This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
No you haven't. You've seen me use this line on lots of people just like you who think the rules shouldn't be applied to you when you want to shit on people you think deserve it, and who think we should let unfiltered venom be normal discourse.
There are "witches" who've been posting here for years. There are "witches" who have rarely or never been modded, because they are actually capable of presenting their most extreme arguments in a civil fashion.
If we wanted to get rid of witches, we could have done that.
Are my feelings supposed to be hurt? Most of our worst actors, unsurprisingly, nurture a deep resentment towards the mods who mod them most frequently.
You know perfectly well that it was not "mentioning being a victim of a crime" that I was referring to as "dropping a steaming turd." (Truth be told, I probably wouldn't even modded your OP. I thought the venting was borderline, but mostly generalized. @naraburns thought otherwise.)
This is the sort of disingenuous argumentation that causes me to discount what certain people say. Since we're being "sorry to say this publicly" and all - there are people who complain about our moderation who make well-reasoned points about how they think moderation should work and what would be best for the site, and they simply differ with us on the best policies, and have a different vision than Zorba does or a different interpretation of the rules than naraburns or netstack or I do. And that's fine, if unfortunate that sometimes it causes resentment.
Then there are people like you, who want to drop steaming turds and are constantly infuriated that you're not allowed to.
Remember, we also see the reports you write to the mod queue. Especially when you're seething about being banned. You write reports like "Why is it allowed to talk?" and calling us quokkas because we don't ban someone for... posting a perfectly polite, left-wing opinion.
When you make a principled argument, you will be taken seriously. When you just go off about how very angry you are, enjoy the updoots but it doesn't mean anything.
...Okay, fuck it, the direct approach it is.
While we're on the topic of steaming turds, have you considered that your flair text is one? Every time someone reads one of your posts there's a threat to horribly maim them right above it. I don't know for sure if SteveKirk's threatened to hurt anyone - I haven't read all of his posts and don't have his mod history in front of me - but he sure as hell hasn't made generalised threats against the entire Motte literally hundreds of times.
Seriously, there's an explicit rule here that we shouldn't be more antagonistic than necessary. I find it hard to conceive of a more unnecessary and egregious form of antagonism than your flair text; most Mottizens have never done anything to you and there is no need to antagonise them at all, let alone threaten to gouge their eyes out. You would whack anyone who tried anything remotely close to that - heck, you have - and rightly so; it's corrosive to the board.
I get that you are burnt out from modding a politics board. I used to be a forum mod myself* and got burnt out; in some ways it was good for my sanity when the forum got nuked from orbit by our host. But there are healthier ways to deal with that than firing scattershot threats into the crowd. If all else fails you could even just take a sabbatical; you're not the only mod here and, while you do add value with your modding, the place isn't going to immediately implode without you.
*It wasn't a politics board; it was a stalker board. Among the more interesting modposts I had to make were "please do not urge other members of the board to commit phishing attacks" and "please do not swap advice on how to get away with murder".
EDIT: I've been made aware that this is a quote from someone you banned. Leaving this up, because there's still some merit in the "corrosive" issue and because I'm not in the habit of hiding my mistakes, but I'm significantly less pissed off now.
I've been using things people have said to me as my flair since before we left reddit, and I'm quite surprised that all this time you were reading it as me saying I wanted to a put a screwdriver through someone's eyeballs and never said anything. I figured at least the quotation marks would make it obvious they weren't my words. (That said, I probably need a new flair, but no one has been quite that... colorful in a while. No, this is not a request.)
As for being burnt out, now and then I feel a little sick of this shit, but if I were really burnt out, I would quit.
You may or may not remember, but I joined after theMotte left Reddit (I have a "no major social media platforms" rule, with the exception of my pre-existing YouTube account, which meant I couldn't join earlier).
Like I implied, I just wasn't taking the direct approach, because 1) you and I don't know each other that well, 2) I figured that if you were that far gone into misanthropy and given #1, I wouldn't achieve anything besides starting a shitfight, and 3) (until I lost my temper) I didn't particularly want to start a shitfight, because as noted I sympathise with mod burnout (and because theMotte is supposed to not be about shitfights). I PMed Zorba about it nearly a year ago, but his response didn't mention the backstory.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Pretty sure that flair is a direct quote from one of the paranoid leftist-hater people. Could be communicated more clearly, sure.
More options
Context Copy link
That was a threat Amadan received, not one he made.
Shit, whoops. I looked, but not in the right places.
To be fair, it's not like the flair itself has a hyperlink. In context it's a weird cross between a justifiable brag and a plausibly deniable cry for help, but out of context it does look hostile.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
The funny thing is that you almost always end up eventually banning the trolls I report (like Tomato), despite taking my reports as an anti-recommendation. It must be terribly frustrating.
This is kind of rude sir. Kind of rude indeed.
More options
Context Copy link
You and the people you get in the dirt with usually spend lots of time reporting each other and eventually getting banned. What's frustrating is that none of you think anything applies to you. You crow when your enemies get banned; you shriek indignantly when you get banned, and fail to recognize the pattern.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link