A New GATHER Group, in pursuit of civility and tolerance; Fighting racism, hate, bigotry.

Hi, Paul - the links above in your article keep bringing me to "page not found". Once fixed, I will be sure to join. Thanks!

It's working now. Excellent idea.

Thanks, Sheryl and Elizabeth. I definitely need to work on my linking skills! That's why I'm counting on you (and others) to post links/articles/comments from past, present and future discussions!

Interesting concept.

As a part of the vetting process, define what you mean by "hate" and "intolerance"? I'm not being facetious. Being conservative, I've been called some pretty hateful and intolerant things for my beliefs, all the while having those two adjectives hurled at me for those beliefs.

Just asking.

Great idea Paul.

Tried to join but when I searched nohate.gather.com I received a not on our database file.
I think this is great.

David: Thanks for joining the group. It is a good question, and I was just thinking about it when I was reading Spartan's article about "labeling" in the political arena. (I was - and am - thinking about linking to it here.)

What held me back is that what spurred me to start this group/database/resource/whatever is the abundance of articles and comments discussing race, religion, ethnicity, skin color, etc. (I didn't include other forms of bigotry, but my initial listing was not meant to be exclusive.) I was struggling for words to properly decsribe it, and "tolerance" is the one that most readily come to my mind. I thought about "bigotry" and "bias" and "discrimination" and others, but I wanted to try to describe it in the positive.

Political hatespeech and intolerance, between Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, etc is also deplorable, of course, and I am not averse to discussions about limiting that sort of incivility, as well. But, I could see that overwhelming the slightly-more-narrow subject areas. If there is a political discussion where you feel that someone is being "hateful", "intolerant", etc, and you want to call our attention to it - I think that would be fine. (I don't intend to do much moderating of the group - and I would hope that everyone would use a good degree of common sense and civility. I think you have both, David, even if you are sometimes maddeningly convinced that your opinions are fact!)

j: Thanks, your group was one of the inspirations for it, BTW.

Joe: I did screw up the links in this article before, but they should be fixed. If not, just type "nohate.gather.com" into your browser window and it should take you to the "groupspace". Let me know if it doesn't work. We'll get you in here one way or another. I'll "connect" and "invite" you, if necessary.

Ok - I joined. Didn't realize that all I have to do is put the address in the browser. (Technologically challenged here).

Thanks, Joe. There should be some great, healthy discussion.

Here's a link for ya;
nohate.gather.com

Thanks, wench. How do you get the hyper-link in a comment, anyway?

(test: nohate.gather.com )

Nope, that didn't work.

It's NP. You need to keep the http:// in front of it & type it as I do below, but leave the "**"'s off.

**put nohate.gather.com or anything else can be in this space**

ahh poop

<<a href="http://nohate.gather.com">put nohate.gather.com or anything else can be in this space>

There we go. Remove the 1st "<"
& you will get:
put nohate.gather.com or anything else can be in this space>

remove one ">" at the end too. I have to run, feel free to pm me.

No, I think I understand. That's great! Thanks, Wench!
Test: this is the link to the "groupspace">

Awesome!

"I think you have both, David, even if you are sometimes maddeningly convinced that your opinions are fact!)"
paul w., Oct 16, 2007, 4:33pm EDT

LOL! Well, thank you paul ... I think ;-)

I try not to form opinions until I have the facts, so perhaps that would explain it. That I express my first-blush take on a particular issue does get to be problematic at times. But, if I've formed an opinion, I've looked into it pretty deeply. Hence my hesitance to come off it without some pretty strong evidence to the contrary.

In any event, I'm looking forward to some stimulating and enlightening discussions.

Btw, when putting a link into a comment and you want it to open in a new tab, place target = new just before the first >

like this: <a href = "http://www.nohate.gather.com" target = new>nohate</a>

Thanks, David, and Edward!

BTW, I'd like to see the person who flagged this article step forward.

Wow, somebody did flag it. I can see no cause for that.

SPAM? No way!
(Unless they're referring to the way "A H ~ AKA Pirate Wench ~ AKA Allie" posted several comments in a row - but, that's not a fault with the article.)

Then, there's the generic Other. Could this person be opposed to equality?

Thanks, Kathleen. I hope that it will become a place where we can alert each other to possibly-bigoted/intolerant/discriminatory/etc articles or comments elsewhere on Gather, and that we can discuss these issues in a frank and civil forum.

I'm glad to see that the flag has been removed. Thanks, Gather Support.

Paul W:
How are the articles chosen to appear in this group ?

Sounds like a very good premise, Paul. Thank you.