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Please stop telling people what to write or not to write - and you are engaging in the same kind of consensus-building you accuse him of.
Several people have already said pretty much the same thing you did ("this is a bad opinion" followed by recommendations for women writers) without sounding like someone from reddit coming in to wag their finger.
Oh, I guess I am coming in from Reddit to wag my finger. I did consider fully disguising my feelings beneath a more constructive-sounding comment but I decided it would be dishonest; frankly, I was motivated to respond to the comment by a feeling of strong distaste for the bigotry of the comment, so I wanted that to come through at least a bit. (I am perfectly happy to abandon this forum if such things are taboo'd here? Let me know.)
It's not against the rules to express distaste for bigotry. But you are required to engage civilly with people and avoid unnecessary antagonism (like by going out of your way to express your disgust for someone), even if you do think they hold abhorrent views.
Fair enough, it's your house. I am not sure if you can draw a bright boundary between expressing abhorrent views vs expressing disgust for someone (my disgust for a racist, say, is based on their disgust for others). In my view someone who says they never read female writers is being less civil than someone calling that person a bigot.
Perhaps it's a 'know it when you see it' thing.
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Expressing "a feeling of strong distaste for the bigotry of [a] comment" is taboo here because it doesn't actually add anything to the discussion. This is an anonymous forum; none of your friends will be outraged that you tried to engage a neo-Nazi/incel/paedo-fascist constructively instead of dismissing them without a second thought.
Realistically, a large proportion of the users and comments here are bigoted by the standards of Reddit. If you're going to post something that amounts to "yikes, sweaty" under one in every 3 or 4 comments, then you should leave, for your sake and ours. But I believe a constructive and mutually beneficial discussion can be had as long as everyone sincerely tries to "be no more antagonistic than is absolutely necessary". If you can do that, I urge you to stay. We could use more ideological diversity.
I mostly agree with the policy as far as it applies to completely informationally empty comments. I would say mine was one part salt and one part recommendations of really good authors, however, and was actually mostly well intended (I wanted to make the poster think, "I have gone too far, I am grossing this other commenter out, maybe I need to go and get some different experiences, such as reading the authors they mentioned."
I suppose one danger of this no-expressions-of-distaste policy is that it could leave posters unaware that they are causing contempt/disgust reactions in others. Though to be honest, in the case of someone given to generalisations of the level 'I will not read books by women', said posters are probably getting that feedback elsewhere in their lives anyway, even if they are unable to receive and act on it constructively.
The original comment could have been phrased better, and perhaps criticism along those lines would have been more acceptable to the admin above. However, it seems your objection is not to the comment's tone but to its content. I agree that the near-total dismissal of female writers is based on ignorance, but the correct response is a counterargument, not finger-wagging and pearl-clutching.
The comment's author has now received many suggestions of writers whose works may change his mind. Surely you agree that this is a good thing. But this is only possible because he posted his comment. The alternative is him not posting anything, and hence not getting any recommendations, and hence remaining ignorant. Surely you agree that this would be a bad thing. Therefore, it makes no sense to scold him for posting the comment. Your comment, even if well-intended, was counterproductive.
This forum's rules are the way they are because its purpose is to facilitate free discussion, and we want free discussion because it is the only path to progress. Self-censorship cannot eliminate incorrect or disagreeable beliefs: at best, it will hide them; at worst, it will cement them.
I admire your attitude, but don't see it quite that way. If he was posting in good faith, then yes, he got recommendations and his ignorance is ameliorated. Hurrah. But if he's not, and was rather hoping to garner emotional reward from the rise and attention he gets out of people, or their sympathetic and confirmatory anti-woman posts, then engaging with him is just entertaining him.
That's not your call, though.
Your choice is not "engage with him in good faith" or "scold him to let him know how disgusting he is."
Your choice is "engage with him in good faith" or "do not engage."
Okay, them's the rules. I think it leaves you a bit undefended against bad-faith posters with itches to scratch, though I am all for the experiment.
We've been running this "experiment" for years. You're not wrong that there are failure modes that have caused frequent discussions about whether and how moderation should be changed, and there's no perfect solution, but by design, this place polices tone more than content. So yes, that means this is a place where you can get away with being sexist (within constraints, you can't just say "Women suck") and be modded for being rude to the sexist.
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