inyourvillages

Dear Randy,

This thread was started on Wednesday afternoon.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/omni-...h-hitters.html

I found the OP offensive at that time, in that it repeated an offensive and negative stereotype about gay men.

I "report bad post"ed it Wednesday afternoon with an explanation. No action and no response.

I asked the OP to clarify why it was alright to perpetuate negative stereotypes in a derogatory manner about gay men, and whether he would say the same about Jews, blacks, or any other minority. No response.

Again this morning, I "reported bad post"ed the same thread, again being specific about my concerns and asked for a response from a moderator if they didn't agree with my assessment. Again, no response.

So at this point, after trying two times to contact moderators in OMNI/PR to address this and being ignored, I'm trying you.

I know that they read and address 'bad posts' more often than once every 4 days -- one of my posts was deleted less than an hour after making it. The offensive content? I asked someone if they had been asleep for 30 years. This apparently crosses the line in a way that homophobia does not.

As I said in the thread, and as I wrote in my 'rpb,' there is little doubt that if the OP had read something about Jews being cheap, it would have been reported, deleted, and perhaps the poster would have been disciplined. Same for negative and demeaning stereotypes about other racial or ethnic groups.

So, in light of this, does FT have an official policy favoring homophobia? Is it merely neutral on the subject, so that homophobes can post as they wish and those who are not bigots can respond in kind? Or is there some other possible explanation why an offensive post has not been addressed four days later?

Thanks for your time.

Randy Petersen

This is one of those posts that is so easy, but becomes so hard to answer that honestly, I've prepared an answer no less than 5 times and before "Submit Reply" thought the better of myself and erased what I had written and decided to walk away from the keyboard and leave it for another day.

The answer is so obvious.

In this situation, I'm sorry that you think FlyerTalk is to blame or has a part in the various posts by some of its members. Let's step back for a second and looks this over from another perspective. First of all, this topic was not the creation of FlyerTalk, nor its members. Rather, it was a news item first reported by Fox News, with a Fair & Balanced approach to the news itself. If you look at the 66 comments posted to this story on Fox News, you'd find a similar number of insensitive and mindless attempts at jokes as you find in the thread you linked to which then appeared on FlyerTalk -- this from those who visit and read the Fox News Web site. If you visited USA Today and it's story on the same and read their 101 comments, or the 23 comments on HuffingtonPost or even the 28 comments on StandFirmInFaith.com, you'd find that FlyerTalk has no capital advantage from individuals whom I have described above. But I did notice in those and many other Web sites that reported on the story and featured comments by readers, than none of them had a public post that asked if homophobia was an official policy of that organization, though as I have posted, there are certainly similar and matching insensitive and mindless attempts at jokes.

Now, as to your comments and exhaustion of of RBP. In my research, I found that this thread, which did garner over 2,000 page views, only had two RBP for the comments and topic that was being discussed. I think that describes the efforts you mention. While I 100% appreciate where you are coming from and have absolutely no problem engaging in this discussion with you, the idea that a single person's RBP is enough to manage and change the direction of a thread is fairly challenging for us. Is FlyerTalk well-served when we close or edit every thread that has a single RBP? My guess is that even you'd agree that is likely not a logical step of progression. By doing so we then open up a new line of concern by our members -- is stifling freedom of speech the official policy of FT? This situation you pose for me to address is much bigger than just the topic of homophobia and while we may disagree as to the your personal views of this particular thread, we'd all be better for ourselves if when you find situations which are difficult to have a simple answer or remedy for, that you do the one thing we should all do, censor that particular member from your view of FlyerTalk. Only by Ignore User can these types of situations gain positive ground. When no one laughs at the mindless joke, when no one responds to the insensitivity of a post, the member whose audience shrivels away will only be forced to participate and be included in conversations where he actually has something to contribute.

I'm quite sorry that this has disturbed you so much, but I do believe that you might have carried it a bit far in not stepping back just a little. As I note, I looked at the origin of the topic, the general population of the Internet's response and reactions and contributions in preparing this reply. I do not believe it fair at all to pose a boxed in question about whether homophobia is an official policy here on FlyerTalk. But as it is with other members, you do have the right to exercise that comment and question.

Again, sorry for the delay in answering this, but I truly did walk away from the keyboard 5 times. Nothing personal, but I don't try to find someone or something to blame when life isn't always that perfect.

GUWonder

The answer to the OP's question is obvious to me as there would otherwise not have been a specialized forum created and fostered if homophobia was the official FT policy.

That said, in comparing FT to news reporting organization's websites that are open to user commentary, there may be a major difference in the terms of service applicable. [The FT TOS are indeed different than that of those sites mentioned above.] I guess that the original post in this thread has in some ways touched upon an issue that I had raised later in the ORP forum: whether or not all the FT TOS are applicable to OMNI.

ScatterX

I'm quite sure that many found the OP or subsequent comments offensive. That's life, learn to deal with it. You are much better off making a logical counter-argument or simply pointing out that you are offended. Trying to "ban" everything that offends you is silly. In the end, all things would be banned because practically any post could be offensive to someone.

Your illogical leap implying that any (or every) offensive comment posted on FT is the official policy of FT is ridiculous. If you want a fully-moderated, never-ever-offensive, completely vanilla forum, you probably need to start your own. Don't be surprised if you end up being the only member; there very few people who would want to participate in such a thing.

You might question why you are so easily offended. I posit that being offended is easier than being right. Being right requires an ability to make a logical argument, provide evidence, or simply to be the better person. It is, unfortunately, so much easier to simply call someone else a name (e.g., homophobic), question their integrity, or try to impose your view of morality on the rest of us.

inyourvillages

Again: if the post had been "Jews are so cheap LOL!" I doubt it would have remained, nor do I believe that I would have been the only one RBPing. The fact that nobody else RBPed is not dispositive of anything, let alone that no one was offended; to the contrary, it may well be that others have determined that the rules above do not apply to OMNI.

A post was made repeating negative stereotypes of sexual minorities; negative stereotypes are designed and repeated to marginalize and demean a population. Specifically, as it relates to the above criteria, they are false, inaccurate, offensive, abusive, hateful and bashing -- and clearly aimed at sexual orientation.

Further; it took 2+ months to get any kind of an answer. Requests for clarification by moderators went unanswered privately, and public requests for clarification resulted in my suspension. Apparently the rule regarding moderator decisions is more sacrosanct than the one listed above?

I can understand having a difference of opinion -- what I didn't understand -- and still don't -- was the complete disregard for the opinion of a person belonging to a minority group that was being bashed along with an unwillingness to explain the decision-making process.

Finally, GUWonder is right: I suppose the real question is whether or not the rule quoted above applies to OMNI. It seems that it does not; and that is fine. Randy or IB is free to make the determination that these types of posts are worth more to the board than those by folks like me.

Yes, I am sensitive about this subject; but why would someone choose to be part of a community that repeats bigoted stereotypes and then doesn't address concerns when that happens? I was self-loathing for plenty of years growing up, but I'm an adult now and can choose my company; so can FT, and if they choose to permit tired and bigoted stereotypes, they can live with the consequences, however minor they may be.

Jaimito Cartero

Having an honest and open discourse is the best method for an exchange of ideas.

Did you picket Fox News? Did you ask Rupert Murdoch why he allowed such stuff on one of his networks? Write your local newspaper?

There are a lot of people on FT that I disagree with. If they're super annoying I put them on my ignore list. I just added a new one yesterday, but it's only at #3. And that's after being a member for quite a few years.

I'm sure that Randy wishes he just ignored the whole issue, as it's a hot button topic. No matter what he says, someone is going to be upset about it.

Dovster

Really? In a thread about why movies are so bad, the following post was made in 2005, received a number of RBPs, and is still up:

GUWonder

That above quote came from this thread: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/archive/t-450217.html

So what's next: an inquiry into whether official policy of FT is greater tolerance toward Islamophobia on FT than the FT TOS would suggest; and/or an inquiry into whether all FT TOS apply to OMNI; and/or an inquiry into whether more people need to volunteer to be moderators?

I'm still interested to know if all FT TOS apply to OMNI or perhaps there is an FT TOS that doesn't apply to OMNI in the way it is applied in the airline/hotel forums?

Dovster

It is not only in the archives. It can also be found in an Omni thread which is still open (and theoretically active, although no one has posted on it in the past five years).

Randy Petersen

Actually I'm don't wish I had ignored it. I fully appreciate that there are issues such as this where as you point out, no matter the research or what I hope is common sense and fair understanding, I'm not likely to change anyone's mind. I never opened this specific forum to think I need to have the last work, let alone the final word. Members are free to ask me a question and as best I can, I'll answer those questions once I think I've been able to properly balance FlyerTalk's interest in the answer ... as opposed to my own. As I might have made reference to, this is one of those topics where there is the topic and then there is the topic. One could say it was about homophobia, others might say it was about policies of FlyerTalk -- official or not. And you wrap all that around the individualism of comments. I think you and many others appreciate just how difficult that an be at times and this may be one of them. Anyway, I will continue to welcome questions from our members and as long as they don't appear to be contentious or misleading in nature, I'll try to answer them.

And the way this works, I'd rather a member be upset with me than be upset at the fine community of FlyerTalk.

Randy Petersen

As it has been identified, this may be a topic that is a hot button among some but not all. The purpose of this forum is to allow me a chance to answer a specific question and I think that has been completed. Rather than this specific thread serve as an outlet of disagreement among our members, it seems a good idea to close the thread at this time. You can certainly read the Q and then the A and my mailbox continues to be open for any member wanting a continued discussion on the topic. Hope this makes sense. Thanks.