So the LW Team put out an announcement on new, site-wide moderation policy (see post link). I've defended, to many a downvote, pretty much every major decision they've made, but I absolutely cannot defend this one. In short, mods are expected to counter pretty much every batshit claim rather than mod it as misinformation, trolling, attack on groups, etc.
My rebuttal (using my main account) to the announcement: https://dubvee.org/comment/3541322
We're going to allow some "flat earth" comments. We're going to force some moderators to accept some "flat earth" comments. The point of this is that you should be able to counter those comments with words, and not need moderation/admin tools to do so.
(emphases mine)
Me: What if, to use the recent example from Meta, someone comes into a LGBT+ community and says they think being gay is a mental illness and /or link some quack study? Is that an attack on a group or is it "respectful dissent"?
LW: A lot of attacks like that are common and worth refuting once in awhile anyway. It can be valuable to show the response on occasion
I understand what they're trying to address here (highly encourage you to read the linked post), but the way they're going about it is heavy handed and reeks of "both sides"-ing every community, removing agency from the community moderators who work like hell to keep these spaces safe and civil, and opening the floodgates for misinformation and "civil" hate speech. How this new policy fits with their Terms of Service is completely lost to me.
I'll leave the speculation as to whether Musk dropped LW a big check as an exercise to the reader.
For now, this community is going dark in protest and I encourage other communities who may disagree with this new policy to join. Again, I understand the problem that is trying to be addressed, but this new policy, as-written, is not the way to do it.
This. Too many mods don't understand their role and mistake it with being a censor. While I don't think I have seen it in this particular sub (or at least I don't remember seeing it) , I have definitely seen it in the others.
We need more dissent in general, and of course it should be respectful, whereever possible.
(i did not mean to say that our existing dissent should become more respectful)
Yeah, no. I disagree with the "respectful" part. I am finding it as an attempt to further americanise the discussion.
If after debating a guy for a few posts I can see that he either doesn't understand what he is talking about or, more often, he is pretending not to understand, I will call him a fucking idiot. Adults should be able to take it.
What is that?
I guess neither of us are any kind of American.
You should not do that. It's cheap and you are devaluing your part of the discussion.
If it were real life, you would occasionally earn yourself a fistful of attitude readjustment 😉
This is the way I see it as I often see "ohh, that was rude, be nice" from Americans (not necessarily just here).
I disagree. It is factual and helps to put things in the relevant proportion.
I am doing the same in the real life, although I found out people are much less willing to pretend they don't understand the argument when it is verbal so it doesn't happen often. I have never been into a fight since my teenage years.