Hi everyone

At our last meeting, several people complained to us about a discussion thread that was on here, called 'How shall we protect ourselves from Islam'. We have removed the post, on the grounds that it's offended many of our members. In general, this club is for Londoners to meet up face-to-face and discuss philosophy. London is a multicultural city, and our club is proud to bring together people from many different backgrounds who share a common love of philosophy.

This discussion page is not moderated. Does anyone want to volunteer to moderate it? Or perhaps we can agree on some rules and etiquette for self-regulation...For example:

- No comments that are offensive or hate-inciting.
- No swear words.
- No incredibly long rambling and boring posts.
- Er...
- That's it.

Let me know if we should include other rules or tips.

If you don't want to receive emails every time someone adds to a discussion post, you can switch that off in the options on the site.

Thanks,

Jules

Jules, you rightly should be happy to bring together so many people with different backgrounds (incidently, is it a good idea to be "proud" of this, as one's worth cannot be measured in a philosphically sound way - pride can often be harmful). You seem to be taking the easy way of this issue out by censorship, i don't have to rehearse the Danish cartoons again. Inciting hatred and the like: yes, but can one be offended without one's consent, no. there's an issue of personal responsibility here. I found nothing inciting hatred in the HDWPOFI, ignorance and stubborness yes. Rob & Dr Bob did a fine job of countering the ignorance.

Hi Cliff, and thank you for your time. I trust that you are right about the countering of ignorance as I did not have time to properly check it out myself.

The issue is different. Of the complaints, one member explained it best. She told me the she was going to leave the group or go in as anonymous as she didn't want someone to google her and get a quick snapshot of her being attached to some heated discussion about Islam - with the way meetup.com is built this is a very real possibility. This website carries page rank strength so usually shows up pretty high on google results. Surely you can see why this is an important concern.

We prefer that everyone use their real name and profile picture (so we can protect against spam and help grow this community of like minds) so we are taking extra care with the limited time we have to make sure everyone is safe. Of course it's not perfect but to be clear, each members safety with their online presence is a much higher priority than the discussion boards.

I hope my frank explanation mades sense. Is that fair? We are juggling with the idea of turning off the boards until we find a way that is acceptable for all of us so your thoughts are important in coming up with a solution.

What do you think we could do in terms of moderation?

Disclaimer: This is a longish posting ... if you are likely to be bored, and boredom bothers you please feel free to skip it without reading.

I'm a pretty recent joiner to the group, this week's meetup was my first visit.
I found the discussions at the meeting challenging in many ways (all good) fresh ideas clearly expressed and exchanged with, it seemed to me, real thoughtfulness and attentiveness to listening as well as putting ideas forward. Really, really good.

While I've been waiting for my diary to be clear at the right time to come to a meeting, I've been responding happily to postings put my members on the forums (fora?). I've found the discussions here on the forum challenging in many ways too.

I hope I haven't caused anyone offence through the ideas I've shared, I don't feel that that criticism is levelled at me. If it is, I hope someone can drop me an email, anonymous or otherwise. Sometimes, despite re-reading I find I've left out some critical 'not' which flips the sense of an argument or makes it nonsense.

I do wonder whether Jules' comment about 'No incredibly long rambling and boring posts. ' is levelled at me (with or without others). Certainly I've had some detailed exchanges over the last few weeks. Including the HDWPOFI discussion and several with James in the USA. I've found the discussions with James really challenging and it's been a genuine pleasure to exchange with him while I try and learn a little about 'testimony' etc and straighten my own thinking out. I'd be really happy showing my classes at school any of the exchanges that I've had on here. They may not be the sharpest pieces of thinking (certainly not mine) but seeing articulate folks chat about a topic, with opposing views without resorting to name calling etc does seem, to me, to be something of a rarity on the internet but something that is present on these discussions. A precious resource.

Perhaps this issue of 'What should philosophers not be allowed to talk about?' could be the focus of a discussion at a meetup? Maybe we could entice Nigel Warburton (Free Speech, A Very Short Introduction) to take the lead in the discussion.

Free speech is tricky and precious. I'm sure most, if not all, the members of the group could enumerate the values that exercising free speech bring to a society.

Last time I looked, the HDWPOFI had settled down with what I thought was a 'right result' (maybe I missed seeing a post). Frankly, I'm saddened if that discussion has been vaporised.

While I hope that we all agree on the way that a discussion should take place, online or face to face I personally hope that we are NOT all like minded in a broader sense. How will we develop our ideas if we all think that same?

I think it's worth saying that while the HDWPOFI discussion was running I wondered whether the organisers were going to step in and I admired the fact that that they did not do so. I'm left thinking that maybe if I had emailed the organisers to compliment them on their earlier non-intervention it might have weighed somewhat against however many complaints were received. My point here is that maybe I'm not alone in thinking this, how would the organisers know?

I'm not one of the LPC organisers and clearly the organisers have every right to run the club in the best way that they see fit, however you've asked for thoughts about moderation, so I'm sharing mine.

The safest thing in the short term may appear to be to shut down the discussion boards. As a website with 'page rank strength', though, perhaps we should reflect about what signal that sends out to the wider world. I don't believe that closing down discussion is generally the way to a safer, more harmonious, better world.

There are already guidelines that we all signed up to they are http://www.meetup.com.... This includes sanctions in respect of posting (i) that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory, intimidating, vulgar, obscene, profane, libelous, invasive of another's privacy (including the posting of private emails or contact information about another individual), hateful, or racially, ethically or otherwise objectionable, including any Public Information or other material that may be considered hate speech;

I think these already cover Jules' 'Offensive, hate inciting and swearing' bars, though not 'boring/rambling'

The more I write the more disappointed I am with the abruptness of the messages being taken down. I'd hope that if someone was upset by one of my postings they would either contact me directly (it's really easy to hear the words said one way when you type and someone read them with different connotation) or contact the organisers who, in turn, could contact me and offer me the chance to amend what I had written if I had offended inadvertently and the chance to rescue what I had written before it was taken down. (Clearly in an extreme case, all of this could be bypassed by members referring the post to meetup.com directly). I'm a middle aged guy and I don't think I've ever been censored before.

In terms of internet safety, one clear way that individuals can protect themselves is by not using their real names.

I appreciate that you (Filip) and Jules are taking the safety of the members seriously, Filip, You've made it very clear that you do and I agree it's hugely important. However, so is free speech.

The religion/sceptic debate is front and centre in many areas of the blogosphere. the idea that we might bar discussion of any religion or world view, even passionate/heated debate does not sit comfortably with what I expected from the club.

Fully recognising that I might be wrong, and trusting that someone will explain if I am
DrBob

Hi DrBob

You make some fair points. Still, I am uneasy about having a totally unregulated discussion board, which can apparently lead to having a thread called how can we protect ourselves from islam. it would be great if we had one or more moderators willing to give their time to make sure debates did not get out of hand - as online debates so often do. Would you be willing to give that a go?

All best

Jules

Hi everyone,

I was a contributor to the thread 'on protecting ourselves from Islam'. I'm glad to see that there's some discussion on what it's right to include on the forums here.

First, and similarly to Cliff and DrBob, I'm very grateful for the organizers, Filip and Jules, for taking the time to arrange meetings and to run the philosophy club. I joined recently, and haven't made it to a meeting yet, but the club seems very well run, and with good speakers and talks. It's very good to see so many people interested in philosophy.

I agree with almost everything that DrBob wrote in his post on this thread.

Filip and Jules (hello!) have mentioned several reasons for taking down the HDWPOFI thread: members' being offended, and the possibility of people and photos' being linked to views they find objectionable. As they've been put, these seem to me like two different considerations.

Like DrBob, I also don't want to offend people in expressing my views, and I hope I didn't, but as is often pointed out, sometimes offence is an inevitable by-product of discussion which ought to be held. Some people who support animal rights are offended by claims and arguments from people who eat animals - but most of the people who are offended would support the free and open discussion of views, in most contexts. The presence of offence is often, it seems to me, precisely a reason to have a discussion - in order to try to understand further the source of the offence, and to come to a view on whether it's justified. If there's a case to be made that the mere offence from the HDWPOFI thread was a strong reason to shut the discussion down, then I would be grateful to hear it.

I'm not sure what I think about the other issue - safety, and members' being associated with views in a way they find frightening. DrBob's right that anonymity is one response, but I do see that more anonymity works against the fostering of community amongst members, as Filip has said. That said, I personally think it's very unlikely that a member who didn't contribute to the thread would have their safety compromised: someone would have to go very much out of their way to misrepresent the member's online presence, would have to ignore the general content and purpose of this group, and would have to pretend that the member had been involved in discussion, against a lack of evidence. Google, and Google's cache, have not conjoined members not involved in the thread with the thread itself (apart from Filip and Jules, and Filip's photo, as the groups organizers, in the recurrent badge on the left of the group's pages).

I'm also responsible for some quite long posts (like this one), on the HDWPOFI thread and a few others. I don't think they're rambling - they might well be boring! - but I would think it a good idea to be able to have long posts, because careful discussion often needs them. (I can't imagine Hegel tweeting.) I haven't seen any posts at all that I thought exceeded reasonable length.

My own view is that the best reason for taking down the thread would be that it wasn't about philosophy. While philosophy's borders aren't definite, I can't see how the discussion there could possibly count. It could have led into philosophical discussion (as anything can), but I don't think it did - the remarks on what counts as good evidence for a claim notwithstanding.

I don't see how anyone benefits from the censorship. If someone has an opinion which is considered to be extreme and distorted - especially when it's a moral or political opinion - it seems to me to send entirely the wrong message out that rational engagement and criticism should not be published.

I also don't myself see a need for moderators at this point.

I hope that if there's substantial disagreement about issues here, other members will join in with arguments.

Regards,

Rob

Hi Rob

I didn't mean any personal offence to anyone with my 'long, rambling posts' thing - it was a joke, not directed at anyone. And I'm sorry if you feel I acted over-hastily.

I guess for me, the club is a chance to get interesting public speakers along and to debate ideas with them face-to-face - and if there are borderline racist discussions going on on the site, it will make it harder for us to get good speakers and to get new people along to the meet ups. There aren't that many free clubs where good thinkers and speakers come along and discuss their ideas with the public. We're trying to protect that.

The club takes up a certain amount of Filip and my time, in terms of finding a venue and speaker, which we're very motivated to do. But I personally am not motivated to spend any time at all watching over an online discussion forum, moderating it, or anything else to do with it. But thats what I've now spent much of the morning doing! This is why it would be great if someone else volunteered to moderate the discussion page, if we're going to have a discussion page.

All best,

Jules

i'm inclined to agree with Filip, rather than Rob on the issue of saftey, as links however tenuous, are (it seems) sadly enough for some people. Yes, the thread title is prejudiced & loaded against Islam, however, isn't this an opportunity to educate the poster? I know this isn't the main concern of Filip & Jules,
and i'm inclined to go down the anonymity route. So i ask Rob & others: obviously being anonymous isn't conducive to the important sense of belonging, but: to what extent does fostering community depend upon identifying with someone's name/image and are there ways to compensate? I'm inclined not to favour moderators at this stage. I agree with much of Dr Bob/Rob and see being offended as an opportunity, rather than an insult. The meetup guidelines seem too strict, but as long as there is no glaring disregard for them let's have "anything goes" - keep our minds wide open. Anything approaching hate speech should be ignored totally and the poster's membership terminated. I do hope many contribute to this thread. Getting Nigel Wharburton to speak would be great.

I was shocked by the thread in question. Primarily by how many people went about answering the question instead of questioning it!!! (Which is my preferred practice as a philosopher ;)

So far as moderation is concerned, I prefer to be a member of communites in which postings such as, 'Mohammed was a barbarian pederast,' and, generally, ''What is the final solution of the threat posed to 'us' by 'them'?'' are instantly deleted. Of course this means some censor is making a judgement call, but there are plenty of examples in law of what offence and incitement look like.

In an open forum any moderation might be up to the members gathered at the time. However, the 'lets kill all muslims before they kill us,' thread seemed to me so outrageously malicious, no-nothing-about-the-world-and-the-people-in-it and, errrrr, mad, I personally could have only responded with mocking derision [or, perhaps, some presumption that the person making such a posting was in genuine distress - and the offer of counselling to resolve his only too apparent issues] and I'm not sure that either of those strategies would have been helpful anyway, to him or the group.

So, basically, I'm with Filip.

[er - Jules ed ]

Hi everyone

At our last meeting, several people complained to us about a discussion thread that was on here, called 'How shall we protect ourselves from Islam'. We have removed the post, on the grounds that it's offended many of our members. In general, this club is for Londoners to meet up face-to-face and discuss philosophy. London is a multicultural city, and our club is proud to bring together people from many different backgrounds who share a common love of philosophy.

This discussion page is not moderated. Does anyone want to volunteer to moderate it? Or perhaps we can agree on some rules and etiquette for self-regulation...For example:

- No comments that are offensive or hate-inciting.
- No swear words.
- No incredibly long rambling and boring posts.
- Er...
- That's it.

Let me know if we should include other rules or tips.

If you don't want to receive emails every time someone adds to a discussion post, you can switch that off in the options on the site.

Thanks,

Jules