to think I should not be threatened with a ban for questioning the use of offensive language?

[thefirstMrsDeVere]

I am a member of a very heavily moderated website. Swearing is not allowed at all, threads are pulled regularly if people are mean to each other, not threads about threads are tolerated and you are not allowed to mention anything said before on the boards at all. All these things will result in deletion and warnings.

I have been a member for years (before mumsnet even). There was a particularly nasty thread that was allowed to go on for pages which ended with a woman referring to children with LDs as 'being tapped in the head'..

I started a seperate thread wanting to discuss the use of disabilist language on the site and asking why words like bitch, whore and piss were not allowed yet retard, mong and spaz were.

I was told that some people might think it was ok to use those words so they couldnt filter them out, it wouldnt be fair.

I continuned to question this in a firm but polite manner and have now discovered I have been sent a message telling me that my style of posting is offensive and I have been taken straight to a final warning!

Not that I give a toss, the site is crap. I guess I am taken aback that you can be pretty much threatened into silence if you dare question the mods on this HUGE and well known site.

Its an issue that means a lot to me. If it was a site on which everything went language wise I wouldnt have bothered. But on this prissy site where you cant say bugger - you can call something retarded or monged out with no bother.

I think its bollocks and makes me glad I have mumsnet to come and tell people to fuck off on.

I would question how much she cares about them if she is happy for them to be objects of ridicule and it is ok with her to use and have people use words that are offensive to disabled people. When they live in a world where people will treat them badly, someone who loves them would surely do everything they can to stop discriminatory or offensive language or practices? Or at the very least - not behave that way themselves!

And if a minority of people within a group claim that they are ok with offensive language relating to the group - that is not representative of the group. To claim that 'everyone' is ok with it and it's therefore ok - everyone must be ok with it. I bet my last rolo that most disabled people are not ok with words like spaz, mong or retard!

You can find people within every group who will tell you that it's ok to use offensive terms about them. They'll use them themselves. It's generally a defensive mechanism. and it does not mean that it's ok.

I can't understand how someone is unable to understand such simple things.

Am I right in thinking that that one poster said it was okay to use the term retard as those who were "retarded" wouldn't understand it and those who would should get used to accepting what they were?????

Also did that person with the faggots and liking 4 etc think it was an opportunity for some terrible stand up

Dreadful shitty posting and complete lack of logic

Sorry fanjo, I wasn't having a go. I assumed you were just saying what she had said and that she said that her friend 'had' Thalidomide. iyswim.

Sorry, it's fine, am just a bit oversensitive/upset by that thread :)

I've made several attempts to post this link on THAT thread but it won't allow me, says it needs moderators approval which it's obviously not getting since I've been trying since last night.

www.guardian.co.uk/society/joepublic/2011/jun/23/its-time-to-cut-retard-from-use

I don't blame you for being upset! It sounds awful! I am truly shocked that people like that exist and defend their right to use language that hurts people.

Quite hard to read that stuff while preparing your wee daughter to start at a school for kids with severe SN, I should have stayed away.

Oh, and I've tweeted the author of that link with a link to THAT thread. As a disability rights campaigner it will be interesting to see what she makes of it.

Currysecret, the site is not relevant, anyone saying it is wrong, of course

Perry, yes you are right in the reading of that. :(

I already do. Leap in with both feet.

You have to challenge unacceptable behaviour. Wherever you find it.

i don't think anyone accepts it just because it happens HERE, in fact the fighting and abuse get much worse on here

time posted the link for you

Thank god I'm at work today and I have a legitimate reason to not look anymore.

Hear hear Bathy. I tried to say that last night on there, just because these words have been accepted so far doesn't mean we just have to roll over and keep accepting them.

That's what I like about this board. You can call a cunt a cunt, as it were.

I think the point is that, when it happens here, people do get jumped on and it isn't deleted by moderators.

The problem with NM is that their filtering system gives the wrong impression about what is and isn't acceptable.

They mean they had a happy hour pointing and laughing, judging by their attitude towards offensive terms for disabled people...

Red rug thread has gone....

Thank you smug. Just so happens it was fourth time lucky and it got posted just before you reposted. Success!

at the red rug being pulled but the other one not.

I suspect it's just a matter of time, vera