Boards›Discuss the Boards

Minimum size of group, to be allowed to criticize them?

Ph03n1xb1rd·1/31/2019, 11:44:01 AM·1 votes·3,328 views

Hello everyone!

So i just got banned from Boards on my other account for calling a group of people dicks, which is fine, yet previous examples show that criticizing a group of people is allowed. So my question is, how big the group have to be?

The "people are dicks" and "humans are idiots" phrases were defended by Board Heralds, as allowed phrases.

Well, these groups contain a lot of people. I criticized the Moderators, and i got banned for it, they are clearly a smaller group.

So how many people should a group contain to be allowed to criticize?

Can i say that the NA community is idiot, because they tend to report for useless things? Can i say that white males are idiot, because they tend to get angry at the game? Can i say that asian people ruin the ranked games, because they are too competitive? What if i add groups together, like the moderators + 5billion other people are dicks?

Or is the moderating simply biased? You can criticize the whole humanity, you can criticize flamers, but you are not allowed to criticize moderators?

Thanks for your help and the clarifications! Have a nice day everyone!

16 Comments

ModThe Djinn1/31/2019, 1:33:15 PM8 votes

Intent is super important.

"People are dicks" or "humans are idiots" are fine depending on how they're used:

"God, why do so many people try to flame me in-game? People are dicks, I guess."

vs.

"Man, is that really your opinion? People are dicks, I guess."

The former is acceptable -- you're basically saying that some vaguely defined group tends to act in an inappropriate manner because people are dicks. It's largely non-specific, doesn't directly impugn anyone, and has a very heavily implied "some" in it. The focus is on the fact that non-specific people often act like jerks. The latter is not acceptable: although it's the same sentence, the clear meaning there is "YOU'RE a dick, specifically because of your opinion."

It's worth noting that the default is that most insults are removable. We simply give leeway to those that are suitably non-specific and generally non-insulting. "People can be idiots" is a very different statement from "men / women / racial identity / categorizing trait are idiots."

EvilDustMan1/31/2019, 2:57:53 PM8 votes

I'm going to spit in the moderators face.

Hey, why are the moderators targeting me.

DuskDaUmbreon1/31/2019, 12:50:57 PM7 votes

Is it a sweeping generalization of a group of people that is not the grand sum of humanity, that can be proven false?

Then, generally speaking, no.

"Moderators are dicks" also isn't criticism. It's just being a dick to mods. Criticism is "hey, I think <x> rule is punished too harshly" or "you guys are inconsistent at times". That gives a clear thing that you think is wrong, and has a solution (stated or otherwise) to that problem. "You guys are dicks", while able to be interpreted as a valid criticism (i.e. "You guys are too blunt or rude"), that is rarely ever the case.

Asamas1/31/2019, 11:52:35 AM2 votes

Can i say that white males are idiot, because they tend to get angry at the game? Can i say that asian people ruin the ranked games, because they are too competitive? You can't say that bcs it apparently is racist. But ye criticizing moderators is like the no-no thing here. Some of them tend to be self righteous. So it's not about the size of groups. It's like saying something bad about Stalin back in the Soivet Union. You are going to jail (best case). Here you say bad things about the mods (which I call boards overlord for obvious reason) and you get banned. Simple as that... Now I am going to jail too but that will just prove my point...

Still some mods are nice. Like really nice.

Modi2/1/2019, 4:55:11 AM1 votes

Check: does the generalization apply to everyone? Then it is ok. Does the generalization apply to a specific subset of people? Then no, it is not ok.