1 year ago
Can we agree to draw a line under all that stuff and move on with a clean slate? Saying openly racist, bigoted, or otherwise offensive stuff is now clearly not acceptable on Rant (just like the rest of the internet beyond white supremicist sites). I for one don't know who said what over the years. I clearly remember the two obnoxious trolls, pint vulgar and "max" whatever, going on about Lukaku's penis, for example, and saying other obviously bigoted shite (racist, stuff about people with handicaps, and all the rest). They've rightly been banned, as should anybody who does the same. But other than that, I don't remember anything along those lines by the people who post here now (going by their handles at any rate). Maybe it's because I don't tend to post in the non-football threads, although admittedly that's because in quite distant years past those threads did seem to be full of stuff I wasn't comfortable with --- though that's not the case now -- so maybe it's was a case of see no evil on my part. But there was also a lot of sarcasm and irony on Rant, even concerning potentially offensive subjects. For better and also for worse, the world has less tolerance for irony now, even if you're a standup on a stage.
Specifically on Snoops, I personally never saw him say the kinds of obnoxious crap that "max clifford" and pint vulgar did. It never occurred to me to lump him in with the trolls. Knobs uses a lot of irony and sarcasm, and it's true that sometimes bigots do that online to air their views with "plausible deniability". But me personally, in recent memory, I don't recall him crossing a line. I vaguely recall a comment about Irish people I didn't care for, years back, but I don't recall anything of that sort that I have a more recent, reliable memory of, so fuck it. My interpretation (but perhaps I'm being too generous) of the "big black midfielder" comment that Sid just linked to is that Knob was attributing that kind of mindset to Mourinho, and condemning it. But you're definitely getting into dangerous, ambiguous territory with that kind of phrasing, and we should avoid that. I'd feel better if Knobs clarified that.
While I'd like a fresh start, I also strongly feel that Rant should be a place that you're not going to get the fucking sack if your employer looks at the forum. Potential new posters also shouldn't see stuff that discriminates against them . I might be mistaken, but I don't think there's anything discriminatory on the forum, that stuff was long ago. In fact, maybe some old threads should be deleted to emphasise the clean start, though I know the bigoted trolls' stuff was already deleted.
That's just my personal take, I'm open to being persuaded otherwise (except for the points I highlighted in bold and italics, those are non-negotiable for me).
