Anonymous wrote:OK, find the antisemitism in this statement (which has been posted and deleted twice):

“ Antisemitism itself is vile and unacceptable, but the Jewish community is either incapable or unwilling to link the rise of attacks to the actions of the Israeli government in Gaza. None of this is happening in a vacuum.”

Because I am the one who has deleted it twice, let me explain. I fault you for directing your criticism at "the Jewish community". Your point that the Israeli government's actions in Gaza are provoking attacks on the Jewish community is valid and one with which I agree (though I stress that is not a justification for such attacks, rather it is just stating reality). However, there is no evidence that a failure to recognize this fact is limited to the Jewish community or that the Jewish community as a whole has failed to recognize the connection. To the contrary, your criticism applies to a great many non-Jews. Moreover, many members of the Jewish community have been among the most vocal supporters of the Palestinians and they clearly recognize that violence begets violence. The Jewish community should not be singled out in the way that you did.

Second, when your post is deleted once, that should be an indication to you that it is not acceptable. When it is deleted a second time, it should be abundantly clear that your post is unwanted. By the third time you have posted it, you have crossed the line into trolling. As such, you have earned a short break from DCUM. Please use your time away from our community wisely.

Please join the existing Wootton boundary thread.

This debate has been going on for years. I detect trolls and sock puppets all the time. But I've never seen any evidence that foreign trolls or bots are an issue. Despite that, one or more posters is completely convinced that every third post or so is from a Russian troll or Chinese bot or whatever. Frankly, I'm at the end of my patience with that poster and if others would report the posts, I would remove them.

Just like "troll-calling", the constant "bot-calling" is more of a problem than actual trolls and bots.

There was a thread about it last night. About half the posters wanted to use the attack to discredit anyone who opposes Israel's genocide in Gaza and about half attempted to justify the attack because of Israel's genocide in Gaza. I disagreed with both sides and got tired of trying to moderate the thread. I don't wish to revisit the experience today.

Just a reminder that you should not use the kids' names or other identifying information. Their parents get upset and send me angry emails.

Also, for the poster who has been sock puppeting over the last couple of days, you are not as clever as you think you are. I can tell that you are sock puppeting and have removed your posts. Please don't continue to make yourself look foolish.

It does look like that thread was deleted but I don't have any recollection of doing so and, therefore, don't know why it was deleted. I may have done it by accident. Feel free to start a new one.

I don't recall why I removed it.

I'm not going to be able to babysit this thread all night and if I am not 100% accurate in my moderation someone is going to accuse me of something. So I am going to lock it.

Anonymous wrote:So can it be argued that the recent speeches at colleges have been a form of stochastic terrorism?

You can argue it but it would be a stupid argument. What do you think is more likely to cause people to turn to violence:

1) An address at a college commencement calling for an end to genocide; or

2) The actual genocide?

In fact, it could be argued that by outlawing or otherwise making peaceful protest impossible, the current climate is making violent protest more likely.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It will not end until Palestine is Free. Zionists will have to live in fear forever.

Jeff. How can you delete random right-wing comments but allow actual threats of violence to stand?

Please look to the lower right-hand corner of each message where you will see a link saying "report". Contrary to popular belief, that was not put there simply to take up space. In fact, if you click on it, you can let me know about messages that you believe are inappropriate.

In response to your question, I can quite easily leave posts that I don't see. In fact, that is what happens by default because I need to see a message in order to remove it. Had you reported that post instead of replying to it, I would have removed it. Now, because you quoted it, I guess we are stuck with it.

I would consider it but I doubt that I would actually ever get around to doing it. I don't have a lot of time for development these days.

Okay, I've create the forum and populated it with some existing threads.