In defense of the mods, they’ve made some tough decisions over the years, before your time, including banning regulars and former mods. The amount of energy you’re expending on this feels pretty childish in that light. The mods aren’t perfect but they’re doing their best.

As a general matter, we don't render declaratory judgments, meaning there must be an actual case in controversy for us to rule. That means we don't entertain hypotheticals and then declare some sort of binding precedent. What we do is when there is an actual case, we read the rules and we interpret them, relying to some extent upon the way they were interpreted before.

To do otherwise would result in our continually responding to "what ifs," which we don't have time for, and which often wouldn't be helpful anyway because actual cases have all sorts of nuances that have to be considered. — Hanover

Isn’t this a summary of the judicial philosophy of the Supreme Court of the United States of America?... but the members of that court have no individual fiat: they must vote as a jury, and convict only according to a majority opinion. In this forum however, each member of the court has the power to impose capital punishment non-unilaterally.

To state (by proxy) something bannable through a famous philosopher's words gives you no protection from banning. Whether that philosopher be Heidegger, Schopenhauer, Aristotle, Nietszche or whoever. All would have been banned themselves for espousing Nazism, sexism, slavery, and/or misogyny if they chose to do so here. Neither being famous nor hiding behind someone famous gives you protection from the rules. — Baden

Let’s fill out the list a bit: Plato, Zeno, Epicurus, Epictetus, Lucretius, Cicero, Seneca, Maimonides, Ariovistus, Marcus Aurelius, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Rousseau, Pascal, Tocqueville, Kant, Hegel, Weber, etc, etc, etc...not to mention the philosophers better known under a different title, like “epic poet” or “play-write”, who were really philosophers, like Homer or Vergil or Milton or Shakespeare: THOU SHALT NOT AGREE WITH ANY SENTIMENT OF THE PHILOSOPHERS THAT IS NOT APPROVED OF BY THE OPINION OF ANY SINGLE MEMBER OF THE PHILOSOPHY FORUM’S MODERATORS, UPON HIS JUDICIOUS REVIEW OF YOUR STATED SENTIMENT.

What Mr. Baden doesn’t recognize is that there is a distinction between being famous and being great...

That’s what I was trying to reveal in my story: a tale of a man who wants “to be like Mike,” like the popular man he encountered at university. My protagonist is a selfish opportunistic soul who thinks greatness lies in how many “thumbs-up” he can get; how much money he can get out of that to enjoy gustatorial pleasures like steak dinners and cigarettes he doesn’t have to roll...

...he eventually gets “banned” by a judicial court for not just espousing, but actually acting out on his “insensitive” opinion. But his actions are really the result of jealousy, not racism: he envies the Kenyan runner’s fame.

I wrote this story, in part, as a test: to see how a misogynistic and racist fiction would be acceptable to the tyranny of moderation here, and—lo and behold!—it was accepted!

But why was it accepted? Why was I not told by Mr. Baden, “Your story is too full of racist and misogynistic sentiments; therefore, I must reject it,” or, “You’re banned: for racist and misogynistic content”? I dunno...

...but my advice to you, dear reader of this post, is that if you want to express an opinion that might be construed as racist or sexist or misogynist or—whatever—in this forum, just be sure to couch it in a fiction: then it will be overlooked.

THOU SHALT NOT AGREE WITH ANY SENTIMENT OF THE PHILOSOPHERS THAT IS NOT APPROVED OF BY THE OPINION OF ANY SINGLE MEMBER OF THE PHILOSOPHY FORUM’S MODERATORS

No, not "any" sentiment, just the racist/sexist/homophobic/etc. ones. This isn't complicated at all, just don't post hateful/prejudiced BS and you're fine, same as virtually any other forum or board. Not exactly rocket science, and certainly nothing worth two pages of whining about it.

I swear, threads like these are just for people who enjoy complaining purely for the sake of complaining.

just don't post hateful/prejudiced BS and you're fine, same as virtually any other forum or board. — Seppo

But that’s exactly what I did Seppers: I wrote a story that contained a lot of that sort of stuff: racist/sexist/homophobic sorta stuff...

...now I see that you have been on here a lot less time than me, so you may not be as familiar as I am with the parameters here, and I guess you will not have the same problems I’ve had with the mods here, so that it is to the credit of your continuity— but if you were to somehow express an opinion that—well, I can glean from your post that that won’t be the case!

No, you didn't (obviously we both know and understand the difference between "writing a story" that mentions bigotry vs. writing bigoted posts), and no, this is not worth arguing or complaining about. Its not complicated, its not confusing, and its the same as the posting rules or terms of service on any similar website.

Might as well start a thread complaining about the fact that you can't urinate on people at the grocery store. Some websites won't let you do the racism, get over it.

...but my advice to you, dear reader of this post, is that if you want to express an opinion that might be construed as racist or sexist or misogynist or—whatever—in this forum, just be sure to couch it in a fiction: then it will be overlooked. — Leghorn

This isn't good advice. The advice I'd offer everyone, specific to the question of misogyny, is that you shouldn't post misogynistic comments on this site or you'll be banned. The advice that you should express your misogyny in a way that avoids immediate detection is not what we're looking for here, so if that is your objective, please leave. You're not welcome here.

Should you post stories or present posts that are ambiguous enough that it remains unclear what your objective is, I'm sure you can for some period of time remain unmoderated, but all the moderation team can do is to try our best to enforce the rules despite posters' best efforts to avoid detection.

The worst most dehumanizing thing you can do to a person or group of people is outlaw their progression toward your own whilst not just believing (which could be random irrelevant fiction) but simultaneously and publicly continuing to call them inferior or lesser by proxy of moral high ground (which now becomes real world fact).

Is this relevant? The real question is if it's not what is going on between the ears of those who wish to suppress it.

:lol:

The protagonist comes across as an idiotically comic figure and as much an object of ridicule as some of the PC stuff satirised.

As for the rest, I don't know how to make it simpler for you, but let me try again: You are not allowed to be a racist, sexist (etc.) here just because a "great" philosopher once was. Maybe you need to learn to think for yourself and not outsource your moral choices to people you think are "great". Good luck with that.

Oh, and I can only ask that entrants into the competition, as a matter of basic courtesy, offer a genuine piece of work that they stand behind, and not something intended to trick the reader into sympathising with some abhorrent idea. Though again, the story is not subtle enough to do that, being more like slapstick silliness. So, no real harm done, I think.

There is no line - how can there be? Determining what is acceptable to a site by mods is not a science but an interpretive art. — Tom Storm

Surely there are principles.

What are you really getting at? It appears you are looking for rigid categories of unacceptability because your sense of fairness has been pinged by mod decisions. You've noticed that some objectionable ideas are allowed and some are not and there doesn't seem to be a measurable line for determination. I think this may be unavoidable. I recall Emerson's aphorism - "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."

Watch it, you might get banned, and not having seen it coming!

No, not "any" sentiment, just the racist/sexist/homophobic/etc. ones. This isn't complicated at all,just don't post hateful/prejudiced BS and you're fine — Seppo

LOL.

I once posted a couple of posts where I expressed my concerns over the safety and effectiveness of the covid vaccines. From this, a prominent poster and a moderator accused me of being an anti-vaxxer, and the moderator even went on a crusade against me for it. Repeatedely accusing me of stances I don't hold.

So much for not posting "hateful/prejudiced BS".

That sounds like having an argument, not being moderated. Being moderated is where we edit or delete your posts. If you're saying you can't handle being criticized then why are you here?

I wasn't being criticized. To criticize me, they would have to refer to something I actually said, a position I actually hold. Instead, someone in a position of power accused me of things I didn't say, and insisted in it, not listening to me at all.

Ok, if you can't handle other posters criticizing you not listening to you, misunderstanding you, and/or strawmanning you, you're in the wrong place.

If you feel a mod is deliberately trying to intimidate you on the basis of being a mod, that's something you can report. But so far, it just sounds like a regular day on TPF.

So this is a place where might makes right? That's what you, as moderators, really believe in?

Now, you're strawmanning me. The way I deal with it is to challenge you to quote me where I said that rather than whine about it.

And to point out >>

If you feel a mod is deliberately trying to intimidate you on the basis of being a mod, that's something you can report. — Baden

You're free too to not listen to a mod on anything other than moderation, to accuse them of things they didn't say etc and they'll just have to put on their big boy pants and handle it. It's only when the behaviour of the mod or the poster becomes intimidatory or deliberate trolling that there's an issue with that kind of stuff. It's not that might makes right or might makes wrong, it's that might should be irrelevant in anything except a moderation context. So, mods get to argue as if they were posters too. Otherwise, we'd hardly be able to get anyone to be a mod.

Now, you're strawmanning me. — Baden

No, it was a genuine question seeking clarification. You didn't need to assume evil intent.

The Boss of this forum once said words to the effect that we should stop pretending that this forum is a democracy. So ...

And to point out >>

If you feel a mod is deliberately trying to intimidate you on the basis of being a mod, that's something you can report. But so far, it just sounds like a regular day on TPF.
— Baden

Interesting.

No, it was a genuine question seeking clarification. You didn't need to assume evil intent. — baker

I don't think strawmanning is evil. It happens all the time. That's part of the point. As are misunderstandings (I took your question to be rhetorical). Quod et demonstratum, I hope.