I haven't finally decided what I want to do with this thread, but I'll post some thoughts. Feedback is welcome by PM. There would probably be some value in a thread to discuss this as a moderation problem, but I expect that would be noisy and create its own, extra, moderation problem, so I'm not doing it for now.
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It's not surprising that this thread has moved from being about members of the so-called "intellectual dark web" to being about the kinds of controversial subjects that explain that name, i.e.
The Bell Curve and so on. The focus on controversial subjects creates one moderation problem, having to do with what content or what viewpoints should be tolerated in this forum. In the guidelines, I wrote this:
Quote:
4) You should understand the boundaries of acceptable discourse in this forum
Bearing in mind the above, one of the goals of this forum is to allow discussion between people from across the political spectrum. In general then, expressing views that lie within the mainstream of American politics will be acceptable, even if some posters find those views bigoted in some way. However, you may be asked to moderate the way you present your views in accordance with the prior guidelines, and you should not expect to be shielded from other posters arguing that your views are bigoted, racist, sexist, or etc. Those are, themselves, political arguments, and thus on-topic in this forum.
Fringe views well outside of the mainstream will not be allowed: offensive conspiracy theories, racist views, etc.
It's almost inevitable that discussing
The Bell Curve, eugenics, or other topics likely to come up in this thread will lead to posts that bump into those boundaries, regardless of who interprets where the lines are. For the most part, I've been comfortable with the idea that we can, theoretically, discuss some of these topics without condoning or allowing viewpoints which violate the rule, if we're all conscientious about the sensitivity of the topics, and keep in mind the guideline about respecting the shared humanity and basic equality and dignity of all people. Further, I think at least some of the discussion that's taken place is potentially useful for people, and the topics are still relevant to contemporary politics. Race and racism, for example, are still very relevant in American politics in my view. Despite the strong disagreement that some people have with this, I continue to think that this thread has been mostly tolerable with respect to acceptable content.
However, the second problem is just that having this thread creates a lot of noise, and it's not clear to me that every topic that might get discussed here is worth the noise. By noise I mean both the inevitable complaints about the subjects being allowed, as well as the tendency for the thread to get overheated.
Some of you think (roughly) that the noise is illegitimate in the sense of being only an expression of an irrational taboo against certain topics, and hold that the forum, or this thread, should not be held hostage by those social norms.
I disagree with that view at least to some extent. Taboos also serve a useful purpose, and in any case the guidelines recognize boundaries to acceptable discussion for reasons which I think are good, and probably also necessary from 2+2's perspective. Of course, it's also true that I said I don't think the content of this thread has crossed the line in my view (there are a few borderline posts), so I obviously disagree with some of the people who think it's absolutely outrageous and intolerable to have this thread.
But, I think the level of outrage matters even when I disagree with it, and as I said above I don't think every possible controversial subject is worth debating in this forum given the costs in moderation and public disapproval. Right now, I don't see a good way to manage those costs. I don't think either the level of outrage or the average quality of posts in this thread are likely to be very sensitive to the tweaks to moderation that I could easily make, for example.
I also am not super excited about the idea of this thread sucking up so much of the oxygen in the forum that nothing else gets talked about.
So, for now, I'm inclined to just leave this locked.