I thought the ban was more for the rest of the forum to cool off than for RoD to cool off.
And whether or not the forum allows someone to express those kind of views is a legitimate question (i.e. whether he should be banned for racist statements). I can see valid reasoning on both sides.
On the one side, we are pretty much all adults who engage in adult discussions. Suppressing certain opinions because they are inflammatory and bigoted implies that we are somehow unable to handle contradictory views. This is a site dedicated to random shit, it's not like we're a programming help forum and this distracts from our ultimate goals. In addition, we allow discussion of other forms of bigotry that are more widely accepted in our societies, so why is the line drawn in front of RoD instead of behind him?
On the other hand, this is a place we all come to enjoy ourselves. Having people post such incendiary ideas changes the atmosphere of the forum and clearly causes emotional reactions in its members. It is perfectly acceptable to try to maintain a civil environment for all of us. In addition, you never know which members are directly offended by hateful statements. It is one thing to have an environment where the atmosphere isn't perfect because people post offensive things, it is entirely another where people directly offend other members with their posts.
I don't agree that allowing someone to post stupid shit is an acceptance of said stupid shit. If we don't accept what someone says as a valid opinion, we say so. There's no need to suppress an opinion to indicate that the forum members in general think it is abhorrent.
I honestly don't know what's best. I'd personally lean towards not banning him for racist remarks, but I also don't like the idea of allowing somebody to post offensively without some kind of repercussion. Personally I'm fine with a temporary ban to let the forum cool off and hopefully when he comes back the topic is dead. Again,
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