I understand what causes most TOS type problems; people get in a disagreement, and for whatever reason it escalates to the point where the dispute is out of their mutual control. Or a relationship changes so the people involved perceive it as having different purposes and values, and it starts to affect their behavior negatively… Other times procedural rules get broken, which almost always amount to people not understanding the rules rather than being malicious.
But there's one kind that really confuses me that I still have to deal with regularly, and that's bigotry. Because part of IAM's conceptual design is of a “gated community” and a “safe space” there are some internal limitations on some types of expression — as counter-intuitive as that might seem given my general outlook — to ensure that it stays a safe place for the community surrounding BME. That includes attacks on homosexuality and body modification.
Now, of course it's no surprise to most people reading this that a person railing against homosexuals or talking about how sick people on BME are is going to lose their account on IAM… but the part that does surprise me and I suspect most of you as well is how or why do they come here in the first place? I mean, if one has kind of backward bigoted ideas, why come to BME at all? And why go to the effort to infiltrate its community site? Wouldn't one just say “you know, I don't really like these kinds of freaky open-minded people and I don't particularly want to spend time with them?”
It's funny, because it's always presented as some kind of psychotic oppression from me (yeah, because that's really what I spend my time worrying about)… as I've said before, I don't give a damn if someone finds me or my lifestyle repulsive — I don't even give a damn if they start a website somewhere else whining about it (it's happened a dozen times or so already). But I do mind if they come into our communal home and attack that lifestyle, and I will do something about it in that case!
So let me be pretty clear on this Christmas eve: If you've got a problem with homosexuals or with heavy body modification and it's something you feel so strongly about you have to make it a part of your online diary, please do not maintain a blog here.
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