Hey guys,
I'm as close to an anarchist as is possible. Anarchy is one of those indefensible ideologies, much like nihilism and many other philosophical perspectives I could espouse, so let's just leave it at the fact that as a teacher, or forum moderator, or doctor, or anything, I think people should be able to say whatever the fuck they want, at any point, regardless of the audience or repercussions. I don't get offended. That being said, this isn't my private home, this is a public website, and a public writing website at that, so I don't tolerate absolutely terrible writing submitted only to inflame certain demographics, ethnicities, etc.
If I was going to write a racist story, it would be more like Ellison's "Invisible Man" than the nonsense I was bound to delete. Yes, yes, Invisible Man is terribly boring and I can think of all sorts of things to criticize. Most people probably would deny any racism in it. Ha. Irrelevant.
While I have full admin powers, they are somewhat limited. For instance, Alex allows me to track IPs and actually figure out who is making which account, which I could extrapolate into a house address. I could, theoretically, track down the account makers and exact all sorts of horrible punishment for less than 5K. For free, I could do it myself, but that would be unwise. I wouldn't do this because 1) it's illegal and these pimple-kids aren't worth prison and 2) Alex would probably be unhappy and 3) I'm in my 30s and self-actualized. Obviously, the fact that I am considering 1 and 2 demonstrate that 3 is untrue.
I unpublished the story and he re-published it. I banned his account. I deleted every page of his story. I docked him 10,000 points for being an idiot. I had all sorts of fun. I'm currently working on a FAQ that lays out the guidelines of the site, because even adults act like 10 year olds on the Internet. Plenty of anecdotal research to support that.
Main idea is that I don't moderate these forums with a heavy hand because I'm a firm believer in free speech. My perspective would be to allow users to ignore trolls. That obviously doesn't work, and sometimes, people need me to bitch slap them rather than allow them to carry on, which is what happened in this case.
I think I'll be a bit more autocratic than I have in the past from here on out. If people make new accounts and continue posting things that show a lack of effort, combined with overt racism, I'll be slapping down the law. This does not mean that an extremely intelligently written story about how the Nazis deserved to kill Jews, or how the white race needs to remain pure, will be allowed to exist.
Regardless of my personal belief that any intelligently written material should be allowed to exist, and the reader allowed to draw his own conclusions and shape his actions accordingly, on THIS site, racist or bigoted work is unacceptable.
Thanks.
