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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   27717 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 13, 2024

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Don’t worry, the mods have decided that’s not a controversial claim, otherwise they’d have issued a warning for not proactively providing evidence.

  • -11

It was quite the statement to throw out there, but it's true. If black people's natural inclination was towards monogamy, you would see monogamy be the dominant mode of relationship in African countries. Or if you want to argue colonialism is responsible for Africa's current state, there would be large reservoirs of archeological evidence showing monogamy in pre-modern African societies. But we don't see that.

I would argue where my statement was misleading is that monogamy isn't natural for any race. But still, there are degrees: it's easier for whites and Asians than it is for black people.

It doesn’t appear to be in the queue, at least.

Please don’t speak for us.

Since you now know this comment exists and haven't modded it... it seems like my comment was accurate?

I'm mentally unhealthy enough that I've tracked my reports and gone back to see if mods actually did anything, and I've concluded my reports just waste moderator time.

I’m still going to say “no.”

Users are allowed to be wrong. That includes misjudging whether something is obvious or controversial. Tolerance for this kind of error depends on the perceived good faith of the user. Since the OP has stuck around to argue his controversial points, he’s earned some benefit of the doubt.

If I’d caught this early, perhaps I’d have issued a warning. But I didn’t, and the rest of the community has already pushed back. Mission accomplished.

You replied to my comment less than 24 hours after the top level comment was made, so I’m skeptical “we caught it too late” is a genuine factor here.

Moreover, OP had not defended the claim at the time, but if that plays a role, maybe “be willing to defend your controversial claims if somebody asks for it” would be a more accurate articulation of the way this rule is actually enforced?

As it stands, if you mod him before 24 hours he never has the chance to defend himself, if you mod him after 24 hours then it’s too late.

That’s actually close to a phrasing we’ve considered. Our dear departed @ymeskhout was interested in some sort of formal challenge system—see a ridiculous, unsupported claim? Demand a defense. He was particularly frustrated with (what he saw as) isolated demands for rigor.

Anyway. There’s no time limit. The faster a controversial claim is defended, the better.

I think replying "That seems like a pretty controversial claim, do you have any evidence to back it up, my evidence for it not being true is so-and-so".

The (I guess) inflammatory statement was part of the top level post, which to me seems like a clear example of an effort-post. If the post was just this one statement, I think our mods would likely have asked the submitter to put more effort in by proactively providing evidence. But if one cancels every lengthy post which contains some claim which might be controversial and is not backed by evidence then there will be very few posts left.

I'm not asking to cancel every length post. A mod saying

Black people, whose natural inclinations are adverse to lifelong monogamy, quickly devolved back into their ancestral mating patterns when released from the straitjacket of traditional Christian morality.

Please proactively provide evidence for controversial claims when you make them

Is completely fine.

Removing the rule is also fine.

Changing the rule to allow unsupported controversial claims in effort posts is also fine.

But don't write rules that sound lovely, but which you're not willing to enforce.

But if one cancels every lengthy post which contains some claim which might be controversial and is not backed by evidence then there will be very few posts left.

I don't personally believe this. I have every confidence that OP could have omitted or supported that sentence, if they had felt like it was expected of them.

I think people fall to the standard they can get away with, and it was clear when the top-level comment was posted that the mods were never going to mod it.

I mean, someone still has to report it.

I think the moderators have mentioned several times that they often do not notice rule violations because no one has bothered to report the violations. Did you report this comment and give the moderators enough time to process the report?

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