I want more modding, do you?

I guess we will have to agree to disagree. :grin:

lol donkaments

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Touché

Yes, and it’s also important to note that given the pervasive racism, sexism, and other prejudices in American politics, we most certainly do moderate people for their politics, when their politics are racism and hate.

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Fly certainly trolled morons like Wil when he had a breakdown over Serena “crip walking” or whatever, but he never trolled people who were posting in good faith.

You seem to have a problem with tone more than substance with posters. You’d prefer Patrick Bateman to Gilbert Gotfried.

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I mostly agree, but Fly definitely trolled some people who, like, weren’t exactly posting in bad faith, but who had some sudden and inconsistent changes of heart in light of new information. I’m thinking in particular of “the ethics of child labor” thread and some others like it, where libertarians and ACists switched quickly from “No way Murray Rothbard or Milton Friendman said that, that’s horrible!” to “Akshully, that is good, just look at what Rothbard said about it!” I do think it’s correct to troll such people, but this sort of thing isn’t exactly bad faith. It’s more like having a greater allegiance to a person or a team than to a stated principle of that person or team.

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Yeah, including everyone Fly made jabs at would have just been too long a list so I shortened it.

I still just dont get how when both sides were pretty equal in number of posters, the person on the “trayvon/Mike brown didn’t deserve to die” side is the person you hate the most, in two decades of being online.

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Yeah, that’s correct. Fly was an excellent poster, even if he sometimes crossed the line. He had a talent for bringing the heat at the right times.

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I feel like trolling is inherently bad faith posting.

Depends on who’s doing it

Nah. “Trolling,” as a term, is a broad enough term that includes things like deliberately irritating your opponents, and that includes things like deliberately cheerleading for one’s own team in the face of one’s opponents. That’s obviously not bad faith – you truly support your team! – but it does fall under the umbrella of trolling. Likewise, arguing in favor of deeply held beliefs in a gruff, sarcastic, condescending, or mocking manner against one’s opponents also reasonably fits trolling but not bad faith. You’ve got your Venn diagram backwards. Bad faith is a wholly contained subset within trolling, not the other way around.

To add, this is exactly why I wrote the bad faith rule as I did. I don’t want to moderate gratuitous mocking and condescension, at least not at a point less than someone making doing so their raison d’etre. If you can’t deal with someone saying “lolololol @ your post” or “Suck it, Buttigieg supporters!” or indeed “fuck off and mind your own business,” I don’t think you’ve come to the right place, and I’m even wondering what you’re doing talking about politics on the internet at all. That’s all trolling, and it would be uncouth in an academic or professional setting, but that’s not what we are. But that said, this is also why I think we need a personal attacks rule to recognize that there is an indistinct line where people can go to far even if they believe the attacks they make, and mods should be empowered to make the determination that someone has crossed it and act on that.

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Or any of the hundred times your pal jman does, if the rules are to be applied fairly to all from now on.

If you’re finding modding here either too demanding or too distracting from your modding of the white supremacy forum you’re still keen to represent I’m sure someone else can be found who will do a better job.

I’m confused by which of your two opposing hats you’re wearing now. Who is this “we”? The “we” here or the “we” at 22?

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?
You won’t know whether you like them or not until you’ve read them.

I heard it alright and read the linked articles about him. It was all very sad especially that he seemed such a good guy and wasn’t even that old, but I didn’t know him at 22 and certainly didn’t have the history that others here had.

It has nothing to do with boredom - you must know about how the time difference means you see multiple replies that were made overnight. I mean, when I’m sleeping you don’t say “Oh you must have been busy for 8 hours not to reply” lol.

How this forum will be modded in future isn’t the most interesting thing but is probably quite important to me as I have approximately zero faith in most of the current mods to do it fairly lol, in the same way that taking the rubbish out is important but not interesting.

As I’ve said I’m still trying to find my feet in the new world of retirement in a world locked down, after 35 years of working. Things in my life have always had a way of taking shape by themselves, usually unexpectedly. I’m not assuming any of us will be here tomorrow let alone in years to come but in the meantime I’ll continue to isolate from everyone as much as possible. This isn’t good for me, I know, but there’s no sensible choice at the moment.

I’m not sold on the idea of a higher universal power telling us things. People dying to enable us to lead “better” lives sounds close to solipsism, which may have something to it of course but requires a larger leap of faith than I’m capable of making. And what is a better life anyway? I’d argue it’s spent helping other people, which is pretty hard to do now without putting yourself at great risk - so I do what I can with neighbours etc, which isn’t very much in the wider scheme of things.

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The answer is I don’t know. It was important during the reign of King Donald I, but I suspect there’ll be a hiatus for a few years until the next atrocious person takes over there, so possibly less important now.

The big decision to retire was a no brainer - the mortgage got paid off and we looked at pensions etc and realised it was doable.

I really need a holiday, as does Mrs j. We choose to lead a very simple life without a lot of the frills that most people enjoy, but we’ve always splashed out a bit on one or two decent holidays each year as a reward for working hard and to recharge, and we’ve had to cancel both holidays we booked this year for obvious reasons.

This forum is definitely, certainly not the biggest fun in my life. Mrs j says things like “Oh, back on there again, arguing with Americans?” jokingly.

I have enough imagination that filling my time enjoyably and fruitfully has never been a problem before. Being housebound eventually grinds you down after this length of time, but I’m not going anywhere near Joe Public until vaccinated. This country has one of the highest infection rates in Europe.

What you’re doing in the fields is really good. All I can do for the time being is help neighours when they ask for it. It’s something.

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It seems clear you think that a post of nothing but ‘fuck off’ is both an insult (so, being content free, a personal attack), but something that you will do and something you wouldn’t (?always?) moderate.

The criteria you offer are if it’s less severe in your opinion than other attacks, or if it’s a consensus political opinion mocking a minority, stupid or presumed disingenuous one. (I think, it wasn’t entirely clear to me to be honest.)

Is this the consensus position on any personal attack rule we’d bring in? That in fact some of them are fine if a mod likes them?

As I said yesterday, despite the amount of thoughtful posts in this thread it’s hard to shake the feeling that the consequences will be increased moderation of people whoever has the power doesn’t like.

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Can you cite any evidence this is the case? Given the forum has had nearly no moderation I don’t see where the evidence is that one group has been unduly put upon?

In general I take the words of the actual moderators to be far more determining of what will happen than the wording of new rules. My whole post was about what a moderator seemed to be saying they would do. I think the judgements there that would determine which attacks are allowed to stay would inevitably cash out in that way.

I don’t mean that as an attack on any particular moderators or their skill at moderating. I’m sure I’d moderate like that to some extent under those guidelines. This is a big reason why I voted for no new rules.

Well shit, you solved the case Sherlock, carry on!