banned in the purge. More importantly, it's the title of a particularly craven bit of dodgery you posted in the heat of the post-inaugural conflict here on DU, namely when Barack Obama decided it would be a good idea to give a national platform to a hateful antigay bigot on the historic day of his inauguration, a day millions of liberal supporters, including not a few gay Democrats, made possible.

I'm talking, of course, about this post.

Now, far be it from me to stomp on my freshly reminted entry ticket to this community. However, I would be remiss not to post this, in light of the particular circumstances of my own banning, but more importantly, in light of the underlying tone of your responses herein, which I'm sad to say have the same ol' stale and inauthentic overtones of "but what can *I* do?!" Well, a lot actually, considering what you did in this particular instance.

I have to commend Earl G for putting together that synopsis of events contained in your previous post. With the exception of his initial assumption--it was, in fact, far from a foregone conclusion that the majority of GLBTs would support Hillary, and after Obama was nominated we all supported him with money and votes--he really seems to have gotten the gist of things. Would that you had done the same at the time. Because, you see, instead of taking a principled stand on an issue you claim to be on the right side of, you chose to hedge, in essence giving carte blanche to those who had by then made an art form of opposing gay rights in substance if not in form.

Because, David, in truth, reasonable people--reasonable, equality-minded people, could NOT disagree.

Let me make myself absolutely clear: The selection of Rick Warren, like the selection of Donnie McClurkin, like the contents of the initial DOMA briefs, was as repugnant then as it is repugnant now. The elevation of this odious man, whom mainstream Americans may have never known but for Obama's anointment of him with such an honor, was absolutely wrong then just as in hindsight it seems absolutely wrong now.

WRONG.

Not excusable as an "olive branch" to the moral hypocrites. Not excusable as a political maneuver.

WRONG.

Wrong to anyone who supports Democratic notions of equality, and not just personalities who happen to be Democrats.

Yet, instead of expressing a principled Democratic stand, you wrongly assumed that it was your job to remain neutral, to mirror Obama's self-serving, intellectually dishonest position that we should invite "both sides" of the gay rights debate to the table, thereby giving cover and credence to those who would defend giving Rick Warren more exposure at the very real expense of a politically vulnerable minority. At that moment, you vitiated any real meaning to the GLBT rights policy of this website.

Because ultimately, it doesn't make one bit of difference whether you verbalize your support in the abstract. It makes no difference whether you believe stabbing us in the back now will serve the greater good down the road. What matters is whether you will stand with us TODAY.

You want to know why GLBTs have such distrust for you, for the leadership of this website, for Democrats in general? It's because we have finally learned the old bird-in-the-hand rule when it comes to our allies, real and illusory.

Standing with us as Democrats, making the statement, that as Democrats supporting bigotry is not OK, not even if the person behind it is a Democrat, is the top Democrat, is all that matters, and about that reasonable people cannot disagree.

Ultimately, all viewpoints are not created equal, and you cannot believe that your job consists solely of telling the haters and the hated to "play nice" while holding up your abstract principles as a shield.

So, there. I've said what I wanted to say. If at some points I sounded harsh, it's because no one will benefit if those who watched these things happen don't speak about them plainly. I was there, and this is what I feel encapsulates the problem here.

I am frankly underwhelmed so far by the extent of your take-away from this discussion as reflected in the above post. I hope that this dialogue will continue until positive and substantive changes are made.

Oh, and -

There are people who should not be allowed in the GLBT forum period. One of them made an early appearance in the first thread you posted. He, and a few others like him, do nothing in GLBT except act as "enforcers" to quell our dissent by telling us our issues are trivial and our complaints excessive. Frankly, they are a perfect example of the many abusive posters coming from a particular camp on this website, that use subtle but antagonistic methods to rile people up and cause problems, and they should be stopped.

That's all, and if you got this far, thanks for reading.

[HarukaRedux]

20. Great post, Korman.

[Maven]

22. O M G

Haruka!!!

:hug: :hug: :hug:

[HarukaRedux]

23. Hahahaha

:hug: :hug: :hug:

Okay, I admit, I didn't go through the regular channels for reinstatement, but I couldn't stay away for this thread and my old username isn't appropriate these days.

[Maven]

25. Regular channels be damned

As we all know, a Haruka can pass through wormholes to another dimension, another dimension, another dimension... Hehe :evilgrin:

Now where's my special avatar? ;)

How are you? A lot has happened in the last however long...we need to catch up.

[HarukaRedux]

26. Yep, my special Haruka teleporting skillz

LOL...the avatar.

I'm doing good. We definitely need to catch up. I can't PM, but you know where to find me.

[ruggerson]

27. Just seeing your name, Haruka

makes me very happy. :)

[HarukaRedux]

28. Awww...thanks, Ruggerson.

:)

Missed you, too.

[Critters2]

32. +1 nt

[Critters2]

31. Welcome to DU!

:D

[HarukaRedux]

33. Welcome, indeed.

Although seeing you on DU isn't as cool as seeing you in person.

[Critters2]

35. Backatcha!

Still, it's nice to find you back here! :hug:

[Skinner]

43. Yes, I remember that post.

And I understand that many people objected to it.

As the administrator here, I need to understand what your objection means in terms of how I run the site. As you may know, Democratic Underground removes posts and people judged to be bigoted, when we are aware of them. You seem to be of the opinion that people who defended the choice of Rick Warren to give the inaugural invocation are bigots. Which begs the question:

Should I have deleted posts and banned people who defended the choice of Rick Warren to give the inaugural invocation?

[La Lioness Priyanka]

55. you shouldn't have let them mock our very legitimate concern with rick warren

and you should have clearly stood with us.

i remember that post and not only was it hurtful, in my opinion, you sounded like a politician when you wrote it. not an activist, or a liberal or a person with empathy. you sounded like a politician or a diplomat. what obama did with warren was wrong and allies don't in moments like that behave in such wishy-washy ways. they come down on the side of those who are marginalized. you made a choice not to do that.

[Maven]

58. Well said.

Much more straightforward than my post, thanks.

[Maven]

57. Still not quite getting it.

Let's please put this question of which posts to delete on the back burner for a second. Because I know what you want me to give you is a bright line rule to evaluate who is a "bigot" and who isn't, but it's that kind of thinking that has been utterly nonproductive in solving these problems. As I'll go on to explain below, the over-reliance on bright line rules is why so much antigay sentiment has been allowed to masquerade in plain sight. In the meantime, let me go back to my original post because it's clear more needs to be said.

I critiqued your post as a salient example of how GLBT issues have been grossly mishandled at least since the primaries. My ultimate point was that if you were going to intervene at all--and I absolutely believe you should have--but if you were going to intervene, the way you did so was exactly the wrong way because the two "sides" of the conflict were not equal as you purported them to be.

The problem is, it seems to me you're still not getting why the two sides were not equal, so I will break things down a bit further.

For the sake of argument, I think it's fair to separate the two opposing factions involved in the Rick Warren conflict (and many other previous conflicts) into two groups:

Group A: GLBTs and strong allies who were hurt and upset by the selection of Rick Warren, and who recognized the act (however symbolic) as an affront that hit them in a very personal way. Already deflated from the Prop 8 fiasco, their enjoyment of Obama's presidential victory is now completely ruined by watching the man they helped elect put this antigay parasite Warren in a position of honor. Moreover, they find themselves in the unpopular position of voicing a valid objection at a time when no one wants to hear it, and at an historical moment when mainstream politicians can still associate with antigay bigots and get a pass--even from supposed "allies."

Group B: Strong supporters of the new president, mostly straight, who are overjoyed by his victory and irate that some people, including and especially those in Group A, are spoiling the moment by criticizing the leader they believe in so unequivocally. Sure, Obama could have chosen better than Warren, but with all he's promised to do on gay rights who cares about this symbolic gesture? By and large, people in Group B are not personally affected by the persecution Warren and his kind perpetrate against gays and lesbians here and in other countries to the tune of millions in profit, so they see this as a political move, nothing more, and castigate the people in Group A as a bunch of whiny malcontents, disrupters (PUMAs!) who need to sit down and shut up.

So, to sum up: We have one group whose members are politically unpopular and personally affected; and the other comprised of posters whose privilege grants them no real personal stake in the matter except political loyalties. Equal?

Now, when you are a person in a position of power, and you have one side of a conflict being hurt in a personal way, and the other side using their advantages to exacerbate that hurt, you have to understand that taking no position is taking a position. (Oddly, that statement bears a certain likeness to recent world events...) As a liberal, one might have expected you to act affirmatively, to state that while no side was excused from behaving badly, a perceived attack on one's identity is not equivalent to a perceived attack on one's favorite politician, and therefore out of respect for those who were personally affected by this decision there should be heightened sensitivity on the part of those who were not.

Regrettably, that is not what you did. Being straight, and, as you've admitted, belonging more to the group that sees this as little more than a political gesture, you decide to intervene by saying "reasonable people can disagree," in essence, declaring that each side's stake in the matter is equally significant; to make matters worse, you acknowledge how repugnant Warren is but express "no personal opinion" on Obama's decision to honor him. (Why on Earth not?) Straight antagonists in Group B see this as a victory, and rightly so, because it legitimizes their efforts to stifle the complaints about Warren from Group A. Gay people in Group A recognize this false equivalency as another lesson from straight people that the official mention of support they receive here is always subject to anything that might be more important to straights, hence illusory. Or, put another way: "I support you but I reserve the right to walk all over you at any time." (Which explains the constant comparisons with race. Would you have said "reasonable people can disagree" about whether it was acceptable to honor an outspoken racist?)

So, what about those deleted posts?

Well, as I promised above, I'm trying to make the point that your fixation on "which posts do I delete" is missing the forest for the trees. Because if you had made a different post than the one you did, everything that followed would have been different.

Instead of posting what you did, you could have acted affirmatively as I described above. You could have said, "Hey DU, Obama appointed this horrible homophobe to a position of grandeur on a day all of us, gay and straight, should be able to feel proud and included. Now, there are a bunch of reasons Obama might have done this, but let's acknowledge that this decision hits the GLBT segment of our community particularly hard, hits them right at home in a way not all of us can feel, and be considerate when they express disappointment and hurt about the situation. Supporting Obama does not mean that you need to support this decision on Rick Warren, and we respectfully request that you keep this in mind when responding to threads on this topic."

Right away, the whole tone of the conversation would have changed. Certainly, GLBTs would have felt like they were being heard if not totally respected. It would have been easy to tell who was listening and being constructive and who was being a jerk and asking for a deletion.

Yes, I know there's no bright line rule there, no easy test to determine what goes and what stays. Part of the reason why so much antigay sentiment has slipped through the cracks here is that you have relied too heavily on specific rules of what you can and can't say, and definitions of who's a "bigot" and who isn't. The same way you just asked me to define whether someone who defended the Rick Warren decision is a bigot. Are they?

More to the point, is someone who is careful never to use a recognized homophobic slur, or to express a specific antigay position like "marriage is between a man and a woman," but who never misses an opportunity to tell gay people their issues don't matter, their complaints are a mere annoyance from the "fringe" and they are lucky to get what little support they do from the party--is that person someone who is complying with the purported GLBT policy of this site?

After all, what is a slur but a crude shorthand way of telling someone "You're less than I am?"

Perhaps what is needed is more subjective enforcement of certain standards, not bright line rules that only tell the wrong people what not to do in order to avoid being caught. I leave it to you to redefine these, but I hope that you will do so in tandem with loyal GLBT allies if not GLBTs themselves.

Once again, thank you for reading. I continue to hope that some substantive change will come out of this discussion.

[Lyric]

59. Good post. What sticks out the most for me is the idea of standards vs. rules.

You're absolutely right that when you delineate clear rules and stick to a "letter-of-the-law" enforcement strategy, it's practically an invitation for people to do every nasty thing they can possibly think of that's *just* short of that line.

However, community standards are different. The idea of standards instead of rules leaves some wiggle room for subjective interpretation in a crisis, and even more importantly, it works to express what the community is ABOUT.

Random example (stolen from an old book called the "Rape of the A.P.E."): If you make a rule that says,

"Thou Shalt Not Stuff 47 Tennis Balls Into Thy Toilet"

then you're going to cause a national plumbing crisis, because people all over the country (who might never have even considered putting ONE tennis ball into their toilet, much less forty-seven!) are going to stuff forty-SIX tennis balls into their toilets and congratulate themselves on their sly, clever rebelliousness.

However, if you say:

"Our community standard is that people shouldn't do stupid things that result in clogged toilets"

that accomplishes two things. One, it gives you the leeway to discipline ANY idiotic toilet-clogging. Two, it establishes a guiding principle that the community STANDS for. Because when it comes down to it, principles are what really hold communities together and keep the peace. People who break RULES are often seen as courageous rebels. People who betray PRINCIPLES, however, are pretty much universally despised.

DU certainly HAS principles--they're stated clearly on the "About DU" page. But those principles, for the most part, are not really enforced. Only the "rules" are enforced.

Perhaps if a wider, more open approach to enforcement were taken...one that upholds principles, not just rules...it could make a difference. And not just here, but throughout the entire site. GLBT isn't the only forum to have strife in recent history, after all.

[yardwork]

62. Very comprehensive response, Maven. Thanks for this. I'd like to add one more point.

The post "reasonable people can disagree" was the OP to a thread asking DUers to contribute to an anti-poverty campaign. The whole sentence, IIRC, was something like "reasonable people can disagree about Rick Warren but everybody agrees that poverty is wrong."

In other words, anybody who complained about it was put in a very compromised position. Complain about the OP, obviously complaining about anti-poverty efforts. What kind of a privileged, self-centered narcissist would do that? Why, the same privileged, self-centered narcissists who are complaining that they didn't get their pony. The selfish greedy pigs who can't even be grateful that a Democrat just got elected to the White House. Can't even let the rest of us progressives enjoy this moment. No, moment's got to ruined by loud prissy whiny gays who are never happy with anything. In fact, you're all racists too. That's the ticket. You never supported Obama anyway. You're still mad about the primaries. PUMA. Poutrage.

That's been the overall message toward GLBTQ posters on DU. Sadly, that message came from the top down. I'm not saying that it was deliberate. But there has certainly been, shall we say, tone-deafness.

P.S. The other thing that shouldn't be neglected is the information about Rick Warren's anti-gay efforts in Uganda and other parts of Africa that have led directly to the torture and murder of gay people there, and a bill to make being being gay punishable by death. That is Rick Warren.

[MNBrewer]

63. My analogy for election night 2010

to illustrate why "gays" stopped being celebratory and started being angry, drawn from the Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.

The ring is destroyed, and Barad Dur comes crashing down and Sauron winks out of existence.

YAY! Every one parties!

Then seconds later, Mt. Doom erupts explosively.

Frodo's friends are suddenly filled with shock and terror at what they just saw.

Obama's election = destruction of Sauron (personally I wept tears of joy when the networks announced he had won)
Eruption of Mt. Doom = Proposition 8 passing in CA (psychological kick in the gut. What just happened?)

[Danger Mouse]

64. I wouldn't have even known about Rick Warren's activities in Uganda if not for people on DU.

In retrospect, I'm disgusted I ever defended President Obama over that choice. It was just plain wrong, and not justifiable for any reason. He might as well have picked David Duke to do it.

[Skinner]

76. The issue of subjective enforcement vs. bright-line rules is an important one.

And I think it is a big contributor to the problems we face. During the current mod term (ie: The last three months or so), I have instructed the moderators to try to pay attention to the spirit of the rules as well as the letter of the rules. And I think it has made a difference.

But here's the tension that the DU moderators and administrators face, as we move more toward subjective enforcement rather than bright-line enforcement: The more we move away from bright-line enforcement, the more we open ourselves up to claims that we are biased, unfair, and arbitrary. (Of course, people say those things about us anyway. But they could really say it if we were trying to enforce some fuzzy standard.) As long as we are using the current system of rules and enforcement, it would be very hard for us to move in a significant way toward enforcing the spirit of the rules.

Which brings me back to the discussion of DU3. If you want subjective standards, you'll love DU3. Because that's the direction we're moving. No more 10-page laundry list of rules. Instead, we're hoping to have a brief statement of community standards based on broad principles.

[Lyric]

86. DU3 sounds better and better every day.

Any chance of an early rollout? (Yeah, I know...but hey, a girl can dream.) :)

[ThomCat]

68. At the very minimum

A statement would have been nice saying that having Rick Warren participating in the inauguration in any capacity was wrong.

A statement saying anything along the lines of "DU can not officially support Rick Warren's participation or presence in the Inauguration because DU places a greater value on continuing membership and participation of LGBT Democrats," would have had a huge amount of positive impact.

Just a simple statement would have been all that it would have been necessary the time. :(

[ThomCat]

67. That was beautiful!

:applause:

[William769]

13. Oy vey.

I was fine with what I posted in the thread "mending fences", But now I have been given some food for thought in this thread.

Please excuse me but the meds that I take really mess with my head and my thought process gets messed up.

[terrya]

14. Thank you.

And I was cynical in my post that you referenced. I know you are making a good effort to begin this dialogue, this rapprochement, this mending of fences. I have to tell you...I was disheartened here. Seeing the "poutrage" thing, about our anger on issues important to us, on a progressive message board, was shocking and sickening. And, I got very angry with you and your post about Rick Warren being invited to deliver the invocation at the Inaugural. It seemed like you yourself was minimizing our anger about this.

I appreciate this, Skinner. And I know I posted a post in your Rick Warren thread that was insulting to you and the other admins. I apologize to you for that post.

[Kurovski]

15. thank you for the remarkable amount of attention you have paid.

I will read all of this, just not today. "Mending fences" took a few hours altogether.

This seems unprecedented in DU's history. I could be wrong, but I'm certain of my gratitude.

[Marrah_G]

17. I would like to make a suggestion David

I would like to suggest choosing the moderators of GBLT from the GBLT community here. We have many here that I believe could be just and fair in their assessments and they could be a bridge between you and our community. I'm not talking about the loudest or the most popular people but rather a few people whom you feel you could have both a good relatiionship with and who would judge situations fairly.

That's my two cents, for what it is worth.

[Lyric]

34. If I'm remembering correctly from the other thread, that probably wouldn't make much of a difference

Correct me if I'm wrong, mods, but don't the mods share all the forums now? I don't think there are specific GLBT mods anymore.

[Danger Mouse]

36. Aside from the 9/11 forum and the Israel/Palestine forums, yes, we all deal with all forums...

...more for convenience than anything else.

[Skinner]

44. You are correct, Lyric.

Moderators are no longer assigned to specific forums.

However, if you think it would make a difference, I think we could do it. We are going to do a mod switch in the next week or so.

[Lyric]

50. If it's possible, then I think it's a good idea.

But (and I hesitate to say this, because I don't want it to be taken the wrong way)...it needs to be someone that the community trusts. Someone who is truly a part of the community.

Please understand that I am not claiming that the rest of the moderators are untrustworthy. But the entire point of assigning a GLBT mod to this forum is, purportedly, to increase sensitivity and heighten trust between the mods and the members. If you assign someone who's GLBT, but who doesn't frequently participate in the community we have here, those objectives might not be met. I'm sure that you have GLBT mods already--in fact, I'm pretty sure that at least one of them was posting in the other thread. But (for obvious reasons) they tend to stay a bit above and beyond, if you understand me. Many of us don't really *know* them.

We've had some terrible experiences before with "gay" members who were deeply hostile toward this community. We learned the hard way that being gay doesn't mean that you're an advocate for the people here. If you put someone in charge that we don't really know, then, inevitably, suspicions will arise that this mod is some kind of gay "Uncle Tom". That undermines the point of doing it in the first place. Worse, it could hurt a moderator who was truly innocent and well-intentioned, but who simply got caught up in a suspicion-storm. To be a gay moderator and see people suspecting you of homophobia...well, that's got to be soul-shredding. It would be awful to put someone into a position to be hurt like that.

A GLBT mod for this forum should be someone that we *do* know...and someone that we all (or at least, 99% of us) trust. Someone that we know well enough that there will never, ever be a question about his/her motivations. Someone that all of us can defend without a second thought from claims of moderator bias and/or "selling out". Someone we can look up to and never doubt. We are all only human, after all, and traumatized humans at that. Putting someone that we know and trust in charge over here will help soothe the automatic suspicious reaction that is so common for people who've been previously hurt.

I would also like to add one more thing. As a rule, I know that you tend to want moderators who aren't known for being terribly contentious posters, because perceived neutrality heightens trust and reduces the accusations of moderator bias. However, I feel that many of the people here who might be seen as "contentious" posters, are actually *not* contentious most of the time. Their "contention" is largely a reaction to a perceived set of deep, personal hurts. Since we're trying to mend those hurts and establish forgiveness, I hope that you will consider forgiving *us* as well for those things. There are some very kind, decent, intelligent, and thoughtful people here who would make very good moderators for DU, but have never applied because they fear that they'll be rejected as "contentious" because of post-Purge hurt. Perhaps that forgiveness can work both ways? I can't think of a better way to start the healing than to give people the chance, as The Philosopher said, to "stop being irrational"--to establish themselves as good people who were reacting, as mere humans will, to what we all agree was a deeply hurtful and badly-handled situation.

If you could consider this, it would be doubly helpful--you'd get more potential new moderator applicants for the next term, and you wouldn't have a problem finding a mod for GLBT that everyone knows well enough to fully trust.

Just my $0.02.

[yardwork]

52. I think that these are very good points, and I agree with this suggestion.

[Skinner]

77. After thinking about this over the weekend, I think there may be a workable compromise.

I suspect that any person who is assigned to the GLBT forum as an official moderator -- an agent of Democratic Underground and of me -- will find himself or herself in an extremely awkward position, caught between members of the GLBT forum who are demanding certain actions, and their responsibility as a moderator to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. Furthermore, I think that the very act of my "choosing" any of you for this role will immediately make the chosen person suspect. So, here's what I propose instead:

We create a new position. We'll call it something like "Forum liaison". This person (or people) is chosen by the members of the GLBT forum, using whatever criteria you choose. You can pick whomever you like. The forum liaison(s) is not a DU moderator, he or she does not have access to the moderator forum, and he or she has none of the powers of a DU moderator. But this person has one very important power: They can block anyone out of the GLBT forum, at will, for any reason at all (or no reason).

That will give you complete control to maintain your forum as a "safe space." And even better, you won't have to waste time or effort persuading me of the fairness or the need. It would be entirely the responsibility of the liaison.

(If there are any other forums or groups that feel they could benefit from this type of arrangement, I would probably let them do it too.)

[La Lioness Priyanka]

80. that sounds great.

[Marrah_G]

82. Perfect- Thank you David.

I really like this idea.

[Lyric]

85. That sounds reasonable to me.

It's certainly empowering, and that in and of itself is an enormous positive gain. Thank you.

[yardwork]

87. I might be the only one, but I don't like this idea very much.

I'm hopeful that there might be an alternative.

I would prefer to let the bigots stay, but allow posters to respond to them. Don't delete hateful comments. Let them stand. Don't ban people from forums. Let them stay and have to defend themselves, or leave by their own choice. Some of them might even change their minds.

Otherwise, I can imagine a certain kind of troublemaker who would wear "I got thrown out of the GLBTQ forum" as a badge of pride everywhere else on DU. That will do nothing to promote a better understanding of gay rights.

[Shining Jack]

89. I totally agree.

With this and what you said down-thread (Post 75):

"Allow DUers to respond to bigoted posts instead of disappearing the offense and then wondering why people get so upset. (Homophobia? I don't see any homophobia on DU. You must be a whiny over-privileged gay full of poutrage. Off with your head.)

Let the bigoted posts stand. Let people respond to them. Let in the fresh air and sunshine."

It's easy to dismiss the fact that something awful happened when the proofs have been destroyed.

[pinto]

91. A purely functional point and a personal (mod mode) comment -

All deleted posts, save some that are removed in a sub thread snip, remain in the record. Moderators have access to some of it, DU Administrators have access to the entire saved data, of course. So the record is there, it hasn't been destroyed.

As a moderator I've seen both sides of your suggestion to leave offensive posts up. And we discuss the point at times when we look at removing a post. Especially in context of the discussion.

Some are just way out of line and get removed with input from mods on duty (i.e. no one acts without some concurrence). Some are borderline comments that we may discuss back and forth for a while before we take any action. Some we just don't see as actionable from a moderator role.

And some we never see.

We primarily work in partnership with member alerts. Some are directed at our action or our lack of action. So we receive both of those kind of responses. "Why did you remove this?". "Why do you let this stay up?". Both are reasonable questions. And one part of our job as moderators is to reconcile these conflicting points as best as we can, for everyone.

Kind of a vague post, but wanted to recognize your comments from just a moderator's pov. ~ pinto

:hi:

[yardwork]

93. I'm aware of how it works, since I was a moderator for two terms.

I'm talking about allowing the rest of DU to see what is otherwise hidden in the poster's deleted posts file.

[pinto]

97. Hi yardwork. I think some of the changes Admin is working on are going to address that to an extent.

I was trying to share with others what you know is the case, posts aren't "hidden" for some ulterior purpose, they're just deleted under the system we have now. Same as during your mod terms and since the beginning of DU, I guess. It is what it is. I know Skinner, EarlG and Elad are going through the DU3 upgrade and some aspects of how individual posts are handled is going to change.

:hi:

[yardwork]

94. Thanks, Jack.

[BR_Parkway]

98. If those posts could be Tagged somehow - "this post is in violation

of the rules of DU....." it might actually be more beneficial as people would have a natural curiosity to see why a post got pointed out - along with all the responses, which might be more educational in the long run.

[pinto]

90. Like this proposal a lot. I think it would give any forum the ability to help define

their own environment within that forum, if members chose to go that route. Really worth a look and discussion, imo. :hi:

[Smarmie Doofus]

51. I vote for this.

It won't solve the problem of non-evenhandedness in the other forums but I don't see how it could hurt to give this forum a voice in its own moderation.

Seems like a win/win. Why not try it?

[HarukaRedux]

21. Thank you.

David, I'd just like to thank you for having these long-awaited discussions. I think this is a great step for the GLBT community on DU.

[The Philosopher]

38. Here's what I (probably horribly) think.

It's the nature of free discussion to be unsettling, because you never know when Socrates is going to make us look like douches. People are always going to be thinking "Where is this leading? Where could that lead?" and wonder about the person's goal. A very innocent comment could be the lead into a discussion why we're all racists or homophobes, or it actually can be innocent out of innocence or ignorance. The internet groups people together in isolation, so there's no unifying discussion as would happen in person. All those comment screamed in a physical setting would be background noise, with only one or two actually behind heard and used as the group as a representative response. But here, we see everything, and the dialogue is lost.

When this concussion of noise goes on for too long, a button of a message is formed that invades the communities like a plague. Two examples you have provided are the "Obama is a homophobe!" and its response, "You're a racist!" Neither one is accurate, although the latter accusation is harder to dismiss since there are racist people for a variety of reasons.

When Obama chose Warren to give the invocation at the inauguration, many saw offense--as everyone knows by now. The reason for this--as everyone knows by now--is Warren's views on homosexuality. Warren is undeniably a bigot (until he stops being one). A problem in the discussion came when Obama became a bigot because of this choice. I don't think that's right, myself. If you step on an elevator and have a nice chat about the weather with an older gentleman, and then later find out he's a leader within the KKK, a white supremacist you don't become. If Obama is a bigot, it isn't through association. If Obama is a bigot, it will show up through a multitude of actions. But that wasn't the problem here with Rick Warren. It wasn't about the President; it was about what he was doing.

A person with strong beliefs put in an official position gives an official approval of those beliefs even if that is not intended. A person will see a public figure and say, "Wow, that guy has great ideas. I want o know more!" If you need a more concrete example, there's House. You can be a drug addict criminal of a jerk so long as you're not wrong more than four times per case, simply because you can solve a medical mystery that no one else can. In good faith, one assumes the same standard of thought behind one idea is behind another. It's why we never encounter a scientist in one field losing their shit in another field, like a physicist claiming demons and fairies were behind cancer or liver failure. So when Obama chose Rick Warren, Obama was essentially saying that Warren's offensive views were okay for the public, that he was "fine with them." Was it intentional? The President sometimes gives off a flakey perception, so maybe it was one of his brain fart moments. But you can't deny responses. Obama has a tendency to get angry at being accused of something negative, instead of addressing the accusation. This only causes problems in the dialogue between us and him. If you do something like pick Rick Warren to be a part of your happiest moment, to be a part of OUR happiest moment, you can't be upset when someone calls you out on it.

When the LGBT members expressed this, deflections were made. Many of the deflections were the accusation that we were racist. That’s a problem. Like many have pointed out, there IS racism at DU. That’s because there’s racism EVERYWHERE, because racism isn’t a single entity of a concept that we can point to. It has many faces. But just because there is racism everywhere, it does not mean you’re always seeing racism. And when the accusation of racism is used to deflect criticisms of the President, it helps to cover the actual racism in a shadow, making it harder to see. Another problem is our actual experiences to bigotry. Those of the LGBT community are more sensitive to homophobia, because it’s a problem for us personally--we can recognize it quicker than someone who isn’t gay, who doesn’t have to worry if someone says something disparaging about a homosexual or a transgender person. The heterosexual is less likely to suffer the consequences of homosexuality in an anti-homosexual world. The same goes for African-Americans (or any race). A person who isn’t part of the accepted world will see this in their daily lives and learn to see its hand quicker in everyday matters. And when a person deals with this everyday, which is traumatic, it’s hard to not expect to see racism or homophobia or sexism. So when an illiterate or flakey comment is made, which can be attributed to simple misunderstanding, it can blow up.

I think your post recognizes this in one form or another. You’ve certainly understood what the problem was about the purge and that you made mistakes. And you’ve shown you’re not an idiot because you want to make amends instead of continue the line of ignoring any criticism of your actions. That’s the best course of action and you should be celebrated for that. Because, for some of us, it’s not something even the President is willing to do.

So, the question is, what do we do? As my time as lurker here, I’ve had bunches of ideas. But I have a tendency to sleep and lose them. However, there is something that can be addressed that’s perfectly obvious from the Mending Fences thread. The silencing of a controversy doesn’t work. Human beings are naturally curious and naturally loud about it. You can’t tell people to shut up and not expect them to not shut up. If you succeed in shutting them up, all you’re doing is redirecting that curiosity inward and if it’s an angry curiosity, it can seethe into a destructive behavior. The silence of the purge almost killed the LGBT forum; it also almost gave a pass to the trolls to beat up on us (and eventually, other minorities). If silence is what almost did these things, will its opposite do the opposite? Once the purge was addressed, once we were able to talk about it openly without fear of repercussions, life began to return to us. Maybe it’s a coincidence but it seems the LGBT forum is more active since the Mending Fences thread. That’s what I see, anyway.

So I think a transparency is in order. Perhaps the first act of a moderator shouldn't be deletion of a post, but a locking where none could reply to the thread. Then everyone would be asked to simply ignore it (that's a lot to ask, I know). Only in extreme cases would the post be automatically deleted, like if zombie Hitler reconstituted his body and tried to pass his thoughts here at DU.

I also don't think anyone should really be blocked from participating in this forum. Everyone should have the chance to stop being an irrational moron. But there can be supervision that would help keep the major irritations as minor ones. In forums such as ours, along with someone chosen by you (as you do now), let us as a community elect a moderator. If Democracy can be good enough for America to pick a leader with the right plan, why can't it work for DU? It's not something you'd want or could do for every forum. But you don't have to. Just those places you see it's needed. This elected person would not only be responsible for keeping "the trolls" in line on the LGBT forum, but also act as a representative between you and us.

[Skinner]

45. I think this is a really excellent, insightful post.

I agree with a great deal of what you have to say.

I know I keep saying "DU3 will be different" but it's true. On the issue of transparency, one of our primary goals on DU3 is to make the site administration and moderation much more transparent. Another goal is to stop deleting posts -- we believe there is a better way to deal with them. And a third goal -- which might be a pipe dream -- is to stop banning Democrats/Progressives.

On the issue of how each of the forums is run, including this one: On DU3, we intend to give members a great deal of control over what happens in the topic forums.

[Betty Karlson]

39. I'm still mesmerized at how

a sub-forum for a hurt and angry minority was allowed to be moderated by someone who intended to have a cheap laugh (see post #177 in the original Mending Fences topic). The moderator has already apologised for his actions, but I'm still hoping for some kind of assurance that this will remain a never-again mistake.

[Skinner]

46. I'm not sure exactly what you are referring to.

But FWIW, I mentioned in a post above that we might be able to assign specific moderators to the GLBT forum, if you all think that might make a difference.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

54. yes. you should have queer moderators or very strong allies for the glbt forum

[Very_Boring_Name]

70. Bingo

I remember a thread saying that there needs to be another stonewall in America was locked for "inciting violence" or something like that. This is a systemic problem with the moderation. I realize that moderators have a very tough job, and they (generally) do an exceptional job imo, but there needs to be moderators who are sensitive to GLBT issues moderating the GLBT forum.

[thanks_imjustlurking]

81. Thank you,

and everyone here, for remembering the allies. I appreciate it very much.

[yardwork]

95. Our allies are essential!

Allies have stood right beside us and taken the same hits.

:pals:

[Creideiki]

41. I see we're getting back to where we were, so...

My puppy was really cute today. He laid on the bed with us and slept all through the night.

[Skinner]

47. I get from your post that you have some concerns.

If that is the case, I would appreciate it if you would make an effort to engage in the discussion on the merits. I do not expect everyone to agree with everything I said in any of my posts. But if you do not agree, please explain exactly what it is you disagree with, and why. That is the only way I can possibly be made to understand your point of view.

[Creideiki]

56. A homophobic screed was deleted from the original thread

Vanished--again.

Which makes it way too easy for the homophobes to claim that nothing happened and for moderators to claim that there is no homophobia at DU.

There was more than one purge. While allowing the initial people back in is great (although I don't know if anyone still has contact with Sundog), it does nothing for the other people who were eliminated because of the same issues.

Ultimately, DU is a hostile place. You and the mods really need to accept that. I'm not asking that you accept complicity in the hostility, just acknowledge that it is hostile and has been most of the time that I've been here. Then understand that being in a hostile environment leads people to be defensive. Defensiveness leads to overreaction. Overreaction leads to the person who initiated the discussion alerting and complaining that they're being put upon by the people that they want to silence, harass, and otherwise put in their place.

[yardwork]

75. Yes. It would better to let all the conversations take place out in the sunshine.

The occasional horrific genuine troll should be banned. Most of the rest of this could be taken care of by DU membership as a whole. Right now, it seems like we have a small group of overworked volunteers who operate in an environment that is not at all transparent to most DUers.

I think it would be better to have many fewer rules and much less moderation. Shift the emphasis from rules to values, as Lyric suggests upthread.

Allow DUers to respond to bigoted posts instead of disappearing the offense and then wondering why people get so upset. (Homophobia? I don't see any homophobia on DU. You must be a whiny over-privileged gay full of poutrage. Off with your head.)

Let the bigoted posts stand. Let people respond to them. Let in the fresh air and sunshine.

[chill_wind]

48. K & R. n/t

[EFerrari]

49. K&R

[Behind the Aegis]

60. Thank you for the response.

I apologize I didn't respond more quickly, but I am in the process of moving and setting up a new household, so my time is unusually limited (I am usually on DU several times a day, but haven't been able to do so for almost two weeks).

I don't mind you focused on part of my post because the other parts have been/are being addressed by other members and you. I appreciate the history of the decisions made and why they were made (or not). I will discuss the issue laid before me.

"So, for example, if someone is arguing that President Obama is not going to keep his promises on gay rights, we should also permit someone to make the argument that they think he will."

I agree. This is the very definition of debate. I see no problem if it is an actual debate. I don't have to agree, but I should have the same right to respond, as should s/he. If it were limited to this, there really wouldn't be some of the problems we have seen. However, there were a handful of posters who were overly contentious, disrespectful, hateful, and not really interested in debate. Their posts should have been enough to "ban" them from this forum. It may have required those requesting this action to "prove their case" as it would have been near impossible for you to be aware of the posting habits of these posters. I will interject here; this is where dedicated moderators to this forum would help because they should be able to distinguish between debate and instigating**. I also agree "call-outs" to lead a charge to another forum shouldn't be allowed; however, commenting on those comments should be allowed. While some will go looking for where the comment was made or who made it, most will simply address the statement in this forum (IMHO).

I hope this helps.

**instigating: When I used that term I am referring to a very specific poster(s). They are the people who take great joy in "poking the eye" of GLBT folks here and other places on DU. They are the ones who love to post Obama's GLBT "accomplishments" anytime we disagree with or take issue with something Obama/his administration has done. It is the equivalent of "You aren't properly thankful of things that have been done for you?" and, in my opinion, it is a wordy way of saying "Not happy you haven't got your pony/What? More poutrage?!" These are the posters who ridicule GLBT accomplishments/allies and the like. When one starts looking at their overall posts in regards to GLBT topics, the pattern becomes clear. As we are the ones who are more likely to see the pattern, perhaps we can demonstrate this, and you can address it with the information given. If it appears the compliantent is making false allegations, and it does occur, that too can be addressed. These are also the posters who derail conversations about GLBT issues and try to create division.

I would like to add:

If you respond to nothing else, I hope you will comment on the following:

As I said in the other thread, homophobia is not limited to calling someone "fag/dyke" or whatever. There are homophobes at DU. They are some of the ones I described above and others, who focus on negative stories about our community, make borderline anti-gay comments like "mAnn Colter" and "Koch suckers," (though not all who makes those comments are homophobes, and I am glad DU now eliminates those comments), and they make passive-aggressive comments about themselves being homophobes. The last example has become very noticeable. It is something I have seen in regards to anti-Semitism since I joined this site, but after Obama's election, the "gay" version emerged.

Example: (Obama/his administration does something the GLBT community finds troubling.)

Poster H(omophobic commenter): Well, I guess this means Obama is a homophobe and since I agree, I must be too! (sometimes followed by :eyes: or :sarcasm:)

Poster G(LBT): His remarks/actions were reprehensible. I believe it (remarks/actions) may have been in homophobic bias.

Poster H: Oh! So you're calling me a homophobe!? I have gay friends. You know, it is gay people like you who make me not want to support your cause.

Poster G: I never called you a homophobe! What I said was....

and so it goes....

This can often lead to the (G) poster to actually breaking down and calling the (H) poster a homophobe, after all, didn't s/he already admit to it in a passive way? Of course, this then leads to the (G) poster's comment being deleted (for a DU violation) and the (H) poster claiming "victory" in that the "mean ol' gays called him/her a homophobe" for expressing a dissenting opinion. I believe if this form of abusive/passive-aggressive posting were deleted, the same way direct accusations of being a homophobe (anti-Semite, woman-hater, etc) are deleted, then two things would be accomplished: 1) conversations would be about the topic and not the poster, and 2) it would eliminate those who are actually disrupting.

I don't mean to be insulting or patronizing, but it is important for you (and DU) to recognize bigotry (not just homophobia) is not limited to "mean names," and can be quite underhanded and disguised. Also, a homophobic slur or position doesn't necessarily mean the person is a homophobe; it is the same with all forms of bigotry.

[xchrom]

61. +1

[Very_Boring_Name]

69. +100000

[plantwomyn]

65. Thoughts from the fring.

I was one of the “volunteers” that for the most part, walked away after the purge. I followed Sapphocat’s blog so I have some understanding of the purge but no where near enough to “purge” DU from my bookmarks.

It took me two days to even partially wrap my head around the “Mending Fences” thread and even now the amount of what I see as blatant gay bashing is staggering. The pain and disappointment in many of the posts breaks my heart. I was here for some of it. I was a victim of most of it. Not because most of the vitriol was aimed at me, but because I was a witness to so many of my sisters and brothers becoming ghosts. For me it was like finally getting close to a sanctuary, a safe house and then watching it explode.

As a Dyke that lives in Northern Indiana, surrounded by red, DU’s GLBT forum was like having a beer at one of my favorite bars in the San Francisco Bay Area back in the day. But the facade of “a safe place” quickly fell away and it only got worse. Once I realized that we were being purged, it stiffed any possibility of me fully participating on DU. As an older dyke, I’ve battled that crap all of my life. To tell you the truth, after reading Sapphocat’s blog, my respect for her writing ability lead me to realize that if SHE couldn’t make you guys get it, I didn’t have a chance in hell to even make a dent.

Many of the posts that I read in the “Mending Fences” thread were enlightening. I see now that I didn’t know the half of it. When I read Sapphocat’s post my heart was in my throat. My wife and I were planning to go to California to get married in 2008. I was excited because I haven’t been back since I left after the 1989 earthquake and I miss it terribly. My friends were amped up and we were going to have a “family” reunion. After prop 8 it all fell apart. We were so emotionally devastated we were in shock. We ended up in Iowa in June of 2009. With the way the economy is, none of my California friends could make it.

I came back to this thread and read Skinner’s “take away” from Sapphocat’s post and all I could think was “Really, is that all you got from her post?” It’s hard for me to even look at. All you get is that Sapphocat’s experience with her own blog supports your position that it ain’t easy? It’s not that I don’t acknowledge you are “embarrassed and sickened”; it’s that you spend one sentence on that and then spend the next 11 paragraphs to expound about the need for US to think about this and to see things in perspective.

My point here Skinner is that THAT is what we’ve been hearing, in one form or another, all this time, not only from you but from the Democratic Party and Obama. To tell you the truth, I don’t much care HOW hard it has been or will be. Either you state here and now that you are dedicated to be our advocate on DU, to the best of your ability or we are wasting our time.

I think that many of us feel the same way about your vague statements as we do with Obama’s. Talk is cheap; actions are what are in order now. Being that this is a print medium, I know you can’t grab and shake the bad actors. But I do think that a locked General Discussion post by you to lay down the law is in order. The equivalent of an Executive order. Thereafter, hard core monitoring and one strike you’re out penalties. I’ll even volunteer a few hours each morning.

As far as I’m concerned, I could care less if it is in someone’s “human nature” to be a homophobe any more than I would care if it was in their “human nature” to be a racist. They need to take their crap elsewhere. If we want to argue amongst ourselves about how homophobic Obama is or isn’t so be it. But denying Obama’s homophobia outright and using the race card to deflect Obama’s culpability is unconscionable.

The fact is that the rules haven’t been policed equally, you’ve admitted as much, and it needs to change. Ultimately, you don’t come in my house and disrespect me without expecting to get shown the door and don’t expect me to be civil about it. At minimum, you should be able to ensure that the GLBT forum is sacrosanct. It would be a good start.

[Very_Boring_Name]

71. Some posters quite frankly shouldn't be allowed to post in the GLBT forum

They contribute nothing to the discussion. Instead they berate and minimize the concerns of GLBT DUers (i.e "You're unhappy that Obama invited Rick Warren? Then don't vote for him and maybe president Palin will give you your rights in 2012 :sarcasm:"). The key problem is, they do it in a way that technically doesn't violate any rules, even though its certainly violating the spirit of the forum. I think sub forums like the GLBT forum should be set up in the same way that the candidate forums were done... it should be a place for GLBT support and discussion, NOT debate. I shouldn't have to defend my right to marry in this forum, nor should I have to argue with someone over whether or not it was a good idea for Obama to have Donny Mcclurkin perform.

[yardwork]

73. I wouldn't mind allowing homophobes to post here iif other posters were allowed to respond

The problem was that GLBTQ posters were banned and silenced, while the bigots hopped around with little restraint. Skinner seems to be attempting to reverse that trend.

I think that the majority of DUers would take care of the homophobes if we were allowed to do so. Let them post. It's fairly easy to expose their idiocy.

[Smarmie Doofus]

88. I have been saying this *exactly* this from the get go.

Let them post. Let us post.

It's called friggin "education".

Blatant, childish, ad hominems , vulgarities, slurs and threats of violence should be deleted and serial offenders should be canned. But that's it.

" Rules" are not going to work for this demographic. They are going to work *against* us. Everyone of the May '09 exiles broke a "posting rule."

We don't want more rules; we want fewer.


At least if we know what's good for us.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

79. yes, repeat offenders should be barred from this forum. i know it happened to hamden rice

but ofcourse it didn't happen in a timely fashion, and happened when it became a HUGE crisis.

[terrya]

83. Remember the one time matcom posted in here?

That was fucking horrible. He was angry, vicious and insulting. I never sensed he was a homophobe...I sensed he was a major league asshole, but then again sexual orientation doesn't necessary have anything to do with assholishness.

That one night he posted in here was one of the worst I've ever seen on DU.

I hate guns. Hate them. But yet...I wouldn't dream of posting in the Gun forum here. Because beyond "I hate guns", I have nothing worthwhile to say about that subject. And I think that kind of dynamic should be used with GLBT issues and the GLBT forum.

[Prism]

84. Of Trolls and Men

Sorry it's taken so long to respond and I haven't been able to participate much after agitating for this dialogue. I'm training a new person at work which has resulted in a few 14 hour days this week that sometimes ended at 1 AM. It has been poopy in the extreme.

And here is a related question: Let's just assume for the sake of discussion that we can actually compel people to NOT give in to their worst online behavioral impulses. If so, would it be okay to permit differing opinions on the question of whether President Obama is a homophobe? Or is the question itself off-limits?

There's definitely a fine line between trolling, assholery, and genuine disagreement. Where does simple loyalty and partisanship on behalf of a politician veer into a problematic, targeted behavior of hostility towards LGBTers in general? That's definitely a judgment call colored by our perspectives and privilege. Because I think all of us want as much free speech as possible, but there comes a point - one reached here, I think - where vigorous interaction morphs into an unwelcoming atmosphere.

I'm about to mangle this saying, but it goes something like "One time is an accident, twice is a coincidence, and a third time is enemy action." Most of the time it isn't a singular statement that creates a hostile atmosphere. It's the pattern, the unrelenting "LGBTers are always wrong, no matter what" attitudes that are very clearly and cleanly apparent to us that accumulate over time.

Within the current mod system, the admins and mods seem to take things on a post by post basis. But what would really help, I think, is a way for us to point to a poster and go "Look at this series of posts. Now look at these from last week. Now check out these from last month." Even in your Mending Fences thread, there were people present who have not had a kind word to say about LGBT people in years. Literally, not a single nice thing to be said towards our community. With some posters, I could point to a dozen subthreads on different topics where the only consistency is their disdain for LGBTers and how we approach our issues.

Hamden Rice is a great example. That guy was just awful. And it took forever for the mods to recognize just how much discord and hurt he was causing the LGBT community on DU. He was an extreme example, and it took a very, very long time for any kind of action against him to come through. Right now, there are easily a few dozen minor Hamdens who pop on into LGBT topics with the sole purpose of making sure LGBTers know their issues are no big deal, that no matter what's happening, we're always wrong, that we're a bunch of whining, uppity troublemakers.

So how can that be addressed in a constructive, actionable way while allowing for free speech and genuine disagreement? How do we communicate to the mods when an incident or two becomes a hostile pattern?

It's like my original example. LGBTers were slammed for criticizing the administration for defending DOMA. And then we were slammed when the administration reversed course. The only consistency is that we're getting slammed no matter what happens in the world.

There's something off about that, and I think it's that really subtle, over time behavior that sneakily creates a subtext and impression in the minds of many LGBTers that DU isn't often the friendliest place for us.

It's definitely a pickle.

But I appreciate how much you're grappling with these issues and listening to what everyone has to say. This dialogue is succeeding far past my original hopes for it. Everyone's listening to everyone else, and it's very heartening to see. I haven't felt this positive about DU in a long, long time. Thanks for that.

[Danger Mouse]

92. Hope I'm not speaking out of turn here, but I had a couple thoughts...

First of all, we do keep track of members' posting history, and we try to keep it in mind when considering actions. However, sometimes problem members 'slip through the cracks' because we don't recognize the pattern. In a recent alert, somebody was very helpful in describing why they found a post to be insensitive to the GLBT community. Obviously, it took a bit more time and effort on their part, but I found it to be very informative. If you are concerned that somebody is consistently hostile to your community, let us know so we can take a look at the situation. Informative alerts are also key...we're more likely to take action if we understand why a post is hurtful.
I'm glad that you and Skinner started this conversation. :hi:

[yardwork]

96. Thank you, Danger Mouse! You have written a number of very thoughtful posts lately.

Thank you for inviting us to alert, and to alert with informative messages. That has not always been encouraged in the past. In fact, many of us did exactly that for years and felt that our messages were falling on deaf ears. Some of us were actually punished for alerting too much.

Having been away from DU for two years I've fallen out of the habit of alerting and I don't think I'll do much of it except for very awful, horrific, obvious trolling that probably a dozen other DUers will alert in the first two seconds after the post appears.

The rest of it? I've come to believe that it is better to leave it all out in the sun for everybody to see. Let everybody read the offensive posts and make up their own minds about the posters.

Efforts to sanitize DU almost completely silenced a disenfranchised minority. I will not willingly encourage the banning of anybody from DU unless they are a really, really obvious troll.