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.
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'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.
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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.
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.
It's a great idea to just be more precise with insults, to where they become an actual critique.
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