I'm pretty sure deleting offensive speech on content not related to that is par for the course with most websites.

It is, and it's because they find you an asshole and don't want to see more of your assholishness. This xkcd comic sums it up well:

imgs.xkcd.com/comics/free_speech.png

Lot of people need to see this. You are free to say whatever you want. But you are not free of consequence.

Gelbooru is quite a terrible place to post offensive speech. It's a gallery of works to observe, admire, and fap to. Not to be a dick over. It's kind of like pissing in an aquascaped fish tank.

It is, but a lot of it is websites merely covering their asses- to avoid the "consequences" as people are fond of calling it now. The point is also that arguably the most offensive things you can say to someone (telling them to kill themselves, or that their entire family should die) is not "offensive" unless their identity is brought into question. In the first place, being offended has no intrinsic value, and it's only *very* recently that western culture decided to assign utmost value to outrage and personal offense. The fact that people are smugly stating that there are consequences for adults using mean words is in of itself incredibly cringy and indicative of today's state of society. Is anyone old enough to remember "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me"?

The problem with "not being an asshole" is that people, especially today, have wildly different opinions on what exactly that means. To the most mature people you can say pretty much anything you want that's not extremely derisive towards them or their loved ones and they don't care. To the most sheltered and childish people- to which these rules are inevitably catered around- being an asshole can include saying you don't like a fictional character, using the wrong pronoun, or even bringing up inconvenient facts about everyday life, even if not directed at them or in a hostile way. Like this public discourse has been shaped and all but killed by the lowest common denominators, and to merely talk about this publicly is heresy.

I might add OP mentioned that the 'offensive speech' in question was in regards to the image, not directed at another user.




It's a terrible place to post any kind of comment. I've always advocated for turning them off.

There are plenty of cases though where the image is being attacked because it represents a segment of the population that the commentator does not like, which quickly ends up with attacks toward other users based on their perceived affinity or belonging to said segment of the population.

A bizarre statement given the history of dueling to avenge perceived affronts, and the concept of a "crime of passion".

How do you determine what a "mature person" is compared to a "childish person"?

Slippery slope and conjecture.



In the dark ages... a time period which our culture seems a bit too eager to replicate in many ways. Just replace the Church with a different moral authoritarian body.



Didn't I give you an example of that above? It's really as simple as the way a child is expected to act compared to the way adults (used to be) expected to act. There might be some minor disagreement on this, but I don't think many people would disagree that being level-headed, rational, forgiving (within reason), being independent (mentally and financially), and taking responsibility for one's actions are mature or adult traits. Conversely, throwing tantrums, a lack of self-control, *a lack of self-awareness*, being dependent on others, and blaming others for one's own personal failures are child-like traits. Think of how a little kid would act if a stranger called them stupid compared to a 30-40 year old that had a family to feed and places to be.

How can it be a "slippery slope" or "conjecture" if it's already happened? A recent example was an image where an anime character had a transgender flag. There were multiple comments (since deleted) attacking transgender people including a commentator telling another to "kys tranny".

The 18th and 19th centuries were not the "Dark Ages", but now you're criticizing something for being too old after having criticized it for being too new.

... "if only everyone was as level-headed, rational, forgiving, independent, and responsible as I am". That is what your paragraph boils down to.

And now an anecdote about a porn site to defend cultural behavior. Your example is someone directly insulting a protected person anyway, I don't see how it's congruent to someone insulting a fictional character or commenting on an image in an offensive manner.



Dueling gained popularity in the middle ages. Why even make arguments like this? Just to waste time?



Actually not at all what I said, but as you're getting continually more irrational and hostile and throwing out nothing but strawman arguments now, there's no reason to continue replying to you. Take a break from the internet and cool off a bit.

Is this thread a debating club abstractly discussing culture, or is it talking about the rules of this site? You are the one who started going off on tangents about modern Western society.

So have many things we take for granted today. It is a normal process of civilization to try to discard what is outworn and replace it with something superior. Which is why we don't have duels anymore, but societies do have other means of responding to offensive behavior.

You were the one using the "recentness" of something in an attempt to discredit it and by implication trying to discredit the decision of mods to delete certain kinds of comments.