this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2023
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I think people misremember when discussions could be blunt without being abusive, because they didn't recognize and appreciate sensible small-forum moderation. I don't want oversight that forbids people from using a list of no-no words. I want human beings to skim a conversation and judge when people are causing problems.
In real-life interactions, there are legitimate occasions for being rude. Civility is an ideal. It's not a death cult. You don't pledge your honor to never calling someone an asshole. You just try to avoid dealing with assholes.
If a forum does not want strife between users, the mods better be proactive in removing fascists, trolls, bigots, and other dehumanizing forces.
If mods don't remove that crap, but demand everyone play nice with those assholes - the forum exists for the benefit of those assholes. Everyone else is an unwitting victim for them to play with. And any moderation against accurately and reasonably saying 'fuck off, abusive liar' is acting as cover and force multiplication for abusive liars.
A vulgar explanation of how someone's incorrect is often good-faith participation. Infuriating bullshit in televisable language is not.
That's a great point about moderation, plenty of forums outside of just banning would have mods post in the thread and say 'knock that shit off, try to be nicer' or whatever to discourage a toxic atmosphere.
There can be appropriate times for a range of civility like you said so having nuance is important, but I've rarely seen a forum outside of something like Stormfront afraid to ban Nazis or racists without question, unlike some big venues today that try to be 'tolerant' or 'free speech absolutists'.
I've seen several subreddits insist that politely-stated fascism is better discourse than calling out fascists. In one case, with 'so you're a fascist' being treated as an intolerable insult... even though being a fascist was apparently fine... and that guy was absofuckinglutely a fascist.
I'd understand if it were the kind of ‘fuck off, abusive liar’, but more often than not it's about something so minor, certainly not worth the extra negativity added to the community.
Only meaning matters.
You have to evaluate claims.
But that's never what happens, when rules demand "civility." They don't actually enforce positivity. They just punish people who are honest toward minimally-cautious assholes. Quite often without spending one moment looking at the other side of the conversation.
Reports cannot be handled correctly in a vacuum. Context is necessary. Otherwise 'you are wrong' is undecidable.
It's like a generation grew up not knowing what trolling is. It's not harsh language. It's being an infuriating douchebag, in a way that people understandably tell you you're an infuriating douchebag. And for all the forums I've seen where trolling and getting trolled are equally forbidden, every god-damn one of them treats 'shut up, troll' worse than being a fucking troll. Even if it is those exact G-rated words.