"Appearance of impropriety" is zlefin's choice of words, and it's perfectly valid in the context of questioning whether or not someone did something wrong. This isn't a court for fucks sake.
US Politics Feedback Thread - Page 26
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LegalLord
United Kingdom13775 Posts
"Appearance of impropriety" is zlefin's choice of words, and it's perfectly valid in the context of questioning whether or not someone did something wrong. This isn't a court for fucks sake. | ||
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KwarK
United States41991 Posts
On November 07 2016 09:29 LegalLord wrote: The context is that he took an opportunity of bans being handed out more readily to settle a grudge. "Appearance of impropriety" is zlefin's choice of words, and it's perfectly valid in the context of questioning whether or not someone did something wrong. This isn't a court for fucks sake. I took the opportunity of him doing something banworthy which he'd previously been actioned for doing to ban him. I didn't just ban him because I thought I could get away with it. I banned him because he deserved a ban. He did the thing I banned him for and it was a thing he should have been banned for. | ||
zlefin
United States7689 Posts
On November 07 2016 09:25 ticklishmusic wrote: yeah, but the context is that warnings + bans are now being handed out more heavily. also, you ought to stop using that appearance of impropriety line. it's a rather cheeky way of saying "guilty until proven not guilty". no, it's not. that you are not aware of that means you should study more on how legal systems conduct themselves. The term is quite well understood in jurisprudence. It's also rude to make unfounded accusations. | ||
LegalLord
United Kingdom13775 Posts
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ticklishmusic
United States15977 Posts
On November 07 2016 09:48 zlefin wrote: no, it's not. that you are not aware of that means you should study more on how legal systems conduct themselves. The term is quite well understood in jurisprudence. It's also rude to make unfounded accusations. unless you're in law school or working in the legal profession, i would say i probably do actually know more about law than you, though my knowledge is slated more to corporate and contract law. so your last sentence is mildly ironic. im fucking tired of people using "appearance of impropriety" as an argument. its not. you can describe any relatively complex situation as having the appearance of impropriety, but in and of itself the phrase does not constitute an argument. we've got plenty of facts on the table to draw a conclusion, so use those instead of being suggestive with some lazy legalese. | ||
Nyxisto
Germany6287 Posts
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zlefin
United States7689 Posts
as such I shall not discuss it with you further unless your behavior improves, or I forget that I'm ignoring you on this. nyx -> I'd disagree that this is like the mexican judge case, there are some very significant differences. the issue is also not the ban itself, but who did the ban. | ||
xDaunt
United States17988 Posts
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Acrofales
Spain17852 Posts
On November 07 2016 11:04 zlefin wrote: ticklish, you continue to be rude, and refuse to recognize the validity of something that is valid on its face. that others' may misuse it does not disallow me from using it correctly, which is being done here. as such I shall not discuss it with you further unless your behavior improves, or I forget that I'm ignoring you on this. nyx -> I'd disagree that this is like the mexican judge case, there are some very significant differences. the issue is also not the ban itself, but who did the ban. Why does it matter who slammed down the banhammer? The banhammer needed to be slammed down and KwarK just happened to be fastest to the trigger. Or do you disagree that Nettles' post was banworthy? | ||
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tofucake
Hyrule18980 Posts
On November 07 2016 11:31 xDaunt wrote: I really hope that the mods read this post from LegalLord because it very clearly illustrates one of the most insidious problems with the US Politics thread: the serial failure of some posters to read the arguments of others with charity and properly represent those arguments when responding. Not only is that conduct outright dishonest, but it completely poisons the discussion in the thread. For example, in the discussion that LegalLord addresses in the post, the point of one poster (me) was intentionally and dishonestly polarized into a very toxic position (that I endorse genocide), which had previously resulted in the thread being shut down temporarily. This kind of thing should be a bannable offense. If person 1 says that person 1's argument is A and person 2 nevertheless insists that person 1's argument is B, especially after person 1 clarifies for person 2 that person 1's argument A, person 2 should be banned. It really isn't hard to simply ask other posters for clarification on their points. That post is gonna take a while to read through, but I'm keeping up with the thread and will continue actioning posts as necessary | ||
zlefin
United States7689 Posts
On November 07 2016 19:39 Acrofales wrote: Why does it matter who slammed down the banhammer? The banhammer needed to be slammed down and KwarK just happened to be fastest to the trigger. Or do you disagree that Nettles' post was banworthy? if it isn't clear to you based on what i've said, it'd take awhile to explain, and i'm sure how to do so. these links might help explain some: http://www.uscourts.gov/judges-judgeships/code-conduct-united-states-judges#c https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appearance_of_impropriety | ||
LegalLord
United Kingdom13775 Posts
On November 07 2016 20:08 Acrofales wrote: I read both your and kwizach's posts and commend you on your research. However, I think your answer was rather unnecessary. I'd say kwizach's point is well supported by the books, as is your own. You are just arguing past each other, because you both interpret xDaunt's posts in different manners. And that is often the problem with xDaunt, and not kwizach. He posts in a provocative, but explicitly vague manner, and when asked for clarification he acts as if his original point was already clear. The case in point here is that, when I read xDaunt's tacit support of Trump stating that "we should take out terrorists´ families", I see him advocating the uninhibited targeting of civilians for the sake of revenge. Whereas I see you read it as him advocating for violence despite civilians being used as human shields. These are two completely different points. I am not a political scientist, or a historian, and I indeed do not have time to read the sources you are talking about. However, I will take your word that murdering vast quantities of civilians is an effective way of winning a conflict. My response to that is that you have just become the terrorist yourself. You have rained terror down upon an innocent population until they are cowed into submission. That is a war crime. It is also a defeat if you see your side as the just and correct (and not merely as the powerful, and might makes right): you have become as bad as, if not worse than, your enemy. Rather than, as Michelle Obama says "when they go low, we go high", this would be "when they go low, we go lower". The criticism here of xDaunt's ambiguity is valid - and you can absolutely say that he should be more explicitly clear about what he means (this thread has moved significantly towards the more treatise-heavy in recent times, as opposed to earlier times in which this mass short-posting was by far more so the norm). But the point of the entire critique is that what was directly stated by xDaunt is what my version of his point was (at least according to him) and the kwizach point is a caricature on genocide. The other point is not that my research says killing people is right, and kwizach's research says killing people is wrong. The point is that kwizach's own sources basically support the qualified version of the xDaunt version - not in full, but certainly far enough to make kwizach's entire point fall apart. And mass murder of civilians isn't the point - that's just what you would get from a highly uncharitable interpretation of the posts. Take the points he actually makes literally at their word and you get my interpretation. The rest of my post is not very accurately represented by your summary of my position; the entire focus is on "targeted killings within the Protocol I framework." Though if you want to debate the merits of that question, or discuss it from a moral perspective, we can take this back to the main thread. | ||
LegalLord
United Kingdom13775 Posts
Without further ado, here is the warning I received: Original Message From TL.net Bot: This is a Warning! Please put some effort into your posts. One word replies and other low content posts are not appreciated here. You're free to discuss the topics in the thread. If you want to discuss the people or their posting habits, take it to PM or the feedback thread. Thanks in advance for your cooperation, tofucake (Do not reply to this message. No one will receive it.) The first sentence is obviously unrelated to my post given that it was a gigantic mega-post. I am assuming by the language that it's just a generic opener that goes into every warning of a certain type. Now the rest of it is something that is a problem for me because I see it as a contradiction of the previous rebuke that Drone gave me in this very thread a few pages ago. Although this was not exactly the way he said it, he basically took a "put up or shut up" approach to my problems with kwizach's posting. I was criticized heavily for taking my issues to the feedback thread instead of taking my problems with kwizach to the main thread and addressing the points directly. Then when I do just that, I get a warning for not taking the issues with kwizach's posting, that are well-embedded into his actual post, to the feedback thread. Forgive me if I perceive a contradiction here. I am not unaware of how a post that spends as much time criticizing the posting style of kwizach as it does addressing his actual argument could be seen as problematic. In fact, I would really like that to be the last post of the entire kwizach saga, as a very long and thorough description of where our (mostly mine and xDaunt's) criticisms of his posting come from. Hell, there is something particularly problematic in a long post that basically accuses another poster of being thoroughly intellectually dishonest. But see this in context. The entire kwizach-LL-xDaunt saga is cross-linked in that last post and it can be viewed. You will see the style of kwizach's posts, the accusations we have made, and the general inability of others to perceive the validity of those responses. You will see that even Drone, who has made a commendable effort to be level-headed about this entire issue, criticized the unwillingness to respond to a poster who we have constantly mentioned that we do not want to engage in discussion, who still continues to butt in and offer a response that is not appreciated which cannot be replied to in any sane way (take my other post as an indication of just what has to actually go into replying to him). Furthermore, I want to know how exactly you think my post fits into one thread or the other in terms of being on-topic. The point was absolutely to address the issue at hand, civilian killings in the fight against terrorism. And the major problem of kwizach's posting has always been very closely tied to personal posting issues that directly influence his main point. Those issues absolutely needed to be addressed; if I were to avoid addressing the (perceived) academic dishonesty of kwizach's posting then I would absolutely lose out on explaining exactly why it is that I believe his posts are wrong. If I were to split up the criticism into two halves, there would be an obscene amount of cross-referencing and I'd probably get two warnings for pissing even more people off. And if I took it entirely to feedback or avoided responding entirely then I would be validating Drone's criticism that I can't address the topic on its merits, which gives too much validity to a poster that I have shown that I believe is deeply problematic. So I do not think there is any way to address kwizach's point without also addressing his posting style. I believe I was put in a very awkward "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation by tofucake's warning here and I'm really not sure what to think. I'm asking the moderation staff for clarification here. Moving beyond my personal issue here, I want to bring this back to how it actually fits into the context of the thread and where it's going. For all intents and purposes I perceive a desire to move towards a more active participation in the moderation of the thread. If that is so, then my previous comments about "let's not involve the banhammer in these discussions" becomes absolutely moot and I now wish to request that we set some ground rules about how that moderation is going to go. There are a whole lot of issues embedded into this kwizach matter, and I will very explicitly say that I believe that the things about kwizach that have drawn fire strike at the deep-seated issues that constantly make this thread oscillate between stupidity and normality. If we're taking a stance towards the more heavily moderated, then I want to know how exactly that is going to happen. This thread is very long for a feedback thread, and I have provided more than enough input for people to be pretty clear where I have stood on the long-running thread issues. I can also offer some suggestions for what I believe would make good ground rules, but for now I simply ask, what direction are you looking to take this thread? I perceive a pretty thorough contradiction in the signals I have received from the moderation staff and I absolutely would like clarity here. | ||
kwizach
3658 Posts
I don't get why you keep relentlessly attacking me personally, now going as far as going back to a post I wrote in June (while still not actually addressing the analysis it contains) to attack me and my posting, but this is getting out of hand. Could you give it a rest and simply join me in focusing on substance when issues of relevance to the US Politics megathread are discussed, or ignore my posts altogether? | ||
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tofucake
Hyrule18980 Posts
On November 08 2016 01:43 kwizach wrote: (without engaging in personal attacks, contrary to you) I don't get why you keep relentlessly attacking me personally these things might be related. Maybe you guys can stop commenting on each other personally and stick to discussing topics? | ||
LegalLord
United Kingdom13775 Posts
Tofu: when you have the time, I really would like to understand what boundaries you intend to set in regards to issues like this. I can see your active participation is relatively recent, so there is some significant historical context I feel that you need to understand here. The idea of cleaning up the thread is very commendable and I'm all for it in principle. At the same time I want to squeeze some specifics out of you so that we can understand what the new thread is going to look like. At your convenience of course. | ||
kwizach
3658 Posts
On November 08 2016 02:52 tofucake wrote: these things might be related. Maybe you guys can stop commenting on each other personally and stick to discussing topics? I already do, as you can see in both long posts in which I addressed factual claims he made: link 1 - link 2. | ||
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tofucake
Hyrule18980 Posts
1. Stick to the rules in the OP 2. Stick to the TL 10 Commandments 3. Don't be a bunch of jerks 4. Stay on topic Arguing about how people respond to you rather than what they respond with (e.g., having a back and forth argument about what someone's point is rather than discussing the point itself) does not belong in the topic. One line joke posts and other fluff add nothing to the discussion and will be actioned. My activity is recent because I'm a recent mod. | ||
LegalLord
United Kingdom13775 Posts
What about posts with just a twit in them? I also assume you are not fond of the "get owned kid, ur post just got destroyed" type of responses that follow the more aggressive brand of long posts. | ||
zlefin
United States7689 Posts
tofu -> you're a recent mod? aww, I didn't get to be a mod ![]() I highly recommend adding reasons next to all warnings/bans. The issue of strawmanning and counterstrawmanning is unfortunately a real one which has to be addressed sometimes in thread, or else it renders all discussion impossible. it is impossible to argue for or against an undefined proposition, so coming to a clear proposition is vital to making progress. So while you may not want that kind of discussion, some amount of it is necessary, and some judgments of it is necessary to ensure order in the thread. | ||
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