So, YouTubes and tweets in spoilers then?

Yeah I'm kinda with 5ive here. I'm good calling a ****ing idiot a ****ing idiot but the whole child abuser **** that gets thrown around is awful.

I see this forum as an alternative to P for various reasons, and for me the main one is that modding is one-sided. At least a mud fight is a fair fight, but I'd much rather have something other than a race to the bottom, and consistent ideas properly implemented. Even if they are not exact my ideas, at least they are consistent ideas.

It's game theory.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tit_for_tat

So are you and 5ive ok with the way we were doing it? You could object robustly which included calling someone a ****ing idiot if it was part of a response to something they posted. Is there any need for much more than that.

5ive - you pick up some sanctions. I know you dispute some of our decisions but do you generally think it's been too severe?

Unless I'm missing something else, that's centered around wil endorsing child abuse, in the manner of excessive corporal punishment, in this one infamous thread. Although it's usually phrased as 'advocating/condoning punching children' so maybe you're talking about something else.

Agree and disagree. On one hand, that insult is based on something that wil actually said in a thread, so it's not like people are just calling him that for no reason. On the other hand, it is pretty terrible when posters come in and massively derail threads by arguing about something like that for the 1000th time.

I've disputed post deletions but I don't think I've disputed sanctions. I type some outlandish stuff here. So in that regard I don't think 'severe' is the correct term, more like 'excessive' because the posts being deleted aren't sanction-worthy or even 'bad' just deemed inappropriate. The most bizarre one was when I said something like 'I like my Al Sharptons fat; this new Skinny Sharpton is unsettling'. It was at the tail end of some discussion about so-called race-baiting.

Ultimately it comes down to how blurry the lines are in regards to politics and personal attacks; in effect what ends up being called a personal attack is based on tone and/or language and/or context. To reiterate my previous posts I'm governing by the assumption that we all passionately believe in our politics and their real-world manifestations, so there's no separation between an attack on one's politics and a personal attack and it even seem redundant to use the phrase 'personal attack'. Of course it's personal. So what were left with is trying to figure out how exactly to phrase personal attacks in a way that seems less personal. There's not exactly a hard and fast ruleset to use.

Take well named for example. He's as polite and civil as he can be, never just says LOL U WRONG or LOL U STUPID, yet people still get upset with him (juan valdez and wil come to mind) as he's thoroughly articulating just how and why their beliefs are wrong and stupid, beliefs they personally hold dear. There's no way around it.

There are so many metalayers to everything now, also. People say he advocates punching children simply to see him deny what's written and saved on the forum.

Unless the mods cab telepathically read your mind, of course

If you spout off stupid beliefs you shouldn't be surprised when they are brought up to counter the idea that your other beliefs are not stupid. Every time Wil makes a judgement based statement the posters around him should be reminded of just who they are talking to. You wouldn't want to make a bet with Wil without knowing about his betting history would you?

Is he denying he said it or saying he's changed his mind?

This it true, but it also creates a context for other horribly regressive opinions he expresses.

It comes to down to practical considerations and we ('the mods') have to do something decisive in the next few days so please speak up now. It seems to me that the rules as per when Well Named first joined as mod actually provide most of what people say they want without giving them a great deal of the pointless bickering which a lot don't want. The contentious PC rule has been been reformulated into a version posters are more comfortable with, and the deletions have been greatly reduced plus come with a comment. Is there anything important that you would like to see different about those rules?

I was referring to forumla's assertion that some posters not will werre child abusers tbh, I think the allegations directed at wil have some justification although I'd personally stop short.

Yeah the wil thing I get his arguments in that thread were bonkers and kinda justify the claim but the one that I noticed recently was

which is just **** but then I wanted the option for more personal abuse and I should be careful what I ask for I guess.

Oh, duh, right, that just happened. Yeah that was a ridiculous comment. It was in reference to saying wil's avatar looked strange in reference to the 'that is my child' meme. Punching children is fine apparently but don't say they look strange in certain pictures.

To be fair, Wil never said he punched a child, only that he supports punching children.

If I recall correctly there was an "attack the post not the poster" rule or something similar and I do not support such a rule at all.

I do support a rule against excessive derailing and constantly bringing up old grudges.

Basically when wil posts some spew I want to have the right to quote it and say "lol you're a ****ing idiot" or whatever without necessarily having to refute all (or even some) of the numerous often self-contradictory points contained therein.

I don't particularly want posters to be able to pop into the thread, post "lol wil you're a child abuser" because those derails are boring to me.

Meh, this is fine. I'm not arguing with you; when I say it's terrible I am grading it purely in reference to my personal opinion of what is entertaining to read.

Part of the problem is that no one knows what the ****ing rules even are anymore.

Like, if the proposed rules are:
1. Don't break site-wide rules.
2. Keep it at least reasonably on topic.

Then yes, I like those rules. Since the death of the PC rule I haven't had too much issue with the modding aside from whosnext nuking 100 posts out of this thread for no reason.

I'm primarily interested in laughing at the "modding" of this forum and not engaging with Wil anymore, but when I slip I'll try and make new and entertaining...

I can't disagree that it's got confusing but if you agree with 'keeping it reasonably on topic' then I think what we came up with when Well Named joined us is very much on the lines you want. There isnt a ban on personal attacks when they are engaging in the topic. There has to be some judgement on when it's excessive no content abuse but none of the mods are looking to be heavy handed when it's current posting being responded to.

PU/P7 has always been a race to the bottom but the current moderators seem to want it to get to the finish line as quickly as possible

Yeah, I agree that it will probably be fine although obviously we will need to see the implementation of it to be sure.

This is all fairly irrelevant but I will give essentially what is my vision of this forum (and this is all pretty much speaking from a completely selfish standpoint).

The Politics forum is a good forum, but it is essentially an echo chamber. I don't say this in the negative way that many do, I enjoy that forum, it has many good and great posters that make good and great posts. I read it. I occasionally post. The problem in it for me lies in the fact that I do not particularly feel the need to respond to posts I agree with, so I view it more as a place to get current events and interesting opinions on those events but not to contribute too much.

This forum I essentially view as a fun place to argue with and make fun of morons (mostly wil). If it is to differentiate itself from the Politics forum in any way, I think it must, basically, allow what most would consider to be bad posting. This is because the reasons people come here seem to me basically twofold:

1) The posted so badly they were exiled from alpha.
2) They enjoy arguing with the posters in set 1.

The posters in set #1 are simply going to post badly. It is what they do, it is who they are, and there is no hope of that changing. There is little hope of getting through to them with reasoned arguments. They are often going to post racist or offensive things, hopefully not overtly so.

The posters in set #2 have basically come here seeking out the bad posting. If they wanted to argue and discuss with each other, they'd do it in alpha. They (we) either want to make fun of, or practice arguing against, the bad posts.


Basically, my theory of this forum is that it thrives on ****posting. If ****posting is disallowed the forum ceases to have a purpose. My view is that the modding should focus only on stopping the ****tiest of the ****posting, and keeping the ****posting within sitewide rules, and nothing else.

So I guess basically unchained.

I'm good with allowing personal attacks in content threads within reason, as long as they don't distract too much, the conversation moves forward, and there is some semblance of content neutral moderation. A personal attack simply isn't determined by whether or not it is "true" as is the claim over in P. That leads to the ridiculous notion that screaming insults at people that they're racist, rapist, or whatever -ist is not a personal attack, because it's "true".

I'm sorry, but the correct rebuttal to most of the "you are an -ist" on 2+2 is "you are an insane idiot, get back in line with your friends".

As long as I'm a mod here telling people they're being racist when you think they are being racist is going to be protected speech, as a general rule.

It's not a personal attack if it's true is correct.

Edit: again no, the idea that it's ok if you believe it's true will not fly here.