Moron of the day on Yahoo Answers
Joseph Dunphy
If you've wandered my sites, you might know that I stopped posting to
Yahoo! Answers after participating in that service for a little over a
month. (I was one of the people who took time to answer questions).
This was not just because of the presence of trolls on that forum, but
because I found myself left with the distinct impression that the
Yahoo Answers team was on the side of the trolls! I'll give you an
example of a recent post I saw when I wandered over there, out of idle
curiosity. (I saw one question mentioned elsewhere, checked it out and
then found this one).
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AiWdN4TODciOdKUu3xXoZuDd7BR.?qid=20070524085508AAZjkOV
"Question: Can Black "people" be kept as pets?
I wasn't sure whether or not the qualified as people but can they be
kept as pets? Feeding them once a week? I wouldn't want those things
living with me because they might steal my stuff. I'd make a nice hay
bed for them."
Is this idiot - Annette Clair, profile located at
http://answers.yahoo.com/my/profile;_ylt=Ao8iWoiiO2iJyIb.1vx7WTvd7BR.?show=fgCmSJ6yaa
entitled to her idiotic opinions? Perhaps, but she certainly is not
entitled to post them in the Religion and Spirituality section of what
is supposedly a polite forum
http://answers.yahoo.com/dir/;_ylt=AtJAx_Q3KPR3SxdUEY5uXtDd7BR.?sid=396545163
What I expect I will be left shaking my head over, as I remember the
popularity of the overreaction to Imus' remarks
http://groups.google.com/group/Joseph_Dunphy/browse_thread/thread/f00e3c4fea4578ca
will be the defensive response that I can probably count on seeing
made on behalf of this person. This is an unusually vile piece of
racism, in which the author denies that those of African descent are
human, masquerading as a question. I started to post that very last
sentence in a complaint to the Yahoo! Answers team, but then I
remembered just how seriously those community guidelines aren't taken
by that team
http://www.angelfire.com/indie/commonsense/site_history.html#answers
and thought "why bother". I can only hope that the other Yahoo
services will continue to be run with better judgement being shown by
their respective managements that has been seen in the running of that
particular one.
In the meanwhile, I present this to those reading as yet another
example of one of the great absurdities of our time - the way in which
that which is genuinely, sickly offensive is greeted tolerantly in the
name of "free speech", but that which is merely controversial or
unpopular is silenced in the name of sensitivity. This is, I suppose,
the inevitable result of adopting a system under which the seriousness
of a complaint is judged purely by counting the number of people
making it - as has been noted since Roman times, the worst elements of
a society tend to be those that will most quickly gather in large
numbers, and one can hardly ask for a worse element than those who,
apparently unlike the unfortunate Mr.Imus, genuinely do qualify as
racists.
Joseph Dunphy
give any credit at all to the Yahoo Answers team, the responses I've
seen to Ms.Clair's post have been exactly what she deserved
"Hottie" ( http://answers.yahoo.com/my/profile;_ylt=At6rYGxO2a7LDU05wk6cW3rd7BR.?show=3qQIiGGXaa
) writes:
"R u serious. U are horrible. Answer NO but u should be
kept in a cage"
"Dodo" ( http://answers.yahoo.com/my/profile;_ylt=AvEMc2Q6PVi13AO7Fy4lR8Pd7BR.?show=5882b5beb2f0e6ceb6a08915f56ae6b3aa
) isn't much happier with this person:
"Mercy, you are stupid."
I would have to agree, but would have to take serious issue with the
next point, made by "The What Should I Do Retard"
http://answers.yahoo.com/my/profile;_ylt=AuhynzwIT.i6V3ffRW_q20Xd7BR.?show=9CmHhd7maa
"Should morons like you be burned alive?"
who obviously has never been downwind of a trash fire. "Retard', we do
have to worry about the environment, after all. Jose R. (
http://answers.yahoo.com/my/profile;_ylt=AuhynzwIT.i6V3ffRW_q20Xd7BR.?show=310i8CKZaa
) mentions the obvious
"You're a dumb@$$"
and imasis2 ( http://answers.yahoo.com/my/profile;_ylt=AuhynzwIT.i6V3ffRW_q20Xd7BR.?show=AA10426555
) does what I had considered doing myself. I can only wish her luck.
"reported for obvious reasons. racist pig!"
Joseph Dunphy
somebody a little basic evolutionary biology, followed by a disturbing
ad lib, Bluto Blutarsky9 at http://answers.yahoo.com/my/profile;_ylt=AuhynzwIT.i6V3ffRW_q20Xd7BR.?show=NaO40ngSaa
writes
"blacks are people, if they weren't YOU wouldnt' be a person.
Black people were the first homo sapeins.
Metrosexuals and scientologists however, are clearly not human
so you may do with them what you will."
Note where the Leakeys did their digs, but as for the nonhumanity of
metrosexuals, if some guy wants to keep a skin care product company
afloat with his purchases, I don't see why that should be a problem
for the rest of us any more than somebody else's homosexuality would
be. Raising a disturbing issue, lyllyan at
http://answers.yahoo.com/my/profile;_ylt=AuhynzwIT.i6V3ffRW_q20Xd7BR.?show=02jWVTGVaa
asks
"I am sure there are black people wondering the same thing about
keeping a white for a pet.
You are an idiot."
Yes, she is and in response to Lyllyan's question - living in Chicago,
I know there are, because I've met them. Racists and hatemongerers
come in all colors. Getting straight to the point, kceg85 at
http://answers.yahoo.com/my/profile;_ylt=AuhynzwIT.i6V3ffRW_q20Xd7BR.?show=9Gtd9oZYaa
writes
"Obviously you are not qualified as a person...Weirdo"
Somewhat understandably, Deof Movestofca at
http://answers.yahoo.com/my/profile;_ylt=AvEMc2Q6PVi13AO7Fy4lR8Pd7BR.?show=rxV31nNxaa
makes the request
"DON'T FEED THE TROLLS!"
but just ignoring them has been tried and hasn't worked, and sometimes
people need to reassurance of seeing a little sanity in clear view.
Think of it - if the sane users always take that advice to heart and
never gang up on the trolls, flamers or other undesirables, and said
undesirables continue to gather in packs, who ends up with the upper
hand, and what does that do to the tone of a forum? Is it wise to
leave the crazies and the lowlives in control of a major
communications medium like the Internet? Because if one side in a
dispute is always in retreat and never mobilises and the other is
always gathering for the attack, guess which side prevails, regardless
of what each might otherwise possess in the way of weaknesses and
strengths?
Joseph Dunphy
Dharmanator at http://answers.yahoo.com/my/profile;_ylt=AuhynzwIT.i6V3ffRW_q20Xd7BR.?show=7c73d357ee89c177275de5c2d1c35fd2aa
, probably speaking for many, writes:
"Finally, along comes a person who unites everyone on the R&S
forum.
We don't want you here. We don't really want you existing. We
certainly don't want your mindless filth."
and Jeannette R at
http://answers.yahoo.com/my/profile;_ylt=AuhynzwIT.i6V3ffRW_q20Xd7BR.?show=8eb29285d8ca5632ad59678ffd67a1fdaa
, probably speaking for even more states:
"You disgust me. Is for people like you that we as a country
are look bad at. Grow up please, do us a favor.
Speaking in a more moderate tone in response to thoroughly immoderate
commentary on the part of Ms.Clair, the writer of the question,
alexandredz at http://answers.yahoo.com/my/profile;_ylt=AvEMc2Q6PVi13AO7Fy4lR8Pd7BR.?show=AA11623191
asserts
" 'black people'... you mean 'African look like'?
Remember, they are people, not pets. People are different,
therefore there is no way you may treat
them the same way. Moreover, it is impossible."
after which "Readhead" at http://answers.yahoo.com/my/profile;_ylt=AuhynzwIT.i6V3ffRW_q20Xd7BR.?show=EIgbRqCSaa
seconds imasis2's very sensible motion:
"REPORTED"
Joseph Dunphy
Of course, this being the Internet, there has to be a contrary voice
or two on any subject. Emma at
http://answers.yahoo.com/my/profile;_ylt=AuhynzwIT.i6V3ffRW_q20Xd7BR.?show=UH0DoozCaa
makes maybe the strongest of the weak attempts in this case, saying
"LOL I LOVE YOU you make this place fun
people need to understand a joke when they hear one lol i
myself think you're halerious"
except that if one reads the original remarks, they don't read as a
joke at all, unless one thinks that the words "f**k you" are just
absolutely hysterical. Tom J at
http://answers.yahoo.com/my/profile;_ylt=AvEMc2Q6PVi13AO7Fy4lR8Pd7BR.?show=MeMgCoiiaa
skirts a little closer to the edge with
"I'm not against black people. I think everyone should own
one."
No comment. I really don't want to touch that one at all.
Joseph Dunphy
totalitarianism, woodsonhannon53 at
http://answers.yahoo.com/my/profile;_ylt=AuhynzwIT.i6V3ffRW_q20Xd7BR.?show=AA12377225
writes
"no,but racist like yourself can be reabilitated to love
all races"
I'm a little uncomfortable with the concept of trying to channel
another person's thoughts into a desired direction, even when those
thoughts are as loathsome as Annette Clair's. Rehabilitation comes
from within, or it becomes just another way of saying "mind control",
I think, and I'm not in favor of that. Better, I think, to work in the
realm of incentives and persuasion and let the offending party find
her own way back to reason, or stay an outcast from decent society, as
she wishes, left with the company of the likeminded in the second
case. Though I understand that anger, I get a little uneasy when I
read something like this:
"0% BEST ANSWERS. PEOPLE IS THE KEY WORD. YOU REALLY ARE
CAGED UP.
Oh you level 1 people will learn you are going to get
ate up."
from onalee o at http://answers.yahoo.com/my/profile;_ylt=AuhynzwIT.i6V3ffRW_q20Xd7BR.?show=8f4gRDMdaa
(who is at level four at the time of this writing). I'd prefer to use
a little more carrot and a little less stick - the "punishment" for
bad attitudes should be the loss of the company of those who don't
have bad attitudes, not the active persecution of those who do. That
way, one gets around the whole awkward question of "who is it that
decides what a bad attitude is"; the social isolation that
marginalises those who genuinely do have bad attitudes comes, not
actively from an attempt to drive dissenters into the shadows, but
from the simple fact that due to individual decisions freely made by
others to shun them, such people find that the only company they have
is company that even they wouldn't want. The judgement that an
attitude is bad is not made as an act of control, but indirectly
through the discovery that a crowd of those holding such an attitude
is not a pleasant place to be, made by those abandoning such attitudes
themselves when they discover what it is like to be part of such a
crowd without having any sane people present to serve as a buffer
between its more unpleasant members. While I would tend to agree with
Lucky Fokker at http://answers.yahoo.com/my/profile;_ylt=AuhynzwIT.i6V3ffRW_q20Xd7BR.?show=8f4f74b888ea52c3281d7e660fc03550aa
as he writes
"You have no class"
I think that one might be crossing a line when one does as skalite5 at
http://answers.yahoo.com/my/profile;_ylt=AuhynzwIT.i6V3ffRW_q20Xd7BR.?show=24zdiPGzaa
does and writes
"Alas poor annette clair. Your profile was so young, yet
you are not long for this forum.
RiP this incarnation of a bigot."
Hmmm. Might be. Yes, I'm wavering on that one. I'd prefer to see her
sent a warning and her account restricted for a while, but with the
tidal wave of people coming through, I wonder if that's really a
practical approach. The swaggering tone of such a post, however, is
going to tap deeply into a reserve of justified anger left over from
the political correctness era, and going there is going to increase
the population of bigots in the long run, not decrease it. Remember,
the population of those you see posting is always but the tip of the
iceberg online; think of those lurking and how they are likely to
react.
Righteous anger is one thing, but smug power playing or the perception
of such will make this woman look like a victim, and in political
terms, I would have to ask if one should really give her a gift like
that. By doing so, one will give her a credibility in the eyes of
others that she probably would not have otherwise enjoyed, and I think
we know exactly what kind of use she'll put that gained credibility
to, if she is given it.
Joseph Dunphy
really what is needed, I think. bellesnailblue42 at
http://answers.yahoo.com/my/profile;_ylt=AuhynzwIT.i6V3ffRW_q20Xd7BR.?show=I7w9nPo8aa
writes
" How racist!
hehehe
You cant keep ANY human as a pet. They have souls. Animals
dont. "
not trying to bully the foolish individual who began this, but not
showing her actions any undue respect, either. She merely, harmlessly
laughs and tells the truth, after which aap512 at
http://answers.yahoo.com/my/profile;_ylt=AuhynzwIT.i6V3ffRW_q20Xd7BR.?show=DwThFrneaa
sighs:
" God Bless You, because you need help. "
Indeed so. The mildly sad thought that comes to me is that in the long
run, so will the forum as experience suggests to me that Annette Clair
and others like her will probably dominate it in the end, but I
suppose that as the end approaches people will be free to create their
own forums and relocate the worthwhile activity on Yahoo Answers to
places less troll dominated, when that time comes. "Guys, come on over
to this url and we'll be here", and make sure to swap links with some
of the other forums, and maybe everything will work out anyway? One
can always hope.
Joseph Dunphy
Better late than never? In the time since I began writing this post,
Annette has perhaps rethought what she wrote, or maybe just turned
tail and ran. Either way, when one goes to where the question was, one
finds this:
"This question has been deleted
#49
The questioner has removed this question. "
and a search under her name yields the lovely question "Should Blacks
have civil rights" posted in multiple locations. Gone, but probably
not gone if you catch my meaning, Clair left very little information
on her now deleted profile, mentioning no homepage and no hometown, so
one doesn't even know which Annette Clair she was. I'm guessing she'll
be back, but as I hardly ever lurk on Yahoo Answers, I'll at least
have the pleasure of missing that display, as today I had the pleasure
of seeing people rally in numbers and basically do the right thing for
a change.
I think people should be remembered for that, and so I'm glad that I
took a little time to record the incident.
Joseph Dunphy
For further discussion or to return to your ring
http://groups.google.com/group/joseph_dunphy/web/moron-redirection