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 Kanluwen wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
I'm questioning your ability to dictate bad faith posts kanluwen. Because at this time it seems like in general it's "An argument I don't like" rather then anything relating to anything in general to bad faith posting.

And going by your posts in this thread, it's clear that you have zero interest in actually engaging beyond torching this thread.

I've said my piece. If you want to continue discussions RiTides, you can PM me. This isn't constructive as it stands because while waiting for your reply things can go off the rail. Politics can just stay off the table, but if that's the case? It needs to be a total shutdown of anything remotely political. Not just politics in general.

Anytime someone brings up "SJW" or "femnazis" or any of that trash? Come down like the wrath of fricking god on it. Because that is tied to political leanings at this point in time whether or not the moderation staff agrees if it is full on 'personal attacks' or not.

Oh no I'm quite interested in engaging and certainly not trying to "Torch this thread" as you've branded me a firestarter over. I've just said my piece in general that politics really should not remain, and I try not to clutter up things much longer then that so as to let people discuss things as they need to otherwise, but your comments on the matter are so strongly worded that I felt the need to discuss them to provide some counterpoint. Not to mention also bringing up a random post to get locked at the same time because you feel they are political while they aren't discussing politics at all because simply they contain a matter you dislike.

 insaniak wrote:

Honestly, I have no idea what the 'intended function' of the Wasteland actually is, these days, but given some of the content on there it is most assuredly not a place I would be recommending to people, unless I was sure they were OK with that sort of environment.

To be fair, it's actually improved significantly from when the dakka mods first exiled Politics to that forum. For example, all the threads full of pics of men with their dicks chained together have been eliminated, we think.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

To be fair, it's actually improved significantly from when the dakka mods first exiled Politics to that forum.

To be clear, 'the dakka mods' never did that. 'A' Dakka mod suggested it as an alternative.

Yeah, that was me ...and I was unfortunate enough to stumble across one of those type of pics... definitely the kind of mental image worm you don't soon get rid of

But I'm willing to put in some work to get us a better alternative! It looks to me like we've still got demand for such a space, and that we're actually really missing something in Not being able to talk about these things in certain ways with this excellent group of people we have here.

My goal will be to set it up by the end of the month (December), and I'll be putting in some work between now and then to make that happen. If anyone has more feedback / ideas please feel free to share, this has been very helpful! I'll post up a dedicated thread in OT when it's ready to go. Cheers everyone

I would say be more willing to hand out temp and perm bans to people with a trend of bad-faith posting. I'm not talking a single post or line of discussion, but those tiny minority of posters who repeatedly do it and have seen threads dragged down to locking time and again. I recall trying to tell people to ignore such people in the Covid thread lest it get locked, and we all know how that ended.

 RiTides wrote:
Yeah, that was me ...and I was unfortunate enough to stumble across one of those type of pics... definitely the kind of mental image worm you don't soon get rid of

But I'm willing to put in some work to get us a better alternative! It looks to me like we've still got demand for such a space, and that we're actually really missing something in Not being able to talk about these things in certain ways with this excellent group of people we have here.

My goal will be to set it up by the end of the month (December), and I'll be putting in some work between now and then to make that happen. If anyone has more feedback / ideas please feel free to share, this has been very helpful! I'll post up a dedicated thread in OT when it's ready to go. Cheers everyone

That's really great news

Sorry for being slow but are you talking about setting up something here on Dakka ?

Pacific, thanks for the encouragement!!

This would be a completely unofficial, separate board. I'd obviously link to it in a thread in OT when it's ready, but the idea is to have a space for this community (and others who might be interested) to talk about politics and social issues that are currently unable to be discussed here (due to the site's main purpose being miniatures discussion).

In other words, not taking anything from Dakka, but filling a void we've had regarding being able to talk about some things. Will be looking into the interface options and costs this week (if anyone knows of a really high quality one please let me know)

 insaniak wrote:

To be clear, 'the dakka mods' never did that. 'A' Dakka mod suggested it as an alternative.

Let me amend that then: On this particular occasion just one mod brought it up. It's been done before, to the same forum, by other mods, including, a bit amusingly, yakface. It was founded literally as Dakkas dumping ground for OT that got too hot. To be honest, if I could get mod privileges, I'd just go through and clean it up, but I have no idea if anyone who still mods there has the ability to still do that.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

To be clear, 'the dakka mods' never did that. 'A' Dakka mod suggested it as an alternative.

Let me amend that then: On this particular occasion just one mod brought it up. It's been done before, to the same forum, by other mods, including, a bit amusingly, yakface. It was founded literally as Dakkas dumping ground for OT that got too hot.

It wasn't just for the 'too hot' stuff. When the Wasteland was started, it was because Dakka didn't have an OT section. So a bunch of people, including several of the mods of the time, went over to the original Phantom Lord's OT Zone to scratch that itch. Back then, it was somewhat rowdy and lawless, but a far cry from the mess that it turned into over the years.

Honestly I can't see it going well.

Which is entirely possible . We'll see...

 RiTides wrote:
Pacific, thanks for the encouragement!!

This would be a completely unofficial, separate board. I'd obviously link to it in a thread in OT when it's ready, but the idea is to have a space for this community (and others who might be interested) to talk about politics and social issues that are currently unable to be discussed here (due to the site's main purpose being miniatures discussion).

In other words, not taking anything from Dakka, but filling a void we've had regarding being able to talk about some things. Will be looking into the interface options and costs this week (if anyone knows of a really high quality one please let me know)

Great stuff!

Look forward to it, will be nice to have a place to have discussion (the 'd' being the operative word!)

I think if it starts with a solid foundation of members from this site (and I assume will have to have some 'red lines' that cannot be crossed in terms of content?) then hopefully it will be good for meaningful discussion, rather than just trolls or reprobates.

 RiTides wrote:
Which is entirely possible . We'll see...

So... I've been paying attention to this thread for quite some time without posting, as I wanted to see how it evolved.

There is enough history between Dakka's Political OT subforum and the Wasteland forum.

Two polar opposite forums in terms of rules and moderation.

I can say, without a doubt, that I vastly prefer how Dakka did it, as opposed to the unmoderated Wasteland forum. Of course, I understand how the "Dakka Model" became untenable to the mods and I fully support the mod's current stance to ban the kind of political thread we used to have. While I *do* miss it, it did become divisive and we all saw how it "infected" the other gaming subforums. Rather than bringing us all together to discuss our plastic crack habit, the OT politics thread became an avenue to raised acrimony throughout the site.

The Wasteland model is a failed one, as the ideologues simply retreated to their corners and simply trolled one another, even to the point of wishing death on each other. There's no sense of debating on the merits and eventually turned into an echo chamber.

As to your ground rules:

1. I would not participate in any of the discussion, other than on the moderating of the board (basically, what I'm doing here). The reason for this is kind of obvious - if I participate, I'm no longer viewed as a remotely fair "referee" in such a political debate.

2. I would not be fact-checking any arguments. There would be no "heckler's veto" simply because threads would not be in danger of being locked - they could remain open infinitely, or new ones created. There might possibly be a slow-mode or similar to cut down on someone dominating a conversation unfairly, but not based on their views - only their frequency.

3. I would not be making any judgement calls on "bad faith" arguments. The goal would be to try to attract people with different views to debate things. Otherwise, honestly, the forum would not serve much purpose!

4. Basic civility and NSFW rules would be enforced (I think this is a large part of the reason things did not work at The Wasteland - without some basic ground rules for debate, you cannot have a debate for long without it turning into a literal fight!)

This... is very similar to Dakka's old rules. What is that "secret sauce" you will be applying here that would make your new forum successful? Or, is it because that it'll be its own website, it wouldn't necessarily "spill" over into the other Dakka forums?

May I make another suggestion?

#5 Las Vegas Rule. What happened in "RiTide's Sandbox's, stays in the Sandbox™". Additionally, encourage anonymity by asking new posters NOT to use their Dakka handle. Although, I probably wouldn't do it and would like keep my name, I can see some posters wanting to debate in the new forum without bringing any preconceived notions/baggage from their Dakka handle. For example: While I'm not proud of some of the things I posted that contributed to the Wasteland insanity, I'd challenge you to read that thread from the beginning in the early days of that thread and see what happened when I started posting there. There was ZERO chance of any meaningful debates as I used my Dakka name (and a derivative in later postings), such that everyone knew of me and acted accordingly since there was zero moderation.

Lastly, since your "light touch" moderation would be limited at certain hours (ie, after work, and when kids are asleep), the posters in your forum need to understand that any moderation is delayed. Repeat offenders need a 'sin bin' if they abuse the system. Be upfront with that.

I’ve read that thread from the beginning, as well as the thread dedicated to the worst bad faith poster on Dakka and the Wasteland, and I will say that RITides should consider very carefully any moderation scheme that meets approval with said poster.

 whembly wrote:

The Wasteland model is a failed one, as the ideologues simply retreated to their corners and simply trolled one another, even to the point of wishing death on each other. There's no sense of debating on the merits and eventually turned into an echo chamber.

Considering the sheer hypocrisy in *this* statement...

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 whembly wrote:

The Wasteland model is a failed one, as the ideologues simply retreated to their corners and simply trolled one another, even to the point of wishing death on each other. There's no sense of debating on the merits and eventually turned into an echo chamber.

Considering the sheer hypocrisy in *this* statement...

You need to pick up the mirror bucko.

Just updating that I read the above posts and have been thinking about all the feedback. While all of this is probably fair game in my "sandbox", let's not get this thread locked if at all possible, please.

As for how it will stay separate, it seemed to for the most part when the Wasteland discussion was active, simply because you could freely discuss things there without running afoul of the "no politics" rule. So, I expect the same will likely be true - the easiest place to discuss things will be in the political forum.

I'm very open to ideas for a name, by the way. So far the best I have is "The Politics Space" . I've also convinced our resident Dakka economics PhD to participate! Apologies if there is another of you out there that I'm unaware of . Points if you know who it is...

As for moderators, my preferred candidate turned me down so looks like I'll be starting out solo, at least. If activity levels aren't crazy high that might be fine anyway, but there will definitely be a notice that any admin activities will likely be only enacted daily. No way I'm trying to mod from the toilet during the day

Thanks for your patience and for all the suggestions while I get things sorted!

Exciting stuff, look forward to it

I can understand the logic behind 'no politics', but there has to be some acknowledgement that there is crossover into our lives (and indeed our hobbies) and that having such a strict rule can make the forum feel weirdly detached and surreal. I'm imagining some kind of nuclear Armageddon or zombie apocalypse happening and then the thread discussing it being locked, after a certain poster comments "Fair play to Boris Johnson, he went on TV and refused to apologise for leaving the nuclear launch codes in the back of a taxi". Gradually the number of posters on the forum declines until it stops altogether. A few months down the line a new user 'Hero of Ultramar', "Hey guys are there any tournaments going on at the moment by me?"

I'm on a motorsports forum as well and that has exactly the same kinds of discussions going on (although I will say probably less civil!). You have the 'c' word, it's impacted events, and then at some point someone is always going to say "if only this... " or "because of x.. " and then off the argument goes and the thread gets locked.
There is the same discussion going on with tournaments being cancelled or releases being delayed, it's very difficult to ignore the elephant in the room with it and it needs people to stay civil and not immediately go for the throat of someone that doesn't agree with them.
Similarly with Brexit, although I'm glad a few threads offering advice about shortage of goods/buying into or out of the UK have been allowed to persist.

 RiTides wrote:
Just updating that I read the above posts and have been thinking about all the feedback. While all of this is probably fair game in my "sandbox", let's not get this thread locked if at all possible, please.

As for how it will stay separate, it seemed to for the most part when the Wasteland discussion was active, simply because you could freely discuss things there without running afoul of the "no politics" rule. So, I expect the same will likely be true - the easiest place to discuss things will be in the political forum.

I'm very open to ideas for a name, by the way. So far the best I have is "The Politics Space" . I've also convinced our resident Dakka economics PhD to participate! Apologies if there is another of you out there that I'm unaware of . Points if you know who it is...

As for moderators, my preferred candidate turned me down so looks like I'll be starting out solo, at least. If activity levels aren't crazy high that might be fine anyway, but there will definitely be a notice that any admin activities will likely be only enacted daily. No way I'm trying to mod from the toilet during the day

Thanks for your patience and for all the suggestions while I get things sorted!

'The Symposium' or 'The Salon' would be my suggestions.

Reading through this thread is quite amusing. its almost like an inverse of the philosophical discussions throughout history. We hit a sweet spot when we decided that speech should be as free as reasonably practicable, and now we've lost all that because we as a people are unable to even entertain the notion that people with different opinions to ours may not be evil/immoral and our enemy, and therefore they must be talking in 'bad faith' (WTF does that even mean?) So now we have internet forums trying to decide what can and cant be talked about in order to protect peoples fragile emotions. Funny. I just finished 'Heretics' by G.K.Chesterton, and in that he says: 'ideas are dangerous, but only to the man of no ideas...'

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 whembly wrote:

The Wasteland model is a failed one, as the ideologues simply retreated to their corners and simply trolled one another, even to the point of wishing death on each other. There's no sense of debating on the merits and eventually turned into an echo chamber.

Considering the sheer hypocrisy in *this* statement...

I mean, he's not entirely wrong.

It's hard to be a total donkey-cave and hide behind forum rules when there aren't any and everyone has known you long enough to know what a crappy conversationalist you are. From the perspective of a gak poster, Wastelands is a total failure and Whembly's derisive gakposting was 75% of the problem with politics in the OT board. It'll be 75% of the problem with any new space, which will be equally doomed to failure when the mods get tired of policing it and seeing the same 3-4 names at the end of every report button that they refuse to simply ban from the space because DakkaDakka doesn't deal with problem posters, just problem topics.

EDIT: And yes, this post is rather mean. I just don't see the point in pretending. RiTides has a noble ideal and I love that, but there it showcases the same underlying denials that have always plagued political discourse on Dakka. There never was political discussion here. Not really. Any given topic died within the first few posts, usually at the hands of the 'usual suspects' (four to five specific people, three of which still post here and two of which have recently gotten threads that edged to close to politics explicitly locked). We can't even discuss non-political topics sometimes without a 'that fing poster' derailing the entire thread. It's nice to talk about bringing people of different values and ideas together, but it's naive because it ignores the board's history and the reality of specific users who have always been problems. They're not problems because of their values but because of their behaviors. We can't even discuss posting behaviors without it becoming a pissing contest over who is censoring whose beliefs (this thread amply demonstrates that for the past few pages), and until there's a breakthrough on that front and a discussion about how values are expressed rather than what the values are, any effort to return politics to Dakkadakka will fail.

 LordofHats wrote:

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 whembly wrote:

The Wasteland model is a failed one, as the ideologues simply retreated to their corners and simply trolled one another, even to the point of wishing death on each other. There's no sense of debating on the merits and eventually turned into an echo chamber.

Considering the sheer hypocrisy in *this* statement...

I mean, he's not entirely wrong.

It's hard to be a total donkey-cave and hide behind forum rules when there aren't any and everyone has known you long enough to know what a crappy conversationalist you are. From the perspective of a gak poster, Wastelands is a total failure and Whembly's derisive gakposting was 75% of the problem with politics in the OT board. It'll be 75% of the problem with any new space, which will be equally doomed to failure when the mods get tired of policing it and seeing the same 3-4 names at the end of every report button that they refuse to simply ban from the space because DakkaDakka doesn't deal with problem posters, just problem topics.

Way to prove my points guys. I was one of maybe 2 or 3 posters who held differing opinions out of the whole site at Wastelands where the politics essentially pitted the GOP/Republican/US Conservative posters against everyone else. Wastelands ought to be renamed as the "Liberal/Lefty Haven @ Wasteland" as any posters going against those orthodoxies is immediately a pariah.

@RiTides, this was what I was talking about... holding differing opinions gives certain posters license to engage in the kind of "debate" whereby the goal isn't to debate on the merits, but to otherize the dissent so that they feel justified for their own dickish behaviors. If you can herd these cats to debate on merits, rather than otherizeing the dissents...you've done something really meaningful.

I wish you luck on this endeavor as I probably won't join your sandbox in the near future and I sincerely hope you find success where Dakka OT & Wasteland failed.

 whembly wrote:

Way to prove my points guys.

I'm going to not ignore you this one time to be real;

I was one of maybe 2 or 3 posters who held differing opinions out of the whole site at Wastelands where the politics essentially pitted the GOP/Republican/US Conservative posters against everyone else.

Wastelands ought to be renamed as the "Liberal/Lefty Haven @ Wasteland" as any posters going against those orthodoxies is immediately a pariah.

You still post on Wastelands despite thinking its a failure. And they insult you back because it's a no moderation space, but the thing that stands out to me is how you're still posting there. Basically all but four people ignore you, and only one of those four people even tries to give you a chance. That space is explicitly hostile toward you specifically. I'm not even going to debate whether or not it's your posting behaviors or your conservatism that caused that. I think it's beside my point here and my point is for you as much as it is for RiTides.

You're still posting there. Why are you still posting there? Someone has wished death on you, insulted your father, insulted your kids, jesus feth I can be a real donkey-cave but I have my limits. I can't do anything more than say those comments are way out of line on Wasteland but the thing that gets me is that you're still posting there. You posted earlier this week! You've told me a bunch of reasons, many of them are completely unflattering but I don't think they matter here. The point is that you still go there. I've known you for ten years on this board and I don't know much of your life off the board, but from my experience on the boards, I'm telling you that you have a problem. It's unhealthy for you. It's unhealthy for the boards. Other posters have problems too, but you specifically go beyond normal problems requiring occasional moderation.

There are people like me who can get mean, but it's sporadic at worst. Unless the moderation team adjusts it's style to actually deal with people who are looking for bitter arguments because that's where they're comfortable, there is no point in a political discussion space. It can't even be moderated effectively outside of politics and regularly crops up in N&R and I see it plenty on Geek Media.

I'm currently, explicitly thinking of the HP Lovecraft thread, which became nothing but one user complaining about one thing despite attempts by me and others to refocus the topic elsewhere. I eventually blew up on that guy, because my patience threshold for shitposting is low, but as far as I can tell he's otherwise fine as a poster. That's true of most posters on Dakkadakka I think. We only occasionally get dragged down into shouting matches. It happens. We only occasionally need any sort of moderation to intervene into our behaviors. I think I was tempbanned upwards of fifteen times in six (???) years when politics was allowed here, and haven't been banned once since it was disallowed and my reflection on that time is that there are specific posters who bring out the worst in everyone. There was a point where I thought that meant political discussions were better off without me and I've tried to avoid some of the threads on Dakka that veered that way over the years because of it (not always succeeding).

You are like my opposite. I don't think you do it on purpose, but you revel in that nastiness you're so eager to complain about. You love it that people hate you. Looking back over the years I've posted in the same space as you, I believe you love making people hate you so you can love being hated. You like that people on the Wasteland hate you and that's why you keep posting there.

The moderation team has broadly failed to tackle that problem, in you and in other posters like you. Some posters don't want civility. They want incivility and they thrive in causing it and seek it out. I could be wrong, but feth I have no real explanation for your behavior over the years, or the behaviors of the other posters I'm thinking of who continually dragged political discussions into vicious and bitter exercises. Some people seem convinced it's an ideological problem. I completely disagree. The problem isn't political opinion, it's certain posters who love bitterness and find ways to engender it in others consciously or unconsciously.

There's a metaphor in here somewhere about toxic relationships. The way moderation is run here is that the mods don't get involved until the insults start flying, but specific posters are perfectly situated to use that moderation style to feed an addiction for conflict that most of the rest of us find exhausting. It brings out the worst in people and that's the real problem. I don't think anyone is really prepared to try and manage a politics board until they're prepared to deal with the kind of person that enjoys bitterness. I know Dakkadakka isn't. The mods will keep maintaining the 'don't respond' mantra, as if that's even remotely worked at any point in the last ten years I've been here.

I’m exalting LordofHats’ post. It’s everything I’ve wanted to say (and more) about posters being the problem rather than politics. My issue has been that Dakka banned topics when topics weren’t the problem.

 LordofHats wrote:
Basically all but four people ignore you, and only one of those four people even tries to give you a chance.

As that one person, I can't upvote your post enough.



Also, regarding the idea that the Wasteland is somehow an "echo chamber" that's only really true when it comes to one subject in particular: the US Republican party. Even then, there is dissent (see the relatively recent debate on what post-inauguration strategy Biden should pursue in regards to the Republicans (conciliatory vs. throwing the book at them). Hell, even myself and FutureWarCultist, who more or less despised each other, managed to apologize to each other and agree that whembly's being crazy (correct me if I'm wrong, but that's the sentiment I've gotten at any rate). Is it an echo chamber when people tell Flat Earthers to get lost? When anti-vaxxers are shut down?

Which neatly brings us back to the concept of "problem posters". For the second part of the Obama administration, whembly's Benghazi posts were a fixture of the Politics threads in the OT forum. The slow decline of quality in political threads is not the blame of any one poster, but if one poster had to be chosen as the avatar of what politics became on Dakka it is impossible to nominate anyone other than whembly.

You know the more I think on it the more I think the problem isn't moderation - its forum structure. Forums are great as places of free exchange of information, where anyone can have a say as much as they wish (provided they remain with the rules etc...).

This is great when you have a casual discussion, debate or want to ask about how to paint or build something or ask lore questions etc...



But it utterly fails as a means to enabling a more serious debate/discussion. Because anyone can have a say you get caught up in small fights around a single issue which fast becomes a contest of egos. In addition because anyone can speak and speak when they want you get caught in a "last word wins" situation where neither side will back down; both sides want to have the last word since that implies that they defeated their opponent. At the same time many people say and believe (which is scary and sad whe you think about it) that "no one will change their opinion from what is said online". Whilst a totally false statement, it still feeds into this idea of a perpetual "last word" issue.

It also mean that anyone can derail or continue a single point of discussion even if evidence has refuted it.





Basically you get a mess very quickly that takes a lot of moderator time to sift through. However worse than that it can easily spill over and the fight continues elsewhere even if the original thread gets moderated and locked etc..









so lets pause and consider that the free posting on forums is perhaps as much a barrier to constructive political debate online. Maybe what needs changing isn't just moderation, but the actual functionality and nature of how political debates are conducted on an online service.

Perhaps you need to move toward a more formal system setup.


Consider if instead of free topics you had set topics; a limited range within the means of the moderation to keep up with. Ontop of that you also impose a specific moderator to moderate the thread itself, someone impartial to ensure order is maintained.
Then you restrict posters to perhaps have only one post in the thread. You've a single question/point/topic and each person has a single post to make their case within that topic.

If it was a simple one vs one situation with moderator then each side can identify their stance; then a moderator can permit them each an additional post to respond to their opposition - the moderator able to thus keep control. They've always got the last word and a formal design might even limit it to X number of posts per side per debate, adding to that value for each point raised within.



Slowing things down; constricting the posting speed and volume would increase weight of each post. It would also help to dismantle the more casual argument style of posting and replace it with a more formal structure. People would have more time to research and post their facts; have less chance of getting drawn into 2 hour fight in the evening. In addition it starts to remove the "last word" concept. You say your bit, you debate in the middle and then you make summary statements and that's it.





Adapt it for online and you could permit multiple people posting and giving counterarguments since in general salient points will rise to the top and dominate the discussion (effective moderating can also winnow out and ban/restrict chatter on clearly side/distraction or irrelevant points).









Of course this is all much more work in designing a system that works; moderating it and ensuring it remains active with enough turnover of content and discussion. It might suit being a bolt-on to another forum (or several) as an optional "once a month" type affair that could have a long term view to increasing the rate of debates as the community grew.




Of course this is all way more effort, but its at least one idea on actually looking not just at trying to punish/remove people from debates; but to deal with the fundamental weaknesses of forum design with respect to achieving a higher level of debate online.

 LordofHats wrote:

 whembly wrote:

Way to prove my points guys.

I'm going to not ignore you this one time to be real;

I appreciate that.

You may not know it, but I value your posts as you continually challenge my positions.

How is that not a good thing?

The things that animates you, correct me if I'm wrong, is that you don't always persuade me to your perspectives and that frustrates you that I'm obstinate to my own persepctives.

It's okay to have disagreements. It's even okay to believe that you have the facts on your side and that I'm totally wrong. Why is it a problem then? Say your piece and move on.

I mean, if you really look at, much of the accusations of "bad faith" that is attributed to me is really over differences in each of our opinions.

I was one of maybe 2 or 3 posters who held differing opinions out of the whole site at Wastelands where the politics essentially pitted the GOP/Republican/US Conservative posters against everyone else.

Wastelands ought to be renamed as the "Liberal/Lefty Haven @ Wasteland" as any posters going against those orthodoxies is immediately a pariah.

You still post on Wastelands despite thinking its a failure. And they insult you back because it's a no moderation space, but the thing that stands out to me is how you're still posting there. Basically all but four people ignore you, and only one of those four people even tries to give you a chance. That space is explicitly hostile toward you specifically. I'm not even going to debate whether or not it's your posting behaviors or your conservatism that caused that. I think it's beside my point here and my point is for you as much as it is for RiTides.

You're still posting there. Why are you still posting there? Someone has wished death on you, insulted your father, insulted your kids, jesus feth I can be a real donkey-cave but I have my limits. I can't do anything more than say those comments are way out of line on Wasteland but the thing that gets me is that you're still posting there. You posted earlier this week! You've told me a bunch of reasons, many of them are completely unflattering but I don't think they matter here. The point is that you still go there. I've known you for ten years on this board and I don't know much of your life off the board, but from my experience on the boards, I'm telling you that you have a problem. It's unhealthy for you. It's unhealthy for the boards. Other posters have problems too, but you specifically go beyond normal problems requiring occasional moderation.

Why should I or anyone else, unilaterally retreat from the debate grounds simply because one is outnumbered?

Effectively the Wasteland is a manifestation of a rage mob. The absolute worst thing those posters in the Wasteland want, is my continued participation.

Why should I give in?

I mean, isn't those poster's behavior a true definition of a Heckler's veto?

Am I wrong?

FWIW, I don't consider myself a frequent poster anymore at Wasteland. Also, there's very little movement at that board unless I'm (or some others) frequently posting in a true back-n-forth fashion. It's literally an echo chamber now with no meaningful debates.

I mean, I religiously read that dakka COVID thread, but purposely stayed out of it outside of maaaaybe two posts. And it *still* got moderated and eventually got locked down. I'd argue it wasn't the same folks that you identified contributed to the demise of OT Political threads.

There are people like me who can get mean, but it's sporadic at worst. Unless the moderation team adjusts it's style to actually deal with people who are looking for bitter arguments because that's where they're comfortable, there is no point in a political discussion space. It can't even be moderated effectively outside of politics and regularly crops up in N&R and I see it plenty on Geek Media.

I agree with you there.

I don't see anything wrong with mods handing out temp bans with the justifications, as I've been on the receiving end on a few of them.

I'm currently, explicitly thinking of the HP Lovecraft thread, which became nothing but one user complaining about one thing despite attempts by me and others to refocus the topic elsewhere. I eventually blew up on that guy, because my patience threshold for shitposting is low, but as far as I can tell he's otherwise fine as a poster. That's true of most posters on Dakkadakka I think. We only occasionally get dragged down into shouting matches. It happens. We only occasionally need any sort of moderation to intervene into our behaviors. I think I was tempbanned upwards of fifteen times in six (???) years when politics was allowed here, and haven't been banned once since it was disallowed and my reflection on that time is that there are specific posters who bring out the worst in everyone. There was a point where I thought that meant political discussions were better off without me and I've tried to avoid some of the threads on Dakka that veered that way over the years because of it (not always succeeding).

You are like my opposite. I don't think you do it on purpose, but you revel in that nastiness you're so eager to complain about. You love it that people hate you. Looking back over the years I've posted in the same space as you, I believe you love making people hate you so you can love being hated. You like that people on the Wasteland hate you and that's why you keep posting there.

I tried, triiiiiiiiiiied to reset expectations and the debate parameters in Wasteland but there was ZERO interest for that.

I keep posting there, albeit infrequently, simple because I refuse to take myself out entirely because doing so otherwise validates the other poster's rage mob mentality.

The moderation team has broadly failed to tackle that problem, in you and in other posters like you. Some posters don't want civility. They want incivility and they thrive in causing it and seek it out. I could be wrong, but feth I have no real explanation for your behavior over the years, or the behaviors of the other posters I'm thinking of who continually dragged political discussions into vicious and bitter exercises. Some people seem convinced it's an ideological problem. I completely disagree. The problem isn't political opinion, it's certain posters who love bitterness and find ways to engender it in others consciously or unconsciously.

I *want* civil discussions.

I *want* to be challenged and I'm interested in seeing what other folks has to say because I recognize that we're all coming from different places with different ideas.

I don't believe I actively seek out bitter divisiveness, but I won't just "take it" when gak is lobbed my way.

However, I think the incivility stems partly from ideology and others not respecting dissenting opinions.

There's a metaphor in here somewhere about toxic relationships. The way moderation is run here is that the mods don't get involved until the insults start flying, but specific posters are perfectly situated to use that moderation style to feed an addiction for conflict that most of the rest of us find exhausting. It brings out the worst in people and that's the real problem. I don't think anyone is really prepared to try and manage a politics board until they're prepared to deal with the kind of person that enjoys bitterness. I know Dakkadakka isn't. The mods will keep maintaining the 'don't respond' mantra, as if that's even remotely worked at any point in the last ten years I've been here.

I was open to the idea that mods do more, but at the end of the day I support the mod's decision due to the amount of manhours needed to manage such a thread.

As for RiTide's new sandbox, it'll be "his" board so it'll be "his" rules. Maybe he can come up with a process whereby posters can petition to have "x" poster banned, sort of having "trial" where both sides make their case. As such he could decree to tell everyone to "move on from the topic" all the way up to site ban. I think that's what some folks want... some way to adjudicate the controversy and render judgement, rather some "light-touch" moderation.

Arguing in good faith is a prerequisite for civil discussion. Remember when you linked half a page's worth of articles that supposedly backed your views on climate change and I actually read them, pointing out that you'd included, among other things, an article critisizing people doing what you were doing? What about claiming that Bush would've won Florida even after recounts in 2000 and then linking a page that says literally the opposite?

You keep making claims and linking articles, pages, or other sources that back up the complete opposite. It's not just once, it keeps happening. Explain again how this is the behaviour of someone interested in civil discourse? If it walks like a duck...

Please, let’s not have that discussion here. There is already a place for it.

https://otzone.proboards.com/thread/7466/whemblys-faith-hyprocrisy-fallacy-usage?page=1

And wow, it hasn’t been updated in a while.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Arguing in good faith is a prerequisite for civil discussion. Remember when you linked half a page's worth of articles that supposedly backed your views on climate change and I actually read them, pointing out that you'd included, among other things, an article critisizing people doing what you were doing? What about claiming that Bush would've won Florida even after recounts in 2000 and then linking a page that says literally the opposite?

Those were my sourcing mistakes.

Yet, you'd handwaved other sources substantiating my arguments as well.

Your efforts were to point out my mistakes instead of engaging the merits of the arguments.

You keep making claims and linking articles, pages, or other sources that back up the complete opposite. It's not just once, it keeps happening. Explain again how this is the behaviour of someone interested in civil discourse? If it walks like a duck...

That's a serious mischaracterization and you know it Wally.

I used to post on a forum that offshot from sherdog MMA forums back in 2007. It was completely OT. The barest of rules (no empty or 'first' posts etc) but that was it. Best forum I ever posted on. If you wanted a proper conversation, you could have one, if you wanted a scrap with no rules you could have one. The onus was on the individual to choose what he or she responded to. People crying about posters doing things they don't like, why not just move on? You don't have an obligation to indulge them if you don't want to. Take your own responsibility. You guys are all focused on moderation, who should do this, what should and shouldn't be allowed to be said or not... Have you ever stopped to think that fewer rules might be the answer?
Having 'trials' or banning people for 'bad faith' just leads to those being abused, and more of the same round and round bs. I know this will never happen here, and probably not at this new one if it manifests either, but one can dream..