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cjet79  2yr ago (text post)   3872 thread views

What to do when you get ratioed on themotte

There comes a time in every discussion forum user's life that they espouse an unpopular opinion. Not something unpopular in a way that they have broken any rules. But unpopular in a way that many other users want to chime in with their disagreement.

Ratioed

On twitter it is called getting "ratioed" where the unpopular tweets have a higher than normal number of comments relative to likes and retweets. It is viewed as a negative thing to happen when you are on twitter, because saying unpopular things on twitter is seen as bad.

Here on themotte saying unpopular things is not bad. We are here to have discussions with people who have different points of view. If you say something unpopular but not against the rules then you are serving the purpose of themotte. Not only have you not done something bad, you have done something good. You have provided everyone else here with content. There might be some tribal instincts in the back of your head screaming warnings at you "oh no! you have said something unpopular. quick! defend yourself, moderate your position, attack your most aggressive detractors!" These instincts are wrong. Instead, by saying something unpopular you have become the bell of the ball. The star athlete that all the recruiters want. Etc etc. We all want to talk to you!

Death by a thousand cuts

Being the center of attention and wanted by everyone can be stressful, especially when it feels like a form of infamy. There is a common failure mode that we as the mods have to witness happen again and again. The person that is at the center of attention is getting minor attacks that don't rise to the level of moderation. Multiple people might say the equivalent of "I think you are wrong because you aren't smart", or other forms of implied insults. The person at the center of attention will eventually get worn down by all these small cuts and jabs, and they will lash out at someone making the jabs. The lash out often does rise to the level of moderation.

You are the solution

The mods have talked about this phenomenon and we have realized that there isn't a good way to solve this problem through moderation. But! That doesn't mean there is no good solution at all.

These are the strategies I have used when getting ratioed, they've kept me sane, kept me calm, and helped me enjoy my time far more:

  1. Attitude - You are the popular one. Everyone wants to talk with you. Keep these in mind to avoid the tribal anxiety of 'everyone hates me I have to defend myself!'

  2. Match Effort - There are lots of responses flying at you and these responses have varying levels of effort. If someone has a low effort comment I do not respond with a well researched and cited response, I will often try and avoid responding to low effort comments altogether. Remember, you are the bell of the ball, they need to come to you.

  3. Prioritize the Best - Try and respond to your best disagreers first. The ones that bring up the best points, address all the things you said, or are just very polite about how they say it. You should be rewarding their effort, and hopefully signalling to other potential commentors that this is the type of comment you will respond to. This also helps with the next piece of advice:

  4. Refer back to yourself - Don't get frustrated saying the same thing a bunch of times. If you find yourself having the same argument in two different places, then only have it in the place with the better disagreer, and then point the other people to those posts, or just extensively quote yourself. "I addressed your point while talking with [other user], see my comment here(link)".

  5. Limit the back and forth - I will usually only give one response to most users. I will try and match their effort and address their points. I will try and have an extended discussion only with the best disagreers. So many instances of me moderating people happen ten or fifteen comments deep into a conversation, when almost everyone else has stopped reading. Both sides have already said the same thing multiple times, and they just become frustrated at each other "How can you resist the amazing logic and beauty of my arguments! Only a cretin and scum could fail to be convinced!" My suggestion is to just say your point and get out. You should expect to not have the last word when you are getting ratioed, so just embrace that reality up front.

  6. Leave when you are done - Sometimes even with all these strategies you might reach the end of your patience. You just don't want to talk about it anymore. Try and be introspective and recognize when you have reached this point. Once it happens, thank your best disagreer for the good discussion, say you are done with this topic and leave the discussion. Do not feel obligated to respond to additional comments. Your further participation is only likely to get you in trouble. You will likely get more and more frustrated until you lash out.

I also have advice for when you see someone getting ratioed and you want to join in on the dogpile. But that advice is more of a charitable nature, like it would be helpful to the community as a whole, but probably not as much to you personally. If people are interested I'll add it.

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Forgive me for having a condescending attitude towards Catholic theology

Not being a Catholic, I feel no need to forgive you, but being a mod, don't just post "Your religion is stupid" here.

Except my post was saying more than just that. I don't merely think that it is stupid because there is no reason or evidence which justifies its claims, but further that what it stands for is deeply immoral, incompatible with liberal morality, and dangerous for myself and most everyone outside of its grasp.

Except my post was saying more than just that.

Yes, but your post also said that, and the way you said it is against the rules here. You are not the first, second, or fiftieth person to argue "What I said should be allowed because I'm right," but that's not how things work here, and if you've been here for any length of time, you know that. So follow the rules or you will lose your posting privileges.

Would the following comment receive a warning?: "Forgive me for having a condescending attitude toward woke ideology, which argues in favor of disordered sexuality, double standards that unfairly treat my race, and the violation of my property rights and freedom of association."

I doubt it, and I have a feeling it would be highly upvoted rather than sitting at -7.

Would the following comment receive a warning?: "Forgive me for having a condescending attitude toward woke ideology, which argues in favor of the demeaning of my race, double standards that unfairly treat my people, and the violation of my property rights and freedom of association."

Possibly. Depends on context. This is not a one-to-one equivalence, though.

I doubt it, and I have a feeling it would be highly upvoted rather than sitting at -7.

Probably. We would prefer that up and downvoting not be used as "I agree/I disagree" buttons, but the reality is that that's how most people use them. However, your specific statement was deliberately antagonistic and deserved downvotes even from people like me who also have no fondness for the Catholic Church.

first of all, please update your quote to match my edited comment. second of all, i dont understand why you think my comment was more antagonistic than the example i gave, would you mind elaborating?

first of all, please update your quote to match my edited comment.

No. My quote reflects why you were modded.

second of all, i dont understand why you think my comment was more antagonistic than the example i gave, would you mind elaborating?

Yes, I mind. "Please elaborate so I can continue to argue round and round and into the ground why I wasn't in the wrong" is a game I've played too many times, and I'm not in the mood for it.

No. My quote reflects why you were modded.

Just to make sure we are on the same page, I meant the quote within your post where you were responding to the example I gave of a comment that follows the same format as my post that was modded but is directed against woke ideology instead. Not sure why you would be against updating it to match what you are responding to.

This is the Motte. You may have noticed that there are quite a few people around here with ideas that are deeply immoral, incompatible with liberal morality, and dangerous. Nevertheless, we have norms against being deliberately unpleasant to people on that basis.

This place has never been free of unpleasantness, just look at how often innocent people get labeled as degenerate by right wing posters and no one bats an eye.

The poster was wondering why people do not approach his religion respectfully, and I explained why, yeah it was a bit snarky but nothing extraordinary for this forum. If a post with a similar tone was made against wokism or some other leftist ideology, I don't think it would be downvoted like this one and I don't think it would have been called out by a mod.

But maybe I am just hopelessly biased to see things accurately.

This place has never been free of unpleasantness, just look at how often innocent people get labeled as degenerate by right wing posters and no one bats an eye.

People do frequently post variations on "Wokes are degenerate groomers," and get modded for it, and the people who are modded for saying things like that use the same defense you are, that they were simply stating the obvious and defensible truth.

The left does get a lot of unpleasant rhetoric aimed at it, you're not wrong about that. Frankly, if the norms applied to the woke left were applied across the board, this place would be a lot less pleasant for everyone (Including the woke leftists, whom I think would promptly become subject to a yet worse standard, because some inequities are unavoidable. I say this as a long-since-resigned woke leftist feminist with intersectional influences. Frankly, as someone near the bottom of the congeniality ladder I would prefer that the median not slip further down).

If this was a discussion about "Why do people not approach Catholicism respectfully?" then I think your post would be acceptable, because it would be on topic. Unpleasantness as a side effect of honest explanation is unavoidable, sometimes, around here. But this was, instead, a discussion about how to survive when your views are unpopular. Moreover, it was a discussion specifically instigated to try to help those people feel more at home and deal with it better. "Have different views" is not a good suggestion, in that context, particularly since breadth of viewpoints is something this forum is supposed to encourage.

I don't think his views are unpopular around here, just the opposite, alot of people here have a lot of sympathy for orthodox religions even if they are not themselves believers, and this shows from looking at comment ratings. If you look at his posting history, you will find that posts where he defends or promotes his religion usually garner plenty of upvotes on net. Meanwhile posts on this forum that are critical of religious orthodoxy usually are unable to get off the ground in terms of rating.

Also one of the reasons why it can be productive to say things in a tone that is more provocative than is necessary is because it increases the chance of drawing engagement, which can overall makeup for the unpleasantness of the post that sparked it.

Hm, but why does "drawing engagement" make up for the unpleasantness of reading a post defending religious orthodoxy, for you? To be clear, I'm not implying that I know the answer to this question, but I think it's worth examining. If, for example, you feel a serious sense of grievance towards organised religion, and engagement on that grievance is a way to have your feelings acknowledged, then I can see why you would want that engagement, but this may not be the best way to manage feelings of threat and injury from someone else's ideology. Alternatively, if drawing engagement makes you feel less threatened because it means you know you've succeeded in retaliating for the unpleasantness you experienced by reading them in the first place, then I think you should not give in to that desire for retaliation; don't treat this place like a battleground.

Another thing worth examining is what kind of engagement you want. After all, you're replying to someone who says that condescension makes them less likely to engage. Personally, I have found that I often get more engagement from writing in a more measured tone and/or from developing relationships with posters who then learn that I am likely to actually listen to their replies.

Drawing engagement as I mean it is kind of the purpose of this forum which is to discuss ideas and develop arguments, as well as trying to convince other people of your beliefs and opinions, and maybe change your mind about some of your stances. This only happens if your argument gets responded to, which being a little provocative with your prompt probably makes it more likely to spark something up but like you said it depends on the person.

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