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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   18095 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 6, 2025

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Just to add to @Amadan's take on this, it's hard for me to take you very seriously in a discussion about "good faith" when you link to that comment I made, without also referencing my direct reply to you in that thread where I elaborated:

...I have vague memories of this being something the mod team was maybe disunified about for a while (maybe still is). It's also possible I'm giving the wrong impression with the phrase "affirmative action." It's possible different moderators have had, and expressed, different ideas of what amounts to "affirmative action" in various cases. Zorba has always made it our top priority to make this a

place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases

which necessarily involves having people who don't all share the same biases. So we've always tried to moderate in ways that would encourage the development of such a community.

On the other hand, the mod team is accused somewhat regularly of going too easy/too hard on red tribe/blue tribe posts, and we have often cited this fact as evidence that moderation is not actually especially biased in one direction or the other; everyone always feels like their ox is the one being gored. Thumbing the scales a bit in favor of including heterodox views does not rise to the level of nuking the rules, any more than QCs do. And I don't think we've ever thumbed the scales for tribal reasons (either pro or con)--just for specific users in specific cases, where it was, say, understandable that someone might get a little hot under the collar.

So I would suggest that the way to parse all of this is that moderation is a qualitative and adaptive process in a reputation economy. We do go easier on new users, generally. We go easier on people who make QCs or otherwise contribute to the health of the community (e.g. by expressing heterodox views), for the most part. We go harder on people who habitually make bad posts, or express unwillingness to abide by the rules. We moderate tone rather than content. What that amounts to, in the end, is... what we have here. If you're getting moderated occasionally, it's probably nothing to worry much about. If you're getting moderated a lot, it's definitely because you're breaking the rules and showing no inclination to even try doing better.

(Emphasis added.) Your refusal to engage in open, honest, charitable discussion of these nuances is a far, far cry from us engaging in "manipulation attempts." When you ask a question and get an answer, then pop up months later writing as though you never read or understood that answer, like... I don't know what more I can possibly say to you about it.

I mean, your answer was "it depends on what you mean," and you confirmed that you do go out of your way to give extra leeway to "heterodox" posters who get "hot under the collar," which obviously seems to include posters like "antifa" and the kind of rude behavior that results from hot-under-the-collarness.

I don't think you're manipulative, and don't have a problem extending mod charity to real minority posters rather than ones that show up to troll and bait; notice it wasn't me complaining about your moderation in that thread--it was 4bpp, and I only jumped in to ask that question because other mods had denied it before.

Most of that is that you moderate without the snarky comments amadan uses to bait out behavior he can ban people for

No one gave antifa extra leeway for being a leftist. I figured out who he was almost immediately, nonetheless extended a little benefit of the doubt (as I do to most sockpuppets) and told him to chill the fuck out. He of course did not, and barely lasted a day.

Most of that is that you moderate without the snarky comments amadan uses to bait out behavior he can ban people for

Oh, we're back to this false, disproven accusation again, are we?

In this latest round of you accusing mods of bad faith and manipulation, multiple mods have patiently explained your errors. And do you admit your error? No. You double down on the accusations.

Even if by "mods" you mean only me, I have repeatedly responded to your accusations by inviting you to post a link. You either whistle and exit, stage left, or you post a link that doesn't show what you say it does, and when this is explained to you, you whistle and exit, stage left.

One might say, this is manipulative and gaslighting behavior.

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