I’m not flouncing or encouraging anyone to flounce.
There’s a small group of people telling everyone that some of what goes on here is bigoted, racist, sexist. etc. and that the people espousing those views need to go, with a few mods agreeing.
Like Noelq, I felt like there was some good dialog before. Maybe some of it is still out there, waiting to be found.
This is not a thread for debating whether this is right or wrong. There are multiple threads for that. You can go here for an ATMB version and here for a Pit version.
Pro-Pitters, please don’t threadshit with suggestions like Stormfront. We get it. You don’t like some people and their ideas.
In this thread, I’m just looking for suggestions of other forums or websites where controversial topics are posted and some reviews of those places. (If you don’t want to post the place here because you don’t want other posters to look up your screen name there, you can PM it to me and I’ll post it. People could still find you but that’s true of any link anyone else finds.)
I’ll start with a couple I don’t know much about. Anyone know about these?
Ars Tecnhnica
This place has a subforum called the Soap Box where it looks like controversial topics are posted.
It really does sound like you’re saying you want a place you can espouse “bigoted, racist, sexist. etc.” views.
What I’ve never understood is, why not spend your time on those sites and subreddits that you (and hopefully others) recommend? Why beat your head against the wall here?
Because the quality of discussion here can be better, I presume. However, if you have a slightly contrarian view in a gray area on a touchy issue, it can be very difficult to frame it here so that you don’t get jumped on and inaccurately labeled as a Bad Person of some flavor. Maybe there are places where that is easier (I don’t know if that is true or not); I suppose it could be interesting to float around there and see what they’re like.
It has become hard to espouse conservative views and have spirited debate about it here, because people who do so are accused of bigotry
some posters would like to drive away racist and otherwise bigoted posters
people who like the pit are all trying to drive away conservative posters.
And then asking for suggestions of other places to post.
Your claims are, shall we say, somewhat inflammatory, especially the third.
I think you would get more constructive responses to your request if, instead, you described what kind of posting environment your want, and then asked for suggestions. In fact, i think you’ve poisoned the well and if you really want constructive suggestions, rather than just another argument about this place, i would strongly recommend you start over with a new OP.
Speaking as a mod, I’m pretty much expecting I’ll have to shut this thread down when the fighting breaks out.
In general, if i did have a controversial topic I wanted to talk about, I’d generally do it here. Why? Because no matter what your position is, it will probably be challenged here. If I am unable to defend the position, it probably wasn’t a defensible one to have in the first place.
I do understand that there’s a number of posters here who react to certain subjects on an emotional level rather than a logical one. There were a couple of posters who basically accused me of being a Trump supporter when I argued that you couldn’t really blame him for the SolarWinds hack. I got nonsense evidence from them in response. When I pointed out that it didn’t back their position, they then resorted to “Oh, you’ll obviously never believe Trump is to blame” posts.
Which isn’t really a problem for me. I just learned to discount their positions in the future. If they were foolish enough to think I was a Trump supporter, there’s not much I can do for them.
Only if the people calling conservative opinions bigoted or racist or sexist are actually correct. These terms are used as weapons by the left, intended to shut down or discredit views they don’t like. Just because they claim such views are racist or sexist does not make it so.
To the OP: I have yet to find a board where conservative and liberal opinions mix without it beng a complete flame-fest. My solution to trying to get a balanced view is to read both the right and left, not to find some place in the middle. The SDMB used to be such a place, which was its great value, but times change and we have to live with what we’ve got.
The fun part is that you get flamed in both directions. I’ve been called a lib, a Trump hater, a commie, and other names on some right wing boards. And of course I get endless flak here.for not being ‘of the body’. That’s just the nature of trying to chart your own path outside of a tribe when the world has gone tribal.
I would say stay here and post your opinions, but develop a flame-retardant attitude. It helps to imagine the flamers as some 14 year old kids sitting in mom and dad’s basement having a laugh. Their opinions are worthless, or they could express them without attacking the poster. I don’t get upset when children call me names.
Every time someone attacks a person instead of their argument they reveal their lack of ability to respond to ideas with their own ideas. They’re just chattering background noise, to be ignored or turned into a source of amusement.
Just make sure your arguments are sound, and be willing to respond to real counter-arguments with grace and thoughtfulness. There are a lot of smart people here, on both sides. Ignore the rest.
No it really doesn’t. Why can’t people read what is written and take it for what it says instead of what you think it says? You immediately ruined this thread by making an assumption about the OP that wasn’t there. You did the very thing she was talking about avoiding: being accused of of racism, sexism and bigotry for no reason.
What does this mean? You are the only person that used this word.
The fighting broke out in the very first reply when what she asked for was paraphrased in the worst possible light. If digs had been modded for misstating the OP, maybe we could have got some good suggestions. As it is now, not only is the thread open to the very people she talked about to pile on her, but all the people who may have supplied her with answers, namely conservatives, probably don’t even look in the Pit.
Unless Heffalump has some history of stirring up shit on the boards that I’m unaware of, why not just take her at her word?
Isn’t it? Sure there was some poison there, but the request was clearly laid out and digs chose to move straight to threadshitting. If they thought the OP was wrong for IMHO (I think that’s where it started), shouldn’t they have reported it rather than raising to the bait?
We did. All he did was take the logical conclusion from what she said. She says that some posters argue that bigoted, racist, sexist stuff doesn’t belong here and the posters who do it should leave, and that some mods agree. Then she asks for places where they would not have to leave.
So the conclusion is that she wants a board where people can say bigoted shit without that reaction.
No, you didn’t read the post either. She said where people call posters racist and bigoted, not that they are racist and bigoted. digs is the one that changed the question.
I was checking with other mods what to do with the thread before digs posted anyway. So digs probably should have flagged the post and not bothered to reply.
Keep in mind I was either going to close or move the thread to the pit. I probably should have temporarily closed it when I saw it. Would have prevented a few problems.
I read the OP, and while posters should refrain from misreading, as i said above, this OP poisoned the well. I repeat my suggestion to Roo that she might be able to start a much more productive thread if she tries again.
Yes it is fair to blame digs, unless you changed the rules somewhere along the line about reporting posts and not responding to them. You are saying exactly the opposite: that it was okay for digs to threadshit because of how he read the OP.
Other than I don’t think there was any well poisoning, this is right.
Which part was the well poisoning? She laid out exactly what she was looking for and even gave examples, which I notice most people didn’t even click on.
That said, I really don’t do the Pit, so I’m probably done here now that it was moved. Too bad, it could have led to some interesting links.
Nope. She said nothing about calling posters racist or bigoted. She stated that (1)some posters said that (2) there is some bigoted shit that goes on here,(3) that posters who do this should leave, and that (4)some mods agree.
You may notice numbers on that post. I will now show where in the quote she says each of those parts:
“There’s a [1]small group of people telling everyone that [2]some of what goes on here is bigoted, racist, sexist. etc. and that [3]the people espousing those views need to go, with [4]a few mods agreeing.”
From there, she goes on and asks for recommendations where controversial topics can be discussed. But she’s already framed that as being about bigotry. So it is 100% a fair conclusion to read her as asking for forums where such bigoted shit can be espoused, i.e. what digs said.
That’s about the most fair he could be. Because the post also contains this line:
This is just inflammatory bullshit. To begin with, it’s a condescending line towards “pro-Pitters,” despite the Pit not featuring in her post at all. That makes it a gratuitous swipe.
But she’s also established above that we’re talking about claims of bigotry. That is not fairly characterized as “people and their ideas” that “you don’t like.” That’s the classic minimization that happens around bigotry discussions, where objections are changed from moral arguments to just being things you don’t like, don’t agree with, find distasteful, etc.
She made an inflammatory post. Someone took the obvious interpretation of one line, and even left out the worst part. And yet you’re acting they’re the bad guy, and not the person who was being inflammatory in the first place.