2023-AT-04: Staff and Jemnite

Everything in the world is about [arguing about Jemnite] except [tribunal for Jemnite]. [Tribunal for Jemnite] is about [Council]
 
skanszy said:
"Cloakie" was disruptive but acting in good faith. Jemnite is disruptive while acting in bad faith. It's only natural that the bad-faith actor gets the pass. I think that's Rule 9.
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I don't want to drag a completely unrelated party into this but Cloak has essentially said they know they can change how they express their opinions but choose not to. Bad example for your point.
 
Jemnite Finch, one of the main characters of Harper Lee's groundbreaking novel To Kill A Mockingbird, has emerged as a figure of controversy in recent literature1​. His presence in the text, and his influence on how Lee forms her ideas of courage, discrimination, and innocence, was once unquestionably accepted by what may be ungracefully termed the 'canon' of Mockingbird literature, but his newfound prominence in post-canon texts and fresh analysis of his relationship with Dill Harris2​ has led to a peculiar pushback among critics, who suggest that Jemnite scholars (such as the revered Professor @Squishy KC) have taken far too many liberties with their interpretations of his character—an interesting supposition, and one that grants fresh meaning to Jemnite's own plea to Scout where he asks her "If there's just one kind of folks, why can't they get along?" (pg. 247).

Perhaps this question is more insightful than even Lee intended, when she, as she so often did throughout the novel, put truth in the mouth of babes: it animates the vital principles at the heart of post-canon Jemnite criticism, which tell us that it is because "there's just one kind of folks" that we so often find ourselves at loggerheads over even the simplest things, like whether he truly loses his innocence when he "stood there until nightfall" (pg. 68) on the Finch's porch, hiding his tears from Scout as he weeps for the lost opportunities of the knot-hole and the symbolic destruction of his relationship with Boo Radley (though, of course, the astute reader will recall the closing chapters of the novel and marvel at his mistake), or whether he properly embodies the accusation Lee levels at society when his father Atticus declares—in a rare fit of cynicism—that to him it "seems that only the children weep" (pg. 232) at injustice.

Indeed, through Jemnite Finch and Lee's stunning prediction of his post-canon reception, the novel leads us to understand that it is because we are all "one kind of folks" that our differences become so starkly highlighted and contentious—it is our very similarities that allow us to find, by accident and by design, the little levers inside "a person's conscience" (pg. 114) that, when pulled, can lead us to anything from inconvenience to suffering. In this, we come to realise that it is truly characters like Jemnite who unite us: without them, and the messages their authors speak through them to our waking minds, we might find ourselves just like Nathan Radley, "so busy worrying about the next world [we've] never learned to live in this one" (pg. 49).

Amen.

1​ See 2023-AT-4, 2023-AT-3, and 2022-AT-17 for a brief overview.

2​ Consider Just give me true love and understanding and Southern Gothic.

What the fuck did I just write, man.
 
KnightDisciple said:
Rules for thee but not for me, one supposes. Kind of wonder what the point of making this one public was?
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I think it's pretty clear that if you do exactly what Jemnite likes to do, you won't usually get in trouble, though a lot of people will report you for basically being annoying.

If the rules seem like they're "not for thee", it's more because you weren't actually doing the exact same thing, and were doing something else that is against the rules.

Also, tribunals go public by default. The only likely reason it wouldn't would be if Jemnite asked for it to not be so.
 
Magery said:
Jemnite Finch, one of the main characters of Harper Lee's groundbreaking novel To Kill A Mockingbird, has emerged as a figure of controversy in recent literature1​. His presence in the text, and his influence on how Lee forms her ideas of courage, discrimination, and innocence, was once unquestionably accepted by what may be ungracefully termed the 'canon' of Mockingbird literature, but his newfound prominence in post-canon texts and fresh analysis of his relationship with Dill Harris2​ has led to a peculiar pushback among critics, who suggest that Jemnite scholars (such as the revered Professor @Squishy KC) have taken far too many liberties with their interpretations of his character—an interesting supposition, and one that grants fresh meaning to Jemnite's own plea to Scout where he asks her "If there's just one kind of folks, why can't they get along?" (pg. 247).

Perhaps this question is more insightful than even Lee intended, when she, as she so often did throughout the novel, put truth in the mouth of babes: it animates the vital principles at the heart of post-canon Jemnite criticism, which tell us that it is because "there's just one kind of folks" that we so often find ourselves at loggerheads over even the simplest things, like whether he truly loses his innocence when he "stood there until nightfall" (pg. 68) on the Finch's porch, hiding his tears from Scout as he weeps for the lost opportunities of the knot-hole and the symbolic destruction of his relationship with Boo Radley (though, of course, the astute reader will recall the closing chapters of the novel and marvel at his mistake), or whether he properly embodies the accusation Lee levels at society when his father Atticus declares—in a rare fit of cynicism—that to him it "seems that only the children weep" (pg. 232) at injustice.

Indeed, through Jemnite Finch and Lee's stunning prediction of his post-canon reception, the novel leads us to understand that it is because we are all "one kind of folks" that our differences become so starkly highlighted and contentious—it is our very similarities that allow us to find, by accident and by design, the little levers inside "a person's conscience" (pg. 114) that, when pulled, can lead us to anything from inconvenience to suffering. In this, we come to realise that it is truly characters like Jemnite who unite us: without them, and the messages their authors speak through them to our waking minds, we might find ourselves just like Nathan Radley, "so busy worrying about the next world [we've] never learned to live in this one" (pg. 49).

Amen.

1​ See 2023-AT-4, 2023-AT-3, and 2022-AT-17 for a brief overview.

2​ Consider Just give me true love and understanding and Southern Gothic.

What the fuck did I just write, man.
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.. I have no idea what any of this means but it sure sounds smart so I'm giving it an Insightful rating!
 
Kaiya said:
I think it's pretty clear that if you do exactly what Jemnite likes to do, you won't usually get in trouble, though a lot of people will report you for basically being annoying.

If the rules seem like they're "not for thee", it's more because you weren't actually doing the exact same thing, and were doing something else that is against the rules.

Also, tribunals go public by default. The only likely reason it wouldn't would be if Jemnite asked for it to not be so.
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Forgive me if I don't believe I would get way with being an asshole "exactly like" Jemnite.
 
KnightDisciple said:
Forgive me if I don't believe I would get way with being an asshole "exactly like" Jemnite.
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Well you might need to write a few more appeals and talk to some advocates, but basically ? You absolutely would. It's not like Jemnite suddenly started 'getting away with' his behaviour where he would previously would not when he became a councillor.

If he's such a black mark on your forum experience, well, you have tools to never have to see his posts again but for some reason people don't use them. Do. Please. SV has become so much less aggravating since I started making liberal use of the 'I would like this person to not exist in my forum experience, kthanx' button.
 
hghwolf said:
Well you might need to write a few more appeals and talk to some advocates, but basically ? You absolutely would. It's not like Jemnite suddenly started 'getting away with' his behaviour where he would previously would not when he became a councillor.

If he's such a black mark on your forum experience, well, you have tools to never have to see his posts again but for some reason people don't use them. Do. Please. SV has become so much less aggravating since I started making liberal use of the 'I would like this person to not exist in my forum experience, kthanx' button.
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I would disagree, I have plenty of people on my ignore list who are very good at making conversations revolve around their points, making it nearly impossible to avoid.

Jemnite not so much though.
 
In terms of the discussion on sarcasm and parody, I think in this case I have to actually quote the great legal scholars at The Onion.

The Onion famously recently put forth what may in fact be the best Amicus Brief ever filed with the Supreme Court of the United States on this exact topic. The entire thing is a wonderful meta-commentary combined with incredibly persuasive argumenta and is highly recommended to read, but I'd like to highlight a specific point on the purpose and needs of parody on pages 5-7:

It really is an old trick. The word "parody" stretches back to the Hellenic world. It originates in the prefix para, meaning an alteration, and the suffix ode, referring to the poetry form known as an ode. One of its earliest practitioners was the first-century B.C. poet Horace, whose Satires would replicate the exact form known as an ode—mimicking its meter, its subject matter, even its self-serious tone—but tweaking it ever so slightly so that the form was able to mock its own idiocies.

This is not a mere linguistic anecdote. The point is instead that without the capacity to fool someone, parody is functionally useless, deprived of the tools inscribed in its very etymology that allow it, again and again, to perform this rhetorically powerful sleight-ofhand: It adopts a particular form in order to critique it from within. See Farah v. Esquire Magazine, 736 F.3d 528, 536 (D.C. Cir. 2013).

Parody leverages the expectations that are created in readers when they see something written in a particular form. This could be anything, but for the sake of brevity, let's assume that it is a newspaper headline—maybe one written by The Onion—that begins in this familiar way: "Supreme Court Rules . . . " Already, one can see how this works as a parodic setup, leading readers to think that they're reading a newspaper story. With just three words, The Onion has mimicked the dry tone of an Associated Press news story, aping the clipped syntax and the subject matter. The Onion could go even further by putting that headline on its website—which features a masthead and Latin motto, and the design of which parodies the aesthetics of major news sites, further selling the idea that this is an actual news story.

Of course, what moves this into the realm of parody is when The Onion completes the headline with the punchline—the thing that mocks the newspaper format. The Onion could do something like: "Supreme Court Rules Supreme Court Rules."5 The Onion could push the parody even further by writing the joke out in article format with, say, a quote from the Justices in the majority, opining that, "while the U.S. Constitution guarantees equality of power among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, it most definitely does not guarantee equality of coolness," and rounding off by reporting the Supreme Court's holding that the Court "rules and rules totally, all worthy and touched by nobody, in perpetuity, and in accordance with Article Three of the U.S. Constitution. The ability of the President and Congress to keep pace with us is not only separate, but most unequal."
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Parody and satire, at their heart as modes of humor, are completely defeated by the kind of signposting required to ensure nobody is ever fooled into thinking it is serious. The fact the some people are fooled is entirely the point.

Now, as to whether that kind of parody posting should be allowed in what is ostensibly a 'serious debate' setting is another question. Obviously some discussions have more serious standards, but the ontological inertia of internet discussions are always going to support the kind of dry sarcasm that has been a feature of internet discussions since at least pretty much the invention of the original BBS.
 
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Jack Stargazer said:
Now, as to whether that kind of parody posting should be allowed in what is ostensibly a 'serious debate' setting is another question. Obviously some discussions have more serious standards, but the ontological inertia of internet discussions are always going to support the kind of dry sarcasm that has been a feature of internet discussions since at least pretty much the invention of the original BBS.
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But that presupposes that sarcasm is inherently non-serious, which I don't agree with.
 
Gears said:
I would disagree, I have plenty of people on my ignore list who are very good at making conversations revolve around their points, making it nearly impossible to avoid.

Jemnite not so much though.
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Yeah, it's a tragedy of the commons, in a way. If everyone were willing to ignore the annoying people the ignore function would work great. Most people don't though, and it really isn't any better to see half a conversation rebutting the asshattery you're trying to ignore because some people like to performatively argue and need the practice, or whatever.

I'd just ignore the people who keep engaging also but I would wind up isolating myself more than anything. Plus I think there's a hard cap?

Also, there's at least one person I would choose to ignore who mechanically cannot be ignored so there's that too.
 
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The_Letter_K said:
Yeah, it's a tragedy of the commons, in a way. If everyone were willing to ignore the annoying people the ignore function would work great. Most people don't though, and it really isn't any better to see half a conversation rebutting the asshattery you're trying to ignore because some people like to performatively argue and need the practice, or whatever.

I'd just ignore the people who keep engaging also but I would wind up isolating myself more than anything. Plus I think there's a hard cap?
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The ignore function is a catch-22. On the one hand, you could rid yourself of that annoying person forever.

On the other, you could see every one of their posts, tracking their silly comments, and wait for the perfect moment to strike with your own post, or perhaps someone else's, one which totally DUNKS and DESTROYS that person with COMMUNISM and DISCOURSE. Then, at long last, you can permaban them, and rest knowing you have bested a stranger on the internet whom you'll never meet IRL.
 
Wind-Up Citrus said:
Yay I next to Pawn. Weird I thought Plaus would be next to Pawn.
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Nah see @The_Letter_K is the REAL mastermind behind the council. The one orchestrating the devious schemes of the Gang of Three (that name is actually a misnomer, as they use it to disguise their ACTUAL numbers). I'm just in the background doing a little trolling.
 
hghwolf said:
Well you might need to write a few more appeals and talk to some advocates, but basically ? You absolutely would. It's not like Jemnite suddenly started 'getting away with' his behaviour where he would previously would not when he became a councillor.

If he's such a black mark on your forum experience, well, you have tools to never have to see his posts again but for some reason people don't use them. Do. Please. SV has become so much less aggravating since I started making liberal use of the 'I would like this person to not exist in my forum experience, kthanx' button.
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This is less about one specific person so much as the fact that, from my perspective, it seems like if you somehow dance on the razor's edge and are a well-known SV Poster Person who just so happens to also be a Council member, you can be so blatant a troll that you self-admit to openly using the tactic of "be an asshole to such a precise degree I provoke the other person to scooting their toe over the line" (the internet forum equivalent of a child going "I'm not actually touching him!!!"), and face no consequences ever.

Bluntly, to me, this presents the fact that the people who somehow have the time or "talent" for this get to be jerks with 0 lasting consequences.

It also, from my perspective, taints the measure of respect I had for the Council and the whole point of having Rules here more complicated than "don't do illegal shit". It brings into question the worth of the Rules, of our shared space here.

If in any discussion, be it political or historical or fiction or Quest or whatever, someone can deploy this tactic and I'm told (once again in my life-experience) that, somehow, they get to be an asshole with 0 consequences, what's the point of being around here?

Jack Stargazer said:
In terms of the discussion on sarcasm and parody, I think in this case I have to actually quote the great legal scholars at The Onion.

The Onion famously recently put forth what may in fact be the best Amicus Brief ever filed with the Supreme Court of the United States on this exact topic. The entire thing is a wonderful meta-commentary combined with incredibly persuasive argumenta and is highly recommended to read, but I'd like to highlight a specific point on the purpose and needs of parody on pages 5-7:



Parody and satire, at their heart as modes of humor, are completely defeated by the kind of signposting required to ensure nobody is ever fooled into thinking it is serious. The fact the some people are fooled is entirely the point.

Now, as to whether that kind of parody posting should be allowed in what is ostensibly a 'serious debate' setting is another question. Obviously some discussions have more serious standards, but the ontological inertia of internet discussions are always going to support the kind of dry sarcasm that has been a feature of internet discussions since at least pretty much the invention of the original BBS.
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"It's okay I was just joking" works for something like the Onion because 1.) the Onion isn't walking into a general shared space and trying to pass itself off as serious, and 2.) most folks do generally know what it is, and it makes no secret of being parody.

It's a vastly, vastly different context than someone walking into a thread (metaphorically) and dumping a wall of asshole text that they then turn around and go "this is 5th-dimensional-chess-satire!!!". The lesson here, to me, is that someone can have Schrodinger's Sarcasm, which to me is basically fucking impossible to discern from Actually Serious, without worrying about getting dinged.

poaw said:
Just don't break the rules.
That is all. That's the secret sauce. That's what is inside of Marcellus Wallace's briefcase. It's the name of Charles Kane's sled. There is no other obstacle beyond the ones you place on yourself.
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The secret sauce is apparently knowing the staff well enough to know how to bend the rules without breaking them.
 
KnightDisciple said:
It also, from my perspective, taints the measure of respect I had for the Council and the whole point of having Rules here more complicated than "don't do illegal shit". It brings into question the worth of the Rules, of our shared space here.

If in any discussion, be it political or historical or fiction or Quest or whatever, someone can deploy this tactic and I'm told (once again in my life-experience) that, somehow, they get to be an asshole with 0 consequences, what's the point of being around here?
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Clearly you have never interacted with Foamy because you would learn the exact opposite lesson that a literal admin of the site can be hit with infractions just the same as anyone else lmao.

To me the corrupt council theory is dumb. The council is voted in, the other users of this forum chose them, and recently for any given term a certain amount of council members must be new blood. This narrative that there's some secretive back-patting collusion is a bad one. Do you not realize that Wind-Up Citrus, another council member, just got an uphold for saying a slur from the very same council? Please explain this discrepancy to me, especially considering that Wind Up has been a councilor for quite a bit longer than Jemnite has. Some of the people in the case literally said they don't even like his posts lol. You could maybe criticize this term for their unwillingness to escalate to a harsher ruling, but I honestly do not get the impression you even read the explanations for their rulings in good faith to begin with.
 
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