You and the mouse in your pocket aside, I find it hard to believe that
is something that can be derived from what has been said here.
For anyone who is interested, I’ve started a thread to discuss what constitutes victim-blaming here.
And we’re right back where we started with the same handful of posters making the same old lame old arguments and the same handful of people trying to explain the same old things that the first group will never, ever listen to, with the moderators not doing a damn thing to rein it in. Tuba Diva vanished as soon as people started criticizing how the board is run and as soon as she realized her Mr. Rogers talk wasn’t going to miraculously fix the problem.
I’m gone.
Someday, if you really want to know why women are leaving this board, and why new posters don’t stick around, come back and read this thread with your eyes open for a change.
[Trico makes a point of hitting the door with her butt as she leaves.]
Don’t use my posts in that thread they were wrong. For one I was a shitty person 8 years ago and being on this board since I was 16 and impressionable world-view-wise was a big part of it, I wasn’t slapped down hard enough for making bullshit “emotionally detached” arguments about shit like rape and pedophilia. My change happened I think that same year, but it was getting temp-banned from another board for doing the “pedophilia and ephebophilia aren’t the same thing and people shouldn’t feel bad for being pedophiles/ephebophiles anyway as long as they don’t act on it,” something which is, at best, not something you should say because it culturally defends pedos, and is an argument I came across repeatedly on this damn board.
I had also been repeatedly coerced into sex by my partner the last couple years before that and was trying to make sense of why I kept letting it happen and took it out on that news story by trying to rationalize what had gone wrong in her (my) life that she (I) didn’t do “the right thing” after.
First, I agree with Margin, Monstro, Manda JO and Tricoteuse. As much as I usually hate “ditto!” and “QFT” and “this!” posts, I wish more lurkers in this thread would let those fighting the good fight know that they are heard, agreed with and supported.
Max S You say that you would avoid threads you found offensive. Do you not understand that their very existence is offensive and that it shows the Dope allows such things?
I agree with ( who ever it was) about bigots and such not learning anything here. When somebody posted a thread “Defend White Supremacism, I Dare You!”, the Dope was flooded with folks who wanted to do just that. They apparently mostly came from Strmfrnt. Some were beaten in debates with cites and reason. Some broke the rules and got banned. Later (I’m sorry. I can’t remember who it was) read the stories of the SDMB that were posted when the racists returned to Strmfrnt. They spoke of finding idiots who were blind to the brown menace and how they kicked our butts in debate.
Tuba Diva The only power I have as a poster is to follow the rules and report those who do not. If a poster is an obvious racist, but follows all the rules, there’s nothing I can do.
I’d like to think that if I point out how utterly dishonest this is, it would be regarded as fair.
I SAID that if ANYBODY should have a curfew, it should be men. Is that clear?
You are doing that thing where you mock people who are trying to make a point that you really don’t want to get made.
Max, when I point out the string of victim blaming statements, I believe I included language to the effect that that victim’s age amplified the sexism of pointing out the victim’s appearance. The “short skirt” thing is so classic a slam I hardly need point it out, right?
Also for anyone catching up on that thread getting the wrong idea of what pronouns to use for me, if you didn’t pick it up within the last couple years of me posting here I’m agender (but live life being perceived as a woman, and for purposes of discussions like the one in this thread, “woman” is closest for how I’m affected by board culture) and use she/her pronouns.
Sorry, I have to head this off before being referred to as “a guy” or getting he/him used for me.
Perhaps you are about eight years wiser than I.
This doesn’t change my opinion today, but I am sorry for digging up old bones.
~Max
The message board/bulletin board format is limited in its usefulness, and people have been trying to fix it since the Usenet days. Slashdot’s moderation system was developed to address this 20 years ago, and since then we’ve seen many attempts to improve that system, most notably at this point, Reddit. Upvotes and downvotes are meant to bury the sorts of unhelpful, trollish, or cruel posts that litter comment sections while allowing the cream to rise to the top. The SDMB’s linear format is fundamentally broken if the goal is reasoned debate, because it gives the same traffic to any reply, regardless of how quality it is. On Reddit, Shodan’s multiple attempts to derail and victim-shame in this thread under the guise of “just advocating for curfews” would be downvoted into oblivion, until Shodan would finally give up and wander over to one of the troll farms like The_Donald where people would enjoy his antics.
In the absense of any kind of crowd-sourced moderation like that, it would be up to the mods to micro-manage threads to prevent someone from say, dropping a turd of an argument and ignoring all 15 replies only to drop a different turd of an argument. And it would require throwing out the limited rules and actually moderating based on what a GOOD discussion looks like, not on what a consistently enforceable discussion looks like. Consistently enforceable but bad isn’t what anyone wants, except for the trolls.
Unfortunately, I’m not sure anyone would volunteer to curate posts that agressively, and I’m not sure I’d trust the kind of person who would volunteer anyway. Maybe the mods try it out on a limited basis – 30 days in GD of quickly putting the kibosh on any posts that aren’t in furtherance of whatever the GD mods decide isn’t a “good discussion,” heavy on the subjective reasoning and light on the objective hedging.
I don’t understand how their very existence is offensive.
No, really.
I’ve brought this up before, but if someone made a thread claiming that they are the only person who exists (a form of solipsism), I would not be offended. If someone told me to my face that they think I and those of my religion are going to hell, I don’t become irate, I just think that they are misguided. When someone tells me, to my face, that my race is inferior and deserves to be rid from the face of the earth, the primary emotion I feel is one of pity for the person in front of me.
If someone were to say they wish harm to me or my loved ones personally, or if there is an actual threat, then I get angry.
~Max
Crowd-sourced moderation in a place as politically biased as the SDMB is a recipe for groupthink. Posts out of alignment with the majority opinion will be downvoted into oblivion because they are out of alignment with the majority opinion, regardless of their quality.
Reddit’s models has its own problems. I don’t use it that much, but I know some people who have modded large-ish subreddits, and a big issue with the system is that drama and forms of brigading tend to get enough steam to get floated to the top. People also don’t… use the system as intended. For instance, downvoting for disagreement instead of when something is heinous. Note that I’m not saying things like bigotry or victim blaming are “disagreements”, I legit mean things like “I think this video game should adopt this feature instead of this feature!” Hell, I asked a question about… I think crafting in a video game and got downvoted into oblivion because it was too long and I was “too emotional” about it. I got downvoted for asking a 101 question in a 101 subreddit because it’s a common question used to dismiss the philosophy the subreddit is built around and I even prefaced it with “I know this is used to dismiss this, but I’ve been trying to convince friends but don’t know how to handle this specific argument, and it’s hard to find info online because of all the sealioning around it.”
Since it’s subthread based it also gets… gnarly to follow once people start crossreferencing posts from other subtreads.
As you mention, linear boards work but they need heavy moderation. Do they work as well as reddit or stack exchange style? I prefer linear style, that’s for sure, but i think it is ultimately context dependent. Q&A stuff works best with Stack Exchange style. I think Reddit vs Linear tends to have merits on a topic by topic basis rather than one having a large set of positives one way or another. Ultimately, board community and moderation is far more important than the exact board style used.
Discourse tried to also adopt the linear style, but with upvotes, and highly upvoted power users getting mod tools and that… ended poorly.
It’s not really relevant at the end of the day anyway, it’s not like there’s a button in whatever cursed late 2000s version of vBulletin we’re using to make upvote-style threads.
You don’t have to understand. You just have to believe it’s true that for some people, they really are.
Very true, and I didn’t mean to advocate that SDMB move to a Reddit system. Crowd-sourced moderation leads to hive-thought (hi octopus!) and I never even bother looking at usernames over there because there’s no continuity of thought or dialog. But it doesn’t mean it’s not worth considering the benefits while we work through our own struggles. If we’re going to stick with the linear format (which I agree with you, we should out of both preference and technological necessity), we need to come up with some other way to solve the problems inherent to the format.
This came up during the misogyny issue a couple months ago. I do have to understand, or I won’t be on board.
~Max
I am trying not to mock you, given recent history.
And your point is clear - but I disagree with it.
The purpose of the thread is to discuss Disputation on the SDMB. You apparently think that advocating for curfews for 11 year olds is slut-shaming and shouldn’t be allowed. You apparently think, however, that advocating curfews for men is allowable. (Otherwise, presumably, you wouldn’t have posted it.)
I disagree that either position, curfews for 11 year olds or curfews for men, harms disputation on the SDMB. I would allow both to be discussed.
I agree with this, especially the part about being able to talk about damn near everything.
If the SDMB decides that we can’t have “genuine social discourse” on rape or misogyny or gender or race or whatever, then ISTM that “the entire idea about this place” is being abandoned, not furthered. And I think that would be a shame.
Maybe we need to be more respectful of each other on the Dope. It does not seem to me to be disrespectful to say that eleven year olds need supervision.
Regards,
Shodan
I would challenge you to identify your biggest insecurity, then pretend that society in general doesn’t approve of that thing you’re insecure about, and then pretend that you stumble in a thread where someone is attacking that thing. Even if you ultimately overcome your personal insecurity, do you want to rehash that struggle over and over again? Do you want to convince someone why that thing you used to feel bad about isn’t actually bad, even in the interest of “fighting ignorance?” Do you want to do that over and over again?
You may be having a hard time with this because it hasn’t happened organically. (Some) gay people grew up hating themselves for being gay because society said they were bad, and they tried to pray the gay away, and failed, and eventually spent years coming to terms with who they were and not feeling shitty about it. And then (some) of them came on the straight dope and had to convince people that they were right not to feel shitty about themselves. Can you imagine how awful that must be?
I don’t know about you, but I’m fortunate that I’ve never had to experience anything like that.
No, I do not. And I do not see why I would have to if that were made into the topic of threads here. As I said before, I would ignore those threads. I am under no obligation to fight ignorance on topics that I am especially distressed by.
If someone made a topic such as, “is it selfish to commit suicide”? I would not drop in to make an argument. I don’t even have suicide attempts in my history, but that’s something I can understand being frustrated about.
Actually, I might ask for that topic to be shut down as provoking harm. Depression over feeling selfish can feed into suicidal tendencies. Telling a suicidal person that it isn’t selfish may be used to justify their suicide attempt. I’m not sure what good can come of such a discussion; chances are, somebody who feels suicidal will come across the thread and then we risk having blood on our hands.
Maybe you can stick a wedge into this and convince me that other topics are unworthy of discussion. Kudos to you for making me think.
~Max
And we should ignore those people. This board is dedicated to fighting ignorance. If someone doesn’t want to fight ignorance or is incapable of it, fine. Nobody is making them participate. But others want to participate. And if the mere existence of that conversation causes so much discomfort that they want to disappear it or they’ll flounce, then flounce away. I wish them the best of luck with their problem and hope it’s treatable.
That is not remotely apparent. In fact, given her words here, it’s blindingly obvious that this is an incorrect reading of her beliefs. Please recognize that you fail on occasion to understand the arguments put forth by people whose political beliefs don’t align with yours.