Over at the Admin site, Turkana wrote this-
maybe it’s time we discuss how to deal with i/p. otherwise, we’ll have an israel-bashing diary on the rec list, every day, and the same poison that infects every site where these people take their hatred. i wish there was a button to prevent a diary from going rec list. any ideas?
To which buhdy’s response was-
Let’s talk to them!
Once again transparency and sunshine….
If someone does something we don’t like, let’s have a short convo here to define it….and them tell them about it!
I will be happy to lead this effort….when I can again …..sniff!
My thoughts below the fold.
I think it should be ok to talk about Israel and Palestine, but I have to agree with Turkana that I don’t want it to dominate this blog.
In the interests of full transparency I don’t much like the current government of Israel or it’s policies and I think they’re leading OUR government around by the nose.
I do have a lot of sympathy for Israel as a country and I like to think I’m not terribly anti-Semetic. Jews are not all anything any more than Christians (I’m not, but was) or Danes (proud to be, what’s it to ya?).
Arab reaction to the creation of the state of Israel struck me as a bunch of Whiny Ass Titty Babies, but I can’t deny that conditions in the Gaza Strip and West Bank are unbelievably harsh and current Israeli settlement policys are out and out thievery unless compensation is provided.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kelo v. New London.
But mostly what I want is to not get involved. Those debates bore me and I’m so totally willing to let Turkana sort through the tedious he said she said.
I do have some interest in not having the disscusion of this issue hijack this blog and I don’t think there’s a button to bounce things from the Rec List.
You can turn off comments and recommends and hide content however, even the title, but not the author. You can delete the diary and individual comments.
I don’t really think we should put budhy on the spot on this issue so he has flexibility in the future. He is the boss and what he says goes.
I have some shopping to do so I won’t be around for all of this constantly, but I’d like to hear what you think.
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…I dunno if being able to post on the FP makes me an admin, but this is particularly an issue if I am in any official way a representative of this blog, don’t you think?
Particularly considering that on this topic, I am willing to give some disclosure, but nothing that even resembles full disclosure.
but more out of a lack of fundamental knowledge to even take a position much less support one, than an aversion to discussing the topic. ive attempted to read a few to expand my woefully insufficient knowledge, but dont find much in the verifiable fact category to do so.
but i am completely sympathetic to turkana’s position; it hasnt been my experience that anyone who has posted a diary on the topic has had any intention of ‘listening’, or of encouraging or even allowing a rational debate.
i would say to buhdy…if you take the position that you can mediate such a diary, you’d best take the bull by the horns and host the first one. set the tone. define the parameters. because whats typical would end up being a slow bleed on the atmosphere and cooperative approach ive assumed he wanted to create and encourage here.
but what do i know??
i think there is some argument for allowing the diary, let those who arent interested ignore it, and address specific behavior within the comments, using the overall site guidelines as as the meter. however, i’m in the process of getting a medical deferment from having to monitor and mediate such an event.
i havent got the power, captain…..
what are you shopping for?
frankly, my dear, i don’t give a damn… i never went in those diaries at dKos and when I look at the rec list or even recent diary list, i’d be hard-pressed to pick them out… except there is one i know called I/P Roundup or something
so, no, I don’t think it has hijacked dKos
it is an important subject because again, it’s how we humans work things out and how we talk to each other (or don’t)… what’s happening here, in America is only part of what we need to deal with. Home is planet earth now… that can’t be undone… unless we blow up all the airplanes
we are stuck with each other. i’d rather be on the forefront of making the world better… isn’t that why we are here?
and sometimes that means dealing with these very tough debates that bring out the worst in people
i say we see if we can’t make some sense of it all… help those warring factions make some sense of it all
otherwise, what is the point, ek
that’s why i’m here… and the work we need to do isn’t with progressives… you know where i’m going with this don’t ya
this isn’t about a PFF thing either where nobody gets banned… this is about just how good are we? how smart… how intiutive and big-visioned… just what can we make better
that’s how i see it
so, what did you say you were shopping for?
on either side. Both groups are nothing if not querulous, and refuse to accept any outside evaluation of their overboard behavior. They will demand rules, etc. but the truth is it is like pornography, you know it when you see it.
For my money, err on the side of banning them. Maybe aggressive warnings up front might help, but there is no doubt a number will have to be banned before long.
But I am really referring to the bitching and screaming in the threads. I have little problem with a diary that criticizes only one side or the other, within reason. You can’t tackle everything at once. There’s more than enough blame to go round. There are limits even there: outright racism, etc.
I always think the comparison with Sri Lanka is instructive. Both sides are guilty of horrible crimes. Either deserves several dozen diaries of harsh criticism. (And in fact, the dispute is as tangled and pointless and lethal to noncombatants.) Because there are very few Tamils or Sinhalese pitching their case in this neck of the intertubes, the situation can be seen more clearly.
My current I/P position:
Everyone is wrong.
i said many times on dk that the only i/p diaries that interest me are those that can help foster peace: a) what peace looks like, and b) how we get from here to there.
i particularly loathe the diaries that are just screaming about who did what to whom. it’s hell, over there, and many parties- and not just israelis and palestinians- are to blame. i haven’t seen many, if any, supporters of the current israeli regime. i’ve seen many suggestions that there are israeli plants on the blogs. i’ve seen no evidence of that, either.
a guy who went by “another american” used to talk a lot about the geneva proposal. that was the type of diary i found productive. whatever one thought of that proposal, it was worth discusssing, and hashing out what might make it better, or how to sell it. that’s working towards peace.
many on the p side believe that blaming everything on israel, that screaming about everything israel does wrong, and that unilaterally punishing them is the way to move forward. i find that absurd and divisive and inflammatory. i’d like to somehow set a goal that the only acceptable i/p diaries are those that genuinely promote peace, and that the inflammatory ones are unacceptable. i actually once had an i/p on the dk rec list, mostly because lots of people on both sides of the meta divide rec’d it.
as for jay- you’ve revealed a bit of your history on dk, and no one can honestly claim that your dual citizenship or personal history has made you a tool of anyone. as usual, you very much chart your own course, and should have no reservations about trying to help sort out the acceptable from the inflammatory.
Please see my impassioned I/P diary.
Let people have the discussions; but not easy to find when you log in to the main site. That will discourage grandstanding.
one diary sometime, where everyone lays out their basic take and major gripes if any on whatever they see as the salient issues in I/P/Lebanon/whatever. In one comment each, no replies allowed. Take all the time you need to put together that one comment, and everybody rec so it is up for a couple days.
I wonder if it would help set the tone?
more carefully.
The I/P threads have died down on dailyKos, partly as a result of banning. I did manage to host one diary on the subject that had a lot of comments and very few flames – so it is possible, but it is very very hard.
If we are going to ban fewer people than dailyKos, then I think we should simply not tolerate that which leads many people to behave in ways that lead to their banishment. My Left Wing is there for them.
I don’t want to read about I/P on a blog that is not willing to ban people who act in ways designed only to inflame. I am not willing to tolerate being on a blog with bigots – either anti-Arab, anti-Jew, anti-Israel – any more than I am willing to be on a blog with bigots who are anti-gay, anti-Black, or whatever. If this blog becomes that, then I will leave.
Free expression is not supported by the suppression of legitimate topics and issues. The I/P debate is a legitimate issue, a legitimate concern. The humanitarian issue involved is most certainly a legitimate issue, a legitimate concern.
If it is your contention that suppression of this topic is justified by resulting flamewars, then the solution is to not make the same mistakes as admins on other sites.
Do your job. Do it fairly, with equal consideration, never enforcing codes of conduct based on friendship or ill-will or one’s own bias on the subject.
Let me be clear so as to avoid misunderstanding. I’m not here to trash this site. And I’m not trying to convince anyone to not ban I/P. I didn’t plea at dkos and I’m not going to plead here.
But know this and mark it: If suppression and purging is allowed and practiced on a legitimate matter, then docudharma will be no different, no better, no more helpful or inclusive or transparent than the one from which you branched. (And the intention is to be a little bit different isn’t it? In the matter of expression specifically.) Fears of flamewars is too weak of a justification in suppressing a legitimate issue, topic or criticism. Purging political views indicate that you have failed to distinguish yourself. Suppression contradicts the mission to which you hold and will therefore become meaningless and lost.
“In practice…write whatever the hell you want!
…
A reality based on compassion, empathy and caring for the people and the planet, while acknowledging the harsh realities of the world we live in and the difficulty of the tasks ahead. The complexities of greed, corruption and the petty politics of ‘human nature’ in the face of climate crisis and seven billion souls…will not be overcome by black and white solutions or electoral processes, but by becoming the change we wish to see and helping others to do the same.”
This belongs to you. What is its meaning?
But…your house, your rules. Just no pretensions please if a decision is made to discourage or ban this issue as no sound justification exists to do so.
FWIW, I do hope Docudharma makes a positive impact on other matters if not this one…
Peace.