So, I have autism and also very bad social anxiety, so I don't have a massive amount of social interactions, so it is easy for me to remember pretty much all of them. This also means that I spend way too much time obsessing over any significant interactions I have, particularly negative ones, which then just make me feel more upset and anxious than I was at the time and sometimes leads to a breakdown. I am also completely unable to deal with conflict
For whatever reason this website, unlike the original subreddit is way more invested in dunking on each other imo. This site has a very hostile atmosphere where it feels like everyone is constantly at each others throats and it makes me just not want to come here at all.
I also want to take exception to some of the recent posts by @TransComrade69 about the Beyond Pink or Blue book, particularly the part in the original post about it only being like 170 pages, so you could read it in like 3 days, so if you don't, it is reactionary. No, one of the symptoms of autism is executive function issues, which I suffer from quite significantly. I could read that book, but it would require me using a lot of energy and necessetitate me neglecting other parts of my life. I struggle hard enough to read books necessary for classes, if I were to try and read that book, it would take months, if not over a year for me to complete it. So, while I understand why @TransComrade69 wants people to read the book and is pushing it, as I am sure there is lots of valuable information within it, I do not at all appreciate the tone that was taken in parts of the original post.
Anyway, I've deleted this account twice already, and I'm doing it for the 3rd and probably final time after this. Social media in general is bad for a lot of these things, but this site kind of takes it to another level.
Every day I wonder if it's going to be the day that I get banned, showing up in the mod log with "wrecker" or "reactionary", no explanation or warning given.
Lots of people banned weren't chuds though.
I've had over 15 instances where I'm reading threads by Top Day, going through all the comments and seeing people who have been banned, reading through their user page and they're just a regular chapo poster. Maybe a removed by mod once or twice on a profile but no one will ever know what that was.
I refuse to believe that this site attracts more chuds than well-meaning communists. And even if it did, wouldn't that suggest that something is deeply wrong?
I'm not going to dig up all the 1000s of threads I've read in the past month or two. I could start keeping a running track, if the extra and redundant labor really meant that much to you.
Whenever someone who's been posting for 3+ months, sometimes even since the beginning of the site, gets suddenly banned, it also makes you wonder why it took so long to reach that decision. Like, if someone is a reactionary or a wrecker or whatever, how could they go on for months and months without being spotted? Or did they just start being problematic all of a sudden? Surely they weren't hiding their true colors for that long... unless it's just a matter of how vindictive a mod was feeling that day. Occam's Razor suggests that the power tripping is real, that to a mod with a banhammer, everything looks like a nail.
I'll say this even in defense of banned users whom I felt levelled sectarian tensions against me. They too made this site a richer place.
I'm not talking about the 1-day-old accounts made en masse that did nothing but spam and directly harass people. Good riddance to those; the ban was the indisputably correct decision there. I'm talking about posters like myself who migrated from the sub, hoping to find a positive and stable space in which to reach other anti-capitalists, develop memetics, share news, and break down the anxiety and loneliness that engulfs this alienated hellscape. Seeing posters I appreciate get banned, without clearly highlighting what their offending material was, creates a chilling effect; I feel less welcome here. I took a day or two off from checking this site, and while I didn't get the daily pulse that I'm accustomed to, the sense of environmental hostility was absent for that time.
When your first line of defense is expulsion, you create a culture of defeatism and paranoia. I think that has certainly happened here, though I'll stop short of drawing any historical parallels.
Specific for people with 5 digits on each hand, using a base-ten system? Definitely more than 10 and possibly less than 20, idk. I just realized I could dig through the ban logs and find people I'd recognized.
Mods hardly ever banned anyone in the beginning and I strongly disagreed with that. There were some users that made gross comments in the first month of the site and sometimes they’d get removed but never banned.
Granted.
I don’t post problematic shit, why would I worry about getting banned?
I don't like the line of thinking that if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.
It doesn't apply here as much as it does to a state, but as long as there are laws, they are implemented by fallible humans and arbitrary to at least some extent, and we are all potentially rule-breakers to the perspective of rule-makers. Everyone's a potential criminal. On the sub there was a strong current of "mods = cops" (albeit somewhat tongue-in-cheek); that doesn't exist on this site.
I have seen mods banning users for not being deferrent enough; this is automatically a problem.
There are lots of ways to promote an inclusive community. Heavy-handed banning isn't one of them.
And even if it did, wouldn’t that suggest that something is deeply wrong?
No, not necessarily. Could just be a handful of losers with way too much time on their hands.
How do I know you aren't one of these? Or vice versa, for that matter? Do we have any camaraderie on this site that's not just in an abstract sense?
Lol I'm neurodivergent but yeah sure that's totally what I meant
Nah I have extreme anxiety and autism and since they got rid of downvotes and I have managed to finally open up on here more and found this community to be very caring and accepting and any disagreement on here has been civil.
I didn't read the book recomended by TransComrade69 for similar reasons too you but I took her agressiveness and calling out peoples laissez-faire attitudes to Transphobia on this site in good faith and knew she was just rightfully angry and trying to shame some people in to taking action, not calling me persoanlly a lazy transphobe for not being able to concerntrate. I'm not insulted when people call out men or white people or any other group I am a part of that has a lot of toxic attitudes and the same principle applies here to this website.
A lot of the intra-site discourse here seems unnecessarily vicious honestly.
I would point out that that's certainly not their intention, most likely, but it's hard to pick up on that for neurodivirgent people sometimes.
I'd call on anyone on this site to really think twice if an aggressive tone is called for when posting. Noone ever reached equality through mistreatment of people of good will.
I spent a lot of time in my younger days angry at the treatment LGBT people were given in society, but eventually realized how pointless it was to meet hate with hate. It can be damn frustrating and alienating being pushed to the margins of society like that, believe me, but never once did getting hurtful towards others improve my lot in life. Anger is a poison that feels good to indulge in, but a kind person must refrain from becoming submerged in it.
Imagine if Mao's army just straight up murdered every peasant they ran across, instead of presenting themselves as the more civilized and better alternative to the Nationalist Army.
Surely a measure for success!
It's literally not, though. I'm not asking for civility to bigots, I'm asking for civility to your own comrades who mean well and are trying their best.
I struggle to imagine how unnecessary viciousness has a place in Socialism. That side is best applied to those who struggle against us, because we have plenty of enemies already.
Not at all. I have anxiety too and compared to the rest of the internet I feel way more chill here.
I get where you're coming from for sure, I don't really feel the same way though. There's a decent appeals process if you do get banned, and this is one of the only places on the internet that I can comfortably assume that everyone I'm interacting with is acting in good faith, so reflexively I assume everyone knows I'm acting in good faith too, and that makes me more comfortable that when I inevitably I say something stupid or piss someone off I'll be treated fairly.
It probably helps that "gentle bullying" is my love language though to be fair
There was another thread where people were being critical of ban policy; in one comment chain I was making the exact same argument as another poster but with a little bit more reservation in tone; he got banned but I didn't.
Yeah as much as I enjoyed participating in that reading the tone of the whole process has been kind of a lot for me considering that even participating in the reading is a process that self selects for people who probably aren’t generating any of the Trans phobia and are less able to do anything about it than the mods. I do feel bad for them though because they do a lot of unpaid work here. I can see how infuriating that would be for a trans person to be moderating a trans phobic space for no money. There’s no easy solution. Hopefully they can find an easier solution. Sorry to see you go comrade but hey, maybe we should all log off more.
I'm tired and emotional, and also probably being dumb, but your last sentence made me tear up a bit. I just wanted to send some positive vibes I guess, take care of yourself friend.
I feel like I've literally made this same comment at some point. Its tough. But I think you're good comrade. :Care-Comrade:
You can be a good comrade even if your brain doesn't work good, please don't think otherwise.
I'm glad someone has said this, because I feel the same way.
I get the impression that neurodiverse people are actually looked at as enemies on this site rather than marginalized people talking about the challenges they face in society. Banning people for being "debatebros" hits neurodivergent people unnecessarily hard, and at every turn we are discouraged from interacting with this community. Frankly, we can't really stand up for ourselves that much and I'm amazed this subcommunity was made at all. I think we'll just remain a mostly invisible marginalized group that are treated as enemies.
Personally I've just started using this site less and less.
The funny thing is, I read through all of Beyond Pink and Blue months ago when it was first mentioned, but I don't want to get banned by even touching on any sensitive content like that -- and if the only answer to that is "just think the right way about every single thing!" then I don't think I want to be on this site.
You're confusing me for some kind of stupidpol wrecker. Fuck off, thanks, I'm not on your side either.
I think this site is a lot like the sub was when there were no major protest or campaigns going on. I get people don't like electoralism but it seems like without it people take out their anger and personal issues on each other.
i also have social anxiety and like it does not feel worse in dunking then the former subreddit is my opinion on this like the subredit would just generally have better things to aggro at, there was always a dumb troll or someone making a bad take in new so it would generally not happen to you if you were just slightly smart about it i feel, like i don't know i have been more stressed online since the pandemic started, for example twitter feels unbearable to me these last months, so i kinda think it is the overwhelming stress of living like this probably is making everyone online insane which i understand it sucks sometimes but i find people in here to generally be nice which is why i am still in here, i guess.
Maybe it is just nostalgia for the old sub or other factors like you said, but I definitely never felt this way on the subreddit.
Something I forgot to mention in the OP is that the change to ban debatebro behaviour is maybe the biggest sign to me that autistic people are unwelcome here. Banning people for what amounts to not being able to read social cues and continuing conversations after the other person is no longer interested. Gee, I wonder who that is going to end up targeting
like i understand the fear, especially because i am not an native speaker of english so i am ocassionally having to re read whole conversations to figure out if i misunderstood what someone meant or if i did express myself badly in a sentence, so it is a concern on my mind that i could be banned for saying something i did not meant but it is a thing online like since forums if we are to have a moderation team we should have rules to make moderation easier and clearer to users, and i think the user union as a place where you can try to argue you case makes me feel a bit less woried about it, but as i said twitter is unbearable for me right, so i just use it when i want it now, and i feel better, so if this place does not make you should might want to do the same because no website is worth your mental health or suffering. like not saying log out and stuff, just saying that i would probably take some time off from the site if i was feeling like this
I'm not sure what to say that won't wind up with me figuratively eating both my feet. But I'll try anyways.
Even though TC69 didn't usually specify who the bullying was directed towards, its most focused on us normies who get caught up shit posting and wind up muddying the waters when it comes to figuring out which are people actively attacking a transgendered people. Its us normies who wind up providing cover, hopefully unintentionally, for bad actors or bad arguments and refusing to learn that the argument used was a really bad argument or just helped instigate some wrecker's plan. The idea, I think, is to maybe get ourselves out of our heads for a minute to think about our own posts/comments and how we act when reading something that might be wrecker shit and letting it slide instead of calling it out.
It does suck that you specifically and the rest of the /c/neurodiverse crew here at chapo dot chat feel that the aggression is directed towards yourselves when there hasn't been any specific action done to cause harm. I want to think that the mods are doing what they can with the best intentions. I also want to think that they are trying to pay attention to how some of the changes in mod policy might affect you all and try to work... something ... out that might make this place some what less stressful for you all.
(And don't forget to call us libs out on our bullshit too. It'd be killer to see a nerodiverse mod-rade going on a justified remove/ban spree when we all start acting like fools.)
"and we were all just dunking and laughing together."
Don't put words into his mouth. Like I'd get angry too if he said what you quoted, but he didn't.
Were you unaware that some of our comrades literally created an audiobook of Trans Liberation to make it easier for people to access?
This is not Das Capital. It is a series of short speeches and interviews that could be listened to piecemeal. You could have listened to a single section while washing the dishes and shown support for our trans comrades and been able to contribute to the conversation. You could have just said nothing and nobody would have called you out for it or for not reading it. There's really no reason to show your whole ass like this.
I didn't know it was the neurodiverse comm when I initially posted. But to be honest I felt like it was part and parcel of the pushback against efforts to make this site less transphobic and it upset me that our trans comrades actually created an audiobook so that more people could access this book only to have OP complain about how unfair it is to be asked to read something
Do not tell others when it is and isn't okay to feel upset. If OP is being honest, which I see no real reason to doubt, they likely experience being shit on and told off for not being able to do stuff "that's super easy" and everyone else can do. We're constantly aware of this, and afraid of being told to fuck off because we can't keep up with what is expected.
So yeah, seeing a post like that with a tone like that, however valid and acceptable it may be for what it actually is if TC69 is being honest, which again I have no reason to doubt, can still be painful
So to get MAD at that person for feeling hurt and upset because something they're afraid of is in some capacity happening, and to post their feelings about it to a support community because they're in need of support
You need to log the fuck off for a while
I didn't say anything about OP's response to the tone of TC69's post, nor will I. I responded to what was factually incorrect in the OP's post. It's misleading to others to imply that because someone has difficulty reading that they would be unable to access the text
That's fair. To be honest I probably would have moderated my tone more if I had realized. The comments I have received, other than yours, have been about the tone of my post moreso than it's content. And OK, I could have expressed what I had to say in a nicer way, but I have a hard time taking criticism if it's not going to engage with the actual substance of what I had to say.
This is part and parcel of the efforts to make neurodiverse people feel unwelcome on this site.
"bullying works" Nice lets bully all the other marginalized groups.
It's really not cool to tell a ND person what they are and aren't capable of. I could not listen to something new while doing the dishes it would drive me up the wall tryingto concerntrate on two things at once and I am not alone. Sure listening is easier then reading but you still have to pay attention and that can be a real struggle for some people.
You can't be like "bullying works, I'm gonna bully people on this site into doing what I want" and then turn around and say IN /C/NEURODIVERGENT that there's no reason for people to be upset.
"SHOW SUPPORT FOR ME YOU FUCKING SHITLIB "
"I have a medical issue where being yelled at makes me incapable of functioning"
"TONGUE MY ASSHOLE"
This site is ridiculous.
You can’t be like “bullying works, I’m gonna bully people on this site into doing what I want” and then turn around and say IN /C/NEURODIVERGENT that there’s no reason for people to be upset.
Good thing I didn't say either of those things
You absolutely said that. "Bullying works" has been the motto of this community for years and every megathread about this stuff is EXTREMELY confrontational.
Please leave this comm
Please indicate where I said either of those things
"Bullying works" is the slogan of this website and I'm quite sure is literally quoted in those megathreads. By promoting them you are agreeing that "bullying works".
There’s really no reason to show your whole ass like this.
This means "there's no reason to be upset".
So debatebroism is fine when it's against neurodivergent people? Fuck you dipshit.
“Bullying works” is the slogan of this website and I’m quite sure is literally quoted in those megathreads. By promoting them you are agreeing that “bullying works”.
Okay so something other people, not me said.
This means “there’s no reason to be upset”.
Showing your whole ass means to go out of your way to show that you are wrong, referring to the fact that our trans comrades specifically went out of their way to make the book accessible to people who may have trouble reading it.
Debate broism is apparently when someone points out that someone else is demonstrably incorrect
Honestly the most insidious thing about this site is the gaslighting. Fuck off, seriously.
I was not aware of that, but it makes no difference anyway. If I listen to it whilst doing other things, it is just noise and I can't take any of the information in. I may as well just play music because in that situation it would educate me just as much. I need to put all my attention towards a book to take it in, and at that point it doesn't matter if it's a written book or audiobook. In fact, written is probably better as I can go back and reread things when I want to
I wasn't aware when I posted that this was the neurodiverse comm, which is my bad. I don't think it was snarky though. There's its very straightforward criticism with no sarcasm of any kind.
i feel you friend, the problem with leftist interaction is that they always judge you and half of them are looking to gain social capital in some way by screwing you over
im at a point in my mental health and motivation where I turn in classwork at a rate of like 1 assignment a week, and feel guilty whenever i do anything fun/more important to me. call me a shitlib if you want but if i can't cope with the tedious mandatory stuff everyone has to do by default, i dont think i can focus on reading the important theory TC69 wants everyone to read so much, atleast not right now
when stickied posts say "there's literally no excuse for your liberalism" i dont know if its true or not, but I'd like to imagine that its not entirely a flaw of my personality that im so bad at these things
