YLYL Thread and other things...

[cDnStealth]

I don't really care about the thread in question one way or the other. However, I think a meaningful conversation can and should be had regarding avatars. Part of that obviously comes from closing an entire thread dedicated to posting pictures of women in various states of undress.

I personally don't appreciate seeing "sexy" avatars (both male and female) while I am scrolling through Flames news at work. That isn't something I can choose to avoid like I can by not clicking on a thread. I think by closing down YLYL the mods should also look at getting rid of sexy avatars as well if the goal is to clean up the board.

I am going to throw in a preamble stating that I understand and acknowledge the reason for closing the thread had more to do with the conversations that occurred around the images than the images themselves. That being said, if that thread has no value in creating a positive atmosphere here then what value does having sexy avatars add to CP? We've long ago banned sexy gifs from post game threads so why are sexy avatars still permitted?

I'd like to see them go and not because a thread was closed.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by cDnStealth

I don't really care about the thread in question one way or the other. However, I think a meaningful conversation can and should be had regarding avatars. Part of that obviously comes from closing an entire thread dedicated to posting pictures of women in various states of undress.

I personally don't appreciate seeing "sexy" avatars (both male and female) while I am scrolling through Flames news at work. That isn't something I can choose to avoid like I can by not clicking on a thread. I think by closing down YLYL the mods should also look at getting rid of sexy avatars as well if the goal is to clean up the board.

I am going to throw in a preamble stating that I understand and acknowledge the reason for closing the thread had more to do with the conversations that occurred around the images than the images themselves. That being said, if that thread has no value in creating a positive atmosphere here then what value does having sexy avatars add to CP? We've long ago banned sexy gifs from post game threads so why are sexy avatars still permitted?

I'd like to see them go and not because a thread was closed.

I'm going to weigh in on this.

Honestly, I agree. The questionably NSFW avatars really should go. All of them. And some people around here have really hit the nail on the head.

I am, fortunately, self-employed, as such my boss is an ass but I have to live with him. I've been trying to kill him with beer for years but it hasnt worked out yet.

The fact being though, when I wasnt self-employed and was surfing CP, a racy avatar got me in trouble. It had nothing to do with anything but that was the image on the screen when my boss walked in and its out of your control. Barring not surfing CP at work and we certainly arent considering that.

The YLYL thread, for whatever its virtues and vices, was contained. You didnt have to click on it at work or deal with it, it was a contained environment that could be ignored, avatars however do spell trouble for some people through no fault of theirs other than reading someone's post, the entire point of a forum.

At the same time, they're small and unlikely to garner much attention.

I also want to make this very clear: in no way am I offended.

I'm not sitting here trying to light my torch or sharpen my pitchfork, I am someone that has the luxury of truly not caring, but it could be an issue for others. I work in my own office, I can do what I want, but thats not true of everyone and it wasnt always true of me either.

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by Iceman57

I believe a continued debate is a good thing and feel allowing the possibility of expanding your opinion is to try and become a better person. While I don't appreciate being called petty, i still believe i brought up a valid point and unfortunately in this case, i don't think I'll agree with some others as they likely won't agree with me. To be noted, when i brought up EG's avatar i wasn't meaning to single her out and for that i do apologize.

What i was trying to point out was now that the moderators have acted and actually deleted the entire YLYL thread, which some would refer to as a thread devoted only to objectifying women, I feel it is unfair of them to just stop there. I don't see the difference between the pics labeled as objectifying in the YLYL thread to the inappropriate avatars other then the avatar is exposed much more publicly. One post pointed out that i could modify my profile to omit all avatars from my view but why should i have to make that choice?

The mods made this decision which i fully except it but both males and females can be objectified. I don't see the difference here or the reason not to make the same decision concerning inappropriate avatars as they did for the YLYL thread especially if the main goal is to achieve a complete forum referendum regarding gender objectification, sexism or misogynistic/misandrist attitudes.

Solid post and I retract my 'petty' comment. I think this is a good point for discussion. However, I do think that we need to continue to look at things from a results perspective; you're taking the perspective of "if the moderators ban image x, they also need to ban image y." I think it's more useful to look at x and y separately, and say, "this is what we're trying to accomplish by banning x. Does banning y also contribute to the same goals? Does it contribute to different, equally valid goals?"

Avatars have the effect of bringing into every thread imagery that's unrelated to the topic, and so sexual or questionable imagery gets propogated throughout the board far more. It also changes the way we see certain posters. I can argue with a poster in one thread on a given topic, and then have a entirely agreeable discussion with them in another thread about another topic. But when someone has potentially sexist content in their signature or avatar, they carry that with them throughout the forum. (I'm a member of another online community about writing, and some people there have long, controversial political manifestos in their signature. It becomes impossible to separate their potentially useful contributions in a thread from their borderline offensive signature.)

But by the same token, this would be a far, far reaching policy, much more-so than eliminating a single thread. It will affect posters who have no clue that this debate is going on right now. And there's the problem of drawing what the actual line is. There's no slippery-slope argument here. If the mods chose to, they could draw an arbitrary line and stick to it. But what that arbitrary line is, I don't know. (I could be wrong but I believe there's a precedent for moderating sexual imagery in avatars... I'm thinking specifically of an anime animation of a girl with a Flames tube-top jumping up and down... I seem to recall something was said about this and it was removed, either voluntarily or by mods. Or maybe I'm wrong and it's still there, I don't spend a lot of time on the fire & ice forum these days.)

Personally, I don't see EG's avatar particularly objectionable. A physically attractive person isn't inherently sexist, and there's nothing sexual about the context or the pose; a torso-only shot, or something showing a guy's package would cross where I would draw an arbitrary line. But if others have different ideas (or believe that avatar images are a total non-issue), I think that's a point for discussion, too.

[Daradon]

Great post CDNstealth, out of thanks.

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by cDnStealth

I don't really care about the thread in question one way or the other. However, I think a meaningful conversation can and should be had regarding avatars. Part of that obviously comes from closing an entire thread dedicated to posting pictures of women in various states of undress.

I personally don't appreciate seeing "sexy" avatars (both male and female) while I am scrolling through Flames news at work. That isn't something I can choose to avoid like I can by not clicking on a thread. I think by closing down YLYL the mods should also look at getting rid of sexy avatars as well if the goal is to clean up the board.

I am going to throw in a preamble stating that I understand and acknowledge the reason for closing the thread had more to do with the conversations that occurred around the images than the images themselves. That being said, if that thread has no value in creating a positive atmosphere here then what value does having sexy avatars add to CP? We've long ago banned sexy gifs from post game threads so why are sexy avatars still permitted?

I'd like to see them go and not because a thread was closed.

Actually, you can choose to avoid them by changing one of your user settings and turn off avatars.

That would avoid the "suddenly sexy avatar on my screen when the boss walks by" but doesn't address the "clean up the board" part of the issue.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Bobblehead

Actually, you can choose to avoid them by changing one of your user settings and turn off avatars.

That would avoid the "suddenly sexy avatar on my screen when the boss walks by" but doesn't address the "clean up the board" part of the issue.

Really? I will honestly admit that I did not know that.

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by Locke

Really? I will honestly admit that I did not know that.

You can turn off Avatars, Signatures, and/or anything in an [IMG] tag

[St. Pats]

Originally Posted by Handsome B. Wonderful

Never saw the point of that thread being here, never really looked at it. There's 100 million other places to find pictures of women on the internet.

That said, can we still make fun of fat people?

Not if we want to have more fat people on the site. No more cuts at religious folks either which is half the Off Topic forum. Gotta be more inclusive in your approach.

[getbak]

The problem with turning off avatars and signatures is that it's an all-or-nothing solution. You can't just turn off the ones you don't want to see.

[Bigtime]

Do people actually keep sigs on? I think it was the first thing I turned off after joining up.

<<< Military Commander Murray though. Badass.

[Hemi-Cuda]

I feel this deserves to be here

NSFW!

[Bill Bumface]

On a semi-related note... what about the series of fairly anti-Muslim posts I the ISIS thread? I'm sure we have a large contingent of Muslim posters/viewers here. Is it best that stuff is moderated? Or best it's left so people can take comfort in everyone quoting those posts and calling the posters of such comments ignorant whack jobs?

[RyZ]

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

On a semi-related note... what about the series of fairly anti-Muslim posts I the ISIS thread? I'm sure we have a large contingent of Muslim posters/viewers here. Is it best that stuff is moderated? Or best it's left so people can take comfort in everyone quoting those posts and calling the posters of such comments ignorant whack jobs?

If we were going to do that then we would have to take a long look at the "Godless Apostate" thread as well.

Down the rabbit hole we go.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

On a semi-related note... what about the series of fairly anti-Muslim posts I the ISIS thread? I'm sure we have a large contingent of Muslim posters/viewers here. Is it best that stuff is moderated? Or best it's left so people can take comfort in everyone quoting those posts and calling the posters of such comments ignorant whack jobs?

I think criticizing religion is okay to an extent, but when posters are advocating for genocide, maybe that's a step too far?

[photon]

Interesting points about the avatars, especially that they aren't limited to a single thread and though you can turn them all off it is an all or nothing thing.

For posts about religion if people want to discuss it then someone can create a thread, it's somewhat different than this since gender isn't a choice while religion (in theory anyway) is. Usually isn't good to have too much navel gazing going on at once too. For specific posts, some have been reported and we are discussing them.

[V]

I generally avoid religious threads because I find them disgustingly ignorant, but then, not everyone can post intelligently like Thor. But I also think religion is completely different than gender, sexual orientation, etc, for the reasons that photon just mentioned.

[Fighting Banana Slug]

I would suggest that "turning off" avatars is the same argument as "you don't have to click on the YLYL thread". It puts the onus on the offended person, rather than the offending person.
It will be a very interesting few weeks and months while the mods figure out the new guidelines and how to enforce same. I would suggest it is much more consistent to ban the sexy avatars on objectification grounds, which I think is at least part of the grounds for banning YLYL (recognizing that the commentary in the thread had to do with it as well).

[Igster]

Personally I think one of the biggest issues on the forum and one already touched upon in a couple of posts by Red-Mile-DJ, is the fact that some posters seem to get away with more than others, simply because they have been here longer (which IMO should have no bearing on what is allowed and what isn't) and the pile-on's that tend to happen when one of these posters posts something attacking another poster.

Seems when this happens it's more about how many thanks a post can get, than people in a community such as CP getting along, talking and discussing things. Not everyone is always going to agree. I think everyone gets that. But these pile-on posts to see just how many thanks you can get seem over the top, and quite frankly, allowed to happen far too often.

[St. Pats]

Originally Posted by Caged Great

This site, CalgaryPuck, is a private space, even though it's commentaries are shared publicly. However, as a private space, the people in charge can in essence do whatever it is they feel like and set the parameters as such.

Before, sexism on this site and in a large swath of society wasn't made out to be a big deal, it was almost taken casually and that wasn't right or a good thing then. The difference is that the mods/Bingo have decided to address the sexism issue in positive manner to become more inclusive to everyone and try to make both this site and society in general just a little bit better (I know it sounds like I'm overstating it a bit, but change happens gradually, not all at once). IMO that's a very good thing and I applaud them for doing so.

Nobody is saying to change your attitudes or opinions on things. You are just as free to be of the same mind as you were yesterday or a month ago. You just can't share that set of opinions on this particular private space any longer. There's a whole rest of the internet available to you to do so if you so wish. CP is mainly a hockey and general news site with some other things thrown in. It is not somewhere that should have a thread dedicated to mostly borderline NSFW pictures for no real reason other than oooh they're pretty.

I think it's already been determined that there was nothing wrong with the pictures so not sure why you are on and on about them? EG et. al have said it's the comments. So the thread should be put back up and the comments moderated.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by St. Pats

I think it's already been determined that there was nothing wrong with the pictures so not sure why you are on and on about them? EG et. al have said it's the comments. So the thread should be put back up and the comments moderated.

Why should the mods have to volunteer more of their time to police a thread that really adds nothing to the forum?