Action regarding Blackstar and Deepcrush

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Action regarding Blackstar and Deepcrush

Post by Graham Kennedy »

For keeping up the bickering and flaming with Blackstar the Chakat, Deepcrush has drawn a warning. This specific post is the one that crossed the line, but it's just one example.

http://ditl.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&p=75544#p75544

For doing the same, plus bringing the prospect of the death of other forum members into the discussion here :

http://ditl.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1 ... 135#p75609

And here :

http://ditl.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1 ... 150#p75622

And moving on to what verge on active death threats here :

http://ditl.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1 ... 150#p75627

Blackstar the Chakat is being suspended for a period of one week.

If you must bicker, do it in PM. Because you aren't doing it here any more.

I am not happy about this, people.
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Re: Action regarding Blackstar and Deepcrush

Post by Jabber Swarky »

Uh, not to step out of line, here, boss... but can I please call a little injustice here?

I'll admit that Blackstar was being... ah... fairly scary with hir responses there >.>. Death threats are never nice to hear, and descending into pointless bickering is never good. But, this seems a little discriminatory.

I wanna say something from the point of view from a fellow furry here and point out that Deepcrush is verging on discrimination, which I'm sure is against the TOS of this forum service provider. I sure know it is for proboards, which is where I get my experience from. Most people think of discrimination as being about gender or sexual orientation or race, but it can be applied to other things too. Blackstar has a hobby that she likes, and Deepcrush seems to be actively singling hir out and piling abuse and insults on hir because of it. I'm sure that if anyone here started randomly hating, for example, anyone who liked the NY Yankees, or Skateboarding, or, God forbid, a specific series of Star Treck for no apparent reason, just because people who like that are, to them, inferior people, freaks to be hated. So why isn't the furry fandom being afforded the same protection?

Yes, I'll admit, in these parts of the web we're a minority. I'm only here because Blackstar is. But, still, this is no different to the examples I've given and, reading Deepcrushes' posts, he was just as out of order as Blackstar was, making highly hurtful comments to hir. They've both been in as much trouble as each other every time something like this had flared up, yet Deepcrush is getting away with a warning while Blackstar is banned. Blackstars response was in no way appropriate, but this kind of discrimination only compounds the problem and can be seen as favouritism. All I'm asking for is that BOTH sides of this party receive equal punishment. Also, while Blackstar was being unpleasant in return, I've got to say that it seems a bit reactionist to associate an enthusiasm for FPS' with an actual outright threat of violence.

Well that's my too cents, at least. I know I don't really spend enough time around here to be mouthing off and making comments like this to admins, but Star is one of my closest friends and, as far as I can tell, this really isn't fair. Warn both of them, of Ban both of them, but, please, don't discriminate the pair of them because of their hobbies.
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Re: Action regarding Blackstar and Deepcrush

Post by Mikey »

Fair enough, and thank you. I can't speak for Ian or Graham, but insults - even discriminatory ones - are one thing; wishing someone dead is quite another. I suppose it is difficult for us to consider a mindset which we don't adopt; however, there are a number of us who have tried to consider Blackstar's feelings on the matter and even discuss it in an enlightened fashion (e.g., the discussion on whether Chakats are feline or not. We may not have agreed with hir, but we certainly attempted to discuss the matter in a rational manner.)

Now, actual hate speech - "all Jews/African-Americans/Irish/Chakats/whatever are bad and should die" - will certainly not be tolerated by me, and i imagine that Graham and Ian would take further action than I would or could. However, we're treading a fine line here, and doing the best we can; and to that end, making fun by way of reference to Blackstar's "furry" characteristics may be unnecessarily juvenile, but are not in that league.
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Re: Action regarding Blackstar and Deepcrush

Post by Graham Kennedy »

Two things.

First, from what I've seen Deepcrush's problem is with Blackstar, specifically, rather than furry folk in general. Just because a person attacks a specific member of an ethnic or social group, it doesn't mean that he is discriminatory towards that group as a whole. To show that, you'd have to show a pattern of attacking furry people purely because they were furry. Deepcrush's attacks on Blackstar have stemmed out of genuine arguments that both sides took too far. It doesn't seem to me to be a discrimination thing.

Second, Blackstar's offence was very much greater. Lest we forget, when asked "do you want your bowling (or whatever RL hobby your into) opponenets to die?" he responded "my RL hobby is playing first person shooters, so yes I do want them to die. Preferably die by my weapon."

Even if Deep's comments had been based in bigotry - which again, I don't think they were - that, in my judgement, is far more serious.

Ultimately, it's a judgment call. And it's my board, so it's my judgment.
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Re: Action regarding Blackstar and Deepcrush

Post by Reliant121 »

GrahamKennedy wrote:Two things.

First, from what I've seen Deepcrush's problem is with Blackstar, specifically, rather than furry folk in general. Just because a person attacks a specific member of an ethnic or social group, it doesn't mean that he is discriminatory towards that group as a whole. To show that, you'd have to show a pattern of attacking furry people purely because they were furry. Deepcrush's attacks on Blackstar have stemmed out of genuine arguments that both sides took too far. It doesn't seem to me to be a discrimination thing.

Second, Blackstar's offence was very much greater. Lest we forget, when asked "do you want your bowling (or whatever RL hobby your into) opponenets to die?" he responded "my RL hobby is playing first person shooters, so yes I do want them to die. Preferably die by my weapon."

Even if Deep's comments had been based in bigotry - which again, I don't think they were - that, in my judgement, is far more serious.

Ultimately, it's a judgment call. And it's my board, so it's my judgment.
And your judgment was good in my opinion.
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Re: Action regarding Blackstar and Deepcrush

Post by Jabber Swarky »

The whole "Retarded kitty wannabe" comment is kind of what lead me down that line, but, like I said, i probably dont have my fingers in deep enough to this discussion to be hurling my weight around entirley. Deepcrush may just have a problem with Blackstar.. but, seeing as far as i can tell me and Hir are the only two furries on this forum and we've never really talked, he's never been exposed much to them and so we cant know for sure. I just feel that the unequal punishments were a little off.

And, while Blackstars respsonse to the hobby question wasrather aggressive, i still just feel that it was a rather uneloquently worded response, but not a particularly threatening one. I mean, after all, the idea of a FPS is to kill your opponents AVATARS, blackstar just didnt get the virtual part accross.

But, as you said, It's your board so you get to make the decisions. Fair Do's.
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Re: Action regarding Blackstar and Deepcrush

Post by Reliant121 »

Jabber Swarky wrote:The whole "Retarded kitty wannabe" comment is kind of what lead me down that line, but, like I said, i probably dont have my fingers in deep enough to this discussion to be hurling my weight around entirley. Deepcrush may just have a problem with Blackstar.. but, seeing as far as i can tell me and Hir are the only two furries on this forum and we've never really talked, he's never been exposed much to them and so we cant know for sure. I just feel that the unequal punishments were a little off.

And, while Blackstars respsonse to the hobby question wasrather aggressive, i still just feel that it was a rather uneloquently worded response, but not a particularly threatening one. I mean, after all, the idea of a FPS is to kill your opponents AVATARS, blackstar just didnt get the virtual part accross.

But, as you said, It's your board so you get to make the decisions. Fair Do's.
The retarded kitty wannabe was really out of line, that i will agree on.
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Re: Action regarding Blackstar and Deepcrush

Post by Thorin »

The difference being that Blackstar isn't actually a cat/chakat/furry...

And the very thing you say - "equal punishment for different offences would be fair" - is actually not fair in the slightest.
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Re: Action regarding Blackstar and Deepcrush

Post by Jabber Swarky »

Thorin wrote:The difference being that Blackstar isn't actually a cat/chakat/furry...
Ehh, depends what you mean. She's not ACTUALLY a feliataur in real life, yeah, but she is a Furry. Its a hobby. I mean, YOU'RE not a starfleet officer from 9-5, but you still call yourself a treckie. If someone started bashing the Star Treck fandom im sure that you'd be upset, so shouldnt the furry fandom be covered too? Though, ah, that isnt strictly what this is about

And, i dont really see how this is a different offence. They were both flaming, just saying different things. But its Graham's decision.
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Re: Action regarding Blackstar and Deepcrush

Post by Graham Kennedy »

Let me restate in simple form : Death threats >> insults.
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Re: Action regarding Blackstar and Deepcrush

Post by Thorin »

Blackstar has had a warning before, too.

Though forgive my ignorance of the term 'furry' and 'Chakat' - it seems he described himself as a feline - not a member of a community who pretend to be felines. Though your analogy to me being a 'trekkie' isn't the same - while I could claim to be a fan of Star Trek, I would never claim to physically be a SF officer or anything of the sort, which is what Blackstar seems to have done. Regardless, this is semantics, and the decision (correct, based on prior experience) clearly stands.
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Re: Action regarding Blackstar and Deepcrush

Post by Captain Seafort »

Jabber Swarky wrote:I mean, YOU'RE not a starfleet officer from 9-5, but you still call yourself a treckie. If someone started bashing the Star Treck fandom im sure that you'd be upset, so shouldnt the furry fandom be covered too?
None of us pretend we're starfleet officers either, and Trekkies as a group routinely (and predictably) get stick for having detailed knowledge of the events of a work of fiction. Why shouldn't it? It isn't exactly a widely watched series, like most soaps are. The response is "who cares" - if someone wants to give trekkies stick it's no skin off my nose.
And, i dont really see how this is a different offence. They were both flaming, just saying different things. But its Graham's decision.
Deep was flaming, and went way over the fine line between "you're an idiot if you think [insert opinion here]" and "you're an idiot". Out of order, but still just insults - sticks and stones and all that. Blackstar was bloody close to death threats. The two aren't even comparable.
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Re: Action regarding Blackstar and Deepcrush

Post by Monroe »

I totally agree on GK's decision about Blackstar. She's given multiple people death threats in the past, myself included. Just look at the old RP thread for the first Daystrom RP. Way out of line. She deserves this.

At any rate its GK's forum so he's perfectly in line to do this and I don't think its discrimination.
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Re: Action regarding Blackstar and Deepcrush

Post by Reliant121 »

I agree. After all, GK has to maintain discipline somehow. Makin an example of Blackstar may have been the only option.

Although the "retard kitty wannabe" was really out of line. If it had been me, i would have ranked that just under a death threat, but thats because discrimination, and if you dont think it is well tough cause it is in my view, is one of my pet hates cause i get absolute heaps of it.
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Re: Action regarding Blackstar and Deepcrush

Post by Sionnach Glic »

Some thoughts:

Firstly, regarding Deep.
As everyone on this forum will agree, Deep is a little bit eager when it comes to tossing insults around. He's done it before plenty of times, and he's certainly going to do it again. He's insulted pretty much everyone on this forum at one point or another over various things. Blackstar's desire to be called and considered a chakat gives him more ammunition to use against hir than others here. Hence the "retarded kitty" comment. I don't see that as being discriminative against furries. For one, he has not displayed any particular vendetta against other furries on this site (Jabber, I believe, being one) or the community in general.

Regarding Blackstar:
Blackstar's actions, while also being more severe, are also not the first time shi's done something like this. In previous threads shi's insulted others with just as much regularity and severity as Deep, along with various other instances such as threatening to hack another user's computer over a disagreement they were having. The fact that shi has also recieved 2 other warnings to date should also be factored into acount.
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