Posts by Jessica Kelly4

Michelle Evans said:A few technical clarifications:
- A 50-day ban isn't even an option in our system. It just doesn't exist.
- Being locked out of the FBI means you have a partial ban on this entire PDF (POTUS), which isn't what happened here. We handle decisions for this specific board as moderators, not the Politics mods. A sanction on a different board, regardless of its length, won't block your access here. Plus, we wouldn't issue a 50-day ban. Like all partial bans, it would be permanent, maybe eligible for review after six months, and if that were the case, you wouldn't be able to post here at all.

Either it was a server glitch, or you misread the situation...

To my fellow "paratroopers" whose posts vanished—if there are no links, the posts are gone. Next time, you'll get a warning. Please, start actually reading the rules for the board you're posting on.

A server glitch? How convenient. 🤣
Two weeks after getting banned, I tried posting and kept getting rejected. At least ten times. Eventually, I gave up.
Don't insult my intelligence. Besides, I don't even care; call it a server error if it makes you feel better.

But think about it—why do moderators hand out 100 points for simple sarcasm while they write openly offensive posts and start threads with insulting titles?
It's hypocritical, to put it mildly.
In the 12 or 13 years I've been on this forum, I've never seen a worse group of political moderators.

William Bennett53, I’m tagging you because I feel like you were actually serious a few months back when you started that thread about balancing political moderation.

I got slapped with a 50-day ban (!!) with zero right to appeal—they even locked me out of the Corner for banned users—just for a bit of sarcasm regarding Joe Biden (based on how he handled a certain previous tragedy):
Link:

By the way, I noticed a lot of people who were criticizing Joe Biden during the heat of the election campaign suddenly went quiet or were "subtly" pushed away from discussions, but that’s not even my main point.

While I was being sidelined, there was an entire thread started by a moderator that used pretty blatant sarcasm right in the title (#bridgeconstruction).

Or look at one of your fellow mods calling a public figure literal filth in a massive hate speech post (people already discussed it over on the POTUS board, so I won't hunt for the link).
Usually, moderators hand out heavy penalties for using that kind of language.

So what’s the deal here? Hypocrisy? Double standards?

Were you just playing it safe when you said you wanted balanced political moderation, or do you and Nica simply have no control over your own staff?

It might be helpful to post some clear guidelines on which topics are allowed and which aren't. It would save people from wasting their time.

I’m not going to argue about your right to censor threads; I just said what I thought.
But you could at least maintain a basic level of decency. When you hand out a ban or lock a thread, write a couple of respectful sentences explaining why. This arrogant little haiku of yours is just an insult to both the author and everyone else involved.

Noah Harris33 said:A supermoderator? Is "ignoring" arguments regarding censorship and the abuse of power being a mod actually acceptable on this forum?

Sure is. I’ve tried starting two different threads about it, but it’s useless.
The current moderation team just isn't up to the task. They lack the ability to moderate discussions objectively or with any sense of perspective—even on mainstream topics, let alone anything outside the norm.
Stop taking things seriously and just wait for a change in leadership.
The staff rotates every few years, but this group is easily the worst I've seen since I joined. You just have to sleep through it.

PDF. Alternative.

That one sentence effectively shuts down any debate about whether the Republican Party and the Democratic Party are actually two sides of the same coin.

What’s the deal here?
Did they move the thread somewhere else?
Or was it just shut down because of Charles Fox10's political bias?
What kind of kid thinks "PDF alternative" makes sense? It’s a pathetic excuse. Why insult the OP and everyone else trying to have a conversation like this?

northerntiger said:@Jessica Kelly4
Look, at the end of the day, you just need a platform where you can actually tell your side of the story. It doesn't even matter what we're talking about. You’re always going to stick to your guns—saying the West is losing its way, that it's becoming morally decayed, and that traditional family values are under fire because of all this liberalism, the abortion debate, and everything else. 🤣

We really need better organization on the streets. Even Facebook isn't cutting it anymore. There's plenty of love out there, but we aren't using it the right way. 😢

It's about debating, not just talking.
This medium is built for debate; that's how it works.
If there's no debate, the whole platform is pointless.

Bradley Sanders4 said:For me, it’s all about the rhetoric. Calling women who have abortions "murderers"—even if you try to sugarcoat it—doesn't exactly help create an environment where anyone can actually have a reasoned discussion about the topic. Especially since even the medical experts aren't exactly in total agreement on when life actually begins.

Just a little personal take here. The pro-life and pro-choice movements aren't equally distant from some imaginary middle ground. One side is clearly more radical than the other, so moderation naturally seems to lean toward the pro-choice crowd. It would be a completely different story if the pro-choice side was making demands for forced abortions or sterilizations.

But I’m looking at this through a political lens.

If I stormed into a parenting forum and started using that kind of language, they’d be totally justified in shutting me down because the context would be completely different.

The whole goal of pro-life political action is specifically to criminalize abortion by defining it as the killing of a human being, which means pushing to change current laws. Sure, the experts don't all agree, but if I drop a link to a major embryology textbook or a quote stating that a zygote is the start of a human life—and provide several links showing that a significant part of the scientific community agrees—then I believe my argument is rationally grounded. An admin shouldn't just use their discretion to ban my claims.

And for the record, the pro-life movement isn't some fringe group. It's a global movement with influence in major institutions and universities worldwide. Their discourse and demands are public and well-documented.

northerntiger said:@Jessica Kelly4
I mean, since you’re basically fine with any topic thrown your way, it really just shows that your main goal is preaching your religious beliefs.

PS It looks like the street lamps have stopped being released. In NYC, you haven't been able to pick up a new code from vendors for months now.

I honestly don't see the logic in that claim. 🤣

northerntiger said:@Jessica Kelly4
I mean, since you’re basically fine with any topic thrown your way, it really just shows that your main goal is preaching your religious beliefs.

PS It looks like the street lamps have stopped being released. In NYC, you haven't been able to pick up a new code from vendors for months now.

They had sales issues with the last issue, and they won't print a new one until the old stock sells (old funds the new). Plus, Pucić—the driving force behind the whole thing—got converted, finally decided to join the Franciscans, and left, so everything stalled out. It should pick up eventually, though; it'd be a shame if such a good project died out.

northerntiger said:Look, mods aren't trying to start endless, pointless fights; they just want a decent conversation. You can't have a real discussion if one side is busy calling the other a murderer just because they support legal medical procedures here in the States.

What you're constantly hunting for is basically like someone starting a thread on a political sub supposed to be about policy, but instead, they just go off on how all Catholics are killers because the Church is against condoms, and therefore people die from AIDS. They'll find plenty of links, studies, and articles to back it up—because let's face it, you can find a "study" to support almost anything. Then, once the mods shut the thread down or give them a warning, they come crawling back here whining about how democracy is dead.

It's pretty simple: we either have total anarchy with zero moderation, or we follow the forum's rules. Personally, I think the admins have way more patience for this group of slackers than they should, for real.

That’s a perfectly fine topic for a discussion.
I don't run from topics, debates, or having my arguments challenged.

northerntiger said:Some people don't actually want a discussion; they just show up to preach at everyone else using all sorts of shady, unscientific stuff (basically just religious claims). So, I think the moderator made the right call here. It was the only way to go. Honestly, though, I’m a bit confused why this thread is even still live, considering we basically just moved a banned debate from the original PDF over here.

I get why a site like Reddit would block sketchy links and bad arguments.
But that’s a whole different animal than the censorship you or slywolf45 are pushing for.

There are already two separate threads going regarding the abortion debate, so let’s stick strictly to discussing moderator performance here.

The goal of this discussion is to push the moderators to loosen up on the abortion debate topics and stop stifling actual conversation.

slywolf45 said:You can rant all you want, but the law is perfectly clear.

Do I have the right to lobby for a change in the law?
Do I have the right to argue about it here on this forum?
Do I have the right to defend my points using logic acceptable in mainstream political debates?

Those are the fundamental questions.
What the law currently states is obvious; there's nothing left to debate there.

slywolf45 said:I honestly don't even know how to respond to that, because the law is crystal clear: IT IS NOT MURDER. If the law doesn't recognize it as such, I fail to see how we can just relabel it as murder on a whim.

Look, if I were to take a firearm and shoot someone in the head with fatal results, 😳 I wouldn't go around calling it anything other than murder, regardless of what some legal loophole might suggest.

I've tried explaining it to the moderators every which way possible, but I'm stuck. The legal definition of killing is much narrower than the general one. In a legal framework, killing is a violation of the law; in a general sense, it's just taking the life of another living being.

The law states abortion is permitted up to a certain week, nothing more and nothing less.
So, I can't argue that it isn't legally allowed when it actually is.
Even if I tried, people on this forum would shut me down instantly without needing a moderator to step in.

But I can advocate for changing our laws and social norms. To do that, I need freedom of speech and expression. I need the right to say abortion should be banned because it's the act of killing a human being (followed by links, moral arguments, etc.). I can't just claim abortion should be banned because cutting fingernails is unpleasant.

Ultimately, I don't think the "you might offend someone" argument holds any water. I didn't wander into a parenting forum where the context is totally different; I came to a politics forum where you know exactly what kind of debate to expect. If someone is nursing fresh emotional wounds from an abortion, they probably won't be jumping into a politics abortion debate anyway.

slywolf45 said:I honestly don't even know how to respond to that, because the law is crystal clear: IT IS NOT MURDER. If the law doesn't recognize it as such, I fail to see how we can just relabel it as murder on a whim.

Look, if I were to take a firearm and shoot someone in the head with fatal results, 😳 I wouldn't go around calling it anything other than murder, regardless of what some legal loophole might suggest.

Bring some consistent logic to the table and we might actually have an interesting discussion.
That's the whole point of this platform, isn't it? 🤷

slywolf45 said:Come on, let’s not deal with these half-baked arguments. If you’re going to be that extreme, it would actually be more honest to just advocate for the right to openly call abortion murder and label the women and doctors involved as murderers. At least then we'd be playing with a full deck.

What you just wrote is frankly insulting to anyone's intelligence. It’s basic logic: if you define an act as murder, then by definition, anyone performing that act is a murderer. It's not some deep mystery; it's just how language works.

But let's be clear: he didn't explicitly call women who have abortions murderers; he simply stated that abortion is murder.

🙄 🙄 🙄

So you're saying that kind of rhetoric is acceptable in the politics abortion debate?
Is the pro-life side allowed to argue that a fetus is a living being and that abortion is effectively killing that being?
Because that’s the core argument used to lobby for changing social and legal norms.

boldwalker12 said:So, what, you think I’m actually gonna sit here and slander you just because you decided to start dragging my name through the mud? Please. That sounds like way too much effort, and honestly, I've got better things to do with my time.

Am I being shady?

Alright, here it is, plain and simple:

This is just moving over from the Politics thread.
So, the local legend himself is kicking off this whole discussion. Let's get this party started.

Look, let's just get this straight once and for all: someone who kills a person is a murderer. It’s not exactly rocket science, and there isn't much room for debate here. So, I’m saying it for the hundredth and final time—anyone who insists on constantly pushing the narrative that abortion is the same thing as murder is basically just slapping a "murderer" label on doctors and women. Period.

So, is that clear enough for everyone now?

You need to realize that’s exactly what the pro-life movement fights for.
How am I supposed to state my view—that abortion is the killing of a living being and advocate for changing social and legal norms so these acts are sanctioned (to actually make them both normative and legally considered murder)—if the moderators won't let me speak or they just shut down my expression? I’m not looking to discuss abortion purely as a philosophy; I want to talk about it through the lens of politics, because the pro-life movement is inherently political.

The idea that certain topics are off-limits on a site like this goes against everything this platform stands for. Now, if I were just spouting nonsense for people to debunk, only to come back and troll them by playing dumb, that would be one thing. But that’s not what’s happening here.

boldwalker12 said:Context is everything here. When a pro-life advocate uses the word "murder," they aren't just making a casual observation; the context is worlds apart from someone saying, "Yeah, I killed a spider." For those advocates, using that specific word carries this massive, heavy stigma aimed directly at women seeking abortions. It’s meant to condemn them. It’s meant to label them murderers. And it targets doctors, too. We really shouldn't pretend that this isn't on a completely different level than "killing" a bug.

That context is perfectly valid. In almost every country in the West, this kind of activism is standard, using the exact same rhetoric and signing petitions against fetal termination. If it's allowed in the public square, why not here? Honestly, it would be more natural if it were the other way around—if this forum actually encouraged debating different ideas and claims, no matter how twisted they might seem.

boldwalker12 said:Look, sure, they dehumanized them, but let’s get one thing straight: they dehumanized actual people. Not some minor flaws, not a strand of hair, and definitely not someone's fingernails. They dehumanized the entire human being. There is a massive distinction there. These were independent individuals—not some parasitic growths attached to someone else's body, sucking out nutrients while lacking the capacity to think or feel.
That whole line of reasoning is just completely invalid.
But honestly, this isn't the place to get into that specific debate.

That’s just your opinion.
You shouldn't be limiting discussions or labeling and banning people just because of their viewpoint.
What looks like a "fingernail" to you is a living human being to an embryologist.
If the other side provides legitimate links to back up their claims, you can't just use your own opinion as the ultimate authority.

How are we supposed to have a real debate on the politics abortion debate if you set the ground rules so that a fetus equals a fingernail and ending a life isn't considered killing? And you're treating that as the official stance?
That isn't moderation.

boldwalker12 said:Honestly, I was naively hoping you'd actually read your own posts with a bit of comprehension. By using phrases like "we don't call anyone murderers," you basically lumped yourself in with that side, actively defending their position while pretending to know exactly what they think—even going so far as to claim "we" represent them. I see zero reason to address every single person individually when someone makes such an unambiguous move to group themselves under a "we" or "you" while doing the exact thing they claim not to do.

Also, you clearly didn't even bother reading the very first post in this thread. It seems to me you haven't read a damn thing, because the whole point of this dispute is that abortion is no longer allowed to be called murder in the Politics section.
I'm done talking about this; I'm exhausted from spinning in circles with you guys.
So, let's boil it down to three things:

- You're pushing for abortion to be called murder or some other euphemism for it.
- You're insisting that if abortion is murder, you haven't actually called anyone a murderer.
- You're drowning out those first two points with noise about everything else, muddying the waters so it stays unclear that you're essentially trying to brand people as murderers.

Go ahead, spin another circle trying to argue that I'm wrong about this or whatever, but I'm officially opting out of this merry-go-round.

I’m not asking how it should be "labeled." I'm saying that if someone argues a fetus is a living human being, they can logically conclude that abortion is the act of killing it. Killing is a verb that describes the intentional, violent termination of another living thing. To go back to my point: if you step on a spider, you’d say you killed it, and it wouldn't sound weird. Saying you're a "murderer" for stepping on a spider... sure, you could, but people don't usually talk like that.

At the end of the day, pro-life politics is all about pushing to change social and legal norms to criminalize abortion.

By the way, no moderator here has told me what the one "correct" word is for the intentional, violent ending of another life.

Look, I’m not trying to settle any scores with the mods here.
I don't know much about William Bennett53 anyway; I haven't seen him around the political threads all that often.
Bubimir is actually a decent user who knows how to hold his own in a debate.

This whole mess is just because of this specific topic and my attempt to show the moderators they need to focus more on consistency and actual arguments rather than reacting based on their own biases. Let's be real: this forum is a place for discussion, not some stuffy academic institution.

William Bennett53 said:I decided to go back and verify the numbers... I am using my tablet, so my math might not be absolutely flawless, but it is certainly close enough. In the PDF covering the last six months, the phrase "politics pojam katoliban postan 28 put" appears 28 times. If you subtract the instances where users are merely quoting someone else to react to what was said (rather than actually using the term themselves), or the posts where members are explicitly calling for the term to be banned, you are left with about 13 or 14 actual entries. Of course, I may have missed a variation in grammar or a typo, but let us be realistic: we are looking at a PDF containing tens of thousands of posts from that period. Therefore, the notion that "catholibanism" is a standard or acceptable label is simply not supported by the data.
In the other PDF I moderate, the Religion board, that specific expression has been strictly prohibited, and if memory serves, there hasn't been an unmoderated instance of it in a year and a half.

So, let’s get back to the facts.

You only searched for "catholiban," you need to search for all variations of that word.
Since we're talking stats, on the abortion thread, the word "killing" shows up in 25 posts out of over 1,500. And that's supposed to be destroying the debate? Using "catholiban" is direct labeling meant to insult, whereas claiming a fetus is being killed is just a rational viewpoint.

William Bennett53 said:I decided to go back and verify the numbers... I am using my tablet, so my math might not be absolutely flawless, but it is certainly close enough. In the PDF covering the last six months, the phrase "politics pojam katoliban postan 28 put" appears 28 times. If you subtract the instances where users are merely quoting someone else to react to what was said (rather than actually using the term themselves), or the posts where members are explicitly calling for the term to be banned, you are left with about 13 or 14 actual entries. Of course, I may have missed a variation in grammar or a typo, but let us be realistic: we are looking at a PDF containing tens of thousands of posts from that period. Therefore, the notion that "catholibanism" is a standard or acceptable label is simply not supported by the data.
In the other PDF I moderate, the Religion board, that specific expression has been strictly prohibited, and if memory serves, there hasn't been an unmoderated instance of it in a year and a half.

So, let’s get back to the facts.

Fine, let's drop the other terms.