Moderation question: When if ever should we allow the discussion of someone else's body/appearance on LetsRun?

Speaking of old men, why stop at LRC ban on talking about someone's weight? Why not expand the ban to talking about someone's age? Surely talking about someone's age is a vastly more sensitive issue!

Does an 80+ year old geezer really needs to be reminded that he's 80+ years old? What about when Wejo or Rojo lists the age of Rupp or Molly Huddle in an article they write? Do Wejo and Rojo really need to be so insensitive and point out how old Rupp and Huddle are getting? Surely they are aware they are getting old and don't need to be reminded they are going to be yesterday's news soon.

And also, why would Wejo and Rojo be so insensitive as to list the losers of a race in their results recaps? Does the 2nd, 3rd, ....50th losers really need to be reminded how bad they did in a race? Surely that it's a much more sensitive issue for a runner than some random talk about their weight. Do we really need to allow mentioning that someone lost a race or didn't achieve OTQ?

KR, I recognize you as a long-time, good-natured participant on these forums, but your long story and joke, though appreciated, had zero to do with this discussion. And you seem to be agreeing with me since you said HS runners are off limits. I had posted earlier that pros (defined loosely, really meaning post-collegiate athletes) are fair game, so we're in line there. But I happen to think college kids should be off limits too. Partly because I think there should just be a blanket rule that's easy to understand and enforce, but also because I don't really see a significant difference between an 18 year old HS senior and a 19 year old college freshman for purposes of this issue. I think the discussions can be equally as damaging, they stay on the internet forever, the athletes are still kids, the athletes are still amateurs, and generally nothing good comes of it. If people want to discuss bad college programs, I'm fine with it so long as names aren't mentioned.

Bullet the Blue Sky wrote:

I think this is exactly the point. What an althete wears or does not wear is not an implicit invitation or permission to talk about their body, especially in an anonymous, public forum like this.

Don't get me wrong we want to have a more civil forum but posts like this make me wonder if we're teaching people the wrong lesson. If the goal is to never have someone post or say something about our bodies without our permission aren't we setting ourselves up for failure? All it takes is one person to post or say something and boom we are upset. We're giving the power to the offenders.

Somewhat related I was reading some news article the other day. And someone like 3000 miles from me I think in Washington State, this was a random person, had said something offensive to someone else and I think assaulted them. It was in my google news list of stop stories. I was getting pissed and then I thought "wait. Why is this even news for me?" The history of humanity is with people being d*** to one another. Some random person did something across the country and it got written up and by the power of internet was put in front of me and I was supposed to get pissed.

The reach and instantaneous nature of internet has changed a lot. Not that we don't want to be more civil but we should realize also we can't control what everyone does.

Posters should be allowed to discuss their OWN body issues. There is nothing helpful about posting other runner/athletes body issues.

I don't even know what to say here. If an athlete performs poorly and is clearly overweight it is a topic of discussion. This doesn't happen that often in track and field but when it happens it is obvious. Cain at the moment is clearly not going to make the Olympics and it doesn't just have to do with her weight but that's clearly a big factor. Anyone disputing this is a liar. Bekele has been the most frequent target in recent years for being overweight and actually his brother Tariku has also looked the part as well. No one has come to their defense because that would be foolish. Just call it as it is nothing has to change. Yes NOP handled the mental aspect completely wrong but that has nothing to do with the real fact that Cain, Begley etc were not in the type of shape to compete for medals. That is fact. This is an anonymous forum, we should be able to say what is right here. Cain was not looking out of shape when she was killing it and running 1:58 or whatever it was. If Tuohy gained 10 pounds next year we would not be speculating why she's not performing to her usual standards.

This site is routinely a vehicle for the expression of every kind of prejudice. It is a little late to be striving for the practice of virtue. Fat - or skinny - shaming is small beer here.

Armstronglivs wrote:

This site is routinely a vehicle for the expression of every kind of prejudice. It is a little late to be striving for the practice of virtue. Fat - or skinny - shaming is small beer here.

the truth, depressingly, of this post, cannot be understated

+1

The Floyd wrote:

KR, I recognize you as a long-time, good-natured participant on these forums, but your long story and joke, though appreciated, had zero to do with this discussion.

[/quote]

I disagree. First of all, it was about bodies: a woman's body, more specifically. Isn't that what we're talking about? Whether talk about bodies, especially women's bodies, should be off-limits?

But more seriously: that joke was speaking, albeit somewhat obliquely, to one element of the discussion, which is that this forum is suspended between two different imperatives. On the one hand, it's an all-comers locker room in which forthright, sometimes raw, sometimes rude, defiantly non-PC talk is the lingua franca. It's the sort of place, I presume, where the sort of joke that I told--and I don't believe I've ever shared a joke here in 14 years--should be allowed, as such jokes are not only allowed in private all-male contexts, but are a positive and healthy force in those contexts. They release tension and create fraternal bonds. In that respect, this place a locker room reinvented as a public forum where people quickly figure out the rules.

On the other hand, it's...well, a public space. And there are rules for what is allowed in public discourse. You can't write the word "mother*****r" here, and for good reason. We all get that much. But there are other nodes where the public-ness of this online forum also runs into potential trouble. Libel, for example. And so the Brojos are asking. They're trying to figure out where the middle ground is--the largest, most reasonable free-speech space--between Anything Goes and Don't You Dare.

I used the joke as an illustration of how men, off by themselves, create free spaces of the locker-room variety. I daresay that any masculinity worth living needs and depends on such spaces.

You and I agree that we should leave HS'ers out of it. Except, now that I think about it, there remains the problem of Andraya Yearwood and her trans brethren. The issue of whether trans athletes should be allowed to compete in the girls/women's division in HS meets is a cutting-edge issue, and although I don't like the way some here discuss the issue, I do think it needs to be discussed, problematic as such discussions are. They're newsworthy. Surely we can discuss the news here.

mcvred wrote:

Armstronglivs wrote:

This site is routinely a vehicle for the expression of every kind of prejudice. It is a little late to be striving for the practice of virtue. Fat - or skinny - shaming is small beer here.

the truth, depressingly, of this post, cannot be understated

+1

Cannot be understated?

In general, it seems reasonable to allow such discussion in the context of performance, but to shut it down when it veers into appearance. SFH should be an exception, of course.

KudzuRunner wrote:

The Floyd wrote:

KR, I recognize you as a long-time, good-natured participant on these forums, but your long story and joke, though appreciated, had zero to do with this discussion.

I disagree. First of all, it was about bodies: a woman's body, more specifically. Isn't that what we're talking about? Whether talk about bodies, especially women's bodies, should be off-limits?

But more seriously: that joke was speaking, albeit somewhat obliquely, to one element of the discussion, which is that this forum is suspended between two different imperatives. On the one hand, it's an all-comers locker room in which forthright, sometimes raw, sometimes rude, defiantly non-PC talk is the lingua franca. It's the sort of place, I presume, where the sort of joke that I told--and I don't believe I've ever shared a joke here in 14 years--should be allowed, as such jokes are not only allowed in private all-male contexts, but are a positive and healthy force in those contexts. They release tension and create fraternal bonds. In that respect, this place a locker room reinvented as a public forum where people quickly figure out the rules.

On the other hand, it's...well, a public space. And there are rules for what is allowed in public discourse. You can't write the word "mother*****r" here, and for good reason. We all get that much. But there are other nodes where the public-ness of this online forum also runs into potential trouble. Libel, for example. And so the Brojos are asking. They're trying to figure out where the middle ground is--the largest, most reasonable free-speech space--between Anything Goes and Don't You Dare.

I used the joke as an illustration of how men, off by themselves, create free spaces of the locker-room variety. I daresay that any masculinity worth living needs and depends on such spaces.

You and I agree that we should leave HS'ers out of it. Except, now that I think about it, there remains the problem of Andraya Yearwood and her trans brethren. The issue of whether trans athletes should be allowed to compete in the girls/women's division in HS meets is a cutting-edge issue, and although I don't like the way some here discuss the issue, I do think it needs to be discussed, problematic as such discussions are. They're newsworthy. Surely we can discuss the news here.[/quote]

Unfortunately, you're requiring standards of social media that many of its participants lack or don't adhere to. It's like starting a conversation with a stranger on a bus - you don't know what is going to come out of it - with none of the usual constraints of face to face communication. We're a long way from the politeness of a book club; more like a charge at the enemy trenches conducted from behind a computer screen.

It's like Leah O'Connor says one thing and then there is 3-time Olympian SFH opening an onlyfans account.

And who is to say that SNAP Inc hasnt saved all of the complainer's private photos they share with their boyfriends.

I think you bring up a good point in setting yourself up for failure. Everyone is currently too self conscience and it is a major uphill battle to appease that ideal. I think LetsRun honestly has a better shot going the other route in promoting positive body relationships. I mean does that mean Suzy's route to this is a potential internet gamechanging solution?

We live in a very confusing place.

pe major wrote:

It's like Leah O'Connor says one thing and then there is 3-time Olympian SFH opening an onlyfans account.

What is Suzy doing with a fans account? I haven't heard of this.

wejo wrote:

What is Suzy doing with a fans account? I haven't heard of this.

Not that I've taken a look but she set up a website to host her nude photos for subscription fans. Maybe you want to take a look and give us feedback?

Discussion of people's appearance is one of the things that makes this place a cesspool. I'm not suggesting LRC should necessarily try to come up with precise guidelines for moderating it. This is an issue with the world (and its interaction with the internet via anonymous online posts), not just LRC. LRC is just one tiny cesspond in the global internet forum cesspool, hardly unique (or the worst), and anyway it's our cesspool...

Seriously, finding a way to filter out some of the noise (and most but not all commentary on athletes' appearance is noise) would go a long way toward improving this place. Maybe you could have an "a$$hole rule," where if your moderators are of the opinion that somebody's comments on appearance, if made in person (instead of anonymously online), would have them called out as an a$$hole, it's fair game for deletion.

On this site, people frequently call the President names, accuse people of doping, call people morons for expressing opinions, call the moderators racist, but they can't discuss weight?

On-line comment and in-person comment aren't the same; that's one of the things that makes social media different. Your '*sshole' or objectionability test, to be consistent, would apply to much more than comments about personal appearance. It's an invitation to censorship. It would also be a matter of opinion.

Armstronglivs wrote:On-line comment and in-person comment aren't the same; that's one of the things that makes social media different. Your '*sshole' or objectionability test, to be consistent, would apply to much more than comments about personal appearance. It's an invitation to censorship. It would also be a matter of opinion.

You're right that on-line comment and in-person comment are different. That's because people feel free to behave like a$$holes when nobody's going to call them on it. I know this won't change, and I didn't expect any serious consideration of my suggestion, but it's what I think, and, wejo did ask...

What about someone like Suzy Favor-Hamilton who clearly wants her body and appearance discussed?