Idiot of the Day

[Dark Holy Elf]

If your school punishes people for specifically using certain words, that's their prerogative, but as a first amendment issue, punishment of that sort can only be meted out for things students say in school.

Again, sorry, but you're just wrong on this one. Whether you like it or not, schools not only have a right to prevent bullying (which this is) outside of school, they have a responsibility. Do you have any idea how much shit a school would be in if a student made a web page dedicated to their hate of another student and encouraging others to share in that hate, the school did nothing, and then the student went to the press, or worse, committed suicide over it? Because the answer is "a lot".

This has actually happened, by the way.

Second and more importantly is your statement that you can't tailor the punishment to how badly the person is affected.

Perhaps I misspoke; this particular part of the issue is indeed a bit grey. It wasn't entirely correct of me to say that how the person is affected is irrelevant.

Rephrasing what's important, then, rather than get sidetracked: If you're trying to create an environment where hatred is not tolerated, then you have to punish any overt acts of hatred, whether or not the victim is deeply affected by them or not. Otherwise it sends the message that these acts are okay.

[superaielman]

Again, sorry, but you're just wrong on this one. Whether you like it or not, schools not only have a right to prevent bullying (which this is) outside of school, they have a responsibility. Do you have any idea how much shit a school would be in if a student made a web page dedicated to their hate of another student and encouraging others to share in that hate, the school did nothing, and then the student went to the press, or worse, committed suicide over it? Because the answer is "a lot".

Edit: Actually, this is kind of pointless. If they did withdraw her from the classes they're going to have a hard time defending it in court though.

[NotMiki]

If your school punishes people for specifically using certain words, that's their prerogative, but as a first amendment issue, punishment of that sort can only be meted out for things students say in school.

Again, sorry, but you're just wrong on this one. Whether you like it or not, schools not only have a right to prevent bullying (which this is) outside of school, they have a responsibility. Do you have any idea how much shit a school would be in if a student made a web page dedicated to their hate of another student and encouraging others to share in that hate, the school did nothing, and then the student went to the press, or worse, committed suicide over it? Because the answer is "a lot".

This has actually happened, by the way.

I don't mean to imply schools can't punish people for things said outside of school, only that if they do so they must firmly establish that what is going on is 'bullying.'  Speech is protected unless there's a reason for it not to be (the difference between shouting 'fire' in a theatre and doing so in your basement)  The school should have the authority to intervene if they legitimately believe that 'bullying' is going on, but I'm extremely skeptical that they can make that connection in this case.  If the page were dedicated to another student rather than a teacher I might change my mind.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I don't see how you can blame the school for adopting a policy of "if it's not okay to do to other students, it's not okay to do to teachers, either".

[NotMiki]

I don't see how you can blame the school for adopting a policy of "if it's not okay to do to other students, it's not okay to do to teachers, either".

Well that's an easy one.  Students' peers are other students.  Teachers are in a position of authority over them.  Teachers can use their discretionary authority to make students' lives very difficult if they so choose.  Students have no such recourse.

Even if you don't like your neighbors, you can't just picket outside their house.  They'd call the police on you in no time.  You can, however, do so outside your local politician's office.

[Dark Holy Elf]

You can't, however, do so outside your local politician's house. Nor can you picket your local politican because he's black. (EDIT: that's probably too charged an example. You can't picket him because he wears pink shirts, either. You get my point, anyway, I hope.)

If your complaint isn't strictly professional in nature (and to me the article doesn't make it look like it was, though it's unclear) then you lose that protection. If it's personal, the attack is treated the same whoever it's aimed at.

[superaielman]

  http://forum.objectivismonline.net/index.php?s=1af591c4ce608a96a76b17dfd02539c0&showforum=87 I stumbled across this joy when looking for information about Elantris online.

http://forum.objectivismonline.net/index.php?showtopic=1636 About what you would expect here.  Sanderson? Jordan? Trash. BRING ON THE GOODKIND!! 

http://forum.objectivismonline.net/index.php?showtopic=4265 "Hay this is a WoT topic, let's talk about how great faith of the fallen is!!"

[NotMiki]

You can't, however, do so outside your local politician's house. Nor can you picket your local politican because he's black. (EDIT: that's probably too charged an example. You can't picket him because he wears pink shirts, either. You get my point, anyway, I hope.)

If your complaint isn't strictly professional in nature (and to me the article doesn't make it look like it was, though it's unclear) then you lose that protection. If it's personal, the attack is treated the same whoever it's aimed at.

Unless there's a lot more going on here than is stated, the teacher only interacts with the student as a teacher.  Unless they've been meeting outside of classes and for strictly personal reasons, professional contact is the only kind the student and teacher ever have.  It's not too much of a leap to assume the student doesn't like the teacher because of how the class is conducted.  And your house analogy doesn't fit this situation because there was nothing personal to the teacher involved in the online posting (i.e. it wasn't the teacher's facebook page) and the teacher was, I assume, never intended to see it.

[AAA]

If you want to make fun of Objectivists there's so much better things to point at than their taste in books (horrible as it is)

[Grefter]

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/genmessage.php?board=937406&topic=46787413

Left 4 Dead has a kind of buggy thing you can do to melee attack super fast.  It isn't a huge deal.  This being Gamefaqs though it turns into a fucking Smash Shit Fuckers argument about Wave Dashing.  I hate you all and everyone that plays that flaming pile of shit game for ruining actually fun fucking games with this crap.  Fuck you.

[Lord Ephraim]

That shit doesn't exist in the 360 version.  Fucking PC loving douchebags. >_>

Anyways, isn't the whole point of L4D the co-op multiplayer? Aren't console scripts better for the whole team?

[WanderingMind]

Stuff like that is why I only hung out on the Gamefaqs boards for a couple months before moving on to better places.  That was four years ago, before it was bought out by Gamespot.

[Grefter]

Gamefaqs is barely worthwhile, but meh.  It is good for making fun of stupid.

Console scripts are better for the team, but meh.

[Mad Fnorder]

There is a versus mode. I've seen people use this glitch before, and I would place it in the slight advantage category. Bigger issues in versus are the various closets and hold out points that the entire team can group in with relative impunity to easy-clear some of the harder events. The only thing speed-swinging helps against is frontal pounces from Hunters, and well, you shouldn't do that as a Hunter anyway.

[Grefter]

Yeah, there is Vs mode, but if the opposition is using it, no reason you shouldn't either.

That said, Vs mode is less about winning so much as ganking the opposition harder as Zombie.  Well coordinated specials should probably pretty much always win methinks.

[Mad Fnorder]

Exactly. I'm hard-pressed to think of a specific situation where being a bad player with console speed-melee will save you that a good player without it wouldn't survive as well.

[NotMiki]

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/12/the_worst_ballot_challenge_of.php

New depths in the Minnesota recount.

[Excal]

Ugh, yeah.  That reminds me of this one time I was scrutineering for an election.  Basically, being the eyes for the party I was volunteering for to ensure a fair and even count.  One of the rules was that only the neutral guy not affiliated with any party is allowed to touch the ballots.  Fair enough.  Anyways, during the count one of the piles of votes starts to fall over towards me, and I instinctively place my hand such that it props itself up against it.  Neutral guy then puts everything back in place.  During the whole thing, my fingers remained straight, and everyone saw that nothing happened.  In the end, my guy got trounced.

But, the thing that stuck with me, was after everything was said and done, one of the higher ranking folk for the campaign said they had some things they could do.  And then he thanked me for touching the ballots, because that meant they could petition to have the whole stack thrown out.

[NotMiki]

yeah, dipping your hands in jars labeled 'anthrax' beforehand probably wasn't your best move.

[Grefter]

It would have been better if you had done it before distributing ballot slips.

[Captain K.]

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/genmessage.php?board=931113&topic=47219137

Bear in mind that gitales has never actually gotten the A ending - he's tried twice and screwed up.

[metroid composite]

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/genmessage.php?board=937406&topic=46787413

Left 4 Dead has a kind of buggy thing you can do to melee attack super fast.  It isn't a huge deal.  This being Gamefaqs though it turns into a fucking Smash Shit Fuckers argument about Wave Dashing.  I hate you all and everyone that plays that flaming pile of shit game for ruining actually fun fucking games with this crap.  Fuck you.

Okay perspective for a moment: it doesn't strike me as fair to be angry at everyone who plays SSBM.  Lots of people play the game and never get into an argument about wavedashing.  I'm not even really convinced that people who get into wavedashing arguments have played the game for more than 30 minutes.

What I don't understand is why wavedashing in particular is such a big deal.  Why do we not see this kind of unholy anger over bunny hopping?  Over skiing in Tribes (something you can't even do without a script)?  Over gamesharking in Pokemon?  Over collision glitching in Starcraft?  Even sticking within SSBM, Wavedashing isn't that big of a deal--it's basically a different form of rolling (or even just running) with a few more options.  Why don't people whine about wavelanding, SHL, JC-grab, DD-Smash length, YYG, etc?  These arguably take the game further from the original vision; some of them are easier to pull off, some of them are harder.

It's like wavedashing in particular holds some kind of perverted symbolism for people that's pretty detached from its actual gameplay value.  I mean, I like wavedashing; I can also totally see not liking wavedashing, but I don't see why such concerns are worthy of more than about ten posts of debate.  (This from the person who has had individual responses spanning five GameFAQs 4k-char-limit posts in FFT discussions).

[Captain K.]

Over gamesharking in Pokemon? 

Go to the Pokemon Pearl board and look for any topic with JeffMaz in it.  Just be prepared for Orion-level fail.

Note that I'm not actually recommending this, just making you aware that these arguments exist.

[Monkeyfinger]

I'll do the same thing for bunny hopping (you're referring to CS right?)

If you haven't seen unholy anger over that, you haven't been reading the right boards.

[Grefter]

There is some anger expressed with Bunny Hopping (in most FPS that had it, but CS is the poster child for it), but it isn't nearly as prevalent as Smash Brothers stuff.  Bunny HOpping is kind of iconic of CS matches, but bitching about wavedashing/being hyper technical competetive about it is more iconic of smash than the actual gameplay elements of wavedashing (Fox No Items crap).

Okay perspective for a moment: it doesn't strike me as fair to be angry at everyone who plays SSBM.  Lots of people play the game and never get into an argument about wavedashing.  I'm not even really convinced that people who get into wavedashing arguments have played the game for more than 30 minutes.

You know by now I am exagerating the sentiment (But seriously I wish people that chuck hissy fits about it would shut the fuck up.  A sequel is out that doesn't have it.  Get the fuck over it)