I've been in favor of draconian moderation, especially when dealing with bigotry, and I think the mods/admins have been doing a fabulous job thus far. I can't think of another community so excellently moderated, let alone one that is centered around politics. Bigots and intentional wreckers should be banned immediately, as they usually are. People disagreeing with that aren't worth keeping around. I don't want to defend wreckers or people antagonizing the mods, nor provide rhetorical ground for them to do so, but rather encourage reflection on how decisions are handled so that the environment is less ripe for wrecking.
I don’t think it’s civility fetishism to treat your comrades with civility
Completely agree. However, the mods weren't exactly civil when announcing. The decision was announced alongside text basically saying: "If you don't like this, you're wrong, fuck you! Here's a list of pre-emptive dismissals of your concerns." TC69 is one of my absolute favorite users here, but I think she handled that announcement very poorly. I always agree with banning harassment and especially misgendering. The user in your example is certainly an asshole, and should've been banned, along with a good number of other users, but I'm hesitant to extend that to most other users peeved by the decision and the way it was presented. Otherwise reasonable people will forgo judgement when emotions are high. I don't think being a dick or making a few comments that could be seen as "wrecking" is innately ban-worthy. Mods being recipients of the assholing (and a lot of it) shouldn't change that. There's a middle ground between civility fetishism and being laisse faire about users' treatment of others.
Our first two comments in this thread are a perfect example of how easy it is accidentally to come off as antagonistic and how perception of intent affects the tone of response. Call me a lib, but I think this is why exactly why civility is still important. I presume you dealt with a bunch of people being assholes about the subject before reading my response, which probably made you more likely to read hostility in my comment (which was certainly a fair reading of the text I wrote). This is precisely why I'm being so generous in my analysis of people being dicks about this whole ordeal. The announcement didn't open civilly, so it's easy to understand uncivil responses to it.
Handling shit like this would be a lot easier if mods had temp-bans and other tools. There definitely needs to be a middle ground between asshole behavior being allowed wholesale and getting banned for being a dick. I want mods to be able to err on the side of enforcing good behavior and general respect without one misunderstanding or heated/drunk slip up costing someone their account.
The "muh freeze peach, mod tyranny" & "this is why chapo/the left sux" bullshit is certainly annoying and immature at best, but that response is exactly the basis for my original comment in this thread.
Preface: I don't think most decisions should be democratic, and the opinions of devs/mods/admins should carry the most weight by far.
Even so, a big change like this should be made with extreme consideration as to how the community will react. None of this fallout was necessary, and large decisions should be made as if we're protecting something precious that will inevitably be attacked externally and from within. The CIA intern assigned to fucking our shit up should at least need to put in some effort.
The site name, while purely aesthetic, is the first point of interaction and something many users have grown an emotional attachment to...making it very likely to cause strong opinions. This was done without any input from them. From that perspective, the mod/admin team should have been able to see this coming from a hundred miles away, and opted to handle this with more grace. While individual wreckers are certainly at fault, the initial handling has given the wreckers ground to wreck, and space to garner sympathy because even non-assholes may feel sour about the move. I think people who may be wrecking (esp in a moment like this) may not be intentional wreckers. The better the mods handle decisions, the fewer non-wreckers will jump to wrecking and the less sway wreckers' words will carry.
Takes like this are doing more work to misrepresent it as something it entirely isn’t, and signal to bad faith assholes that it’s a successful strategy, than any completely superficial changing of the name will ever be.
I'm curious as to how you see this as a misrepresentation? The last thing I want to be doing is giving ground to the assholes who want to wreck. Any criticism I have for the mods/admins is purely in good-faith. I just want to see this community thrive as it grows/matures, and I see bloodbath struggle sessions where no one better understands their history, theory, or their comrades as detrimental to the health of the community.
My quote wasn't exclusively referring to the name change, but also the frequent suggestion that we behave as a forum to pull normies left. But even referring solely to the announcement, it seems that the PSL thing was the only major justification as to why we should change the name, the rest being dismissal of why we shouldn't.
I am very thankful for all the free labor our admins, devs, and mods are putting in for us, and generally don't want to critique their actions, because they should be able to make mistakes. However, this was a clear misstep with a lot of opportunity to cause damage that could have easily been mitigated by a number of actions. While the mods are basically doing the thankless job of being an internet janitor for free, they also probably should avoid handing out laxatives & PCP to the patrons of the venue they're responsible for cleaning.
I feel it's important to point out that the way average users use this site differs greatly from how power-users and mods use this site, and it likely has a big impact on how people perceive the community and its problems. There's been a number of times where I've been oblivious to some context obvious to people who had been following posts that day. When I sorted by 'active' (or 'hot', whatever is the default), I noticed a lot less bad behavior, bigotry, and wrecking...to the point of asking myself "am I not noticing this shit because I'm an ignorant white boy?" in some of the threads complaining about it. I'm certainly glad I never questioned anyone's claims, even when my perception differed profoundly. Since I started sorting by 'new', it's apparent that all of the shit from their claims was very real. I think the high quality of moderation prevents many users from seeing a majority of the toxic shit...leading to them never being aware of the extent of the problems of our community, and thus, unempathetic/defensive to valid perceptions of such. I believe the converse is also true. Power users and especially mods seeing all the turds users smear on the wall makes it easier to assume a given user is attempting to do the same. We all need to do a better job at fostering good will amongst the community here.
Also what's up with that user having deer/doe as their pronouns? Why is that even an option? Is there some valid use of them as pronouns that I've never seen the logic for? To me, it seems like a built-in way to encourage transphobia.
Sorry for the bible of text. ADHD brain won't let me finish a thought prematurely.
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I agree with pretty much all of this take.
I've been in favor of draconian moderation, especially when dealing with bigotry, and I think the mods/admins have been doing a fabulous job thus far. I can't think of another community so excellently moderated, let alone one that is centered around politics. Bigots and intentional wreckers should be banned immediately, as they usually are. People disagreeing with that aren't worth keeping around. I don't want to defend wreckers or people antagonizing the mods, nor provide rhetorical ground for them to do so, but rather encourage reflection on how decisions are handled so that the environment is less ripe for wrecking.
Completely agree. However, the mods weren't exactly civil when announcing. The decision was announced alongside text basically saying: "If you don't like this, you're wrong, fuck you! Here's a list of pre-emptive dismissals of your concerns." TC69 is one of my absolute favorite users here, but I think she handled that announcement very poorly. I always agree with banning harassment and especially misgendering. The user in your example is certainly an asshole, and should've been banned, along with a good number of other users, but I'm hesitant to extend that to most other users peeved by the decision and the way it was presented. Otherwise reasonable people will forgo judgement when emotions are high. I don't think being a dick or making a few comments that could be seen as "wrecking" is innately ban-worthy. Mods being recipients of the assholing (and a lot of it) shouldn't change that. There's a middle ground between civility fetishism and being laisse faire about users' treatment of others.
Our first two comments in this thread are a perfect example of how easy it is accidentally to come off as antagonistic and how perception of intent affects the tone of response. Call me a lib, but I think this is why exactly why civility is still important. I presume you dealt with a bunch of people being assholes about the subject before reading my response, which probably made you more likely to read hostility in my comment (which was certainly a fair reading of the text I wrote). This is precisely why I'm being so generous in my analysis of people being dicks about this whole ordeal. The announcement didn't open civilly, so it's easy to understand uncivil responses to it.
Handling shit like this would be a lot easier if mods had temp-bans and other tools. There definitely needs to be a middle ground between asshole behavior being allowed wholesale and getting banned for being a dick. I want mods to be able to err on the side of enforcing good behavior and general respect without one misunderstanding or heated/drunk slip up costing someone their account.
The "muh freeze peach, mod tyranny" & "this is why chapo/the left sux" bullshit is certainly annoying and immature at best, but that response is exactly the basis for my original comment in this thread.
Preface: I don't think most decisions should be democratic, and the opinions of devs/mods/admins should carry the most weight by far.
Even so, a big change like this should be made with extreme consideration as to how the community will react. None of this fallout was necessary, and large decisions should be made as if we're protecting something precious that will inevitably be attacked externally and from within. The CIA intern assigned to fucking our shit up should at least need to put in some effort.
The site name, while purely aesthetic, is the first point of interaction and something many users have grown an emotional attachment to...making it very likely to cause strong opinions. This was done without any input from them. From that perspective, the mod/admin team should have been able to see this coming from a hundred miles away, and opted to handle this with more grace. While individual wreckers are certainly at fault, the initial handling has given the wreckers ground to wreck, and space to garner sympathy because even non-assholes may feel sour about the move. I think people who may be wrecking (esp in a moment like this) may not be intentional wreckers. The better the mods handle decisions, the fewer non-wreckers will jump to wrecking and the less sway wreckers' words will carry.
I'm curious as to how you see this as a misrepresentation? The last thing I want to be doing is giving ground to the assholes who want to wreck. Any criticism I have for the mods/admins is purely in good-faith. I just want to see this community thrive as it grows/matures, and I see bloodbath struggle sessions where no one better understands their history, theory, or their comrades as detrimental to the health of the community.
My quote wasn't exclusively referring to the name change, but also the frequent suggestion that we behave as a forum to pull normies left. But even referring solely to the announcement, it seems that the PSL thing was the only major justification as to why we should change the name, the rest being dismissal of why we shouldn't.
I am very thankful for all the free labor our admins, devs, and mods are putting in for us, and generally don't want to critique their actions, because they should be able to make mistakes. However, this was a clear misstep with a lot of opportunity to cause damage that could have easily been mitigated by a number of actions. While the mods are basically doing the thankless job of being an internet janitor for free, they also probably should avoid handing out laxatives & PCP to the patrons of the venue they're responsible for cleaning.
I feel it's important to point out that the way average users use this site differs greatly from how power-users and mods use this site, and it likely has a big impact on how people perceive the community and its problems. There's been a number of times where I've been oblivious to some context obvious to people who had been following posts that day. When I sorted by 'active' (or 'hot', whatever is the default), I noticed a lot less bad behavior, bigotry, and wrecking...to the point of asking myself "am I not noticing this shit because I'm an ignorant white boy?" in some of the threads complaining about it. I'm certainly glad I never questioned anyone's claims, even when my perception differed profoundly. Since I started sorting by 'new', it's apparent that all of the shit from their claims was very real. I think the high quality of moderation prevents many users from seeing a majority of the toxic shit...leading to them never being aware of the extent of the problems of our community, and thus, unempathetic/defensive to valid perceptions of such. I believe the converse is also true. Power users and especially mods seeing all the turds users smear on the wall makes it easier to assume a given user is attempting to do the same. We all need to do a better job at fostering good will amongst the community here.
Also what's up with that user having deer/doe as their pronouns? Why is that even an option? Is there some valid use of them as pronouns that I've never seen the logic for? To me, it seems like a built-in way to encourage transphobia.
Sorry for the bible of text. ADHD brain won't let me finish a thought prematurely.