Thread: Proposal: Guidelines regarding posting pictures of dead bodies in sigs, avvy and posts

Originally Posted by broncogirl7

My logic is "live" bodies, not dead or mutilated bodies!

So if put a picture of Jesus hanging on the cross in my signature would you say I have no right to display the picture because he is dead or even worse dying?

Originally Posted by haroldthebarrel

not to be sarcastic. This is something i really wonder about!
But there are a lot of pictures of paintings with Jesus Christ dead. Should they also not be allowed?

Originally Posted by yardog

So if put a picture of Jesus hanging on the cross in my signature would you say I have no right to display the picture because he is dead or even worse dying?

No, as long as we allow religiously related signatures, I think a picture of Jesus (or what most believe his likeness to be) is fine. However, if someone was clearly putting up an image of Jesus with some comments or in some other way clearly trying to inflame Christians on the board, that is where the mod's "latitude" in determining if it is allowed will come in.

Two things to keep in mind:

1. As a general rule, we don't want to be any more restrictive that is absolutely necessary.
2. It isn't ok for people to go out of their way to try and inflame select individuals or entire groups of individuals out of some type of sport or meanness.

Originally Posted by Tned

Two things to keep in mind:

1. As a general rule, we don't want to be any more restrictive that is absolutely necessary.
2. It isn't ok for people to go out of their way to try and inflame select individuals or entire groups of individuals out of some type of sport or meanness.

I think the entire issue really stemmed from having said photos in a sig or avatar, the reason being that there was no way to 'get away' from those pictures without turning off sigs & avys. A single post will not have the same impact as repeatedly seeing an image (and if the picture is posted repeatedly, that could be considered spamming and already subject to the rules). In the interest of being the least restrictive possible, I think eliminating the restriction on individual posts is an idea worth kicking over. In context, the issues where a post of a dead body comes into play are few and far between.

As for the honoring the dead, I don't see why it has to be a dead body/casket picture anyway. I know that's not how my father would want to be remembered. One can honor the dead with other pictures and with words. Yardog's sig has always stuck with me. If you want a way to honor the dead, that's the way to go.

i dont see the reason to honor ANY dead body.... If u feel so strong about Jesus Christ and Ronald Reagan to where u need to make it absolutely publically known, you should be on a religious or political message board

Originally Posted by frauschieze

I think the entire issue really stemmed from having said photos in a sig or avatar, the reason being that there was no way to 'get away' from those pictures without turning off sigs & avys. A single post will not have the same impact as repeatedly seeing an image (and if the picture is posted repeatedly, that could be considered spamming and already subject to the rules). In the interest of being the least restrictive possible, I think eliminating the restriction on individual posts is an idea worth kicking over. In context, the issues where a post of a dead body comes into play are few and far between.

As for the honoring the dead, I don't see why it has to be a dead body/casket picture anyway. I know that's not how my father would want to be remembered. One can honor the dead with other pictures and with words. Yardog's sig has always stuck with me. If you want a way to honor the dead, that's the way to go.

exactly......

Originally Posted by Tned

Could you elaborate? Ridiculous that people think they need to post pictures of dead bodies? Ridiculous that people object to the posting of dead bodies? Some place in between?

I think it's stupid we're even debating this topic. If people don't like seeing dead bodies in avatars and signatures, they can turn their damn avatars and sigs OFF. Don't punish everyone just because a few friggin babies don't like it. Quit trying to appease the minority. Make the minority make changes to adapt to the way the majority likes things. That's how it SHOULD be.

Originally Posted by SeeingRed

I think it's stupid we're even debating this topic. If people don't like seeing dead bodies in avatars and signatures, they can turn their damn avatars and sigs OFF. Don't punish everyone just because a few friggin babies don't like it. Quit trying to appease the minority. Make the minority make changes to adapt to the way the majority likes things. That's how it SHOULD be.

Man, you heard bush say that word now its stuck on to you. And the ''majority'' didn't want it.

I personally don't mind. I appreciate it infact.

Originally Posted by Escobar

Man, you heard bush say that word now its stuck on to you. And the ''majority'' didn't want it.

I personally don't mind. I appreciate it infact.

Uh, it has nothing to do with our President. It has to do with appeasing the majority to keep the majority of the core posters here happy, not the minority few. Keep the core of the posters happy, have a good message board. Appease the minority, piss off the core, the message board goes to shit. Same way with economics.

Originally Posted by SeeingRed

I think it's stupid we're even debating this topic. If people don't like seeing dead bodies in avatars and signatures, they can turn their damn avatars and sigs OFF. Don't punish everyone just because a few friggin babies don't like it. Quit trying to appease the minority. Make the minority make changes to adapt to the way the majority likes things. That's how it SHOULD be.

The majority is against it according to Tned's OP.

I am against it and I'm not a baby.

I don't like dead bodies and I don't want to turn off sigs because I like most of the sigs and want to see them.

I really don't even notice the dead bodies and stuff

I don't pay attn to sigs/avis much. But people getting hurt feelings and thats understandable.

Beef has changed his Sig, so I imagine that it won't ever be an issue again.

Originally Posted by SeeingRed

Don't punish everyone just because a few friggin babies don't like it. Quit trying to appease the minority. Make the minority make changes to adapt to the way the majority likes things. That's how it SHOULD be.

You've made that false claim a couple times now, about appeasing the minority. In this case, clearly the majority of people that participated don't want to view dead bodies.

Actually, if we simply allow dead bodies in sigs, which the minority want, and tell the majority turn off sig images if you don't want to see it, then we will IN FACT be doing what you claim, and that is appeasing the minority.

Not sure why you are locked onto this appeasing the minority thing, when the whole reason I have the town hall discussions is so that I can get a feel for what the community as a whole, or failing that, a clear majority wants.

Originally Posted by Escobar

Man, you heard bush say that word now its stuck on to you. And the ''majority'' didn't want it.

I personally don't mind. I appreciate it infact.

Here's an idea, start adding something to Town Hall discussions, or don't participate. I think we have all had enough of your drive by one liners and accusations in the Town Hall threads, rather than participating in a meaningful way.

Originally Posted by Tned

You've made that false claim a couple times now, about appeasing the minority. In this case, clearly the majority of people that participated don't want to view dead bodies.

Actually, if we simply allow dead bodies in sigs, which the minority want, and tell the majority turn off sig images if you don't want to see it, then we will IN FACT be doing what you claim, and that is appeasing the minority.

Not sure why you are locked onto this appeasing the minority thing, when the whole reason I have the town hall discussions is so that I can get a feel for what the community as a whole, or failing that, a clear majority wants.

I think he wishes that you would just do what he wants.

Originally Posted by Tned

We have had a Town Hall discussion open for about two weeks in regards to whether or not displaying images of dead bodies is appropriate.

This subject seems to have first come up when someone put the body of Che in his sig, and then there was retaliation in the form of posting dead/mutilated bodies in other threads.

The results of the discussion were:

• 4 people were in favor of allowing dead bodies in any situation
• 3 stated that it depended. As an example, one person said that a peaceful looking corpse would be ok, where a mutilated one would not.
• 2 stated they didn’t care one way or another
• 11 were against displaying dead bodies

While it should be well known by now that I don’t accept the validity of polls for making important forum decisions, as the poll results are generally wrong for many reasons (wording of poll, people voting before reading discussion or even points/questions raised in original post, mistakes/choosing wrong option), here are the results of the poll for informational purposes. It should be noted that a couple prime examples of why poll data is not used in making forum decisions is that one poster said that s/he voted no, because "I don’t care" wasn’t an option, and another was clearly against dead bodies being displayed, but s/he accidentally voted yes to allow it. I bring these up not because the posters did anything wrong, but to reinforce some of the problems with relying on polls to determine forum decisions.

The poll results were 33 against displaying dead bodies, 12 in favor of displaying dead bodies.

Please note for future discussion, it is critical that if you want your opinion/vote to count, you must join the discussion and make clear your feeling on the subject, and ideally state why your feel the way you do (in regards to why something should or shouldn’t be implemented by the forum).

So, after reading all of the discussion on this subject, the following amendment to the rules is being proposed. I will keep this thread open until next weekend to receive comment on it, and then will make this rule, or a variant of it (based on comments here) effective at that time.

The following Amendment/interpretation guideline has been added to the rules. Please review:

TNed,

Excellent job explaining, especially the poll portion.

For clarities sake, while it is acceptablt to post a picture of a casket or tomb, my assumption is it would be unacceptable to post the same of an open casket viewing?

For instance the posting of a picture of an open casket, whether showing the corpse therein or not, is unacceptable?

Would this ruling then prohibit the posting of pictures of those passed before they were gone from this world?