I speak but for myself, I don’t have nor need 15 people following me around liking my shit, so literally no one need waste one precious breath accepting or not accepting responsibility for what I say. I just try to tell the truth*, if you find the truth extremely meanspirited and derogatory, that’s not a me problem but a you problem.
*The private thread is gone, it’s been bleached (even what I said in it which is kind of weird), but my recollection of what I read is growing blurrier and blurrier, and out of intellectual fairness, I have curbed if not completely stopped talking about the thread because it’s fundamentally impossible to litigate it without having access to it, maybe you should do the same. Like, you accusing people of lying about the thread without those accused being able to look at the record is not intellectually fair.
There aren’t two sides, is the problem. I mean even right now that is not true, JT said he supported the Sabo ban, you obviously don’t. The two sides broadly are “unhappy with current moderation” and “happy or don’t care”, but the group of “unhappy with current moderation” contains factional elements and differences which are concealed right now by common purpose.
Since, as we’ve discussed previously, the disagreements about moderation are irreconcilable and consensus cannot be reached, there are two means of resolving this. One is a representative system where we appoint mods and then accept their decisions; a benevolent Hobbesian dictatorship, as skydiver put it. The other is to break the forum in half so everyone can have what they want. The problem with the latter option is that it will just happen all over again, as the factional differences in the breakaway group reveal themselves. When Unstuck started it was the same idea, oh yea we’re going to have community moderation, it will be amazing, we’ll all work together and totally not fight at all. I simply don’t buy that it’s not going to be the same thing all over again, partly it’s just how the internet works and partly “let’s make our own thing to escape this tyrannical moderation regime” is a very efficient sorting mechanism for selecting people who are liable to be unhappy under any moderation regime.
This is where I’m happy saying you are just wrong about what will happen in a breakaway forum. Like should poster X be banned, or should word or phrase Y be moderated, is a matter of opinion. “People will never stop arguing about moderation” is more like a law of social dynamics. Of course it’s not first law of thermodynamics level of “not a matter of opinion”, but I don’t think it’s a 1 out of 10 on the objective-truth-o-meter, either. The fact that web forums contain a lot of bitching about moderation is so well known as to make it a cliche. I think the idea that you can create a forum where this doesn’t happen - out of the malcontents of a current forum, no less - is delusional.
The other thing is that I am convinced the detailed discussion over moderation actually foments the divisions we’re seeing. Like you’re saying “well, there’s two sides here” like this arose spontaneously but in my opinion this drama was whipped up by the process of discussing moderation. Moderation is a fractious topic, discussing it on forums is like discussing religion and politics at dinner parties, it’s better kept at as low a level as you can get away with if you don’t want a forum full of angerbears.
Yeah, I can’t speak for any of the other posters here when it comes to that. I also can’t say I’m certain of the answer or how we get there (or, frankly, that I want it on record what I think about those things). Part of the reason I don’t debate much online; what can I tell you that you don’t already know? Maybe some historical context?
Speaking of why I don’t debate, I’ll expand on this a bit:
That obviously isn’t the only thing, though I’ve had enough problems not only with relative strangers on the internet but actual, real-life friends treating me this way that it’s certainly disinclined me to keep trying. (I could lay out some nutty stories for you about a friend of mine, a guy who was one of my best friends for almost 15 years, who torched all that goodwill because he simply couldn’t treat his friends who didn’t think Hillary Clinton or Pete Buttigieg or Joe Biden were the greatest things since sliced bread with any respect. And not as a one-off; pretty consistently for a good five years there.)
The other major reason I don’t debate much online is that I don’t think you can debate someone out of their morality. The reason I said I’m happy to discuss this further with you, Suzzer, is because if we agree that the current system is immoral and unjust, we might be able to discuss between us what we think a just society might look like-- maybe we’ll form better ideas about the details or at least I can figure out how to express my views better (or work on some snappy one-liners to express them). But if someone looks around the world and thinks this is just and is the best we can do… I dunno how to convince them otherwise, because at that point, if we’re not operating from an entirely different set of facts and view of reality, then they have fundamental moral priorities that are not my moral priorities. (Same if they think the world needs to be even more cruel-- I don’t give fascists the time of day.)
Like I said at the beginning, this all would’ve gone a whole lot smoother if there was much more “I’m happy saying you are just wrong” and much less “I can’t even conceive of a different opinion that is wrong, so every statement will be some weird mashup of normative and positive and will be thoroughly begging the question to death.” We can’t resolve impasses if one or more sides can’t grasp there even is an impasse.
Sorry, that was my attempt at being diplomatic. I’m not sure if it would’ve been better had I said, “But dad Chris, they started it!”
I mean, if we were putting any weight into trying something different, then Skydiver should’ve probably been banned for the “Here’s the fucking deal” post. That doesn’t mean there was even anything objectively wrong with it, because that “if” is doing a lot of work. But somehow it was deemed ok, and the OOT-style was somehow decided upon as being ideal to strive for, and well, that’s not nothing.
I’m not ignoring the rest but I just woke up, and ordinarily I’d just add a postscript or make another post, but God Bless The Throttles For They Are Good.
p.s. Ok, one postscript. I’m gonna share a post for a third time and maybe it won’t get Westworlded again, because I’ve been told that time is charmed:
And consider this: Cuse was always one of my favorite posters, going back years. During the election I stayed up with him talking on the phone during the wee hours, after everybody went to sleep, more than once…
There is absolutely one side trying to make this a That Side vs This Side and it’s quite clearly not my side.
(yes, I know, the phrasing of that last sentence is meant to be a good-natured joke)
So you stated that you needed to take a break from this forum but came back to post that nobody should post a response to another poster. Sounds healthy.
Wait, my bad. Poll results much different than a few days ago. I think he was unbanned when it was like 60/40 for unban. Probably good protocol to lock a poll when action is taken on said poll.
Good for you Victor. Going to ask for a citation on that one. I literally made one post about him that referenced how he posted like 10 years ago and said I have no knowledge of his actual posting on this forum.
Anyways, can we assume that whatever he did to get banned isn’t perma worthy? I still haven’t seen a post explaining this but maybe it was like 200 posts that away.
I can’t pass up the opportunity to point out the irony that his own trollish wording likely contributed to his permaban. If he had left out the “owed an apology” I bet some people don’t vote for his ban.
I’m not sure anymore what level everybody is on, but I’m pretty sure goofy is just busting chops. The poll isn’t binding anyway and Chads took the temp of the room and reversed the perm ban. Sorry if this is all captain obvious stuff and everybody else after goofy was also riffing.
Any reasonable poster would expect that once the mod reversed his perm ban decision and documented it in the mod actions thread anything downstream of that point happening in the poll was moot. But if you really want to claim these results are relevant, well congrats. You’ve completed step 1 of a simple 34 step process. Proceed to step 2 sir.
This community moderation seems like hard work. Apparently the community is only going to be making decisions that are agreeable to a small minority of users?
I know people will now coddle the freedom fighter and nudge him to better behavior which I am sure will work amazingly, but on the tiny chance it doesn’t work what happens? If feels like nothing. Nothing happens with horizontal modding to people who just Trump any suggestions from other users and just ignore them?
Haven’t been following too closely for a few days (after obsessively reading every post a few days ago while waiting for other news), but it looks like everything has calmed down. Maybe the throttles worked? In any case, good job everyone for letting this all de-escalate. Lets keep it up!
Oh interesting. I thought y’all wanted more horizontal modding. Looks like the community spoke. Dictator pocketchads doesn’t get to override the community.
Or at least, that’s what they said they wanted when it suited them. I’m sure they’ll be more consistent in the future.
and @fakejbro, remember when all the rules were too onerous for you?
