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In the spirit of discussion I’ll have to bite the bullet that I just am not going to say everything I want to say on my phone; I sincerely don’t believe the moderators here are intentionally letting right-wingers boo outgroup leftists and then whistling when it gets pointed out. I believe instead there is a bias problem going on and rather it’s not being recognized. I think the problem is not even specifically “right wingers are booing left winger”, it’s that in a forum trying to be a debate club, there is a lot of just bad debate happening. There is, in my opinion, way too many declarative statements about broad populations without the evidence to back it up or even visible rigorous debate. When someone says “prep is for gay orgies”, there isn’t the expected, “what is your bailey behind that motte, do you actually think all gay people demanded that drug specifically for orgies” in responses. It’s just a bunch of people also going “yes I agree, leftists can’t comprehend civilization properly” and “well, you can’t expect Democrats to know how to tell the truth”. And it happens really, really subtlety.
I swear, if there was an equally healthy population of leftists on here, you’d have the same problem. I’ve seen ya’ll mods say too many times over too many years you’re not trying to unfairly mod to believe it’s just a nothing statement.
Okay. I agree there are a lot of shitty comments, and we don't get them all.
I'll ask you the same thing I ask @SteveKirk. He never answers (except with some version of "ban people who say things I don't like") and I don't expect you to either.
What solution do you propose?
I don't say that, I say "ban people who are literally only here to disrupt discussion of any topic they consider 'problematic'."
But yes, a bunch of trolls organized by impassionata pouring out of the woodwork all at once? I suggest being liberal with the banhammer, because you're being raided.
We do that. I just did that. And that's not all you ask for; come on. This isn't our first rodeo.
Can you point at this "bunch of trolls"? @justawoman has been around for a while, and I don't think she's a troll. Coincidentally, right now we also have a bunch of alts being spun up by the guy who who was literally only here to disrupt discussion because he hates us, but he's on the right - why is he not setting off your troll alarms?
We really are open to suggestions about how to do things better, but we are pretty much stuck in the same old pattern: If everyone thinks we suck, then we're probably being fair. We aren't psychic and this isn't a job we get paid for, we're just trying really hard to provide a platform for open discussion even between people who hate each other (and us).
Justawoman and a few others showed up after not posting for a year, right as impassionata made a trolling alt, and instantly jumped into the "discussion" to call for stricter moderation against evil fascist right wingers? That's obviously not a coincidence.
Also I actually had to look through your post history to find the right wing guy you banned, because if it's the one I found you instantly deleted his posts and banned him to prevent discussion, so I didn't ever get to find out about him. I only found it because you left a typical snarky comment ban message! That's how different your reaction is, and if you'd done the same to "antifa" everything would be great!
It is not obviously not a coincidence either. You really don't have the birds-eye view we do. Impassionata returns periodically (and sometimes we catch him and ban him before you even notice), and there are quite a few posters who only drop in every year or so, or who apparently spend 99% of their time lurking and every once in a while will post. It is possible that @justawoman is hanging out with Impassionata on some other forum and Impassionata said "Hey guys, let's go brigade the Motte!" But it does not fit the pattern we have seen in the past. Additionally, if you notice, I directly accused @justawoman myself of wanting "stricter moderation" and she explained what she does want (which I think is equally unfeasible, but it's not "stricter moderation for evil fascists").
Slow down, take a breath, actually read the words people type (all of them, not just the ones that trigger you) and while I know asking you to consider the possibility of a good faith interpretation is a bridge too far for you, at least try to steelman the argument as something other than "The worst possible motives @SteveKirk can attribute to this person @SteveKirk assumes is pure evil." Because really, you're acting the fool right now and you are on a streak.
Which right wing guy are you talking about? If you post a link, I will address it, but we very rarely delete messages except when it's a very obvious troll, so right now I am going to assume you are either making this up or taking an action that I'd have been happy to explain to you and spinning the most uncharitable and bad faith interpretation you can out of it, as you have an unfortunate habit of doing.
https://www.themotte.org/post/1322/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/283416?context=8#context
Oh, him. We didn't actually remove his posts, he was shadowbanned (which I realize does look the same to you). Usually we ban people when they finally wear out our patience, but when someone explicitly tells us he created an alt just to troll us, sometimes we shadowban instead. The "discussion" you are missing is him exhorting other users to also create alts and cycle them to troll us. And he'd been doing this for a while - his bad faith engagement goes back over a year and nine warnings and/or bans with that alt.
So in fact, antifa got banned much faster and with more prejudice than your right-winger.
I await your admission of error and apology.
All I see is how the individual accounts are treated, and I remind you that antifashionata has had bad faith engagement and been ban evading for, what, half a decade now on various forums? If you're making the comparison for who deserves extreme prejudice, I think he's the clear winner!
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