This is probably the final vote that will be cast in RemyBrown's trial. While I don't imagine that it will make any difference given how lopsided the tally is at the time of writing, here I am anyway. With that out of the way...
Pro quickly establishes that (1). Mods have the authority to issue a ban for RemyBrown, because (2). his speech qualifies for such a punishment. He writes that "Accounts operating chiefly to provoke through identity‑based rhetoric may be sanctioned regardless of technical compliance", which is in fact a verbatim quotation of the CoC. He then breaks down RemyBrown's post history to reveal an unambiguous pattern of identity-based rhetoric.
Con, on his part, doesn't seem to deny that the Mods have this authority. But he observes that, at the end of the day, it is a discretional authority, especially when it comes to how said offenses ought to be punished. The CoC says that "Indefinite bans are potentially permanent and imposed only under grave or persistent violations." Note the distinction between indefinite and permanent, and this is the only place in the document where the word permanent is ever used. In other words, grave or persistent violations may or may not warrant a permanent ban, which is the ultimate, irrevocable penalty being discussed here. The burden, then, is not on Con to disprove egregious conduct on RemyBrown's part that violates the CoC but only to make the case that the ultimate penalty is not warranted.
Con centers his case around (1). the value of free speech in and of itself; (2). the actual content of Remy's posts being generally less offensive and more insightful than their titles would suggest; (3). the practical value of engagement for small communities like this one; and (4). alternate tools in the toolbelts of mods and ordinary users alike to deal with inflammatory content, namely the "mark as offensive" feature.
On the question of (3)., this engagement is largely limited to a handful of regular users, as Con points out. But this should not discount the possibility of "trickle-down engagement". For example, if you're RM and you've gotten into a flame war on the topic of Jews with Skep in one of Remy's threads, and you're periodically refreshing the webpage for this site to see if Skep responded to your latest post, then chances are higher than usual that you'll take note of some other thread while you're waiting and comment on it, or perhaps post a new thread of your own. This is a boon for the site so far as concerns search engine visibility or its perceived lucrativeness for advertisers. The question of trickle-down engagement, at least, warrants further study but it has not come up at all in this debate.
Now, the obvious bane is lurkers without accounts or potential advertisers being scared off by unhinged rants about how Jews ought to be gassed a second time. But "mark as offensive" can largely mitigate and minimize this, since you need an account to see said posts, and especially if an account's default setting is for such to be hidden.
Admittedly we have had the occasional semi-regular user (re: Zaradi) who left because of a perceived toxic environment as well, because they chose not to hide offensive posts and wound up being duly offended by them. But I would question the soundness of quitters whose commitment to participate regularly on this site was less certain to begin with getting a veto over a regular poster's right to contribute here.
In the aggregate, then, I believe that Con wins on the subject of engagement, though of course that's not the issue at play.
On (2)., Con does genuinely try to defend the actual content of Remy's posts but I find this a weaker point. Even assuming that he has comprehensively gone through every example and ruled out any genuine CoC violations (Con himself has previously issued Remy a temp ban for a thread which, in his judgment, non-satirically advocated for sexual violence) , he underplays the value of a thread title as content in and of itself. There are plenty of people - myself included on occasion - who reply to a question or proposition raised in a thread's title as opposed to having the patience to parse through a wall of text and analyze what is being said before responding. Others, as with news headlines, don't open a thread at all but instead will have (not unreasonably) hurt feelings from an inflammatory title by itself.
So I think, then, that Remy's conduct is best defended by defending controversial speech more generally rather than by trying to convince this jury that it is not, in fact, controversial.
On that point, I know where I stand: if I were the owner/moderator of this website, I would run it as a radical experiment in freedom of expression. Saying hurtful/noxious things is not a violation of another person's speech as long as they have the right to tune out without being denied broad access to a public (in the sense of a participating public) space as the only means of exercising said right. The offensive content filter allows for such disassociation. You can go to your settings and ensure that you do not see any of RemyBrown's content; and if at present this site's suite of settings do not allow for such fine calibration as to tune out RemyBrown without also tuning out another user whose contents is marked offensive but who you wish to engage with then that's a question for the site's programmers. If anything, permabanning RemyBrown might compromise said right to disassociate by causing him to spam alt accounts for which his detractors' accounts have no filters set up to block.
But a ban goes beyond individual disassociation. It is a choice made by a singular mod, or at best a small team, that just assumes the consent of all other members of this community. And while I very much appreciate that RemyBrown's trial is up for public debate, not everyone will vote on it - including future members of this site who have yet to join. I believe that, if some users plausibly might find value in RemyBrown's posts, they should be allowed to choose for themselves whether to associate with this individual. The current status quo better upholds freedom of association than a ban, and if it were up to me a new CoC would be written that was in line with the values stated above. But even with the CoC that we have, a permaban is up to the mods' discretion and it's my position that they ought not to exercise that option here.
While I'll freely admit that, to some extent, I have put arguments in Con's mouth that he never put down, a trial is different than other forms of debate in that the debater's job is to help the voter make their own case. I am not obliged to cast my vote simply on the basis of the deficiency of one side's arguments (not to throw this accusation at Con, who IMO did an alright job). Rather, I am free on this occasion to vote my own conscience, and that is what I'm going to do.
ACQUIT
Pro quickly establishes that (1). Mods have the authority to issue a ban for RemyBrown, because (2). his speech qualifies for such a punishment. He writes that "Accounts operating chiefly to provoke through identity‑based rhetoric may be sanctioned regardless of technical compliance", which is in fact a verbatim quotation of the CoC. He then breaks down RemyBrown's post history to reveal an unambiguous pattern of identity-based rhetoric.
Con, on his part, doesn't seem to deny that the Mods have this authority. But he observes that, at the end of the day, it is a discretional authority, especially when it comes to how said offenses ought to be punished. The CoC says that "Indefinite bans are potentially permanent and imposed only under grave or persistent violations." Note the distinction between indefinite and permanent, and this is the only place in the document where the word permanent is ever used. In other words, grave or persistent violations may or may not warrant a permanent ban, which is the ultimate, irrevocable penalty being discussed here. The burden, then, is not on Con to disprove egregious conduct on RemyBrown's part that violates the CoC but only to make the case that the ultimate penalty is not warranted.
Con centers his case around (1). the value of free speech in and of itself; (2). the actual content of Remy's posts being generally less offensive and more insightful than their titles would suggest; (3). the practical value of engagement for small communities like this one; and (4). alternate tools in the toolbelts of mods and ordinary users alike to deal with inflammatory content, namely the "mark as offensive" feature.
On the question of (3)., this engagement is largely limited to a handful of regular users, as Con points out. But this should not discount the possibility of "trickle-down engagement". For example, if you're RM and you've gotten into a flame war on the topic of Jews with Skep in one of Remy's threads, and you're periodically refreshing the webpage for this site to see if Skep responded to your latest post, then chances are higher than usual that you'll take note of some other thread while you're waiting and comment on it, or perhaps post a new thread of your own. This is a boon for the site so far as concerns search engine visibility or its perceived lucrativeness for advertisers. The question of trickle-down engagement, at least, warrants further study but it has not come up at all in this debate.
Now, the obvious bane is lurkers without accounts or potential advertisers being scared off by unhinged rants about how Jews ought to be gassed a second time. But "mark as offensive" can largely mitigate and minimize this, since you need an account to see said posts, and especially if an account's default setting is for such to be hidden.
Admittedly we have had the occasional semi-regular user (re: Zaradi) who left because of a perceived toxic environment as well, because they chose not to hide offensive posts and wound up being duly offended by them. But I would question the soundness of quitters whose commitment to participate regularly on this site was less certain to begin with getting a veto over a regular poster's right to contribute here.
In the aggregate, then, I believe that Con wins on the subject of engagement, though of course that's not the issue at play.
On (2)., Con does genuinely try to defend the actual content of Remy's posts but I find this a weaker point. Even assuming that he has comprehensively gone through every example and ruled out any genuine CoC violations (Con himself has previously issued Remy a temp ban for a thread which, in his judgment, non-satirically advocated for sexual violence) , he underplays the value of a thread title as content in and of itself. There are plenty of people - myself included on occasion - who reply to a question or proposition raised in a thread's title as opposed to having the patience to parse through a wall of text and analyze what is being said before responding. Others, as with news headlines, don't open a thread at all but instead will have (not unreasonably) hurt feelings from an inflammatory title by itself.
So I think, then, that Remy's conduct is best defended by defending controversial speech more generally rather than by trying to convince this jury that it is not, in fact, controversial.
On that point, I know where I stand: if I were the owner/moderator of this website, I would run it as a radical experiment in freedom of expression. Saying hurtful/noxious things is not a violation of another person's speech as long as they have the right to tune out without being denied broad access to a public (in the sense of a participating public) space as the only means of exercising said right. The offensive content filter allows for such disassociation. You can go to your settings and ensure that you do not see any of RemyBrown's content; and if at present this site's suite of settings do not allow for such fine calibration as to tune out RemyBrown without also tuning out another user whose contents is marked offensive but who you wish to engage with then that's a question for the site's programmers. If anything, permabanning RemyBrown might compromise said right to disassociate by causing him to spam alt accounts for which his detractors' accounts have no filters set up to block.
But a ban goes beyond individual disassociation. It is a choice made by a singular mod, or at best a small team, that just assumes the consent of all other members of this community. And while I very much appreciate that RemyBrown's trial is up for public debate, not everyone will vote on it - including future members of this site who have yet to join. I believe that, if some users plausibly might find value in RemyBrown's posts, they should be allowed to choose for themselves whether to associate with this individual. The current status quo better upholds freedom of association than a ban, and if it were up to me a new CoC would be written that was in line with the values stated above. But even with the CoC that we have, a permaban is up to the mods' discretion and it's my position that they ought not to exercise that option here.
While I'll freely admit that, to some extent, I have put arguments in Con's mouth that he never put down, a trial is different than other forms of debate in that the debater's job is to help the voter make their own case. I am not obliged to cast my vote simply on the basis of the deficiency of one side's arguments (not to throw this accusation at Con, who IMO did an alright job). Rather, I am free on this occasion to vote my own conscience, and that is what I'm going to do.
ACQUIT