Pointing out nobody in particular, i was wondering if we could mark racist remarks are punishable offence on this forum, as they lower the quality of debate and can lead to digression from the original topic.

Thanks in advance for reading,

Kazikli Bey

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According to the rules: "Rule 3: No deliberately inflammatory attacks on race, religion or sexual preference."

This makes sense as this type of things is not condusive to civilized dicussion.

Personally I think it is fine to say things like "Islam has some inherent problems as a religion"

That is a far cry from saying "Islam is a death whorshipping cult of lunatic fanatics" :-)

Some folks don't seem to be able to tell the difference though, hence why there are rules.

Here is an example of hate speech beyond any shadow of a doubt.

We love America

This did not appear as a resonse to another statement, but was initiated for the purpose of spreading hate.

I don't agree with your overall assesment. I personally decided not to edit that thread for the forum's interest. One of the best things about this site is its diversity, which includes (from what I have seen) people who are rabidly for Israel and rabidly against. Now, as I explained on that thread, there are a lot of people in the world who really hate Israel. We here people talking about that all the time, especially the right.

So now that we have encountered someone like that, what is the smartest thing to do? Discard the opportunity to interact with someone like that or take that opportunity to see how that person thinks and what they're like and try to challenge their beliefs?

I thought those things were in the best interests of the forum and thus acted in accord.

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It's really up to the moderators. Decisions concerning the overall tone and flow of the conversations of this forum is in the hands of the moderators. This forum leaves more up to the discretion of moderators than most other forums.

That creates several features:

* The ability to eliminate trolls and to keep discussions civil
* The possibility of abuse of power

The setup of this forum lends itself to having tremendous potential for keeping the quality of discussion high quality and diverse, but also has great potential for abuse. I believe that due to the composition of the forum staff, only the first becomes a reality.


WEB

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One other thing: the mod team on this forum is VERY strong, IMO due to our diversity as well as the strengths of the individual members themselves.


Liberal/Anarchist: CHUQ
Liberal: Izzibeth
Center-left: Tumbleweed
Center-left: WEB
Libertarian: emptypepsi
Independent: neorealist
Center-right: J.Locke
Conservative: FryandBender

Non-American

Brother Oz (UK)
Slartibartfas (Austria)

Due to that kind of composition and how we make decisions together and in concert with dozens of forum veterans, we are an unbeatable team.

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Sure, it would be a cause to quit, if the remark actually existed. Does the remark exist?

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The comment exists:

Iran blasts Israeli 'violation of Syrian airspace'

First post. Superdude.

OK, that comment has been removed. My log indicates that the person who made that remark was talked to and penalized for making that remark.

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I'm slightly right of center.