Southie
November 14, 2012, 6:46am
13
Re: Noticing a pattern/ trend
Dear Huma,
I was wrong in the use of the word incendiary. I also referred to them as far- right leaning. I did not call them extremists. But more I think about it, implicit in the use of incendiary was extremist. So I agree with you that I was taking an extremely neg stance that was not warranted.
The overall message stands. Calling folks who disagree with each other ENEMIES as LKK did, calling athiests cry babies if they don’t accept Islamic law ( which he advocates) as Jinx did, to any reasonable person, would appear to be far right leaning.
That was my main message. I understand your explanation.
Much respect ( and I mean it). You have demonstrated unequivocally what fairness is all about.
As for my friend Muqawee, if I was rude to you, my sincere apologies. I thought it was part of a vigorous debate.
Peace!
Thanks for your feedback, Southie. While GupShup is a forum created and dominated by Muslim Pakistanis, it has always enforced the policy that you seem to be worried about - that everyone should be respectful to others regardless of their beliefs and opinions. Here it is in clear writing from our policies thread :
“While respectful posting is expected for topics related to Islam, the same principle applies to discussions about all faiths. Informative discussions about other faiths to help gain a better understanding or share ideas is fine, but insults or in any way disparaging or disrespectful posts are not permitted.”
Moderators have always been held to higher scrutiny with regards to all our policies and general code of conduct as they’re the ones who’re supposed to be setting the standards for everyone else. So if a team member was being hateful towards people of different faiths, he wouldn’t be a team member any more, I can assure you that. I’m not going to name names but we’ve had to let people go previously for similar reasons. Not to mention the countless extremists we’ve warned/banned for their hate speech against other nationalities, religions, races etc.
Coming to LKK and Jinx, while they don’t claim to be secularist liberals like yourself, they’re by no means incendiaries and far-right extremists either. To suggest that they are not respectful and tolerant people is quite outrageous. Does that mean anyone who doesn’t agree with secular liberalism is a radical extremist who does not promote love and peace?
The Religion forum was originally created for the purpose of answering people’s queries related to Islam. Though the forum has evolved since then and we have discussions on a wide variety of topics, the overriding theme of the forum remains the same. When we hire moderators, we prefer someone who is knowledgeable in the special interest group of the forum. Therefore, moderators of the religion forum are usually those with interest and knowledge in religion, especially Islam, because this forum mainly caters to Muslim Pakistanis or those interested in Pakistan or Islam.
That is not to say we cannot hire moderators who are non-Muslims or non-Pakistanis. While technically it doesn’t make sense to hire someone with no interest in religion as a religion mod, we will surely consider hiring a diverse group of people for the said forums so that everyone can benefit by learning about different perspectives. We have Americans, Indians, Pakistanis, Sri Lankans, Muslims, Hindus, Sindhis, Punjabis serving in the team right now and previously secularists and atheists have happily served in the team for a long time, their views have never been held against them. We take pride in being a diverse team of people.
Hope this puts your concerns to rest.