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This is actually a great example of a phenomenon I think greatly contributes to moderation issues here. You're rounding me off to a pattern you've seen a lot before---"liberals don't really believe they should have to put up with people who express views that are noxious to them"---instead of noticing that my actual complaint is different: I'm only opposed to the way in which these "noxious" views are being argued. I've complained before that @naraburns is also pretty bad at rounding off recklessly in this way.
I'm perfectly happy discussing with people who's values I think are very opposed to mine as long as those people are actually responding to the points of what I'm saying instead of strawmanning or making unjustified personal attacks (Just to link some interactions with a particularly hostile poster who somehow never ever got moderated for these). Case in point: I'm not saying FC is one of the worst perpetrators because he may or may not be racist or accelerationist or whatever, but rather because he has one of the worst habits of rudely accusing those he's arguing against of saying a billion things they didn't actually say!
All I'm asking is that you actually apply your rules on tone and argument style consistently instead of judging based on rounding discussions off to preconceived notions from your previous experience on the internet.
You were wrong then, you're still wrong, and now you've brought a third moderator into this conversation.
Your complaint, every time we have these conversations, boils down to "other people did bad stuff and got away with it." That is certainly true! We do not moderate every bad post. We do not moderate all of your bad posts. Why? Well, as I've explained to you before, we have to weigh the costs and benefits of every second we spend moderating. The rules ultimately function only in service of the foundation. Sometimes a not-great post just isn't worth the hassle, and isn't doing sufficient harm. Sometimes a not-that-bad post is worth the hassle, or is doing sufficient harm. Sometimes we just miss it because no one reports it. Sometimes we're busy with other things. "Consistency" is not the goal; the goal is to serve the foundation to the best of our abilities.
But since you seem to at least want more consistency, here you go: I've consistently told you that the bad behavior of others is irrelevant to your own. Arguing with us about what other people have or have not "gotten away with" is meaningless. We've banned leftists, we've banned rightists, we've banned more flavors of political perspective than most people know even exist. But always in service of the foundation. We've never yet banned someone "based on rounding discussions off to preconceived notions from your previous experience on the internet." As long as you believe otherwise, you will continue to believe something that is false.
Look, I'm operating under the assumption that you guys want more liberal posters here. I'm telling that you contrary to what you guys believe, the reason you don't have so many isn't that liberals don't like hearing views they think are toxic, but rather liberals get tired of the tide of obnoxious argumentation you get here when you either argue for liberal views or become known as a liberal---strawmanning, unjustified personal attacks, and random, derailing accusations of bad faith.
If you read carefully, this is the exact thing that TracingWoodgrains was complaining about. "Unappealing" does not mean "stating values that I find are toxic", it means "obnoxious argumentation that makes it draining to engage, particularly (in this case) the personal attacks and derailing accusations of bad faith".
Therefore, if you actually do want more liberal posters, maybe recalibrate your judgement of the costs and benefits of not moderating these more harshly.
That's a very hard sell considering what I've seen around here over the years. First, it was ages ago by now, but we did have several people flame out not over any obnoxiousness of how a view was expressed, but over the view itself being allowed. This is what happened back when HBD was the talk of the day, and back then the mods even put a moratorium on the subject, because it was freaking the Blues out too much.
The second problem I have is that I never seen anyone complaining about "obnoxious argumentation" have much of an issue when it comes from their side. We've been called every single name in the book, and have it explicitly stated that the only motivation for our views must be some form of bigotry, and 90+% of liberals would either say nothing, outright celebrate it, or rephrase the accusation in a somewhat nicer way ("well, bias is not an obvious thing to see in yourself, so if you were biased, you wouldn't have noticed it, right?"). Whenever a liberal or lefty with a bit more tolerance shows up, I do want to do my part to make them feel welcome, but these sorts of interactions make it seem like they're asking for something they're not prepared to give, so I'm usually left shrugging and saying "sorry, but no".
I tried talking with Tracing when he was complaining about the dynamics here. I tried expressing sympathy for the dogpiles and other forms of obnoxious argumentation, and the result was that he immediately pivoted to the substance of the views expressed here being unacceptable to him. This is not an isolated experience for me, every time I try to extend my hand to a liberal complaining about the resultant conduct norms here (which I agree are far from ideal, we could be doing a lot better), it turns out the resentment runs a lot deeper.
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You can tell us that. That is clearly what you believe.
Speaking as a liberal, I do get annoyed by some of the strawmanning and bad faith accusations that get thrown at me sometimes, but I grew a fucking skin and learned who's worth engaging with and who's not. Note also that some of the worst strawmanning and bad faith accusations have come from people to the left of me.
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