Offensive Jokes Debate

brother of destruction wrote:Pretty sure it's fine. Just so long as anything that could be dodgy for work/school/college is flagged in the subject header think it would be fine.

Then why was my Batman joke deleted?

I been working late today, so I didn't get to see the joke myself, but whilst we sort out how it's going to work best, let's say for now

1. Clean mildly crude = fine

2. Crude, mildly offensive = warning in subject

3. Highly offensive - Overly racist/homophobic/etc = better not.

We're discussing a way of maybe having more offensive stuff in there but I want to check with the guys what they think.

Garibaldi wrote:I been working late today, so I didn't get to see the joke myself, but whilst we sort out how it's going to work best, let's say for now

1. Clean mildly crude = fine

2. Crude, mildly offensive = warning in subject

3. Highly offensive - Overly racist/homophobic/etc = better not.

We're discussing a way of maybe having more offensive stuff in there but I want to check with the guys what they think.

I honestly think the jokes should be exempt.......kind of the point of them, to be overtly controversial....kind of my take on it. If a joke doesn't make me say "HOW FUCKING AWFUL" or make me laugh then it's failed hasn't it?

The Stig wrote:

brother of destruction wrote:Pretty sure it's fine. Just so long as anything that could be dodgy for work/school/college is flagged in the subject header think it would be fine.

Then why was my Batman joke deleted?

I did that because the thread had posts in it that indicated some members may not have found it acceptable. We're working on the rules for that forum at the minute so best just to abide by the guidelines Gari set out above for now.

Sweatsock wrote:

The Stig wrote:

brother of destruction wrote:Pretty sure it's fine. Just so long as anything that could be dodgy for work/school/college is flagged in the subject header think it would be fine.

Then why was my Batman joke deleted?

I did that because the thread had posts in it that indicated some members may not have found it acceptable. We're working on the rules for that forum at the minute so best just to abide by the guidelines Gari set out above for now.

Only Big Dave was offended. There were several others who posted in the thread who enjoyed the joke. Could you not have just put a '*may offend*' tag on it?

The Stig wrote:

Sweatsock wrote:

The Stig wrote:

brother of destruction wrote:Pretty sure it's fine. Just so long as anything that could be dodgy for work/school/college is flagged in the subject header think it would be fine.

Then why was my Batman joke deleted?

I did that because the thread had posts in it that indicated some members may not have found it acceptable. We're working on the rules for that forum at the minute so best just to abide by the guidelines Gari set out above for now.

Only Big Dave was offended. There were several others who posted in the thread who enjoyed the joke. Could you not have just put a '*may offend*' tag on it?

No. It was an openly racist joke so until it's been decided whether that will be allowed in the joke forum it was best to remove it for the time being.

So will you personally post the joke again if it has been decided its ok?

IOV wrote:So will you personally post the joke again if it has been decided its ok?

No, because although I personally don't find it offensive I also don't find it funny. Although if we do decide it's ok then the Stig is free to re-post it.

Try this Stigo

Clicky

Sweatsock wrote:

The Stig wrote:

Sweatsock wrote:

The Stig wrote:

brother of destruction wrote:Pretty sure it's fine. Just so long as anything that could be dodgy for work/school/college is flagged in the subject header think it would be fine.

Then why was my Batman joke deleted?

I did that because the thread had posts in it that indicated some members may not have found it acceptable. We're working on the rules for that forum at the minute so best just to abide by the guidelines Gari set out above for now.

Only Big Dave was offended. There were several others who posted in the thread who enjoyed the joke. Could you not have just put a '*may offend*' tag on it?

No. It was an openly racist joke so until it's been decided whether that will be allowed in the joke forum it was best to remove it for the time being.

I'd like to know what Garibaldi's viewpoint is on this, as one mod says yes and the other says no.

I do have one question however, and that is: would you have found the joke offensive if a black person had posted it?

The Stig wrote:

Sweatsock wrote:

The Stig wrote:

Sweatsock wrote:

The Stig wrote:

brother of destruction wrote:Pretty sure it's fine. Just so long as anything that could be dodgy for work/school/college is flagged in the subject header think it would be fine.

Then why was my Batman joke deleted?

I did that because the thread had posts in it that indicated some members may not have found it acceptable. We're working on the rules for that forum at the minute so best just to abide by the guidelines Gari set out above for now.

Only Big Dave was offended. There were several others who posted in the thread who enjoyed the joke. Could you not have just put a '*may offend*' tag on it?

No. It was an openly racist joke so until it's been decided whether that will be allowed in the joke forum it was best to remove it for the time being.

I'd like to know what Garibaldi's viewpoint is on this, as one mod says yes and the other says no.

I do have one question however, and that is: would you have found the joke offensive if a black person had posted it?

Does it matter?

Big Dave wrote:

The Stig wrote:

Sweatsock wrote:

The Stig wrote:

Sweatsock wrote:

The Stig wrote:

brother of destruction wrote:Pretty sure it's fine. Just so long as anything that could be dodgy for work/school/college is flagged in the subject header think it would be fine.

Then why was my Batman joke deleted?

I did that because the thread had posts in it that indicated some members may not have found it acceptable. We're working on the rules for that forum at the minute so best just to abide by the guidelines Gari set out above for now.

Only Big Dave was offended. There were several others who posted in the thread who enjoyed the joke. Could you not have just put a '*may offend*' tag on it?

No. It was an openly racist joke so until it's been decided whether that will be allowed in the joke forum it was best to remove it for the time being.

I'd like to know what Garibaldi's viewpoint is on this, as one mod says yes and the other says no.

I do have one question however, and that is: would you have found the joke offensive if a black person had posted it?

Does it matter?

Yes.

I don't see how it's openly racist. It's a joke based on an untrue stereotype.

The Stig wrote:

Big Dave wrote:

The Stig wrote:

Sweatsock wrote:

The Stig wrote:

Sweatsock wrote:

The Stig wrote:

brother of destruction wrote:Pretty sure it's fine. Just so long as anything that could be dodgy for work/school/college is flagged in the subject header think it would be fine.

Then why was my Batman joke deleted?

I did that because the thread had posts in it that indicated some members may not have found it acceptable. We're working on the rules for that forum at the minute so best just to abide by the guidelines Gari set out above for now.

Only Big Dave was offended. There were several others who posted in the thread who enjoyed the joke. Could you not have just put a '*may offend*' tag on it?

No. It was an openly racist joke so until it's been decided whether that will be allowed in the joke forum it was best to remove it for the time being.

I'd like to know what Garibaldi's viewpoint is on this, as one mod says yes and the other says no.

I do have one question however, and that is: would you have found the joke offensive if a black person had posted it?

Does it matter?

Yes.

No I wouldn't have found it offensive if it had been posted by a black person. That's because, as I've already stated, I don't find the joke offensive. One of the most prominent posters on our old board was black though and I highly doubt you would have escaped without a warning had you posted it over there. Of course there is also the fact that you could actually be a black person.

Garibaldi has already posted his view i.e. we're discussing it to see where we go from here because this is a new board and we're till trying to get it settled into how we want it to run.

I think it's pretty sad that there's even a debate as to whether racist jokes should be allowed or not.

I don't see how making jokes about black people is any different to say, making jokes about Irish people, or making jokes about women. Why should one be allowed but not the other?

Carry on in here guys.

Mr Torrie Wilson wrote:I think it's pretty sad that there's even a debate as to whether racist jokes should be allowed or not.

I think its pretty sad that this joke is considered racist

I think that most of us here are adults and we should all be able to take jokes. Political correctness should not run this forum.

You're all a bunch of poofy chinkies. Or some other such racist/homophobic remark that you feel more befitting.


Also this smiley looks like a shifty Hitler =

Coincidence? I think not...

Christ some people are pretty whiney and sensitive.

That joke was the only one that actually made me laugh in the whole forum so far and is so far from racist. No point being a fanny over a joke, if that goes the whole section could go really tbf. Or is a joke against race worse than one about self harm, rape or death? Didnt we have jokes about Owen Hart dying on the old board?

RVDSucka was the most blatantly racially biased forummer on the last board

Okay, I've thought over the counter-arguments:

It's about an untrue stereotype about black men, which is the furthest thing from racism. Like, the exact opposite.
We can use other offensive jokes from the 1970s, why can't we slag off the blacks? Huh? HUH??
Political correctness kills.
Whiney and Sensitive. What are you, a poof?

Irrefutable. Now that us fun-stealing whiners have been put in our places, lets just clear some things up. Obviously - OBVIOUSLY - the racist joke was not racist after all. That's been proven, lets put that aside. That still leaves the issue of whether racist jokes are allowed? And as that racist joke was definitely not a racist joke, I put it to Smash: What is a racist joke? One that has paki or nigger in it perhaps? This would be handy, because if we just replace those words with black men (or women, I'm not sexist - unless that's okay) then we eliminate the racism. Good. Thoughts?

MTW wrote:We can use other offensive jokes from the 1970s, why can't we slag off the blacks? Huh? HUH??

I was asking why one is allowed but the other isn't. I'm not looking to be able to post racist jokes, I'm trying to understand why racist jokes are any more acceptable than say, a sexist joke.

Also, I don't think summarising arguments with your own sarcasm and rhetoric is a particulary good counter argument.

What is a racist joke?

Surely racism has some form of hate behind it. I don't see how an obviously light-hearted joke (which was more about a play on words) by a poster that has never shown any signs of hate towards black people could be considered racist.

Ok, to give a heads up, this is where our discussions - from a forum perspective as opposed to personal view - are at the moment. Remember, I haven't read the joke myself, so don't ask me to comment on it.

The primary concern is offence. That does not mean us here now finding it offensive, it means the possibility of causing offence. And this is being considered for the joke zone as a whole, not just this one. That one just highlighted the need to look at things.

Firstly, we all keep saying we want to attract new members to help keep things buzzing around here. One concern is that offensive jokes risk destroying any effort we make by driving people away again.

Secondly, we run the risk in the event of someone being offended of them complaining and getting us closed down or bollocked by forumotion for breach of rules. I don't want to risk that for the sake of a few jokes.

Thirdly, it leaves us on shaky ground should we need to sanction, report or ban someone for overly racist/sexist/homophobic/etc behaviour.

I'd like to think that everyone here is mature enough to understand the concerns from this angle.

One thing we have discussed is having the main section being a "safe for work" joke section - basically the safe stuff, stretching to mildly OTT - and creating a subfolder for the NSFW material. That folder would be like the Private Lounge - only visible to members of a specific group, and to join the group you simply PM the Mod Squad confirming that you accept that the section will include more offensive material and are joining "at your own risk", as it were, thus protecting the forum as you all choose to run the risk. Then the rules would be the same in there as the asylum - excepting aggressively offensive material (such as the N word, venomous gay-bashing, hardcore porn and such like), anything goes.

So now we've reached the point where I throw the question back to the masses for feedback - what's everyone's view on that? Workable?

I think that's a great idea.

*Raises hand*

Can we say arse-bandit?

Garibaldi wrote:One thing we have discussed is having the main section being a "safe for work" joke section - basically the safe stuff, stretching to mildly OTT - and creating a subfolder for the NSFW material. That folder would be like the Private Lounge - only visible to members of a specific group, and to join the group you simply PM the Mod Squad confirming that you accept that the section will include more offensive material and are joining "at your own risk", as it were, thus protecting the forum as you all choose to run the risk. Then the rules would be the same in there as the asylum - excepting aggressively offensive material (such as the N word, venomous gay-bashing, hardcore porn and such like), anything goes.

So now we've reached the point where I throw the question back to the masses for feedback - what's everyone's view on that? Workable?

I think this is a brilliant idea, and I fully support it. (No sarcasm)


Just for Garibaldi to have an informed opinion of any future discussion of the matter, here's the joke:

Spoiler:

P.S. the "hide" function is a bit crap.

You know racism aside that joke is actually funnier if the black man is a scouser... and with the number of Liverpool players who've had their houses burgled in the past few years it's not an untrue stereotype

JK wrote:You know racism aside that joke is actually funnier if the black man is a scouser... and with the number of Liverpool players who've had their houses burgled in the past few years it's not an untrue stereotype

But there's no superhero with a name that sounds similar to 'scouser', let alone one with a sidekick named "Robin".

I know this is a bit after the fact, but Stig, how would we know that you were or were not black?