banned
Tree
13d ago
One of his predictions was wrong, that warrants a ban. You really have zero arguments.
If you disagree, show me some examples of what high-quality Darwin looked like
darwin had AAQC's. But just presenting a somewhat uncommon, solid argument is high quality in my book, and he did that often, because by virtue of his politics, most of his arguments were uncommon here. We banned the only progressive voices we had, all to maximize the content-free comments complaining about the enlightenment, modernity and the sexual revolution - the motte equivalent of complaining about boomers, or neoliberalism.
Man.
You keep doing this thing, this complete disregard for the spirit and letter of the rules, and we keep letting it slide. You’ve been an articulate and passionate and interesting commenter. But now when I see your name in a thread I know exactly what I’m going to get.
One month ban.
Edit: fuck me, this is what I get for modding on my way out of work. I read this as a straightforward attack on the general category of feminists as “hollowed out p-zombies” who “aren’t capable of consent.” And I thought, Jesus Christ, this is the clearest possible violation of the Specific Groups rule and the general proscription on Booing the Outgroup. I could write up a detailed explanation, or I could assume that he and any observers would recognize the same old fight as always.
We have been politely asking you to stop tarring all leftists/Democrats/Californians/NGOs/women with the same brush for literal years. And every time, you insist that no, you’re just speaking truth to power! Surely there can be no transgressing against people who want to MUTILATE and STERILIZE your kids!
I have so much respect for you as a writer, a craftsman, a father. You’re smart and you’re damn funny. You also have this pathological urge to tell everyone about how evil the other team has been lately. And that comes into direct conflict with the Specific Groups, Outgroup Booing, Antagonism, and occasionally Evidence rules. A lesser poster would have earned a permaban several times over.
I banned you for a month because the last one was two weeks and I saw this as more of the same. Now all sorts of pillars of the community are popping in to tell me it was a bad shoot. There’s also the fact that Amadan thinks I was too harsh; you were only “pretty close” to generalizing about all lefties/feminists.
So…did I get you wrong?
BurdensomeCount
—Your em dash is showing...
6mo ago
Banned for 3 days.
Oh come on. I post 10x milder takes from the other side and get banned for 90 days instead.
Tree
13d ago
I was there, and he was definitely banned for his political opinions. It's obvious because :
-
he was the most progressive commenter
-
he was a capable debater
-
he stuck around a long time, obeying rules that became increasingly convoluted and personally-tailored against him, due to the hatred of the people.
AlexanderTurok
Alt-MSNBC
7d ago
On the sidebar it says "This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases." In this thread, it is claimed "the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here."
After my ban for this comment, it's hard to take that seriously. It did not include personal attacks, name-calling, strawmanning, or attempting to enforce ideological conformity. It "spoke plainly" and provided evidence. Yet the mods banned me for it, saying I was being an "immense pain in the ass."
I think the mods, and most people here, believe that they want this to be an open discussion forum with people of many different viewpoints, but when they're actually confronted with it, they feel it's an "immense pain in the ass." They called me an "obnoxious trolling shitstirrer." Yes, I am a shitstirrer in the sense that I say things that go against the dominant ideological viewpoint here, and I know in advance that hostility is likely to result. But isn't that what you want here, rather than another online echo chamber? I'm sure many of you have experience being "shitstirrers" in online spaces where you're in the ideological minority, now the shoe's on the other foot.
The mods accused me of "snarling" at my enemies, which gets to the meat of the issue: do you want an ideologically diverse forum or not? I freely admit I have a contempt for forms of conservatism and white nationalism I see as third-worldist. (Anti-vax, raw milk, conspiratorial, superstitious, fetishizing low-skilled manual labor, etc.) That's why I disagree with you guys and don't identify as part of your political tribe. If you think I'm a "leftist," try talking to a real one, the kind who uses terms like "patriarchy" or "heteronormativity" non-ironically. They do NOT like you. They see you as a malignant, cancerous influence on America. If you don't want to have a discussion forum with people who dislike you, change your rules to state that they aren't welcome. If, on the other hand, you want people from other tribes to be in this "jury," then you've got to accept them as they are rather than the imagined versions who disagree with you but like and respect you and never come around to actually posting here.
It seems to me that what some people here want is a forum with "left-wing" equivalents of David French. For the unfamiliar, David French is an allegedly "conservative" columnist for the NYT whose articles are just one after another telling liberals they're right and that conservatives are gross and mean and only ever making "we need 50 Stalins" criticisms of the Left. Thing is, French doesn't play this role for free. And you should be glad you don't have David French's, as I suspect that they have had a detrimental impact on the Left's electoral fortunes. If your only exposure to "conservatives" is people like David French, you're going to get a warped view of American politics that will lead to bad election strategy.
None of this is to say you should get rid of your rules against shaming, strawmanning, name-calling, etc. Maybe a new rule should be "be as polite as possible without being insincere." I admit that this is a tough balance to strike, I just think that right now the Motte is too far toward forced politeness leading to ideological conformity.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
13d ago
I have a laundry list of bad interactions with MAGA aligned people on this forum, but I can't really supply evidence of any specific poster being bad over and over again since I typically just block them if they're sufficiently bad even once. The fact it keeps happening over and over across many different posters should be sufficient evidence that it's a systemic issue, and not just one or two bad apples that slip through the cracks.
Moderation never worked on a "specific sentences get you banned" basis, it was always about whether the post as whole
This type of vibes-based moderation is just a glaring invitation for mods to be arbitrary. At the very least there should be a sentence or two that should be close-enough to breaking the rules that it can be cited as the issue, and then the rest of the post's tone can be used as context for whether to pull the trigger. Right-leaning mods are naturally going to feel that left-leaning posts are far more hostile and delusional than the average right-leaning post, which is probably why a post like Turok's gets banned while something like this gets AAQC'd.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
4mo ago
He's been warned to stop deleting posts or he'll be banned.
And you've been warned to stop goading mods and making things up. The last few times we've let pass, but the ankle-biting will stop. Now.
AshLael
Just here to farm downvotes
10mo ago
Personally my preferred gun regulation model is banned handguns and semi-autos, combined with unregulated ownership of bolt/lever action long guns.
A weirdo leftist failing to get you banned for sharing a conservative opinion seems like evidence in favor of my point.
SSCReader
3mo ago
I regret you were too late but Nybbler already beat you to it, so we had traced back to Baldassaro and also to another article in the Chicago Tribune from 2000 which has another unsourced quote about the 1928 ban in Chicago. Though as knowledge is its own reward so I hope you do not feel your time wasted!
Still being banned for being communist means my overall point holds thankfully.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
4mo ago
My man, you've convinced me to switch to the default Motte theme in my profile so I can both flashbang my eyes and also see what kind of record of past rule-breaking you've been up to.
My eyes are burnt, and so is your standing with us mods. I see a long list of past warnings and temp bans, and not a single good thing to counteract that. You've been warned for low effort commentary as well as booing the outgroup more times than I want to count.
Banned for a month, and I leave it open to the others if they want to extend this.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
13d ago
But this is madness, and I do not believe that you would ever accept the framework off aggregating assholes by ideology, and deploying moderatory actions adjusted for that
I'm not asking for that. I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to it for genuinely woke people as a form of affirmative action for opposing views, and it should be noted that I wouldn't see myself as being a beneficiary of that if it were implemented since I'm not woke myself.
What I'd like as a baseline is consistent enforcement across ideologies where things like personal attacks get a warning or a ban no matter who they're coming from. As it stands right now, we're in a regime where right-leaning people freely make personal attacks and only rarely get modded even if they're reported, while left-leaning people get banned off of vibes and convoluted notions that they're being "manipulative".
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
13d ago
Any right-winger acting like him would be instabanned
Extremely not true. I've had many discussions with MAGA folks here that degenerate to them doing little more than making a series of personal attacks, I report it, and then nothing happens. Making personal attacks against other people here is far worse than vaguely shaking one's fist at broad political movements, which was what AlexanderTurok did here. Again, I ask as to what exactly was the banworthy part of his post? What specific sentences were the issue that if uttered by right-leaning people ought to similarly catch a warning or a ban in the moderators' eyes?
imreallywondering
1mo ago
I find it difficult to believe that I've been churning alts on the Motte when I've quite literally never made a post on here before this. I'd appreciate some enlightenment on my alter egos which I've been miraculously unaware of until this very moment in time. I mean, I admit, the topic isn't terribly original, but this is probably the first time I've been accused of being an alter of someone else I have absolutely no prior knowledge of by a moderator.
especially as the problem with blackpillers is that they take themselves very, very seriously and become increasingly irate when they realize other people do not.
I don't feel that I'm taking myself overly serious or anything. Other people make covert insinuations about my motive for posting one thing or another, I make my own set of insinuations about them right back.
Which is where you are now, heading in a predictable direction, which is getting belligerent and insulting towards everyone who argues with you and sounding like the penultimate act of The Feminist.
Interesting short story, not sure how it applies to me other than "believes that attractiveness disparities exist = bad" which is a pretty hilarious connection to make for a moderator on the forum that exists because they got kicked off every other place on the internet for having heterodox beliefs on cultural issues (which in practice just mean lacking the freedom to scream about IQ and muh based Christianity all day) but that's pretty typical from conservatives, so I'm not really all that surprised.
told they're lying about their own life experiences
If calling out an obvious liar who is lying specifically to try and make their point seem more credible gets me banned, so be it.
But mostly, accept that other people's perspectives may not match yours, and if you want to doompost, you still need to engage with civility and the same charity you would like to be extended to you.
You should take your own advice, mon ami.
Tree
2mo ago
You’ve banned many people who did not deserve it. Of all stripes. Censorship trespasses against your fellow man, and it harms you. I suppose it’s common enough in the new internet, people don’t have the right to express themselves anymore. But I still hold a grudge.
You‘ve even banned what you called a major influence, a friend. Then judas gave a tearful eulogy. It was the most craven, two-faced, pathetic display of regret I ever saw.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
5mo ago
The usual rules about specific groups, outgroup-booing, and heat vs. light still apply. Even when you really don’t like the people involved.
Given the number of times you’ve been warned or banned for more or less the same thing, this shouldn’t be news to you. On the other hand, you keep doing interesting stuff when you can keep the vitriol in check.
One month ban, then.
TokenTransGirl
8mo ago
I already banned WhiningCoil
Okay, fair enough. My complaint was entirely that if "child mutilation" was considered acceptably charitable, I think I was more than matching that level of charity. If we're in agreement that "child mutilation" is an insulting and deeply uncharitable description, then my objection is pretty well resolved.
you oscillate between "this isn't happening" and "it's good, actually"
I do think I've been consistent in my stance: SRS is a surgery like any other, and calling it "mutilation" is ridiculous hyperbole. Calling it "child mutilation" is doubly ridiculous, since as far as I know, kids under 18 genuinely are not having surgery. I'm not saying kids don't transition, I'm saying they don't get surgery under 18, and that it's not mutilation.
If someone really has a source for SRS being common in kids, I'd love to see it. I've tried to find numbers, and basically every source has said "low enough to basically round off to zero."
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
11mo ago
The mod queue being how we decide if someone gets banned is just dumb.
The mod queue is not how "we" decide if someone gets banned. It is one of several things that the mods consider. It is never the sole consideration, but if you have a whole bunch of comments in the mod queue because you're on a rage-posting spree, we are more likely to say "This guy needs a time out." @SteveKirk's post above was bad enough to earn a ban (because of his growing record of tantrums, which incidentally precede this account, because I know exactly which previous permabanned account he used), but the fact that he was posting many comments like this certainly warranted mention.
I check the user/janitor thing every time I'm here and it's like half of the reported comments (which I assume is how they get there) is because someone disagreed with them and they're using the report as an extra downvote.
This is true, unfortunately.
And it's obvious that is skews in one political direction as well, maybe because they're a smaller portion of the people here or maybe it's just their way because it certainly is on places like reddit.
This is absolutely not true. You see the volunteer queue; we see the actual reports and who made them. The majority of reports are indeed from individuals who use the report tool as a super-downvote button or to express their dislike of the poster. (Waves to all my haters.) I can assure you there are plenty of rightists who do this. In fact, I think you have the numbers reversed; leftists are a smaller portion of posters here, hence the majority of reports come from right-leaning people, and rightists are definitely not less prone to reporting posts because someone disagreed with them. There are a number of people who seem to reflexively report anyone arguing with them as "antagonistic." (You know who you are. Yes, we notice.) Most of them are not lefties.
But using that as an excuse is surely just going to end up with people deciding the only way to decide what is acceptable on the site is just mass reporting everything they disagree with.
There are people who do this. We are not stupid and we see the reports.
I still don't understand why the mods here can't ever ban people for the things they do that are bad but instead keep a secret tally of bad things that they don't disclose and then ban them for all those things when they do something less egregious.
Again, untrue. Contra @The_Nybbler's usual ankle-biting (he's been singing this same song for years even though he's been very patiently walked through the errors in his thinking multiple times), it's not an "authority tactic." Our moderation is about as transparent as it can be; we post warnings and bans publicly. Our tally is not "secret" except in the sense that only mods can see your mod log (in which we record all past infractions so that we have them to refer to and know if we've seen this behavior before). We tell you when you are accumulating a record that's likely to result in increased consequences. We usually point to those past infractions when we start applying them.
When someone gets banned for something "less egregious" it's because they've been a persistent bad actor and told to stop doing that. There is such a thing as "the last straw." If you call me a jerk once, you'll probably get a warning. If you've been namecalling for months and getting repeatedly warned and banned for it, then the next time you call me a jerk, you might get a permaban. Anyone who claims this comes as a surprise is not being honest.
We are not secret police collecting dossiers on people we don't like; we tell you what you're doing and why you're being modded (and ask you to stop). Almost always, the people who get permabanned are the people who tell us (implicitly or explicitly) "Fuck you and your rules."
And almost always in a baited argument where the person doing the baiting does not even get a warning.
Unsurprisingly, a lot of moderation occurs in the context of a heated argument, and equally unsurprisingly, the person modded (and his supporters) almost always think the other guy started it. Sometimes we agree and warn both participants; sometimes we don't.
Outlaw83
11mo ago
Except they have to work anyway, and would die anyway. The number of men who die on a job who would not be on that specific job if not for child support payments is likely not that high. Unless there's some society with a much lower workplace death rate that has divorce banned I'm unaware of.
Yeah, zoomers are brainrotted with tiktok slop and think the genocidal jihadis are oppressed. It's not a mystery, it's just a grim reminder we should have banned tiktok ages ago.
AlexanderTurok
Alt-MSNBC
4d ago
Turok makes the mistake of then coming to this forum of actual thoughtful people and assuming the conservatives here need to answer for the worst Trumpists the engineers of X can serve. The conservatives here don't recognize themselves in the criticisms he levels at them and drama ensues.
I am not a newcomer to the SSC sphere, I've been posting on ACX and DSL for years, and I've won DSL's Diadochus award for my posts twice. (I'm also currently banned from both places.) I'm not attributing the stupidity of Twitter to this place, I'm just reading what people here write, like coffee_enjoyer:
Sewing bras is more conducive to wellbeing than stacking them on a shelf. Picking fruit is so Edenic that it’s the first recorded activity of humanity. In what world would “picking fruit” be pathetic? I think you are having trouble dissociating the image you have of these things now, with what they would look like if employers didn’t have a semi-slave class. There’s a farm near me where people — college-educated, white, smart — sign up to plant and reap for free. Because in return they get free room and board, and most importantly a social environment filled with other young white people. They work quite hard, then they drink in the evenings and dance and fuck and make music and so on. This is exactly what agricultural work was for nearly all of history. Not for the slaves, of course, but for the non-enslaved.
This, by the way, is what I mean by "poverty fetishism" and "third worldism."
why don't you link the post that actually got him banned?
Because that comment never came up in the discussion.
Yeah, because all the moderators are massive HBDers,
Members of the mod team did endorse the harassment of him for his views on IQ as "providing a valuable public service".
Throwaway05
4mo ago
1
So you probably didn't see all the people who died, maybe because they weren't in your social group, maybe you lived away from inner city squalor for instance. It was bad, it really was.
2
COVID vaccine into culture war. I don't know a single republican, anti-woke, fuck the establishment doctor who has anything negative to say about non-COVID vaccines at all. These people do exist and one of the biggest eventually recanted but nobody takes them seriously.
It's like trying to get Toyota's banned because a BMW ran over your dog. Nothing about them is similar.
3
Medical research certainly has its problems but their is an immense world of difference in consideration between things like "get your fucking MMR shot" "here's a complicated discussion about the value of the Rotavirus vaccine" and "here's a retrospective study of complication rates using an N of 600,000.
As a sidebar their weren't a lot of lies during the pandemic, their was a lot of bad messaging. Things like "the fatality rate will go down overtime as the virus burns through the available tinder and mutates to be less deadly" were stated loudly and often but people didn't listen.
Stuff like the initial mask messaging was a lie and I was annoyed by it but it was well meaning.
Unforced errors sure but most of it wasn't lies and a lot of things are still true (yes it is dangerous), were found to be true (no Ivermectin didn't actually work the research that said it did had big flaws), or involve ongoing complicated debates (lab leak).
sun_the_second
could survive a COD lobby and a gay furry discord server
10mo ago
I suppose the core of our disagreement is that I do not expect you to act symmetrically. I expect you to act in the worst faith, because you do not actually like symmetrical restrictions on free speech, you just dislike when yours is restricted in any way. This makes moot any discussion of fairness.
For example, in response to "don't call people nigger on the public square" I would expect you to invent "offense" for the most milquetoast word describing you that was never considered a grave offense. Musk reportedly banned the word "cis" on twitter despite his aura of a free speech warrior. I'd expect you to behave in bad faith similarly. You're welcome to deny that.
Recently @RandomRanger accused me of strawmanning the Right:
Did I strawman the Right? Let's ask Lori Chavez-DeRemer, the United States secretary of labor:
DeRemer refers to "Americans," the online racialist Right is talks about whites, but in both cases the vision is the same, uplifting the ingroup means getting them the opportunity to do the jobs currently done by the guy standing in the Home Depot parking lot. Is there any wonder high-income whites are moving away from the Republican Party? Working-class whites, too, don't want their sons working casual labor, which is why in the video DeRemer goes on to talk about how Americans will be given opportunity through being "skilled, upskilled, re-skilled" and how the Trump administration is increasing apprenticeships. Of course, few illegals do those high-skilled jobs, so upskilling Americans won't replace many illegals, but it's not like the Fox News host is going to point out the apparent contradiction.
Given that I've given an example from a cabinet-level Trump administration official, (not "nutpicked" from some rando on Twitter) I expect that @RandomRanger will withdraw his claim that I "obnoxiously created imaginary narratives" in the interests of truth and courtesy.
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