Allow Dirtvert to Return to the Pub, Remove him From Secret Probation, and Adopt More Reasonable Moderation Rules

Regardless of each of our political stances, we all have to acknowledge that Dirtvert is a friendly, outgoing, and highly valuable contributor to the STR community. He gives of himself freely and frequently.

Yes, we don't all agree on politics. That much is brazenly obvious every time I check out The Pub. There are so many painful posts--literally offensive to the point of being emotionally scarring-- that I see month in and month out in The Pub from people who don't really know me, I don't really know them but their professed heels-dug-in political and racial opinions, and their unwillingness to even try to see things from another viewpoint, or to debate on point offend me to the core. These go uncensored.

For those I find really hard to stomach, I have set them on ignore.... I believe that's only two members. I imagine that if things I say offend anyone else that much, they have put me on ignore as well. So that seems to be the accepted and sanctioned recourse for members who cannot fail to offend each other even as others don't share in the offense.

More to the point: I derive value in seeing what other people opine, even when they are diametrically opposed. And I always hold out hope that by posting reasoned rhetoric, distilling debate into essential binary points that can each be debated with clarity, others will come to do the same. Shooting from the hip is so 1800's.

When people wander into the pub, it's likely they will find things that offend them in some way or another. The amount of tripe that could be classified as 'misogynistic' --at best you could call it 'insensitive' to the better half of this board-- is astounding. I'm a guy, and I see the humor value as often only a guy can see it... but I wince for the female members. And just as often, it's just sheerly puerile with zero humor value.

Yet I never see our "bad cop" moderator CalEpic take action against any of these things.

I would like to see us adopt a pretty straightforward rule for determining whether a post has crossed the line or not:

1) The post singles out a group of people according to race, religion, gender, orientation, ethnic background, physical ability/disability and the post makes threatening, ridiculing, or derogatory suggestions about that group
2) The post singles out a member of STR and makes threatening or demeaning PERSONAL suggestions about that person.

Why should these categories be protected? Because historically they represent groups that have been the target of violence and domination. Because to persist in rubbing salt in those old wounds is to go against the notion that all men are created equal.

So what shouldn't be covered? The ability to say that Liberals are bleeding-heart, pikno-commie, feeble, reactive, emotionally-driven lillies who just want to steal all your money and give it all away to lazy slobs. Or the ability to say that Conservatives are short-sighted, hateful, selfish, fascist warmongers who just want to get rich and keep the status quo as long as they stay on top. Or the ability to encapsulate such negative ideas using small, neat, and common buzzwords.

Really, I think it should be fine to utter any sort of derogatory remark about politics you don't respect or understand. As long as there's no particular group of people singled out by the derogatory remark (outside of those grouped within the philosophical stereotype).

Why should it be ok to do this? Because it's happening anyway, in ways that are not uniformly enforced, and because there are so many other "worse" things going on in the Pub that push the envelope on matters that are actually offensive.

Now, to the point of this post. It's a petition. I remind you all that Dirtvert hasn't threatened anyone. As I said before, he has been a friendly, outgoing, and highly valuable contributor to the STR community and Southern California mountain biking in general. He's a genuinely nice and well-meaning guy. He's just about the last person on this board who should qualify for censure. Well, not the last, but he's near the bottom of the list for sure.

I tried to figure out what Dirtvert said that triggered his expulsion from the Pub. (Actually, it's worse. He was placed on a no strikes rule that has him one step from being booted from STR outright).

I read many of his posts today and not a single one came close to being offensive that I could fathom. Then it hit me. I remembered a post he made on the outhouse thread. It was a single post, on-topic with the previous posts in the thread, and very staid, actually. But what must have marked it was his use of a single word. It's not even a [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teabagger]word you can't say on TV[/url] -- and it's a common slang word and it is, in actual verbal content, highly relevant to the group it represents, (even if it shares an unfortunate double-meaning with an act that really does not deserve censure any more than political speech does). It's quite natural to conjoin of the modern equivalent of someone protesting taxes on Tea with carpetbaggers, another political term from our past, to come up with a pejorative for Tea Party members. That's how I came up with it long ago. At the time, I actually had no idea that it shared any meaning with a sexual act.

But what is wrong with that anyway? Nothing. Not unless you mean to demean those who engage in the sexual act ;)

Not only is this word ok to say on TV, not only is ostensibly more rightfully rooted in "Tea Party" + "Carpet-bagger" than an allusion to the sexual act but even granting the sex act exists of the same name. . . there should be nothing wrong with that. The act doesn't single out any group. It is practiced by many couples of all races, orientations, genders, religions, and even by swingers, threesomes, and more. Frankly, it's a whole lot better than saying Liberals are pussies, because that insinuates women are weak and ineffectual.

Now if someone had made a perfectly sedate post that contained the "n" word, I imagine that person would have been told not to use that word. The moderator might have edited the post to remove the word, but left the remainder of the post. Yet the "n" word is clearly a highly controversial word and its use harms a whole ethnic group. You can't say it on TV and you definitely can't say it without singling out a very particular group of people who have been harmed horribly in our past.

As I said, we're grown ups and I think we can handle political barbs, but racist or other such insults that cross a certain cultural line that we need to keep in check.

Now with that, I ask, did what Dirtvert write really warrant getting booted from the Pub with a threatening letter telling him he was on his way out?

I suspect Cal has had it in for Dirt for a long time. Do the right thing Cal and put your personal feelings for Dirt aside and be a neutral moderator. Bring Dirtvret back and treat us all fairly and equally. For what it's worth, since you have strong political opinions, I request that you leave the moderation of politically charged threads to Denmother.