Your contributions are making Woyano a great place to be! We know that sometimes it can be difficult to know the right way to submit your contributions, so that they subcribe to the values of the site. Our Terms of Use outline the proper way to post and how to avoid breaking any rules as you enjoy Woyano.
Sometimes it's helpful to have a little refresher course, so here's a quick review with tips on proper posting!
- If you didn't write it, cite it! While posting at Woyano, remember to cite your sources from the web. For things like jokes, recipes, and pics, you might link to the external site where you found it or paste the URL below the content.
- Show us where you find your News and Reviews. For news stories or reviews written by someone else, you should also link to the external website. News stories belong to the publisher/journalist who wrote them, so it's best to give us the first couple of paragraphs and link to the rest of the article at its source so we can follow back.
- Be responsible about the types of content you contribute. Be aware of material that is protected by patent, trademark, or copyright and seek owner's permission before posting. Videos from YouTube, for example, are generally acceptable to post. Have fun but be respectful of others with regards to material that might be offensive or sexually explicit. Flag if possible as "adult content".
Hope this doesn't put a damper on things, but we do need to acknowledge if someone else wrote content first so that everyone can be a part of the revenue sharing here. We're always looking out for the best interests of our members, and that includes helping you enjoy the site free of any legal trouble!
Thanks again to all for bringing fun, knowledge, and personality to this community.
Cheers,
The Woyano Team
15 Comments
Yes. Woyano is not the real world, but a virtual community. In the real world, different people confront and engage objectionable "content" of many types in different ways every day. Some of them ignore it (I'm not in favor of this), and some of them "get in the faces" of those who spew it. If fewer people had ignored for so many years the proliferation of hateful rhetoric in various media, we wouldn't have had to live through the "Imus" kerfluffle of the last few weeks.
Is there a rule stating, perhaps, that no objectively stupid opinions be posted on Woyano? Will there be a flag for "patently stupid" posts? I know this sounds like a hostile and contentious comment (I'm actually chuckling as I write it and my intention -- difficult to discern in a virtual community -- is to pose a serious question in a jumorous way), but I have read, once or twice, posts that appear to MY eyes and ears as really, really stoopid. Just my opinion? Maybe. But I see the unchallenged airing of such opinions as an endorsement of those ideas which sometimes perpetuate seriously dangerous and damaging assumptions:
"Islamofascism" seeks "world domination."
Socialism is anti-democratic and essentially the same as Communism.
Capitalism is the ONLY way to address issues of social justice.
"Good" and "evil" are two clearly defined categories, and ANYTHING the "good guys" do is, ipso facto, "good."
You're either "with us" or "against us."
Etc.
I have, when I've encountered posts that use this type of logic, thus far held my tongue. There is a piece of me that says, "if you ignore them, they'll go away." I may continue this tack. But (knowing me the way I do), I wonder how long it will be before I read a really stoopid platitude thoughtlessly posted, and respond, "That's the STOOPIDEST thing I've ever heard."
And how will we handle that situation when it arises? For my part, I apologize right now, before the fact, for my graceless behavior.
What IS the rule about this? I never really want to upset anyone - even those with (shall we say) uninformed, indignant but ignorant opinions. The danger is that, should these opinions be read and absorbed by the equally ignorant, there is a danger they'll be adopted.
I suppose rather than 'That's the STOOPIDEST thing I've ever heard', we should adopt less confrontational phrases like 'My opinion differs in that....' but sometimes you just want to scream.
Perhaps the best thing to do is save yourself the effort of writing a long response and write a short reply linking to another article on the web that mirrors your opinion. I often find that people have said what I want to say already and usually better than I could!
I think it's just good posting etiquette to support your opinions in a considered, researched, or thoughtful manner. Anything less would just be uncivilized! ;)
Who would not jump up and scream at a blatantly racist post? Who would have the nerve to leave unchallenged a post that said (for instance), "Blacks are genetically inferior to whites"? That's not a matter of anyone's opinion. That is contrary to fact, and the dissemination of such ideas is STOOPID, and the preservation and perpetuation of such ideas is (~~gasp~~) immoral. Well, that's my opinion anyway. But I also am convinced it's true.
But not everyone is going to see the boundary where I see it, right? So when a hateful or intolerant (or stoopid) statement is couched in a bit more subtlety, contained an a culturally plausible assumption ("we should be worried about electing a Mormon president, because Mormonism is a religion of alien values," or "we should fear the construction of a mosque in our neighborhood because Islam is a religion of hate"), does this become "merely" an opinion that must be tolerated, but with which I am free to disagree?
Is there no moral imperative (anymore) to pursue "truth?"
Hateful and offensive speech, even if well-intended yet full of unconscious racism/sexism/other 'isms' (for example: I'm fine with gay people. Some of my best friends are gay.) needs to be pointed out. It's about deciding not to keep silent when someone is being hurt. Keeping silent could be seen as being guilty by association or complicit in that kind of ignorance. Taking responsibility for social justice means standing up for what you feel is right, and speaking up when something just seems wrong.
There is a difference between accepting someone's opinion, and agreeing with it. There are many things in this life that we learn to accept, but we do not have to agree. That would be compromising who we are.
Hi, and nice to make your acquaintance.
"You may be convinced Dr Fallon that what you believe is the truth..."
No sir. Not me. You misunderstand. We have to be very careful choosing words. There is nothing I "believe is the truth..." There are things I know are true (gravity, inertia, the genetic and biological equality of races) because science has provided years' and sometimes centuries' worth of evidence to support them. This is not "belief," nor does it have anything to do with faith, nor is it a matter of opinion. This is empiricism, and without this kind of knowledge, whatever good humans have managed to achieve in roughly two million years would never have happened. There's a word for someone who has an opinion that the law of gravity does not apply to him, or that, when he steps in front of a speeding truck, inertia will not be at work and the truck will bring its enormous mass to a halt with no problem or delay: STOOPID. Or, perhaps insane. The same is true for people who insist that one race is "superior" to another, or one religion "inferior" to another. There's simply no empirical evidence to support either of those opinions, and plenty to contradict them.
It's true that someone with a boneheaded idea rooted in ignorance and hatred (inferiority of any race, essential evil of any race, etc.) will find some sort of "evidence" to support that boneheaded idea. But it is incorrect to say that that evidence will be in any way "scientific." Read Stephen Jay Gould's "The Mismeasure of Man" to see how humans have "backloaded" consciously and unconsciously biased experiments to make skewed and perverted results look "scientific." This is not, when it happens, the fault of science; it is the fault of those doing the (pseudo-)science who are unable to reject their pre-conceived and unquestioned assumptions and take on an objective perspective.
It's also not entirely correct (only off about 45 degrees) that "something is scientific only if it can be disproved." An idea is scientific only if it can be tested. And no idea is scientific if it is not approachable from the point of view that it may not be a valid idea. Certainly, the scientific perspective demands that all assumptions be tentative, and that we be open to the possibility that we may learn more about a phenomenon at some point in the future that modifies our knowledge of it. But if we were unable to depend on pieces of information as "true" or "false" we would have no technology, no engineering, and none of the consequences: no bridges, no roads, no artificial dwellings, no agriculture, no astronomy, no navigation, no knowledge of geology, of paleontology, no understanding (not even an incomplete one) of evolution -- no nothing.
The second part of your comment is more complex. It may, in fact, be "true" that "Muslims believe they have the truth, Christians believe they have the truth, Jews believe they have the truth, George Bush believes he has the truth as all of them send a generation to war."
That's not a problem with the concept of "truth." That's a problem of confusion of truth and faith. What all people of faith have in common is faith itself. What we hold seperately is our understanding of truth.
People of faith, I think, get themselves (and frequently everyone else) into trouble when they demand that they alone possess the truth to the exclusion of all others. That's arrogant, and that's intolerant. And that's also not the fault or the problem of truth. That's a problem with bad thinking. That too is STOOPID.
However, post-modernism has left us with a situation where people are hesitant (frightened?) to even utter the word "truth," unless it is to negate it as a legitimate category of epistemological investigation. Because, for one thing, it has an alternative, untruth, that no one wants to admit exists.
Post-modernism has set us into a place where everyone has an opinion, all opinions are somehow equivalent (if not equal), and as long as no one offends anyone else you are free to believe whatever you want -- even that the person next to you is inferior or inherently evil. Believe it. Just don't say it. Find your own sources of information that support your point of view, and nurture it. Just don't say it.
But -- c'mon -- someone always
Believe in truth. Have faith in truth. Pursue truth. But never delude yourself into thinking you possess it. And don't allow anyone else such delusions either.
Hey you know AdGuy always gets the last word! ;)