A note on Jury Service. (edited)

Please, PLEASE jurors, let the buffoons deservedly reap what they sowed. Don't hide their posts. Allow their ridiculous posts to get the shitstorm of disapproval they deserve through replies to those posts.

It seems to me that we may have recently passed the tipping point at times of being too quick to hide posts as jurors. I serve on juries and about the only thing that will get me to vote "hide" is if a person used the typically banned "n-word," "c-word," or was overtly bigoted, racist, homophobic or misogynist. Yet, I still allow quite a bit a leeway for those opinions if they do not venture into the "stone the heretics" territory. And yes, there have been some of the most vile posts about killing, maiming and otherwise harming others here on DU that certainly deserved to be hidden and their author banned. I would happily vote to ban them and did so when I was on MIRT.

I read the alerted post in context of the thread and in context of the post to which the person replied. If someone is a bit bigoted, racist, homophobic or misogynist then I feel a response to their post is more in order than hiding it. We cannot battle ignorance by ignoring and hiding it.

If you serve on a jury you MUST be willing to read the WHOLE thread and the context in which the alerted post was entered upon that thread. You cannot just read the single post that was alerted upon and make judgement.

Vulgar language is not going to get me to vote to hide a post.

When someone posts something that many of us think is out of bounds of normal discourse, that's not necessarily out of bounds with the TOS of DU.

I'd find it far, far better to leave their posts public and make intelligent responses to them rather than just hide them. How else can we hope to educate? Some people we'll be able to educate and change point of views. Others will be hopeless. We just have to recognize the difference between the two and put our efforts toward education.

If we continue to try to hide EVERY post we find objectionable this will no longer be a discussion board. It will be a campfire with all of us holding hands and singing "Kum Bah Ya"

I don't think that is what any of us desires. I think we are here on DU because we like lively debate. So don't squelch debate, but feel free to berate what you believe is nonsense and keep that nonsense public just to ensure everyone can see the paucity of some people's arguments.

ON EDIT:
Thanks BainsBane for pointing out where I was just wrong.

I'll admit that I was wrong about reading the "whole" thread. The content of a sub-thread between a couple or few people is usually enough to get the context and make a proper decision on an alerted post.

However, I still scan the whole thread for tone. To me, at least, that is important.

On Edit 2:

This OP was only meant to share how I do things and how I feel we ALL may need to adjust our thoughts from time to time. Why else would be here on DU if we didn't want a lively debate and an opportunity to have our beliefs challenged? We need not take offense to such challenges. We should appreciate them. I know I do when I stop being pissed off about those challenges to me.

I apologize if this was taken as some sort of instruction manual for people. That was not at all my intent. It was, however, my intent to get people on juries to think a bit before hitting the "hide" and offering no explanation of why they voted to hide. I find that very frustrating.

My intent, in concert with the purpose of DU, was open debate and have a discussion. Not at all to be overlord of sorts telling anyone what they should or should not do.