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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 17, 2023

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If you cooperate with him and refuse to eject him

I’m not a mod. I have no power to eject anybody. Do you mean that I should be responding to each and every one of his posts with some variant of “this is a bad post”? In this particular case, he posted a link to an article by an author I like very much, and which I think is very interesting and makes for great discussion. And, lo and behold, a good discussion is in fact happening below the post. If you believe that it would have been better for me to refrain from interacting with the post and its replies in any way, you’re welcome to that take, but I disagree. To do so would have been to allow the only replies to the post to be ones that are in disagreement with it, and by extension with my own views.

Is it your contention that even if he was bad faith through and through, you should still pretend that he wasn’t, because the mods didn’t do anything, or because the discussion is ‘good’ ?

You don’t need mod powers to call him out. ‘bad actor ‘,’ ignore the troll’ etc. work. Yes, I expect you to do this, out of basic fairness. I understand that your views may therefore be less represented, and your favourite authors less discussed. It’s irrelevant. Through his illegitimate posting, everyone else’s views are less discussed.

The only reason why he isn’t banned more quickly is because you and the others treat him with the respect he clearly isn’t deserving of.