Apologies. I haven't been on the discord (I hate discord, I hate their privacy policy, I hate the format, etc) so maybe I'm lacking some important context. I also understand rules may not be finalized at this point, in which case please accept this as humble feedback.
I also apologize for the length of the post but I feel it is necessary to fully unpack things here.
I just read the code of conduct and am wondering what is going on with that as it seems very, very strict, more so than even subs like /r/communism on reddit were with regards to rudeness which is kind of strange for a place that took its namesake from and often had culture of the so-called "dirtbag left".
Not that I condone ableism or any other form of bigotry (those who use the r-word are not allies, should be called out at minimum IMO, and I am not a friend of stupidpol) but this policy would seem to prevent so much as yelling at another user as was EXTREMELY common on CTH on reddit.
I would say responses of "shut the fuck up liberal" have been a part of CTH culture yet according to code of conduct:
We will exclude you from interaction if you >>insult, demean<< or harass anyone.
This is very broad. Particularly the words insult and demean. Is calling someone an ableist term "st*pid" for example an example of an insult that warrants a ban by the mods? This would make the moderation practices again more extreme than almost any left sub, most of them had bots that just removed but didn't ban users for such words, which is understandable given the culture we live in is steeped in them and many people struggle to fully free themselves of using them and it is in my opinion counter-productive to growth to punish people for this. I would also worry such a broad rule could lead to selective enforcement which would allow mods to ban people for other petty reasons and use this broad rule as an excuse.
Is liberal an insult? Are people no longer allowed the liberal running joke or more serious accusation/insult towards other users (again another very long-time CTH tradition). What determines what the difference between an insult and a genuine appraisal/critique of a user's ideology or the ideology of their statement?
What about imperialist? I would certainly consider that an insult as it is a very bad thing to be, yet it also accurately describes the opinions of some people but some would consider that appraisal to be subjective in certain cases.
Of more interest to me though is this:
Remarks that violate the Chapo standards of conduct, including hateful, hurtful, oppressive, or exclusionary remarks, are not allowed. >>Cursing is allowed, but never targeting another user<< and never in a hateful manner.)
The bolded part. Would this mean if someone replied to someone else with "shut the fuck up liberal" a curse, directed at another user (and including an insult as per above rule) they would be subject to sanction? For that matter would a reply of "fuck you" also merit action? I ask because I've encountered enough bad faith people that it is very tempting to include such things in my replies at times (bad faith based upon very obvious cherry picking, misreading, distortion of statements, etc) and I have seen many people including mods of CTH on reddit say as much in the past.
One last thing, is factional conflict between users still allowed (I of course expect the mods to remain above it in official actions/bans/sanctions)? That is would it be against the rules to say make a post or comment that mocks Trots? Or soc-dems? Or any other tendency? Again this was not uncommon on the sub and it remained healthy despite this (and despite my often ire at the shit-posts directed at MLs).
I'm not trying to rules lawyer here or cause some sort of ordeal, maybe they were just written overly broad to cover edge cases but I just wanted some clarity so I and others don't go about acting as we did on CTH for its entire existence and get surprise actioned for it.
I also understand it is early on yet and maybe the rules are a rough draft so this is my feedback.
I will say rules that are overly strict to the point of policing tone can drive people away from anti-capitalist leftism and similar strict rules have caused splits in left groups so it worries me. I know one thing that bugged a lot of people on CTH and was a source of constant complaint were bans from mainstream reddit subs for the nebulous "incivility" of calling people out too strongly over something they rightly feel passionate about. Anyone who spent any time there can attest to the amount of people griping about bans over that particular rule, prioritizing civility fetishism over moral outrage over heinous actions/opinions/etc.
I feel instead of making rules against that, rules against reactionary politics and behavior as well as bigotry (misogyny, racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, etc) are more useful while allowing passionate discussion that can get heated. I don't think the point should be to create this grey-colored safe space without the slightest chance of getting your feelings hurt, rather I think the point should be exclusion of bigotry against marginalized groups and the defense of those groups. And the exclusion of reactionary politics and the defense of anti-capitalist, "leftist" if you will politics. But maybe the people running this place feel otherwise in which case let me and anyone else reading this thread know as I'm sure there are others here who have not been on discord and are out of the loop.
Obviously I'm against reactionaries and bigotry (I really liked MTC's sidebar rules actually and thought they were quite inclusive of naming bad behaviors disallowed without being overly broad) but I'm also worried about overly censorious impulses in what are inherently political spaces that include political discussion of a heated nature.
I will admit to the fact I was not an infrequent user of strong language such as the above on reddit. However I avoided oppressive language and I invite anyone to go over my reddit history for the past two years (preferably using a deletion site because most of it was lost with CTH) and see how many even minor ableist terms there are (almost none). I would never consider my behavior as to have been overly abusive or oppressive, not to anyone who wasn't expressing reactionary tendencies, imperialist tendencies, etc that either need to be kept in check by banning such people (not the most ideal, they don't get a chance to learn) or by calling them out with strong language that conveys the moral outrage I and I think everyone should feel towards certain positively cruel positions or spouting of very harmful capitalist/imperialist propaganda.
it does seem kind of sus how certain mods seem to think chapo was large in spite of its tone rather than it's tone being something that helped foster it's growth.
there are plenty of spaces where lefties have to constantly police their own words so that they may not be misconstrued by people who perceive common vernacular as hostile to them. Chapo was always the perfect mixture between the cancer of 4chan and the cancer of normie spaces and to try and change that would be a mistake.
Yeah, there's no excuse for outright reactionary bullshit or 'ironic' bigotry, but I think everyone enjoyed an understanding of what was genuinely out of bounds vs what was just standard bullshitting. It had a sort of "no one is allowed to bully my little brother except me" vibe to it, and I think that was a welcome difference from a lot of other forums.
I really don't think anyone is going to get banned over saying "shut the fuck up liberal" or for saying the words stupid, crazy, and dumb.
It's your civic duty to downvote the shit out of the r-word though
It’s your civic duty to downvote the shit out of the r-word though
gun pointing astronaut meme always has been.
I really don’t think anyone is going to get banned over saying “shut the fuck up liberal” or for saying the words stupid, crazy, and dumb.
If the discord moderating is anything to go by......I’m just saying mods are a bit trigger happy and need to let things flow.
Do you have info on anything specific? I'm on the Discord but haven't been following too closely.
Serious question: I can see how "crazy" is ableist, but "stupid" or "dumb"? I honestly don't get that. I would be more than happy to listen if someone wants to explain the issue to me, but calling someone stupid (for example) strikes me as similar to calling someone short. I.e., you're telling them they're below average in some area, but you're not claiming they have some medically-recognizable issue and then using that issue pejoratively. What about terms like "idiot" or "moron"?
Realizing that seemingly-ordinary things we do or say harm other people is a big part of leftist thinking, but at the same time (a) over-policing language can kill leftist spaces and (b) if we're going to police language that frankly most people do not view as out of line we need to provide education on the topic/a reason why.
MTC had I think a good rule on the matter, basically "you won't be sanctioned for non-r-word stuff, just try and avoid it and don't be excessively toxic about or you may actually be moderated".
There's a difference to be sure between a person who comes into a thread and spams the r-word or replies with "idiot" to random comments and someone making a post, perhaps passionately and including the word thoughtlessly as much of society has been kind of programmed to do. The former person at best should be downvoted and ignored and potentially banned because they're not engaging in any good faith discussion just offensive insults. The latter person however stands to be gently reminded in the comments that they should try and avoid that word. That person is presumably replying in good faith and engaging with the community in good faith.
That person is presumably replying in good faith and engaging with the community in good faith.
That's a great underlying principle.
I still don't understand, though, why a word like "idiot" is ableist in the first place. "Crazy" makes sense -- it's crudely telling someone they have some mental health issue and then using that mental health issue as an insult. The r-word makes sense on similar grounds -- it was very recently (maybe still is?) a clinical term commonly understood to go well beyond "this person has a tough time getting Cs in high school." And while "idiot" has a (more limited?) history of formal use in a similar way, I don't think the colloquial use of "idiot" ever had the same connotation as the r-word. Then there are words like "dumb" or "stupid," which to my knowledge are even farther removed from any sort of reference to an actual diagnosis.
I'm not well-versed in this area at all, so I'm open to anything here. But right now my intuition about "dumb" or "idiot" is quite a bit different than my intuition about the r-word or "crazy."
I'm not an expert here. But to the very limited extent of my knowledge it is the fact that those other words were used clinically then in a derogatory sense. I believe the r-word itself was brought in and popularized among other things to get away from the popular stigma of the i-word, it didn't work of course. I apologize for not being able to help better in this matter.
Intelligence-based insults are inherently ableist, by their very logic. And it's a lot more obvious when you're, say, autistic and people call you that one minute while treating you like some sort of savant the next. Our issue with our ideological enemies isn't that they're not smart enough to have value, but rather that they're callous, selfish, evil little shits.
Intelligence-based insults are inherently ableist, by their very logic.
This makes a certain amount of sense, but there seems to be a difference between insults that use some sort of identifiable condition in a demeaning manner and insults that rip on someone for not being that great in one particular area. It feels like there's a difference between ripping on Ben Shapiro or Michael Bloomberg for being short vs. using some sort of slur associated with dwarfism, an identifiable condition.
Our issue with our ideological enemies isn’t that they’re not smart enough to have value, but rather that they’re callous, selfish, evil little shits.
It's a great idea to just be more precise with insults, to where they become an actual critique.
I've created a series of sockpuppet accounts to yell at/to yell at myself with, so I could get the authentic Chapo toxic struggle-session feeling, without having to insult or demean anyone.
I'm one of these sock puppets and I think this is a terrible idea, and I think you're terrible
lmao. I thought you'd be Tabula Rasa. How goes your baking/cooking experiments?
Next one in the motif actually would have been A_Stalimpsest, but that was too esoteric, and I figured I could cash in this names accumulated clout. I'm just now getting over a bout of the youknowwhat, so I made my first jams in a while, and will be getting back into my back routine next week.
hmmm Jams.
A_StalinSimp would would be in vogue right now lol. Did you get the rona? Ouch, hope you are feeling better!
I still got your CD playing every time I get in the car. :D
Yep caught it at the grocery store owing to a counterfeit kn95. It's not pleasant but I leave isolation tomorrow. I'll send you some of the jams (foodproduct not music although I think I do have more samplers) if you DM me a good address for it.
And I don't actually know what simp means. I said it in lecture a few months back and realized I probably shouldn't have an apologized for it.
Simp is slang, it stands for S.uckas I.dolizing M.ediocre P.ussy. But it is used against reply guys, men who are friends with women, men that are openly attracted to a woman who doesn't want their advances, etc, it kinda got misogynistic after a while. A_StalinSimp would be a funny nickname tho.
And I don’t actually know what simp means. I said it in lecture a few months back and realized I probably shouldn’t have an apologized for it.
That's really funny, glad you apologized tho.
If messages, work on here, I'll send ya my address again. Please send me yours too.
*adjusts lanyard*
Ahem. Sir, excuse me, sir, this is targeted harassment, sir. You have violated section 2, paragraph 1 of the Chapo Chat Code of Conduct, revision 35d0b4b01265d528140143d7f958b7d7e66b0ab4, and will be referred to the Volcel People's Vanguard for re-education.
Haha look at this fucking nerd, reading rules.
[USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST]
Yeah, I absolutely agree with you, specifically the part about selective enforcement of rules leading to targeted bans. I'm sure the mods wouldn't do that, but I'd really prefer if it wasn't even an option.
I want to be able to call people swears on this website. Fuck you.
Sorry. I hope it was skimmable at least. I tend to be a bit detail oriented and long-winded so I offer my apologies for that. Perhaps the reason I brought it up is because I have a stick up my ass about clarity in language as someone who has worked on a number of documents of a legal or rules oriented nature.
So important I go overboard. There's a reason when in the past I've written articles I spend 2/3rds of my time editing them.
A future loosening of rules would be nice. Once we have more Mods, and more communities to Mod. Mods can Police their own communites in the future. I think encouraging a friendly tone is important. Requiring a friendly tone is kind of fucked up.
Agreed. With political discussion people get heated and quite frankly uh a lot of the best posters who took the time to make effort posts and contributed the most to the CTH community would probably be banned under this.
You can have a political discussion without insulting people or demeaning them. I'm sure of that.
We can when we want to be but it shouldn't be forced at all times.
Seriously this shouldn't even be difficult to understand. A huge factor in the success of the subreddit was that it was a space where people could be all the things that they weren't allowed to be in any other leftist spaces because of either obsession with optics or overzealous aims to be the purist leftists possible. If I can't tell some lib they deserve the wall what even is the point? I might as well stay in /r/socialism.
You can call someone a lib, that's not a problem. Good-natured ribbing is encouraged and even expected.
Insulting someone as a "fucking social fascist" because you disagree with them on the merits of theory is not.
Should aim to reflect that in the rules then as OP is demonstrably misunderstanding it. I agree with OP too, just "insults" isn't really what you care about.
The way I see it, petty insults and bitching are going to happen and are fine. I myself will definitely sling petty useless childish insults from time to time. None of that matters and is always caused by people just being in a foul mood, having shit days, or personal grievances with the person they were having a disagreement with. What does matter on the other hand is consistent patterns of wrecking. What I don't have a good answer to is how to describe in text what the difference is between acceptable factional fighting between MLs/Anarchists vs unacceptable factional fighting, there is obviously nothing wrong with them fighting, but there is certainly a problem with bad-faith phrases like "red fascist" and anyone engaging in that kind of thing persistently is a problem. How to describe the difference however is obviously not easy even though an experienced community member can recognise the difference on general feeling.
Anarchists and MLs can fight and dunk on each other all they want, but when it crosses the line into demeaning people for their beliefs and harassing them, that's where it ends.
Again, this is all common sense.
Right and I agree with you, but OP's point is that is not what the rules say and I agree with them. The code of conduct they're quoting says something that sounds much stricter.
I think that your point is valid if you believe the other person is a leftist arguing in good faith. If you think they are just trolling or just spamming the same 3 bullet points on China without actually discussing anything then IMO it’s perfectly justified to call them a filthy lib, fascist, etc
I disagree that this kind of strong censorship is necessary and I would further inquire how these rules were arrived upon? Was a single user responsible for drafting them? Was there a committee? How much input was the community given? Was any kind of proper materialist analysis applied? What about meeting people where they are?
Abusing someone for some trait of theirs or some non-political/non-ideological matter is an entirely different matter from attacking someone who voluntarily entered an inherently political space (this isn't "friendly Chet's kitty and cute puppies relaxation and destressing space" after all) and made political statements. You mention below insulting someone as a "fucking social fascist" is the objection to the word fucking? Or the phrase social fascist? If it's the latter you object to a (subjective) political characterization/appraisal of another that someone takes offense at. Can I ask would this extend to calling an ML a "Red fascist"? If so fair enough I suppose in excluding calling other left persons a fascist.
I still seek clarity on whether calling someone an imperialist or "fucking imperialist" is against the rules. It is a political characterization of a subjective nature (although it has precise definitions for ML's, other tendencies might be prone to disagree), are all those banned or only specific ones?
The Code of Conduct was implemented with feedback from other mods and devs. Again, with the nature of the team, we don't have the resources dedicated to it and had to start with the base Lemmy Code of Conduct, which is quite fair.
Insults of any kind will be frowned upon, and the mod team knows the difference between "lol liberal" and "I hate you with all my heart you stupid imperialist pig"
Imperialism is often used as a strawman in arguments. Critique of certain leftist figures and events is often pushed out by people who claim "imperialism" even when the critiques are made in good faith and keep in mind the values of being a socialist. I think there's a difference between critiquing Lenin's NEP plan and calling for Hong Kong to rise up in rebellion to stand against the "evil CCP." This is all common sense, really.
You keep saying it's common sense but if you've ever been a mod before you know that saying "Mods just will use their common sense, no worries" leads to chaos as people feel mods have favorites that they let slide and then pariahs they are strict with.
And it's not even "common sense." I am very sympathetic to ML ideology, and if mods banned an anarchist for calling a ML a "fucking social fascist" I would be very surprised and disappointed by that. I agree with @darkcalling that insults about appearance or any bigotry is unacceptable, but fiery political debate is acceptable.
Anyway, I get that the rules are copied and pasted for now, and they will get tweaked later, and everyone who built this has had a lot on their plate. I'm totally cool with that and not getting answers right this second. But it's kind of like "Be patient" -- "Oh, okay." -- "It's really just common sense anyway." -- "Oh...okay..."
Insulting people in the name of "firey political debate" is liberalism.
Depends on the topic and the insult. These both are insults, but: "You're a stupid little virgin that will never experience love," in a China struggle sesh is bad.
"You're a self-aggrandizing American who can't let go of your own constructed tragic hero story," in a debate about whether military guys can be critiqued for their choice to join the armed forces is okay.
It's common sense imo.
Dude shut the fuck up, look at how many people are downvoting.
If you make this place even worse than r/CTH no one's going to come here
Having a hot chud take on trans rights and then hiding behind civility is pretty much 90 percent of what I hate about Reddit. It's an extreme example but there will be people who spew garbage and we should be able to mock them relentlessly.
TBH it was mostly used in the context of punching right. Communists punching at democratic socialists punching at social democrats, punching finally at the odd liberal who wandered in.
That is to say I didn't really see ML's going at each other and calling each other liberals for having a different favorite work by Marx or a different nuanced opinion of a situation. Or for that matter Anarchists calling each other liberals over opinions on Bookchin.
It was used to call out not just liberals as in the people, but liberalism as in the all infectious ideology that permeates all our lives, our schooling, and for most of us still some parts if not major parts of our thought processes. It's just that "shut up liberal" rolls off the tongue a lot more nicely, succinctly, and strongly than "that's liberalism".
Honestly it was mostly used towards people who were being obtuse. It was fairly rare to see it used towards someone asking a question in good faith, like someone who said "wait, isn't Maduro a dictator, what's going on?" rarely received that response, people like that tended to get actual answers even if they were unhelpful, "no he's not, that's propaganda", that and downvotes sometimes. It was the person who came into a thread and said "Maduro is a dictator, wtf, fucking tankies!" as a statement, not a question who got downvoted and replied to with "shut the fuck up liberal". You'll notice the latter was coming in with a closed mind-set and spouting propaganda, the former came in with an open mind and simply stated the propaganda they'd been fed but opened it up to responses. 8 out of 10 tens with the latter discussion with them was fruitless in my experience, they'd tend to not be swayed in a single conversation if they were swayed at all. Lots of them were probably people who stopped by the sub then left after determining that they preferred the CIA propaganda circle jerk of the rest of reddit.
I think that ought to mostly hold true here where there's a lot of ideological shared ground, but one of the principle reasons Chapo (the podcast and arguably the sub) got popular was giving the middle finger to the notion that serious topics mandate strict (and ultimately performative) standards of civility.
The rules are inherited from the Lemmy Code of Conduct and aren't really tailored towards Chapo, so it places a lot more value on civility, et cetera becuase those are things that are extremely important if you're not being a bunch of fucking libs and are actually trying to accomplish a shared goal.
It's being used for now because we've been having rules lawyers try to find loopholes to excuse their harassment of other users or to be an omegaedgelord and post reactionary/creepy shit. As things settle down the Code of Conduct will probably be rewritten to better reflect the actual community expectations, where good-natured ribbing and calling each other libs isn't equated to absolutely losing your shit and turning every conversation into a life or death struggle.
Are permas gonna be reserved only for repeat offenders or obvious bad faith actors? I'd hate to see someone get perma'd just for getting too saucy with a hot take on a bad day. IMO, you can often get the point across by making them take just a day or three off, and the place will feel more relaxed if the threat of a rule break is a trip to the Re-education camps rather than the guillotine.
Want my opinion on rules lawyers? No? Well I'll give it anyways.
Include more generic clauses against being a jerk or overdoing things. Kind of state what isn't allowed explicitly (homophobia, transphobia, racism, misogyny, blatant imperialism, pro-cop apologia, troop worship, etc). Then include a clause about being too much of a jerk, being too disruptive, being too offensive repeatedly to the community.
Include a harassment clause. Note that people are allowed to reply to and disagree with other users, note that if someone is continually repeating the same opinion you can share the same response to that opinion and that you can criticize past opinions of a person (so long as you're not digging back 6 months and repeatedly quoting at someone an opinion they've moved past to shame them). Note that following a user around to every comment and trying to bait them into "discussions" or arguments is not as acceptable and that following someone around and replying to them with memes or other off-topic/non-discussion material that is not constructive and/or causes them distress is not allowed. (I could probably word this better but I'd need time to work it out but I'd really need to know what form this harassment is taking before being able to truly craft something against it)
Also include a trolling clause although that's a bit harder.
I understand the good desire not to just have a broad "we'll ban you if we feel like it and feel its necessary" rules statement because that seems potentially abusive and ideally you want clearly delineated rules that you can punish people for so they can know what they did wrong and so they know what is expected of them before they even post. But inevitably you need a few catch-all, "don't be a jerk" rules. Ideally if you can you try and enforce those more lightly, that is no bans on first offense, a warning to stop it, then a ban if it continues.
I do think a good harassment policy can be created that allows discussion, allows people to point out hypocrisy or a recent viewpoint of a user that may have some relevance or bearing but doesn't allow personal inquisitions or group coordinated harassment.
As an example relating to this post. Someone who occasionally says "shut the fuck up liberal" to liberalism is in my opinion not the problem as much as someone whose history is 80% that reply and nothing else. It's about overall conduct and not crossing certain bright lines.
Above all do not try and police language (outside slurs, and so on) because rules lawyers are clever and will get around it. Police repeated behavior, police conduct that rises to the level of harassment or trolling.
Looking over it now. (Also really I do feel bad if I'm dragging you away from more important stuff to do this) My initial thoughts:
Under MODERATION, point 1:
(Cursing is allowed, but never in a hateful manner.)
This seems unnecessary IMO. Obviously your platform your rules but since you asked, if cursing isn't disallowed and the target is the behavior not the wording then mentioning cursing seems like it introduces some confusion. The thrust of the rule is don't be hateful, hurtful, oppressive, exclusionary then you include as an addendum something on cursing. Most people would I think assume cursing is allowed so it seems extraneous.
Short digression:
Shorter rules are better rules and rules more likely to be understood and followed. IMO, the best way to format rules is the rule number/name if any, followed by a brief, succinct explanation (bolded or otherwise made to stand out) that stays on that theme (for example for a no bigotry rule you'd say "absolutely no homophobia, transphobia, racism, misogyny, fascism, etc" then below it is the space I would use to expand upon it that isn't made to stand out with an explanation if needed. For example under a "please try and avoid ableism" rule you might put under it in the subtext "You won't normally be banned for it, but if you are excessively toxic about it or it forms a pattern of toxic behavior your post my be removed and/or you may be banned". Obviously the expanded explanation part is more a long-term goal, more a goal for creating very nice looking rules like you saw on reddit with sidebar CSS in some subs. I get you can't do that with the code page you have on gitlab but something to consider if/once you move rules to a space on the actual website.
Back to business.
- Remarks that moderators find inappropriate, whether listed in the code of conduct or not, are also not allowed.
Real trust your moderators stuff. My preference in the long-run would be something more clear. You have a rule against bigotry, one against reactionaries/fascism. I guess I struggle to find instances where it couldn't be covered by other rules later on.
The problem with this one is the subjectivity of individual mods. Humans are fallible, we get grossed out at different things and consider different things inappropriate. Ideally you want one unified mod stance on rules as that also prevents mod fights and splintering and drama.
Inappropriate behavior IMO falls in several places, one example might be being too horny or objectifying towards a woman, that's misogyny if you ask me or could be covered by a rule against creating an oppressive or hostile environment because that is hostile to women when you take that stuff too far.
I guess I'm just a "say its name" person where possible. People often don't even realize they're being misogynistic for example with certain remarks and where possible it's better to let them know that is the problem and not just mods being prudes. And you set an example by naming it if you ban someone for something, others see, it changes behavior.
Removals for the reason of "inappropriate" outside of someone just spamming bizarre (and not funny) porn always irked me because of the tendency to be abused to silence stuff in the same way "off-topic" removals have often been used.
Other things I can think of would include personal information (rule against personal info would apply better).
If we're talking being creepy about minors stuff (I've heard some whispers about something on the discord but don't know) I'd just say a warning about not being a creep/pedo then a ban or a ban if it's really egregious and you don't need a rule against that because that should be obvious. And of course in that instance absolutely call them on out on that in the mod reply because the community should know if there was a pedo outed from among them and who it was in case others are still in contact with them through other channels.
Other things I could see would mostly fall under harassment.
I know you're thinking potentially about sub-communities and their mods and rules but I think a simple statement that sub-communities may have their own rules and may implement further restrictions but may not refuse to enforce the site rules or make rules contradicting them.
3-6
Appear to just be a formatting issue and extension of 2.
The rest appear to be mostly discord related so I have no strong opinion on them. They don't seem unreasonable.
As to the TOS, no one reads the tos. I do but I'm weird. IMO rules need to be put in the rules / code of conduct document. The tos is for legal purposes to protect the ass of whoever is running this.
I skimmed the tos and it seems fairly standard to me (although it looks like you might have copied it from reddit). Nothing I haven't seen a hundred times for the most part.
I will note under section 12 you have:
If you are a U.S. city, county, or state government entity, then this Section 13 does not apply to you.
That should be changed to section 12. Just a typo.
You're absolutely a lib if you think posting something in the form of reactions somehow makes you immune, lol. You don't get to spell out racial slurs, you don't get to post horny emotes in response to someone talking about minors, and you don't get to "this tbh" reactionary shit. It is peak lib brain to think anyone would give a shit whether you communicate shit ideas through text, voice, or emoji, it's still shit. You think the fuckers reacting with monkey awards in response to the BLM protests on Reddit should stay here or something?
That was in the context of a particular harassment campaign. As anyone that's ever interacted with chuds will know, jokes can be fine in one context but hateful harassment in another. Normally a cop emoji won't get you banned, but if you're using it on someone that's being copjacketed then you're piling on in that harassment. Or if you're doing it because you're mad the mods banned your friend for trying to doxx someone, you're going to be seen as a participant in their harassment.
I hate to reduce it to this, but it really comes down to common sense. If Zoe Quinn came into the discord and you reacted with burger and fry emojis, you'd get banned even though those same emoji would be perfectly fine in another context. If you're not being a shithead, there's not a lot to worry about, and there's an appeals process in case you get caught by mistake. With chuds obviously trying to shit things up there's going to be some caution
you don’t get to post horny emotes in response to someone talking about minors,
Yikes. I better arrange for more trains to siberia. Double glad I wasn't in any place that had that going on.
Well this blew up a lot bigger than I intended.
And Beatnik I am so fucking sorry if this piles shit on your plate. You were always one of the best ones.
That's the spirit. I'm not a liberal but I do offer courses on overcoming liberalism.
See ideally you should only say that in cases of actual liberalism as although it is fun to say it kind of loses some power if you use it for everything (I remember this one social democrat on the sub who used to scream it at ML's presenting a position far to their left regarding electoralism and voting for Biden for instance and... yikes). Also ideally the other people should downvote you into the negative when you use it inappropriately and upvote you when you use it appropriately.
But there is that old CTH sardonic reply nature too I suppose so I can't be upset.
