what i mean by yall aren't moderated is that we barely fucking moderate anything aside from hate speech and blatant trolling/shit posting. yall know when you do it. we certainly do not moderate viewpoints or opinions and i'll have real words with anyone who thinks differently. i don't take much seriously, but i do believe in the ethos of this community. i can also believe that ethos might change over time, especially when we start talking in decades-long timeframes when major societal changes are also happening. that means, hey, yeah, we started off telling each other to die in a fire, but then someone real got hurt, and that stopped being funny. so we stopped doing that, pretty much largely as a community.
most of the changes tried, failed, succeeded, abandoned, tried something else, etc, have all been with a fuckload of input from this community.
so, think about this place as that, if you will.
i think that's what @immamac was getting at in the cloak room post.
now, it's my unvarnished opinion that he picked the absolute worst example of behavior to point out bad acting on the other side, but here we are.
the main problem is that we have a larger civility problem in this country. we talk past each other too much, without realizing that someone is on the other side of that equation. i do it all the time on here. i've been fucking terrible about it in the past, and i've done plenty of regretful things. my way of atoning is to walk forward and try to do better.
and that's all immamac wanted, i think.
but the real problem with cloak room is what goes unsaid as much as what goes said. what the poster in question did was pretty much the definition of trolling. add into that the obvious and not-so-obvious misinformation posters, and patience is low for bullshit.
"oh hey guys, i'm new here, but i have strong opinions about this discussion, and i strongly disagree with your BROAD ASSERTION A. look at this dodgy as fuck ass source i'm presenting as truth! behold BROAD ASSERTION B"
"uh, hey new guy, that site is some partisan bullshit looney tunes crap. got something legit to back that up?"
"oh, man they told me about the cloak room and you guys and how disingenuous you are!"
"no, really, new guy, please back up broad assertion b."
<new guy disappears>
"no, hey, new guy with strong opinions and shitty sources, can you back up that broad assertion b?"
"oh, hey guys, i've been busy. let me type up five posts not backing up broad assertion b. hell, i might not even mention broad assertion a at all, because, i don't know"
"no, new guy, all you have to do is answer the questions, you stupid fuck."
"i think i'm being bullied."
immamac enters room, sees guy bloody on the ground, "jesus, guys, he's already dead"
"SHUT THE FUCK UP OVERREACHING MODOWNER WITH OBVIOUS BIAS"
"no, new guy, bullshit source aside, please back up broad assertion b, or we have to conclude you are a troll"
"yep, i'm being bullied, and everyone warned me about the bully piles in here, so i'm not going to even bother re-asserting or acknowledge BROAD ASSERTION A and i'm the fuck out of here, deuces, libfucks!"
BOARD BLOWS UP IN RIGHTEOUS INDIGNATION FROM EVERYONE OVER TERRIBLE MODERATION EVEN THOUGH NOTHING WAS ACTUALLY EDITED AND NOBODY SUSPENDED
i mean, what the actual fuck.
yes, the thread was derailed, but it was not derailed by an honest attempt at a trade of opinions.
it turned into a shitfest because new guy poster brought piss to a shit fight. you can't show up with flat out bullshit, present it as fact, then throw up your hands and blame everyone else for not understanding your intent.
that's gaslighting yall.
sorry, immamac, i'm with you on sentiment, you just picked a weird as fuck situation, imo.