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Patnet and censorship: Performance Art?


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2017 Nov 14, 11:22am   37,045 views  160 comments

by justme   ➕follow (1)   💰tip   ignore  

I wonder if @Patrick has just staged a piece of censorship Performance Art by instituting omnipotent censorship, under the guise of "moderation", and crowd-sourced mass-silencing (encouraging the use of the "uncivil" button) on patrick.net. The aforementioned scheme of blog control is so far removed from Patrick's former free-speech self that I am starting to wonder. Perhaps this is just an exercise in showing what happens when you give absolute power over some domain of life to ONE semi-random person, even one that otherwise professes to love liberty and freedom?

It is more than a little ironic (but should not be surprising to any serious student of human nature) that right-wingers appear to be every bit as eager to censor their opponents as they have recently been accusing the left-wingers of being. And by that I mean the last several years of talk about liberals and their desire for "safe spaces" on and off university campuses, calling them "special snowflakes", and so on.

Well, the right-wing has in recent days been out in force on Patnet, trying to enforce a "safe space" , free of "uncivility" and "NSFW" material, and acting like special snowflakes themselves. And boy, are these right-wing special snowflakes melting down Patnet in a volcanic eruption of censorship actions.

The famous 1960s psychological experiment known as the Stanford Prisoner Project comes to mind as an analogy of sorts. That experiment showed what happens when you give authority for random people to control other random people. What soon happened was not pretty. Read up on it if you want.

Finally, I will revisit and highlight a suggestion I have made several times this year:

What I would like to see is to have free speech, and at the same time avoid massive storms of low-quality comments. For a blog, I think that means to make threads and comments a limited commodity for all posters. Specifically, to limit the number of threads that a user can post on any given day to 1 or 2, and to limit how many comments every user can post on every thread to 10, or 10% of the total number of comments on the thread, whichever is larger.

The purpose of moderation should not be to censor certain forms of expression, but rather to make everyone's time (or space) on the proverbial soapbox a valuable commodity. That way, users are more likely to spend their posting currency wisely. Users who wastes their currency by posting low-quality drivel will lose esteem, or at the very least not be able to dominate the discussion based on volume posted only.

Think of it as rules of order, a very lightweight and blog-adapted version of Robert's rules of order. (By the way, a quite well-known now former pat-netter just mentioned Robert's rules just days ago, and is hereby recognized.)

PS: I very well understand the meta-question as to whether the impact of a blog, as measured by commercial value or informative value, or even political/propaganda value(!), is reduced when the number of threads or comments are somewhat limited. I think many people may think so, perhaps even Patrick himself. Personally, I will take quality over quantity any day.

#misc

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81   anonymous   2017 Nov 18, 9:45pm  

Fucking White Male says
He loudly proclaimed his departure, but comes back and posts anon.


Yeah but somehow he's been cloned in 8 or more simultaneous users. It's pretty amazing to see especially when goran starts trolling all of them.
82   anonymous   2017 Nov 18, 10:17pm  

Or are you not-Gary I think I see some sort of conspiracy here. Is this just all being staged by Patrick?
83   anonymous   2017 Nov 18, 10:18pm  

Don't tell me you're not-Patrick.
84   anonymous   2017 Nov 19, 7:24am  

Goran_K says
Claimed he would leave rather than post under moderation and rules. Returned under anon. Fairly easy to spot.


So which is it?
85   anonymous   2017 Nov 19, 9:01am  

Have we figured out who I am?
86   anonymous   2017 Nov 19, 9:06am  

Sorry I thought I was posting in guess the anonymous hope I wasn't off topic
87   anonymous   2017 Nov 19, 9:31am  

To be or not to be that is the question?

Acting!
88   anonymous   2017 Nov 19, 3:11pm  

Goron is never wrong.
89   Patrick   2017 Nov 19, 3:46pm  

mell says
Time for Patrick to disable anons ;)


I did for a while, but brought it back, because it does seem to bring in a few new users.

Soon will have anon comments going through approval by moderators first. I took some time to make most of the site's functions pure, which should help me move faster in the future.
90   anonymous   2017 Nov 19, 3:58pm  

You will get your pure site soon enough. There is so much bad will here now that I think serious debate is gone for good.
91   anonymous   2017 Nov 19, 4:40pm  

anon_25c83 says
You will get your pure site soon enough. There is so much bad will here now that I think serious debate is gone for good.


Yes it is soon to be swallowed by the darkness. To bad so sad. We begged you @patrick to listen but you choose not to.

I get it, that's your choice.

Didn't expect you to take it in this direction.

Don't kid yourself, there is nobody new here, personally I'm probably 20 or 30 of those anons. Soon nobody from the left will be left and the right will have that echo chamber that they were accusing the left of try to have. Funny how that works.
92   MisdemeanorRebel   2017 Nov 19, 5:01pm  

anon_a0898 says

Don't kid yourself, there is nobody new here, personally I'm probably 20 or 30 of those anons. Soon nobody from the left will be left and the right will have that echo chamber that they were accusing the left of try to have. Funny how that works.


Trump winning caused the Left to go full bore nuts, especially re: the Russian Conspiracy Theory, which states the Russians hacked the Election by revealing email evidence that proved the DNC rigged the Primaries for Hillary.

People who bitch about all the ad homing have been ad homing at me since the Election, they didn't do so before.
93   anonymous   2017 Nov 19, 5:15pm  

TwoScoopsMcGee says
People who bitch about all the ad homing have been ad homing at me since the Election, they didn't do so before


I've never been uncivil towards you.
94   FortWayne   2017 Nov 19, 5:41pm  

World Isn't left or right. I don't consider myself right, although get called that on these forums.

It's the only forum where free speech lives.

anon_a0898 says
anon_25c83 says
You will get your pure site soon enough. There is so much bad will here now that I think serious debate is gone for good.


Yes it is soon to be swallowed by the darkness. To bad so sad. We begged you @patrick to listen but you choose not to.

I get it, that's your choice.

Didn't expect you to take it in this direction.

Don't kid yourself, there is nobody new here, personally I'm probably 20 or 30 of those anons. Soon nobody from the left will be left and the right will have that echo chamber that they were accusing the left of try to have. Funny how that works.
95   anonymous   2017 Nov 19, 5:52pm  

FortWayne says
It's the only forum where free speech lives.


Icing on the cake this comment. Fuck this place. It's where free speech goes to die.
96   anonymous   2017 Nov 19, 5:56pm  

I truthfully never thought it possible that Patrick would be this deaf to concerns and this unwilling to even talk about the forum policy. The only possible explanation can be he wants it to be a forced alt-right shit show. Well he has succeeded.
97   anonymous   2017 Nov 19, 6:05pm  

TwoScoopsMcGee says
anon_a0898 says

Don't kid yourself, there is nobody new here, personally I'm probably 20 or 30 of those anons. Soon nobody from the left will be left and the right will have that echo chamber that they were accusing the left of try to have. Funny how that works.


Trump winning caused the Left to go full bore nuts, especially re: the Russian Conspiracy Theory, which states the Russians hacked the Election by revealing email evidence that proved the DNC rigged the Primaries for Hillary.

People who bitch about all the ad homing have been ad homing at me since the Election, they didn't do so before.

Probably because the content of your posts has gone down in quality and reasoning since Trump got elected. There’s far too much unreasoned MAGA on here and very little cold analysis of what he has(n’t) actually done. That’s a reason right there why the tone and the membership of this site has gone down - far too much shouty idiocy.
98   FortWayne   2017 Nov 19, 6:08pm  

On other forums they'd ban you for simple comments like that, here it's all good. You just don't appreciate the freedoms here.

anon_25c83 says
FortWayne says
It's the only forum where free speech lives.


Icing on the cake this comment. Fuck this place. It's where free speech goes to die.
99   mell   2017 Nov 19, 6:16pm  

TwoScoopsMcGee says
anon_a0898 says

Don't kid yourself, there is nobody new here, personally I'm probably 20 or 30 of those anons. Soon nobody from the left will be left and the right will have that echo chamber that they were accusing the left of try to have. Funny how that works.


Trump winning caused the Left to go full bore nuts, especially re: the Russian Conspiracy Theory, which states the Russians hacked the Election by revealing email evidence that proved the DNC rigged the Primaries for Hillary.

People who bitch about all the ad homing have been ad homing at me since the Election, they didn't do so before.


Have to agree. And this is only one manifestation. You have been seeing similar things outside of the web. People on the left going full on bonkers and devoting their lives to destroying the Trump presidency and its followers, fanned by the lamestream media clinging to their declining viewership. Hopefully Generation Z will put an end to this leftoid madhouse, cull the SJWs and globalist America haters and restore the left to the viable options it once was, focused on the blue collar working class with regained patriotism. Tat being said, there are enough people on the left still on this site that can discuss in a civil and rational manner, such as Rew, YesYNot, TimAurora, Bob and many more and without resorting to the anon underground. So I doubt it will become a right-wing echo-chamber.
100   MrMagic   2017 Nov 19, 6:23pm  

Patrick says
mell says
Time for Patrick to disable anons ;)


I did for a while, but brought it back, because it does seem to bring in a few new users.


I just checked, and went back 10 pages (400 new users). Out of those 400, only like 4 were actual screen names, all the others were anons.

/users?ob=user_registered&d=desc

So, having 396 new anons (who attack other users continually or clog the site with diarrhea) versus 4 new users (who really didn't contribute much) is beneficial to the site?

Is that the new plan?
101   anonymous   2017 Nov 19, 6:28pm  

mell says
TwoScoopsMcGee says
anon_a0898 says

Don't kid yourself, there is nobody new here, personally I'm probably 20 or 30 of those anons. Soon nobody from the left will be left and the right will have that echo chamber that they were accusing the left of try to have. Funny how that works.


Trump winning caused the Left to go full bore nuts, especially re: the Russian Conspiracy Theory, which states the Russians hacked the Election by revealing email evidence that proved the DNC rigged the Primaries for Hillary.

People who bitch about all the ad homing have been ad homing at me since the Election, they didn't do so before.


Have to agree. And this is only one manifestation. You have been seeing similar things outside of the web. People on the left going full on bonkers and devoting thei...

Being to the left of you doesn’t mean that they are ‘the left.’ A lot of posters on here seem to conflate the two.
102   anonymous   2017 Nov 19, 6:35pm  

They aren’t 400 new users. They are the same old posters being assigned new anon names with each new visit. It must be driving you nuts not knowing who it is you’re supposed to be attacking.

Jailed because fuck free speech. Am aye right?
103   anonymous   2017 Nov 19, 6:37pm  

Want to point out why you marked my post as uncivil Sniper? I presume that’ll go down as misuse and you’ll lose the ability to use it for a while.
104   anonymous   2017 Nov 19, 6:38pm  

What a sad ending. Patrick, please block all anons so I can find better things to do.
105   anonymous   2017 Nov 19, 6:42pm  

anon_25c83 says
What a sad ending. Patrick, please block all anons so I can find better things to do.

Well, everyone is anon. It just seems that some on here are annoyed at not having the ability to attack the messenger.
106   anonymous   2017 Nov 19, 6:49pm  

anon_6fcd7 says
Well, everyone is anon. It just seems that some on here are annoyed at not having the ability to attack the messenger.


That was always the plan. Horrible quality people from the right kept on being challenged to prove their points, to stop lying, to basically believe in something other than nonsense. So they created a cult of us vs. them. Anons killed that cult so now Patrick is being driven to let anons in, but let king goron decide who gets in and who doesn't. Total vomit.
107   MrMagic   2017 Nov 19, 6:51pm  

I posted this:

Sniper says
So, having 396 new anons (who attack other users continually or clog the site with diarrhea)


That was at 6:23 PM, then we had this at 6:31PM:

anon_25c83 says
this comment has been jailed for incivility


and this at 6:32 PM:

anon_6fcd7 says
this comment has been jailed for incivility


It took all of 8 minutes to be proven right?

So sad.

anon_25c83 says
Patrick, please block all anons


What for, things are going perfect, just as planned!!
108   anonymous   2017 Nov 19, 6:52pm  

anon_25c83 says
anon_6fcd7 says
Well, everyone is anon. It just seems that some on here are annoyed at not having the ability to attack the messenger.


That was always the plan. Horrible quality people from the right kept on being challenged to prove their points, to stop lying, to basically believe in something other than nonsense. So they created a cult of us vs. them. Anons killed that cult so now Patrick is being driven to let anons in, but let king goron decide who gets in and who doesn't. Total vomit.

Don’t disagree, but the tone was most definitely set by letting CiC back in. A lot of the decline in discussion here can be traced back to the flame wars that he enjoyed/enjoys instigating. Of all the mistakes Patrick has made, letting him pollute the well for so many years has been one of the biggest.
109   mell   2017 Nov 19, 7:04pm  

anon_12c93 says
Piggy dominates the website now. That's the post-mortem. Literally nothing else needs to be said.


Because the anons keep talking about it. Otherwise not.

anon_6fcd7 says
Don’t disagree, but the tone was most definitely set by letting CiC back in. A lot of the decline in discussion here can be traced back to the flame wars that he enjoyed/enjoys instigating. Of all the mistakes Patrick has made, letting him pollute the well for so many years has been one of the biggest.


Why not discuss with the people one wants to answer to? Otherwise don't respond, problem solved.
110   anonymous   2017 Nov 19, 7:10pm  

mell says
Because the anons keep talking about it. Otherwise not.

That’s simply because his past targets are gone or only occasionally posting under anon. If they were here, he’d be doing what he has always done. As soon as he finds someone new to direct his attentions at, he’ll be up to his old tricks. Introducing civility doesn’t change what he’s about otherwise he would have been civil before. He clearly doesn’t come on here to be civil. He comes on here to wind others up.
111   anonymous   2017 Nov 19, 7:12pm  

mell says
Why not discuss with the people one wants to answer to? Otherwise don't respond, problem solved.

Fine, except we all know that isn’t what actually happens.
112   anonymous   2017 Nov 19, 8:37pm  

What I'd like to know is who keeps putting the posts about Ironman in jail. The guy isn't even here. Is this not a free speech forum?
113   anonymous   2017 Nov 19, 9:42pm  

anon_3b28c says
Is this not a free speech forum?


Where does it say that it is a free speech forum?
114   anonymous   2017 Nov 19, 11:56pm  

anon_eecc4 says
anon_3b28c says
Is this not a free speech forum?


Where does it say that it is a free speech forum?

It used to be pretty free. The freedom was misdirected into accepting any and all nonsense. Insulting users isn't an issue per se - it can be a perfectly reasonable part of discussing points. The problem is when that's pretty much the only reason someone is on here (yes, I'm looking at you CiC). Seriously, what's the problem in saying 'you're fucking stupid if you believe that', 'thats a moronic point' etc. etc? I presume Goran would be all over those types of posts these days. You can have constructive arguments and you can vent. The two are not incompatible. Deliberate and prolonged trolling is a different matter. It's just destructive over the long term even if it may be amusing from time to time.
This site is losing spirit as well as posters.
115   anonymous   2017 Nov 20, 12:01am  

Sniper says
What for, things are going perfect, just as planned!!

Why can't you be honest? You don't want people posting under anons because it spoils your fun.
116   anonymous   2017 Nov 20, 8:40am  

anon_6fcd7 says
anon_25c83 says
anon_6fcd7 says
Well, everyone is anon. It just seems that some on here are annoyed at not having the ability to attack the messenger.


That was always the plan. Horrible quality people from the right kept on being challenged to prove their points, to stop lying, to basically believe in something other than nonsense. So they created a cult of us vs. them. Anons killed that cult so now Patrick is being driven to let anons in, but let king goron decide who gets in and who doesn't. Total vomit.

Don’t disagree, but the tone was most definitely set by letting CiC back in. A lot of the decline in discussion here can be traced back to the flame wars that he enjoyed/enjoys instigating. Of all the mistakes Patrick has made, letting him pollute the well for so many years has been one of the biggest.


Exactly. For whatever reason @Patrick is unwilling to address this fact

I’ll give him some credit, he did chime in when Goron and Ironman/Sniper were posting blatant lies, to show that they were wrong, but he doesn’t seem to give a shit otherwise
117   Onvacation   2017 Nov 20, 8:44am  

anon_7e3cc says
Seriously, what's the problem in saying 'you're fucking stupid if you believe that', 'thats a moronic point' etc. etc?

Because you are making a personal attack instead of countering a point.

If you really think someone is stupid what does that say about you for engaging instead of ignoring?
118   anonymous   2017 Nov 20, 8:49am  

Sniper says
anon_7e3cc says
Sniper says
What for, things are going perfect, just as planned!!

Why can't you be honest? You don't want people posting under anons because it spoils your fun.


Spoils what fun?

Why don't you stop acting like a little girl, hiding behind anon, and post under a real screen name, like the mature adults do here?


Mature adults don’t make posts calling Obama “nigger boy”, and then get banned, and then return to disrespect @Patrick and harass the thinking posters
119   FuckTheMainstreamMedia   2017 Nov 20, 8:49am  

anon_7e3cc says
anon_eecc4 says
anon_3b28c says
Is this not a free speech forum?


Where does it say that it is a free speech forum?

It used to be pretty free. The freedom was misdirected into accepting any and all nonsense. Insulting users isn't an issue per se - it can be a perfectly reasonable part of discussing points. The problem is when that's pretty much the only reason someone is on here (yes, I'm looking at you CiC). Seriously, what's the problem in saying 'you're fucking stupid if you believe that', 'thats a moronic point' etc. etc? I presume Goran would be all over those types of posts these days. You can have constructive arguments and you can vent. The two are not incompatible. Deliberate and prolonged trolling is a different matter. It's just destructive over the long term even if it may be amusi...


So essentially you want it to be free speech, as long as its the speech you deem free.
120   anonymous   2017 Nov 20, 8:58am  

Sniper says
Why don't you stop acting like a little girl, hiding behind anon

Does this qualify as an insult? Pretty sure it's intended to be one. Sniper you are doing a good job of impersonating Ironman.

IMO, the anon posting by regular users is being done in protest. Your presence (you are clearly CIC/ironman) is one of the things being protested.

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