Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Report people when they break the rules, don't argue back at them. This is like, rule 0 of the Internet. Also, it's been not even an hour since the comment you are complaining about was made. It takes time for one of the mods to be online, see the report, and decide what to do with it.
I agree with you that calling you an "unserious person" is a violation of the rules. But the rules aren't a magic wand that prevents breakage. Bad comments need to be reported (especially in a thread as old as this one), and you need to be patient to let the process work. You can't hold this post up and say "see, this is why I'm quitting" when the moderators haven't even had a chance to respond yet.
I don’t have faith that my reporting is going to be met in good faith. I have a history of comments calling me trans, insulting my intellect over my gender, and general potshots at me being unserious, a troll, someone who just hates conservatives and doesn’t want to listen to other arguments, straight up mocking at my lack of knowledge despite the rules literally saying “leave the rest of the Internet at the door”. Where is the moderation there? And for a site full of people claiming they want to debate, why is there a constant stream of rule-breaking not-debating happening aimed at me?
I don't recall you actually reporting any of those comments. It's rather unfair to accuse us of not meeting you in good faith when you prefer to complain in public.
Generally speaking we don't jump on every petty snipe. Calling you a "deeply unserious person" isn't very nice ( @Hoffmeister25 consider yourself chided) but you've been kind of snippy too.
Look, stay or do not stay, but you know what irritates me personally? Someone who keeps going on performatively about how they're leaving, but sticks around to keep fighting.
Fwiw I would rather you stayed, but you cannot decide you're here to poke people with sticks and then whine that you get poked back.
I’m trying to be polite towards the efforts to respond to my initial post and attempts to change my mind without adding more to the Culture War thread. I didn’t even know there was a reporting option, much less that it would be taken seriously. It’s surprising to me you want me to stay, and it makes me reconsider some of my stances.
When you aren't getting in snark fights with people you do a good job of representing a point of view that is rare here. It is a very unpopular point of view, so yes, people are going to be mean, and they are going to downvote you. There is only so much we can do about meanness. Personal attacks are not okay, but being edgy and condescending, rude but not quite attacking? It's a judgement call, which means some of the unkind things you think should be modded won't be.
I assure you, you are getting reported a lot and you can take satisfaction in the knowledge that we're not going to ban you just because some people really want us to ban you.
That said, a common failure mode of leftist posters here is to get in lots of fights, get reported constantly, and eventually lose their cool. We won't give you any special consideration or passes, even if you are being dogpiled. So, that's just how it is.
I don’t take satisfaction because the fact that I’m getting reported so much is a dismal sign for the purpose of this site and tells me a lot of people aren’t listening to what I’m saying. It seems like I’m getting reported for having an opinion people don’t like, not for breaking the rules. But like I said, the moderation here is not for me. I have been hasty in my judgement on Ukraine due to my sensitivity to the Bucha massacre, and there do seem to be a handful of people who aren’t breaking the rules when interacting with me, but mostly my hastiness was unwarranted and therefore my reason to leave is unwarranted. All this to say I have changed my mind.
It’s ironic that I feel I have done a deliberate job of attempting to not be snarky with the belief the mods have eagle eyes on my behavior since all the reporting happens, but it’s not my call to say if I’m snarky or not, just ironic that I deliberately try not to and fail.
Unfortunately, yes. We ask people not to do this, but they do. For what it's worth, it's obvious when (and who) does this.
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And did you report those comments? I don't disagree that you take a lot of heat (though not all of the things you mentioned are legitimate grievances). But nobody said that the people on this forum are angels. You are expressing views that are unpopular here, and for better or for worse that means you're going to get people dogpiling you. To some extent, that simply means you have to have a thick skin. Go look at @Amadan posts sometime - he routinely gets dogpiled and downvoted into oblivion just because some people don't like him. He still posts here, though, even though I'm sure he doesn't like it any more than you do. That's the kind of mental toughness that you frankly will simply have to have to post here.
To the extent that people are violating the rules while piling on, then you need to be reporting them. If you have been, and if there hasn't been anything done about any of those posts (which you would need to follow up and look at, because it's not like the mods are going to ping you when they warn someone), you should take that as a sign that the moderators disagree that people are breaking the rules. And then do with that what you will - if you think that means you don't want to hang here then don't. But I find it very frustrating that, at least in this specific instance, you're refusing to even try to get the mods to intervene, and then using it as an example of why you think the site is bad. That's not fair in the slightest. And if you haven't been reporting other interactions you felt violated the rules, then frankly your complaint has no legitimacy at all. The mods aren't omniscient, and they need people to report violations of the rules if they are to help enforce them.
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