Wait, what? Please elaborate because this story does not at all illustrate the point that I *think* you're trying to make.

And if they are not banned because they are on the slicker side of the spectrum atf will get complaints about that.

This one wasn’t even close in my opinion, poster with an August 2018 join date and 32 posts who just happens to find the *politics* section of a poker publishing website to make posts using literal nazi terminology? Yeah that was a ban, he’s clearly trolling in violation of rule #2. I found it on my own, but please feel free to use the report button in the future.

If the El Pollo Gordito guy had a join date of 2010 with 6K posts with no other infractions, would he have been exiled after his 200 posts?

The only substantive point in this discussion is that Mason thinks Robert E. Lee was a fine man.

OK, cool, I wasn't really thinking about his post count or join date. I wasn't even thinking of him as trolling, but just someone espousing awful views. I was just looking for something like an obvious personal attack or a slur.

I do plan on using the report button more. As I'm sure you and Wookie know, my style has never been to report a lot of posts, so I'm not used to thinking in those terms yet.

Thanks, and I will say that after I saw you drop the five day hammer on that poster, I got a lot more optimistic about the survival of this forum.

Equilibriums gonna equilibrate.

ya lee was a total scumbag. like, even his whitewashed biography contains horrendous acts.

awesome gambler though!

man, reading more about Lee, I really just cant see someone being a civil war buff and admiring that guy. he was truly an awful human being.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics...al-lee/529038/

The answer is both. The carrot and stick relationship is symbiotic.

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



And that's how the cute little pride parades started. A bunch of hardcore transgender people said, hear this, you'll learn respect or we'll burn your **** down to ash. Twas ever thus.

Stonewall was a pride milestone to be sure but hardly the reason we have gay marriage in North America. That’s like saying Ellen’s coming out is why. Both are very important milestones.

A long, slow, political change is how it works. Demography, protest, popular culture, public discourse, legal challenges, and finally new law is how change happens.

Sure, it's never one thing, but the carrot works because of the implied stick. That's why "Holy **** you are a racist nazi, you scumbag. Go back to your kkk rally" is a good reminder. That's also why this forum works, because there are posts across the whole spectrum, and many posters do both.

But I think we might be derailiing the thread.

This is not even close to being a little bit true. That's however a topic for a different thread.

What is relevant to this thread is the distinction between (a) chatting about politics -vs- (b) doing politics.

Is the purpose of Politards to simply chat about politics (like around a water cooler)? Or is the purpose of Politards to actually make change IRL? This distinction is important, as the two goals are fundamentally conflicted.

I'm going to strongly, but respectfully, suggest that it is patently absurd to imagine that us Politards conspicuously spending our free time here are actually "doing politics", or that there is any possible set of rules which would have any measurable IRL political change results coming out of this forum.

In other words, and again respectfully in my opinion, the value of all possible sets of rules with regard to "converting" deplorables is always -zero-. We might as well try really hard to think up a set of rules which would make space aliens land on the National Mall.

Some say Malcolm had more of an effect on change then Martin.

I think this needs to be moved to a new thread, but I think it’d be fair to say that Martin had an effect in part because of Malcolm, rather than saying that Malcolm had a bigger effect than Martin.

Kind of like Martin was the carrot to Malcolm's stick.

I think it’s this exactly.

I think you couldn't possibly be more wrong about either of these two paragraphs. All the lurkers coming out of the woodwork this week should be a pretty strong sign that people are paying attention. In general, the line between "srs business IRL" and "the internet aka trolls and memes " in the age of social media gets blurrier by the minute, and we shouldn't discount our potential impact.

Two points...

1) We also shouldn't imagine we have any measurable impact either.

The key word here is 'measurable'. I am a IRL activist. We consider lots of ways to try to get our message out... tabling, leafleting, buying print or online ads, door-2-door, protests, civil disobedience/etc. Nobody has infinite time or resources, so it's always a trade off. To make informed decisions, we need some way to measure effectiveness.

My point is that as far as I can tell, the measurable effectiveness of randomly chatting with strangers on a interwebs forum, attempting to "convert" them on a one-on-one basis is, withing a round off error, is -zero-. As far as I know -zero- legit activist organizations have organized interweb chatting as part of their program.

2) Perhaps you don't care about measurable effectiveness, but instead you just enjoy the challenge of attempting to "convert" an interwebs stranger. Whatever floats your boat. But consider...

That's not what everyone comes to this forum for. Other reasons are access to a effectively well curated news source, to chat about politics in an "around the water cooler" fashion, or to enjoy a sense of community. Some, like myself, even find attempts at "convert" odious.

And, as I mentioned, a set of rules designed to increase the effectiveness of "converting" is problematic. First, it stifles the above listed "other" goals. Second, this "converting" isn't neutral. Just as you, perhaps, might want to "convert" deplorables into Donkey's (or whatev)... alt-righters might want to "convert" normies into neo-fascists. A set of rules designed to "convert" deplorables is very unlikely to be a set of rules that effectively "converts" normies, and visa versa. So... choosing rules to increase the effectiveness of "converting" necessarily means picking and enforcing a favored and privileged particular political viewpoint.

I think the general consensus around here is that it's a good thing for the rules to privilege some viewpoints, or at least to suppress others (e.g. that of white supremacists). I find that entirely reasonable, although obviously there's always room for debate about the range of acceptable viewpoints or posts.

I agree with you that it seems a bit silly to construct forum rules around activism as a goal vs discussion as a goal, but I'm not sure the difference matters too much to the above. Rules intended to promote discussion are still going to be constructed around community norms and those norms also represent political viewpoints.

I don't know why you're hung up on the word "convert." It's not about turning deplorables into lefties overnight. People do evolve their political positions, and discussions on the interwebs are one of the ways this happens, including plenty of examples in this forum alone. This isn't really a blistering take.

It's working quite well for AOC.

I've given it lots of thought, and due to the potential nuking of Politards I'm willing to be modded in an effort to save the day. You're welcome.