NationStates Jolt Archive


Repeated Flame-Baiting even after being asked to stop

The Atlantian islands
02-04-2009, 23:06
*MODS ONLY*

Gift-of-god has repeatedly been flame-baiting, even when asked to stop. Gift-of-god clearly knows he is flame-baiting, because when I ask him to stop, he doesn't. . . That is until I say this is the last time I will warn you, he conviently stops, knowing what he is doing is provoking/flame-baiting me, until he resumes again in a further post.

Another poster, Ledgersia, also kindly asks Gift-of-god to stop using the word, though Gift-of-god disregards his request. There is no argument to be made out of using the word, and indeed gift-of-god isn't even trying to argue the term, he is just using it to flame-bait while debating an entirely unrelated subject, so there is clearly no added debate bonus for him to be using the term USian, except, like I said, to flame-bait.

It's not like this is a thread on whether or not USian is an acceptable subsitute for American, this is just him trying to use it to flame-bait. There as it would be a debate about the legitimacy of the term, usage of such shouldn't be flame-baiting because it, like any subject, should be used for debate. Like if someone started a thread on if a correct term for Black people was negro (hypothetical), I'm sure the thread would be allowed. That does not mean, however, that you can just call people "negro" when you know many find it incorrect, offensive and it's not commonly accepted as a current term to use as an adjective for people, simply because you know it will provoke people. . .

/my opinion

What do you call members of the USian congress that aren't men?

Do you still call them congressmen?

Dude, please use the term estadounidense instead. "USian" just sounds so stupid.

That's a Spanish word. I'm currently writing in English.

I know, but USian just sounds completely stupid. I don't find it offensive so much as I find it retarded-sounding.

Or you can just call us Yankees, Yanks, or whatever. :p


Actually, I had asked you a specific question.



What do you call members of the USian congress that aren't men?

Do you still call them congressmen?

After calling his flame-bait, I continue debating.
That is flame-baiting.

There is no such thing as a USian congress. I'm not going to get mad and flame you, even though you are flame-baiting, but it just sounds stupid and makes you look juvenile and like you can't use english.

However, if you were asking when we call members of the U.S. Congress, it's usually, as examples, like this:

Senator Clinton

Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz

Still switching goal posts though from that she was using the incorrect adjective to describe someone from the United States of America. She used the term "USAmerican member of congress" which is not only incorrect, but only confuses the situation. She is clearly speaking about the United States Congress, so it is obvious that it is an American member of Congress. It would not be a Peruvian member of Congress, logically. Thus, no clarification is necessary.

But he just continues.

EDIT: By the way, there is a USian congress. I believe it has two chambers: the Senate and the House of Representatives.
So I clearly and kindly ask him to stop.
Continuing to flame bait . . . ? I already asked you to stop flame-baiting me. Would you mind stopping?

Yet he continues. . .

No, we can say that that is a correct term, and there are others that are also correct, unlike USAmerican, which is not a correct term we use in english to describe our congressmen's/senators'/representatives'/ nationalities.

The issue here is between correct and incorrect terms.

Switching goal posts is fine, I don't mine debating this, but that doesn't stop you from being wrong on the the other issue. :wink:

So, you call a male member of the USian congress 'congressman' but a female member of the USian congress is called by her specific title?

Why is that?

Now I move from asking to stop to warning. . .

So, you call a male member of the USian congress 'congressman' but a female member of the USian congress is called by her specific title?

Why is that?
This is the last time I will ask you to stop flame-baiting. . .

Which clearly shows he knows what he is doing is flame-baiting because once I warn him he stops and does not try to provoke me with 'USian' in his reply:

So, you're not going to answer my question?

I just thought that after you were so careful to point out the proper English for discussing 'congressmen' that you would be a bit more careful when speaking of their female colleagues, yet you aren't.

Perhaps you should refrain from commenting on the English of others if you can not defend your own usage.
Congressman is not an incorrect term:

Encyclopedia.com, sourced from The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English. 2009

con·gress·man / ˈkänggrəsmən; ˈkän-/
• n. (pl. -men) a member of the U.S. Congress (also used as a form of address), usually specifically a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

That doesn't mean there are not other correct words to use as well, which I have already stated but you have ignored, such as Senator and Representative.

Until his next reply, in which he continues flame baiting again. It is here that I have decided to report him, after asking him repeatedly (and so did another poster) not to use the word and even warning him to stop:

Are you saying that it is correct to address female members of the USian congress as congressmen? Isn't that a bit sexist?

http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=588596&page=6
Katganistan
03-04-2009, 00:42
The rest of you know better.

TAI, I find USian ridiculous, but it's not actionable. Given the snide remarks you made to Cabra about her posts and your frankly ridiculous and obnoxious demands for her to post in a way you approve of, I would drop it now.
JuNii
03-04-2009, 00:45
The rest of you know better.

TAI, I find USian ridiculous, but it's not actionable. Given the snide remarks you made to Cabra about her posts and your frankly ridiculous and obnoxious demands for her to post in a way you approve of, I would drop it now.

Apologies. I was hoping to remind people of the ruling that while the term itself is NOT actionable, Can still be reported it if it seems that it's being used in a 'baiting' matter (for the Mods to decide.)

Guess I could've worded it better. :(
Katganistan
03-04-2009, 00:50
Not going to be making with the official warnings or anything, but Mods Only is pretty clear. Some posts also were less helpful than others.
The Atlantian islands
03-04-2009, 03:04
The rest of you know better.

TAI, I find USian ridiculous, but it's not actionable. Given the snide remarks you made to Cabra about her posts and your frankly ridiculous and obnoxious demands for her to post in a way you approve of, I would drop it now.

I realize of course that USian as a term is not actionable, and I've never stated so. I simply meant could the way it was being used be considered flame-baiting? We can even substitute the term "USian" out with anything, because this thread isn't about the term. It's about repeatdely trying to use a term to cause offense, regardless of whatever that term may be.

But if not, it's fine. No big deal ;)

For the record, I didn't demand her to post in a way I approve of, but rather in a way that used acceptable english words, that are approved by the official english language . . . and not loaded terms. . .

Edit: I'll have whoever posted here know that I only just got back to the computer and did not see whatever was posted (and then deleted) in this thread. . .

Also, here is what mods have decided on in the past:

It has been stated by a number of posters that they dislike USian, do not consider themselves USian, and consider the continued usage to be annoying and knowingly insulting.
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=11185113&postcount=54
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=11185116&postcount=55
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=11185062&postcount=38
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=11184885&postcount=13


I think my opinion on this has been pretty consistently clear, especially since those using it have made it perfectly clear that they know it is upsetting to a number of posters, and know it is perceived as insulting. There are also those who never fail to take a shot while defending their position. Examples: http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=11179382&postcount=22
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=11185207&postcount=84
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=11184883&postcount=12


However, I would prefer others of the moderation team to weigh in on this one.

It's really simple folks, when the thread author is Moderation wants only Moderator opinions, and when you aren't a Moderator, don't post. It might have been vague with the thread title, but was made painfully clear in post 4. Continuing to post is spam. And furthermore, everyone who posted in here knows better. Behave already.

Now then, the phrase "USians" irritates me, mostly because it's fucking stupid, and completely ignores the method of nation name construction. It would be like calling people from France "Republicans". After all, they're the Republic of France. Hell, just look at how countries are made on nationstates: The Title of Name. "United States" is a title, not a name.

To say nothing of the horrible contortions your mouth would have to go through to pronounce "USian".

Nevertheless, this isn't about my personal opinion. This is actually a rather complicated matter of potential flamebaiting. In general, if somebody wants to show their idiocy by using "USian", that's fine by me. The Moderators aren't here to keep you from making a fool of yourself. The potential problem crops up when it's being used specifically to piss someone off. Then it could be viewed as flamebait.

Now, I don't know the mores of General when it comes to specifics like that, so I would leave that to Moderators who do. Personally, I would tend to ignore it. We don't bring down the hammer when one person uses, say, "commie" on another player, so I assume that the same standard applies here.

Of course, if people take this as carte blanche to be assholes with it, we can easily change this ad hoc rule.

The Most Glorious Hack
NationStates Game Moderator

Thank you both. After reviewing the precedent, it's pretty obvious that the sticky ruling was to prevent people spamming up the forums with threads on the word "USian".

It's also clear that, as with the case of any other word, posters who used to word to incense other posters were out of line.

I don't have sufficient information to justify warning The Mindset for his use of the term. But if it becomes clear that The Mindset or anyone else is using it to flamebait, I'll be happy to apply the appropriate punishment for it.
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=13053796&postcount=8
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So, basically, it seems that the term "USian" alone is not actionable, which is understandable and I have never claimed otherwise, but used with intent to flame-bait it could be actionable.

So now the case, in my opinion, comes down to whether or not the Mods think that Gift-of-god was using the term with intent to flame-bait.

In my opinion, as I clearly asked (nicely, actually) Gift-of-god to stop using to the term to bait me, and he continued using the term, even though it added nothing to the conversation, the only purpose it could possibly serve would be to flame-bait.
Kryozerkia
03-04-2009, 12:07
I concur with Kat, in that it is not actionable. It was an annoyance, yes, I do agree, and I'm sorry to say, but if we took action on every annoying action ever reported, there would be no one left.
JuNii
03-04-2009, 23:45
I concur with Kat, in that it is not actionable. It was an annoyance, yes, I do agree, and I'm sorry to say, but if we took action on every annoying action ever reported, there would be no one left.

Sorry. I know 'mods only'. but I would like to request a review of this.

GoG has repeated used the term USian in the reported thread yet in the past has used US and American when describing both Citzenry and Goverment. We know he read TAI's response and it does seem to my non-moddy eyes that he is 'flaunting' the term USian to TAI.

TAI does inform GoG that there is the term "US Congress" yet GoG persists in the use of 'USian' while seeming to ignore TAI's request.

While it was ruled that the word itself is non-actionable, it was also stated that using it to bait others is still wrong.

We're not going to stop people from using the term USian, that'd be as silly as the term itself, but we do take a dim view on flamebaiting. So I'd suggest everyone is free to use the term, just don't antagonise people with it.

I'm not American myself though, so if any of my colleagues want to weigh in on this, feel free.

I'll leave it up to you to determine if GoG was using the term to antagonize TAI on purpose or not.

sorry, but just my $.02.
Kryozerkia
03-04-2009, 23:55
Sorry. I know 'mods only'. but I would like to request a review of this.
...
I'll leave it up to you to determine if GoG was using the term to antagonize TAI on purpose or not.

A review you say? I gave my opinion, which is easily construed as a review, or is that insufficient for you? I had seen Kat's ruling and left it. TAI's reply prompted me to look over everything again. I stated with brevity that I agree with Kat. It doesn't appear to me that the term was used to antagonize.
Conserative Morality
04-04-2009, 01:09
I'd just like to throw in my 2 cents, but I believe GoG was using it to flamebait, seeing as TAI asked him to stop several times, maybe not in the kindest way, but to me, it did seem like GoG was deliberately trying to piss off TAI.
Kryozerkia
04-04-2009, 02:49
Kat ruled on the issue. End of story.