It was almost the exact opposite of that. Instead of bending the forum to be what we want, we wanted to create something else (a subforum) that reflects what we want. I jokingly posted about a coup and was immediately jumped on and told we should make the subforum or make a new forum instead.
1 Like
Why couldn’t you guys have just done what the topshot people did and just made a discord? It’s much smoother and doesn’t look super weird and shady and you don’t give people you don’t like to begin with access to your thoughts.
I don’t know about exact opposite. Seems like these guys just wanted a private subforum instead of a new forum.
But yeah you didn’t start it to strategize changing the main forum. So it was definitely different.
This kerfuffle may end up killing unstuck and you’ll get your wish.
Being ignored or demeaned comes with the territory if your desire is to push heterodox ideas. If you want a forum where you are not pushed back against, then you don’t want to live in the real world.
I’ve always been a lonely figure with a unique perception of the world around me and I’ve built up a tolerance to being disagreed with that makes me emotionally equipped to fight a war of one vs all, if necessary, for the things I believe in. I don’t expect to win when that happens, but I insist on being true to myself and accepting the consequences.
Politics, like religion, is such an intimately personal thing that it’s hard not to take a firm rejection of your politics as a personal rejection of yourself. Maybe it’s sociopathic, but some people need to learn how to disassociate their politics from their self if they want to participate in a place like this.
2 Likes
Elective dictatorship
Because it was never meant to be a long-term thing. It was a stop-gap to discuss ideas for the subforum and, yes, some Mean Girl venting.
If you have screen grabs of the other 1700 private messages, you’ll see that these posts were mostly met with silence and no one carried on in this direction.
3 Likes
I can only speak for myself, and I was trying to get people together to come to some agreement in private so we could present a united front in public. I wanted to write a statement of our intentions and get as many people to cosign it as possible. Could that have been done in public? Sure, I guess, but it seems easier to do in private. I wanted a statement with consensus and a bunch of people to cosign on the OP. That’s more powerful than just starting a thread spitballing. Is it a conspiracy? Yes! But it is only objectionable if you are somehow buying into the concept of Forum Treason and the distinct but related concept of Internet Sedition.
Did I also vent a bit about some of my frustrations with the forum? Yeah, I did. And when it was made public I tried to delete those vent-y posts because I knew they would be not be constructive to what I was actually trying to accomplish. They re-appeared after I deleted them for some reason.
And are those two things mutually exclusive? Of course not. Does the latter distract from the former? Obviously. Does the latter invalidate the former? In some people’s eyes, obviously, but I’m not convinced they would have been open to our ideas if we had been saints.
5 Likes
Well that’s pretty fucking childish, not sure what else to say about it. I still stand by my assertion that the core intent, as I understand it, of the PM thread was reasonable, and by applying fidget’s conduct to the whole group we’re throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
5 Likes
I mean, he did tell them to stop dressing like that. They had it coming.
5 Likes
Sorry, I guess you’re implying that I skipped this. I never asked for evidence for the claim that Sabo was at least once chastised for how he attacked J. I asked for a receipt of people criticizing Sabo for the post he made about J in the private thread. No receipt was provided, I’m guessing because it doesn’t exist? I was offered some alternatives that J was defended at other times, but I asked for what I asked for because I wanted to establish a clear record on that one point with respect that one remark.
Now what you offer instead is: MC stuck up for J in public, got some hearts, and that, to you, means that in a private thread where J is being aggressively criticized by a dozen people without the ability to respond, an extra shot against his mental health doesn’t really count because of a lingering absolution provided by that earlier reprimand? I mean, it’s a bold move Cotton and maybe it works, it’s just not what I was specifically asking about.
1 Like
I mean we also don’t have access to the entire PM thread currently which makes it a bit difficult to prove or disprove
2 Likes
It’s also upsetting that people failed to acknowledge that George Floyd was passing counterfeit bills. Because it wasn’t at all justifiable that the thing posters were upset about was a disproportionate punishment against someone who they already felt was being treated unfairly.
No, they should have attached the caveat to every single post discussing the permanent ban that of course Sabo acted inappropriately and deserved a ban.
Edited to add: As others have pointed out, you aren’t even factually correct. But even if what you’ve made up is, it doesn’t matter at all.
4 Likes
There are ways to attack Jmakin without calling into question his mental stability. I don’t think a “no personal attacks” policy works for this forum, but there are certainly limits we can draw around what sort of attacks are permitted. I am not against putting mental health status in the same protected basket as things like race and gender.
I honestly would have no problem if people wanted a public Mean Girls thread where every day is Festivus and they can air all sorts of grievances against other posters.
No, I meant that this all happened in the PM thread the morning of Sabo’s ban. MysteryConman and Micro criticized Sabo’s post and they received plenty of “passive” support (i.e, hearts).
3 Likes
Come on man. Just give up on this one. Trolling is intent. Clearly the dude was not participating in the covid thread (which has been a hotbed of rancor sometimes and really annoying) in good faith.
I didn’t read all the original posts. I still don’t see the need to strategize to present an open front when we have dozens of moderation threads where factions can align and make their case. And I’m not shocked the PM thread devolved on occasion into trolling and gossip.
If we can’t all agree a massive private group PM where participants routinely talk about individual out-group posters is a bad idea, then we’re at an impasse.
This post is not ok and I will flag it.
2 Likes
Agreed. I feel like I’m in a very odd position where the defending of the PM thread and the intent of most of the members of that thread feels like it’s forcing me into defending (or being treated like I’m defending) the entire body of work of posters like sabo, watevs, and fidget.
(To be clear, I also don’t think every one of their posts is garbage and I don’t think they should be shit on every time they post either.)
5 Likes
It wasn’t massive when the ideas had taken shape - about 20 people. It mushroomed later.
It’s desirable that those 20 discuss potential problems with a sub forum, the largest of which was how to cope with some people coming in from the main forum posting in the same manner that causes problems there.
5 Likes