As opposed to what was already posted by a staff member?
Not opposed. More of a reminder given the current back-and-forth going on in the thread. Maybe a more “official” definition than previously given by the unnamed staff member. 
The ill-defined part is the problem. I’ve seen it used on the internet in ways much broader than either the 1944 film or the Psychology Today definition posted by Saint_Cad.
I say that while the mods should not commit to hard rules, there is big distinction between, “I am feeling gaslit now,” and, “I think you are gaslighting me.” But even in the latter case, the ambiguity of the phrase as commonly used makes it sound more like a mod note than an automatic warning.
This is best practice: try to figure out how to best express your views and ask the hive for help in ATMB. Props.
This is something that would draw a modnote in isolation and a warning if it happened more than once with any other ways of saying another poster was lying or the ilk.
Please can you tell me what you thought I (and @Babale) meant by ‘pyramid of oppression’, and what you now understand us to have meant?
I’m gonna be honest and say that that’s still a bit ambiguous.
You give both the original usage, and the current usage, which are two different things, and I’m not sure if you are saying that only one or both of them are unacceptable.
If we are talking about “making someone question their own reality” that happens all the time on these boards. Its pervasiveness is one of the primary reasons why I left.
Is there a term you would prefer to be used when a poster tells another poster what their reality is, what their thoughts, motivations, or opinions really are, what really happened in their own lives? And if so, would you consider it to be moddable to call it out, or would you consider the action itself of questioning the reality of another poster to be moddable?
Personal attacks aren’t allowed outside of the Pit. That has been the case for many years. It’s not that hard.
And some posters see statement like that and feel gaslit, because they feel that other posters are allowed to attack them. Maybe not directly, but when someone takes an unpopular-on-this-board position, and someone else drives by and says, “everyone with this position is motivated by evil”, the person with that position feels very attacked. Even if the person posting that isn’t responding to their post, and might not even have read it.
I do not believe that captures it, at least not how I read it.
First because there is objective reality and there is the reality of subjective experience.
Someone getting me to question whether or not my subjective experience of, my interpretation of, reality is correct, with facts or arguments, is not gaslighting me, even if I still think my interpretation is correct.
It isn’t gaslighting even if the “facts” presented in that argument are not actual facts; there also needs to awareness of the untruth and malicious intent.
Telling someone they are gaslighting, even implying it, is much more than saying they are trying to get someone to question their current interpretation of reality. It is much worse of a personal insult than just accusing someone of lying. It is worse than calling someone an asshole.
In most contexts they read the same to me.
I just feel that it fails to address the question, which is whether either or both of these things are (or should be) considered personal attacks, or otherwise against the rules.
And again, this is not the official definition of the term, but fits more with how I commonly see it used. Maybe, like with ‘titular’, we can accept this is no longer a misuse but a secondary meaning of the word? Especially because in this case there doesn’t seem to be any other word for the phenomenon, and because sticking strictly to the original definition is going to make it vanishingly rare in practice.
AIUI, the recourse for this sort of thing is supposed to be arguing against the claim about motives. At least in theory, it’s something that could be discussed, and where people could present evidence for and against their claims. But in 90% of cases that would result in a hijack, as it did with Der_Trihs’s replies in the original thread, and it’s also an issue where evidence is by nature very limited, leading to a pointless back and forth. In practice it becomes something akin to a microaggression, an unpleasantness that just has to be ignored/endured.
(Except that AFAIK this is banned for certain characteristics/identities, the ones which are… well, high on the oppression pyramid. 
)
I believe that actually gaslighting is against the rules. It is an extreme case of being a jerk.
Accusing someone of gaslighting (other than by flagging it), outside of The Pit, should be clearly against the rules. It is very much a personal attack.
Writing something that can read as accusing someone of gaslighting best not done and notes to that effect are warranted. It poisons discussion.
How about we drop the silly prohibition of saying someone is lying?
Just bring receipts to prove your case.
Not warning people for saying someone is lying, but banning people for lying seems closer to the mission statement.
You can say someone is lying in the pit AFAIK. Such accusations are inappropriate for GD, as they turn the discussion away from the topic and towards the character of the discussant.
Knowingly false accusations of lying are jerkish though, IMO. Best practice generally speaking is to call someone dishonest in the pit, which is an easier case to make. Yeah there are exceptions; certain longtime former socks on this board come to my mind.
Gaslighting isn’t real and you’re crazy for thinking it is. 
Language evolves.
Actual gaslighting is certainly against the rules, in addition to being impossible on this message board. Even on the unmoderated internet, it’s very difficult to set up mind games where someone questions their sanity, which is the original idea reflected Hitchcock’s film. Here, it would be halted near the, “Check your meds”, or “Switch to decaf”, stage.
Gaslighting, as the word is commonly used, means denying somebody’s legitimate perceptions. When done with certain forms of intent, it’s a variant of trolling. In other cases, it can be inadvertent. In between, the gaslighter might be telling someone how they should feel. Or more commonly, they provide a barrage of evidence showing that the perceptions in question are misperceptions, while simultaneously missing something more subtle. That form of gaslighting is part of the untangling of muddled thinking that we do here.
It is awkward but not unusual that a term popularized within the past decade or so would have a range of meanings, some overlapping horrid behavior. I see from “Know Your Meme”, that the term was used in domestic abuse discussion during the 1990s.
So I say this is a case by case situation, like many others.
ETA: Proposed best practice for ambiguous and problematic terms: define or explain the term in question inthread, as you intend to use it.
It is extremely difficult to prove someone is lying. Lying is different than stating something untrue. An untruth can be honestly believed to be true. A lie is an untruth the person knows is untrue and tells for advantage.
You can bring evidence that the statement is false. Intent though? That’s a personal attack more typically
And related, claiming that was someone says is false is NOT the same as saying they are lying. I mean, if it’s something they would certainly have accurate knowledge about, it can be. But I’ve never seen someone say on this board, “you just claimed you have two children, but that’s false!”. What i see people say is, “you just claimed an interpretation about something complicated, and you are wrong”. And then the person accused of being wrong (or someone else, sometimes) reports the post as an accusation of lying.
Yes, lying requires intent. People are wrong all the time despite being honest. People say things that are wrong all the time, in good faith.
Or sometimes even ‘you just stated something (as a simple fact), and it’s not true’. It doesn’t have to be a complicated subject being misinterpreted; it can be 'this (publicly known thing) happened in 1917" and somebody pops in and says ‘no it didn’t, it happened in 1923.’ Even if that’s followed up by ‘and so it can’t, as you just argued, have influenced what somebody else said in 1920’, this sort of thing isn’t an accusation of lying.
And that sort of thing generally isn’t taken as an accusation of lying, either; I’ve often seen the person who got the fact wrong post some version of ‘thanks for the correction’. I think the misinterpretation of ‘you are wrong’ being understood as ‘you were lying’ is more likely to occur when it is “an interpretation about something complicated” then when it’s an easily checked matter of simple fact; but the same underlying principle, that “People say things that are wrong all the time, in good faith.” is behind both sorts of correction.
Good point.
You can show that a person has said something untrue, was previously shown that it was untrue with uncontestable evidence, yet persisted in repeating it while knowing it’s untrue. That’s how to prove a lie. And I’ve seen it proven on the boards, and I’ve proved it as well for a couple of posters.
All in the Pit though, where such a thing is allowed.
I usually just say that what they posted wasn’t accurate, and back it up with a cite. Usually I don’t think a person lied, and don’t even mean to imply it. Sometimes they’re just wrong. Sometimes (often?) I am.
Extremely difficult is not impossible. Hitting the level of accepted as uncontestable evidence is a very high bar. Many think they are there when others are not as 100% convinced.
And even then. Some really are that stupid as to not understand why the evidence is uncontestable and persist in an honestly held false belief even in the face of such. It is an issue of faith. That may be pathetic and frustrating but it is not lying.
Hanlon’s law is good to remember.
The rule is good. You can say that a certain line or statement in a post is “Not true”. or false. But perhaps the poster believes it in all honesty. So, name calling does nothing good.
Right.
The Mods here have states that is is against the rules.