This is why I should be mod because I would make people back up their claims AND be nice about it. Doesn't seem like that should be too hard.

I should be mod bc I will check in once a week, and blindly delete and ban posts and posters thus vasty improving this hampster wheel echo chamber

I agree with that sentiment, Luckbox. I would first and foremost prefer strict enforcement of a cite or ban rule, followed closely by a rule on racist, sexist etc. posting that includes things like dog whistling. Then a rule on ****ing politeness, if you must. It is extremely more offensive to read posts defending and promoting hateful ideology than to be called some silly name.

Cite or ban is problematic and puts way too much emphasis on official sources. Like "9/11 was an inside job". Cite or ban.
I can absolutely back it up but how does cite or ban work there? So it should be more about providing solid reasoning than referring to wikipedia or the NYT.

That sounds like an argument against relying only on "solid reasoning". It would put a lot of burden on mods to work carefully through wall-of-text posts that are mostly solid but rely on some key fallacy or whatnot.

So we have to make good with what wikipedia says instead?
On 99.9% of things I'd say that's fine. The problem is that the media/wikipedia/"official sources" turn to garbage when it comes to controversial issues. And a lot of politics-- pretty much all of it-- revolves around controversial issues.

but that's a total distortion of the standard

It's a weird inference from 'how you say it' matters to 'nothing matters but how you say it'. Part of the 'anyone can be reasonably criticised' therefore 'both sides are equivalent' family of unreasonable inferences.

chez, that is a literal quote from the (interim?) mod. It was followed by the exchange below.

Q:Will you delete posts arguing that Obama was born in Hawaii?
Etc etc etc

A: Nope.... again, I don't really care what you post....only how.

I also was only using it as a hypothetical and suggest that if that is taken to be the standard, then TS, JV types should be allowed back.

It can certainly be a valid point of attack to call any particular source into question with alternate reasonable support. What constitutes a reasonable source for each particular post in question is ultimately a judgement call by the mods, I suppose.

we rarely interacted but you were a top mod

No it’s not chez. Just because you don’t understand what bad faith posting is doesn’t mean it is not real and hasn’t existed for ever.

It is absolutely toxic and completely destructive to real discourse. Magnitudes worse than your precious civility.

Edit: silly me for not realizing chez might have been posting in bad faith about bad faith posting.

+1 on "cite or ban"

ok if that's the extent of it, sorry. But that's a mod who offered to step in and has no idea what he is stepping into to. There's no possibility it will be the standard applied by the team of mods or has ever been the standard or ever will be.

Even before outlawing bad faith posting and bad faith participation, not allowing previous banned posters back who are on different accounts should be the first step.

This is literally the dumbest thing about this place and makes zero sense.

What about people posting on alt accounts to escape bans like kelhus?

In sophisticated circles we call that “chezing up” a forum’s moderation.

Very wisely and fortunately for you, there is no ban for inaccurate posts. Nor the 'bad faith' thingy.

It is a matter of degree though. If I had to guess, the line you would set would see Fly exiled and JV posting.

IMO, the main problems with the forum have always been (I) posters who want to talk about only one thing; and (ii) posters who can't refrain from responding to them.

I'm certainly guilty of (ii).

We all know who is in the first category. For LB, everything is about conspiracies. For Kelhus, everything is about the MSM's suppression of stories that don't fit their agenda. For Fly, everything was about racism. juan only wanted to complain about "woke" culture and moderation of the forum. The list is much longer than these four posters.

I didn't agree with all of WN's decisions, but he did a commendable job of dealing with (i) through bans for abusive, one-track posters, and containment threads for polite, one-track posters. But I'm sure he would admit that the task is difficult and that the lines are blurry. The only way to entirely eliminate this problem would be to impose rules for the forum that are wildly draconian. And no one wants that.

For the record, the people I listed above are not posters I hate. (I suspect that LB would be quicker to donate a kidney to a friend than most of us would.) And it isn't a list of posters who are always wrong. Sometimes it is a conspiracy. Sometimes a MSM outlet is downplaying a story or writing a misleading headline to further an agenda. Sometimes it really is about racism. But not all the time.

Yes it's a matter of degree but you don't need to guess. As a matter of fact I did not exile fly.

I would also allow him back and have asked R*R to look at it.

Bad faith posting absolutely exists. The problem is that is often difficult to distinguish bad faith and stupidity. Also, many posters yo-yo between good faith and bad faith posting.

lol, when chez was a mod here Matt had to shut down his forum for being too full of white supremacist garbage, great to see he’s offering advice on how the run the forum.

I think there's some conflation of two separate issues going on here: Civility and content. The ideal is civility and thoughtful meaningful content. Posting good content in an uncivil tone is undesirable just as posting garbage in a civil tone is undesirable. Civility is certainly not a license to post stormfront type garbage, and I don't think anything the mods have stated should be construed as such.

I can't speak for TD, but if confirmed (still a big if AFAIK) I would try to mod in a similar style overall, with warnings and benefit of the doubt given. If you have vehement objections, now is probably the time to voice them.

I don't think the rules always lend to black and white determinations. I think there's a lot of subjectivity involved in making determinations on things like bad faith posting. Is a poster truly posting in bad faith, or just close minded and totally lacking in self retrospection? Are we just going to ban all the partisan hacks in here for not accepting contrary evidence?

As to personal attacks, I think there are decisions there that also need to be made on balance. If WN had banned every poster that called an idiot an idiot, there would be like 5 people left in this subforum. I think WN had the right approach, warnings with repeat offenders getting disciplined.

Probably.

there were zero objections to the new moderators. this forum only exists because well named wanted it. in my mind, he still has control.


good luck with whatever happens next.

This is certainly correct, and I wasn't trying to conflate the two.

But handling posters who politely link stormfront garbage should be a relatively easy issue for mods to handle. That's an immediate permaban.