Polarization and disingenuous overton window re-framing makes the job of a politics moderator very difficult/impossible in anything other than a "echo chamber". Let imagine a post that says

I think of the people who post something like this some are trolling, some are genuinely interested in a conversation about inner city inequality (but have in my opinion been led astray by their diet of media) and some just want to say "N*****s are lazy" but know enough to cloak their hatred in the language used by right wing media specifically for that purpose. Lefties are mostly going to assume the poster is the 1st or 3rd option and they successfully identify those racists 12 out of 10 times.

In my personal experience, the number of posters who are door number 2 is vanishingly small - though I'm willing to accept that that may be because they have been preemptively "shouted down" or driven off or whatever. So small that anyone posting the above will be assumed to be 1 or 3 and instantly treated as such by posters (and moderators) who have seen the song and dance before.

The major problem is that thanks to the right wing media machine, the quote above (and sentiments like it - eg gay marriage harms the institution of marriage and causes the breakdown of traditional families) is mainstream conservative dogma so the racists get to fly under the wire and exclaim hey 63 million of us agree with me so we can't all be racist scumbags. Then we as moderators are stuck trying to discern the secret inner hearts of posters which is basically impossible because a disingenuous "N*****s are lazy" racist will post pretty much the same content as an (imo confused) genuine conversation guy whose media diet is fox news and drudge.

I wouldn't easily concede that most lefties see it in such simplistic terms. Most people are a more complex mixture of often conflicting belief. it's mistaken (and counter productive) to put them in such small boxes.

There's nothing necessarily wrong with a forum that does operate by determinedly forcing discussion down the small box approach but it's self fulfilling in terms of the result.

It doesn't help matters when people in category 2, which is where I would place adios, adopt the tactics of 1 and 3. His reaction in the exchange I posted above was completely ludicrous, and his description of it ITT was transparently disingenuous.

Lefty in this case was probably the wrong word, I'm specifically talking about the context of an internet discussion forum where realistically it's very difficult to ascertain the full and beautiful nature of each individual's tapestry of life and all people have to go on are like 5 three sentence posts at best.

Good to have saved the lefties who are in my experience mostly very reasonable people

The issue then is whether to leap to a judgement (that as you point out cannot be ascertained) or not to leap to judgement.

Both may be valid approaches. I have a very strong preference for the later because I think it's both better in itself and better for discussion. I understand that people get bored with the same stuff over and over again but that's a tough problem for any forum.

LMAO, nothing was added to any discussions by the the hemming and hawing before Silverman was banned. TS adds nothing to this forum but long anti-Muslim screeds equating all Muslims with the worst Muslims. Name one poster that belonged in the 2nd category but was mistakenly put somewhere else.

I think the current politics prime milieu is for posters to leap to judgement and for moderators to stroll nonchalantly to judgement, perhaps jogging from time to time. I can't speak for P7 but I assume the walk is slower.

And then chez goes to bat for the worst posters and keeps them around long past their due...

I agree that small box judgements is the dominant approach within 2+2 politics. I don't agree its the norm or a good thing politically.

lol wow that hard to find any evidence, eh? Do you think zikzak or I would have trouble finding posts that we've made in an effort to have honest political discussions?

I'll give you one thing, it takes some balls to just lie and troll in every post all day every​day but then get this huffy and puffy and offended when called out on it.

Well for me personally I have problems judging people based on something other than who is nice and who is mean to me. So anyway I don't know why goofyballer doesnt like to talk to me but I made something at my grocery store today for a poster who is nice to me.



I had to organize a pallet of butter




so yeah bye bye for now talk to you later see ya wouldnt want to be ya bye bye doodoo faces ill miss ya i need to do something see you later alligator

Sushy been posting itt for 4 months and still hasn't managed to find a non-troll post of his own?

I forgot once you are annointed here you can do whatever the **** you want.

amen

naw, ppl who say stuff like that are indeed all racists. that it is part of mainstream conservative dogma is indeed a problem. but just bc such ideas are promoted by a large segment does not mean that they are worth discussing.

and thus the difficulty...

I appreciate that you are genuinely trying to discuss this issue and struggling with your liberal prejudice to understand those to the right of you.

It's hard, I would imagine, to differentiate between those who are genuinely conservative but have no animus to those who are different from them, and those who are outright racists hitching a ride. Many on the left would lump them together, because as you say, they know how to cloak it, and also at the very least the well-intentioned ones are sort of enablers of the allegedly racist agenda of, say, Donald Trump.

You betray some strong bias in your "12 out of 10" comment, but overall a great post other than that.

Even if what you say is true that the folks in category 2 are vanishingly small, you have to give folks the benefit of the doubt.

Simple solution:

--sanction blatantly racist posting
--let go anything that isn't blatant no matter how much you feel it could be the most racist guy in the universe just trolling everybody with pretty words

Here's why you need to do the latter step, and why it's just as important as the first step: if you aren't careful, you will turn into Mr.Wookie and eventually get to the point where everyone not in lockstep with your agenda is literally Satan or Hitler or Trump (ymmv) and your infraction finger will get very, very, very, itchy.

I promise you, if you ever make me green, and give me my own forum, I will be so ruthless against the racists and the sexists and the homophobes you will think MrWookie hacked my account. But I'd be fair.

ooo, ooo, I know, I know *raises hand*

me (by MB)

Lol, why isn't the solution for conservatives to avoid the appearance of evil when they discuss their positions? Is there really that much difference between hating poors because they are poor and hating minorities because they are minorities? The policies are just as bad regardless of the underlying motives.

Nothing you've posted moves you into that category.

What you're really suggesting as a solution is to become liberal.

You think conservative policy in and of itself is evil, poor-hating, and minority-hating--with bad motives, of course.

Let's stop ascribing evil motives to each other and just agree to disagree on the best policies by which to achieve what we both should want--a better world.

I know, right?

But there is a tyranny afoot over in POG...

If liberals could counter every example of non-evil, non-hatred based conservative policy you give with two examples of evil, hatred-based policy, would you change your mind?

What ratio, if any, would make you change your mind?

Sure, I would say that just about every liberal should concede that conservatives want "a better world" to come from their policies. The question is, a better world for whom? Because conservatives are pretty insistent that their answer to the second question is not "everyone."

I imagine people can determine for themselves whether those viewpoints are worth discussing, but I think there's a pretty reasonable argument that the fact that such viewpoints are so widely held means that they should be within bounds for a political discussion forum. Not that I expect everyone to agree with that argument, but even from an activist standpoint I think the widespread acceptance of those beliefs speaks to the idea that they aren't going to go away just by trying to shun people who hold them.

That's basically the reason why I thought it was reasonable to have a second politics forum, understanding that there are several good reasons not to try to change the main one, and also understanding of course that it might be reasonable to allow them but not desirable for 2+2 from a business perspective, which I think is a separate question.