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No one is rehabilitating South Africa. But the people there don't deserve what is happening to them.
I suppose you probably think that Red Army soldiers gang raping German woman was a good thing too.
Supposing this is an example of being uncharitable.
If any poster here believes that Red Army soldiers gang raping German women was a good thing, they are more than capable of expressing that thought plainly themselves; your assistance is not required.
You've been getting better at acquiring AAQCs rather than warnings lately, but this sort of post is flatly and egregiously against the rules. I'm giving you a one-day ban. Please do not post this way in the future; ban length will escalate if you do.
The other poster basic response was “shut up, you Nazi!” Perhaps we ought to be modding that poster.
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I have to concur with Steve here; Upsidedownmotter is clearly just as uncharitable. Noting the Weimars republic obvious failures does not make you a Kaiserlicher, noting post-apartheid SAs failures does not "rehabilitate" apartheid SAs, and the insinuation has been a reliable tactic to shut critics up.
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Gonna do anything about the goading, post-deleting obvious troll he's replying to? Or does the affirmative action policy cover that behavior
He's been warned to stop deleting posts or he'll be banned.
And you've been warned to stop goading mods and making things up. The last few times we've let pass, but the ankle-biting will stop. Now.
Clamping down on blunt feedback to the mods is a pretty serious change in norms around here, and a very negative development -- you should stop.
Here are the last couple directed at me. I even think he was directionally correct on the latter! Do you think it was helpful?
Amadan might be thinking of non-mod examples.
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There's a difference between blunt feedback and ankle biting. If you want to question or criticize a mod decision that is of course allowed, but posting things like "What" or whining that we don't ban leftists and claiming we practice "affirmative action" is something Steve does constantly and has been told to stop. Just as we almost never mod people for reports, even people who constantly write spurious reports, but we had to tell him to stop writing reports calling people subhuman and talking about how leftists deserve to die. If you make it your goal to abuse the system and annoy us, yes, we're going to tell you to stop.
I guess I'll try to provide blunt feedback then. I apologize in advance for bringing in unrelated posts.
My entirely subjective opinion: In the span of a week, this thread is the second instance of very obvious bait going completely unnoticed without so much as a warning, even as a powermod explicitly shows up and participates in the discussion (without the modhat, given, but as the ban policy of the Motte is still the main topic in both cases I believe it counts as "speaking officially").
The first instance I believe has been given, frankly, a lot of leeway for a top level post that came out swinging with a thinly-veiled implicit accusation and hasn't (again, in my opinion) significantly improved the mode of communication or strength of argument in the following replies.
More bluntly, I find the (rather visible) pity/condescension towards
leftistunpopular points of view distasteful for a powermod, especially given the place's supposed focus on robust argumentation - at risk of being antagonistic, I would definitely not call that poster's median post "doing a good job of representing a point of view that is rare here" unless that was a polite euphemism. As I understand you're trying to keep it balanced as all things should be or something, but this is exactly how you get the affirmative action accusations.The second instance here is, well... I won't deny that @jeroboam's post is against the rules, but considering that he was rather obviously baited in a much less subtle way (really, argumentum ad Hitlerum in current_year?), I think a "proper" modhat warning would've more than sufficed, especially seeing as the bait itself remains unnoticed.
Notably, both posts were downvoted to hell - I hesitate to point this out, seeing as nobody likes getting dogpiled and updoot total isn't a very reliable metric (certainly a very gameable one), plus as you note downthread we're not a democracy so by itself this means jack shit. Still, it might serve as a very rough approximation of community reception when/if you ponder if it really is the children who are wrong.
FWIW I'm on record as a simp or the moderation here and haven't really felt any disconnect until now, but this is probably the first time I distinctly nootice a real lapse in vigilance, and especially disagree with your convenient blunt-feedback/ankle-biting distinction. The two are one and the same, cavalier dismissal of [thing you don't like] is not the way, and I sympathize with having to expend effort to separate wheat from the chaff every time you get more [things you don't like], but such is the way of the janitor.
I appreciate the feedback. So here's my take, and I will plead with you and @SteveAgain and all the other critics to actually read what I say.
First, regarding @justawoman. You say we ignored "very obvious bait." I told her I did not like the performative "quitting" and that we weren't going to delete her account for her. Beyond that, please be specific: what actions do you think we should have taken? Should I have banned her for that post? Being obnoxious about how you're going to take your toys and go home is cause to be told to leave or stop with the theatrics, which is what I did. When people keep doing the same obnoxious schtick over and over, eventually yes, they will be told they'll get banned if they keep it up. (That's why I modded @SteveAgain; the first time you say "Oh, I see you're letting leftists get away with everything," we'll patiently point out how you are mistaken. The tenth time, we're getting fed up. He was not modded for that sort of ankle-biting the first few times.)
As an aside, what do you mean by "powermod"? Because the only powermod here is Zorba. If I am more visible, it's just because I am more active, not because I have more authority than any other mod. I suppose de facto that does give me more authority, but I just want to clarify, if you were under the impression that I am "in charge" of modding, that I am not.
As to your point: when I said "doing a good job," I did not mean I find her arguments particularly compelling or convincing. (And as another aside to @justawoman, at the risk of being accused again of being "pitying/condescending," that I'm sorry you're the example under discussion here, it's not meant to call you out.) I meant that she is clearly very woke and very feminist and willing to stand by her opinions despite being dogpiled and downvoted heavily. That takes a certain amount of determination. I am less impressed by the repeated threats to leave because we're such a hive of scum and villainy, but I really do hope she sticks around because some diversity in viewpoints is good. It was not meant to be pitying or condescending. I was being as polite as I can be given that I don't actually agree with her much, and that as you have demonstrated, any expression of personal opinion by a mod is given disproportionate weight.
This isn't entirely correct. We aren't trying to keep it "balanced," we're trying to keep it fair. @justawoman has in fact been warned (with mod hat!) several times. She is not getting extra slack for being a leftist. Was I maybe a little nicer to her than I would be to a rightist throwing a temper tantrum? Possibly, but rightists who throw temper tantrums usually do so because they really want to hate on their enemies and they're pissed off that we don't just let them do that. I plead guilty as charged to being less sympathetic to that.
So with regard to @upsidedownmotter - as I said, he has been warned about his behavior. But as for that specific post? My personal opinion is that:
is not exactly a detailed or high quality argument, but other than disagreeing with it (and/or being pissed off that you disagree) what rule do you think is broken? He added all the caveats we expect people to add when they want to make an assertion about their outgroup. Argumentum ad Hitlerum is obnoxious, you're right! But it is not in itself against the rules. If you think comparing rehabilitation of South Africa and apartheid to rehabilitation of Hitler is a bad argument, that is what the Motte is for: to advance (potentially bad) arguments and be tested against those who disagree. I am not being rhetorical: on what grounds do you think that argument should be prohibited? We do not prohibit bad arguments!
Being downvoted to hell is a good indicator that a post presents an argument badly. It is less of a good indicator that it's a post that breaks the rules. A lot of people really don't seem to understand that crappy arguments are not inherently against the rules, and that failure to mod someone for them does not mean the mods agree with them.
For example: "Trans women are women!" is a post that would almost certainly draw a lot of reports for "Inflammatory claim without evidence" or "Consensus-building." But it is not actually against the rules for someone to assert that if that's what they believe. If you posted it as a one-liner, I'd probably warn you that it's low effort and you actually need to make an argument, not just assert things. But saying something that is very unpopular, pisses people off, (and that I personally disagree with) is not against the rules.
To repeat the obvious, which I have futilely pointed out many times: when someone posts a bad argument, and you reply with a personal attack against the poster and I mod you, that does not mean I agree with the OP or think their argument was good! It means that someone writing a bad argument does not mean the rules don't apply to responses.
This is why, incidentally, we have people regularly posting about how the Holocaust is a hoax and everything is the fault of Jews and not getting banned. Despite being reported a lot. Sometimes they get modded when they become too heated or get too broad in their generalizations about Jews- and we get criticisms that we're just protecting Jews and trying to ban wrongthink. I recently went back and forth with @DecaDeciHuman about this. He repeatedly claimed that we have banned "certain viewpoints" but won't tell us what those viewpoints are.
Can you see how exchanges like this, or attacks by the likes of @SteveAgain, who ignores every time I respond to him at length as I am doing with you now, make me more skeptical of people who earnestly insist that they really believe we (or I) are biased and not actually listening to feedback?
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You like to blame things on other people, but your entire recent posting history is telling everyone they're wrong in their criticism of your moderation. And I know you take pride in being broadly disliked because you think it means you're pissing off everyone evenly, but how can you look at the responses and see them as demonstrating community support for your tactics?
I don't expect this will get through to you. It'll just be another round of blaming everyone else.
I don't take pride in being broadly disliked, I just accept that a small number of people have big emotions.
You speak of "getting through to me" - assuming I actually took seriously the notion that you want to engage in good faith and have a real conversation, have you ever considered, even for a moment, that you might be wrong about something? I mean, I briefly thought that was possible, when I called you out on a false accusation and you admitted it and apologized! "Wow, maybe he's actually calming down and trying be reasonable," I thought. But no, the very next day you were back to the same behavior and the same accusations.
I've just typed more words than I swore I was ever going to waste again with you, because I can't quite let go of mistake theory. I'm actually a very forgiving person - probably too forgiving. I hold out endless hope that our worst posters might someday chill out. But the fact is, yes, a number of people (and you are definitely one of them) just want us to let their side spew unfiltered rage and hate without moderation, ban anyone on the "other" side, and get very unhappy when we won't do that. Most of the criticisms you refer to are along those lines. "Look at how many downvotes you got for telling someone to stop boo-posting! Obviously the community supports boo-posting!"
We have always factored community sentiment into moderation, but you don't speak for the community, nor does "community sentiment" mean it's a democracy. So yes, I can take being hated by people like you. But if you ever decide you want to talk like a human being, let me know.
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Maybe they do deserve it? Democracy means getting what you voted for and what SA is voting for is national suicide.
It certainly shows the limits of democracy and the danger of letting your ethnicity become a minority within one
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