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Jerram wrote:
You do realize you just went from

ban anyone who supports such a violent policy

to

ban anyone who supports the policy because "I like it because it hurts people who are different than me."

Save that though for ETC....

Bad faith has become a buzz word that people use to silence discussion they don't like. I've seen on this thread it be thrown around so much so broadly that no I truly do believe its just being used as an excuse by the usuals to silence others.

Someone else proposed the former, and I never stated I supported the former, I only stated (and supported) the latter, because a good-faith discussion could potentially change the mind of the former but you cannot have a reasonable discussion with the latter. Seriously, where would you even start if their basis is "I like and support X because it hurts people who are different"? What room is there for good-faith in a discussion like that?

And you're attempts misrepresenting me and what I've said, whether intentional or not, are examples of bad faith.

 whembly wrote:

 Wolfblade wrote:
To use the example before about the immigration policy, there's a discussion that could be had in good faith about the merits, or lack thereof, but there cannot be a discussion if the starting point is "I like it because it hurts people who are different than me."

You preach on about certain posters commenting in bad faith... but what I just highlighted is the all-time-high of bad faith arguments as no one in that conversation articulated that, either here or in Wasteland.

You supported israel's border policy/defense tactics which includes gunning down civilians.

 Wolfblade wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Prestor, I think Malus is using that as an example because there is, in fact, a current poster who is fully in support of that policy. Not tangentially or indirectly because they voted for the political party in question, but because the poster in question has specifically stated they support that policy.

Ok. Why would supporting a policy that they don't have any say in creating or enforcing be a reason for removing them from a thread about politics? The poster's approval or disapproval of the policy has no bearing on the policy itself or it's implementation. How do you attribute to that poster any actual responsibility for the violence to justify taking punitive action against them. I don't understand why political opinions disqualify people from discussing political opinions. What is the point of having a discussion if we're only allowing people who have the same opinion to participate in it?

For the same reason we shouldn't allow those pushing racism or sexism or any other form of bigotry or violence. The approval of the position is because it hurts those people.

Prestor Jon wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

This whole thread seems to be a growing list of minutia in regards to limiting the participation of people in RiTides' future website and what gets posted and how it gets posted. It all strikes me as excessive. Have an ignore function and encourage people to take personal responsibility to use as appropriate to avoid becoming obsessive rageaholics with an axe to grind.

Dakka tried that, and it failed miserably. Obviously, if the same people are going to participate, there needs to be a different rulebook or it too will fail.

How would that be pushing racism or sexism or bigotry or violence? If the poster has no influence over the creation or implementation of the policy nor the ability to correct or stop the policy then what is the problem with someone expressing an opinion on it on a message board? You're ascribing a level of power to that action that just doesn't exist. Somebody posts a favorable opinion about the child separation policy and dozens? if other posters read it and some maybe most maybe all of them disagree or don't like it but no one is actually harmed by it. You're not having a discussion of anything if your starting point is that there is only one correct allowable view on something. That is what wrecked the political discussion threads here, the need to turn the topic into either a source of affirmation of personal views or an arena for rhetorical combat to crush opposing views. There was never a time when an actual nuanced conversation about public education or foreign policy wasn't quickly buried under pages of partisan bickering. Every attempt to discuss root sources of national/political problems was met with a deluge of outrage over the "both sides" fallacy. Whenever RiTides gets his website we all know what's going to happen. The same people will post the same arguments, this time it will be about how evil Mitch McConnell (who is terrible that's true, the nicest thing I can say about Mitch is that he always seems to be professionally dressed while on the job) won't get out of the way to let Pelosi, Schumer and Biden implement their wonderful plan to fix everything. The fact that there is no plan to fix everything because everyone in Congress gains more political influence and monetary wealth from letting their constituents suffer won't ever be examined for more than a page or two before the thread gets distracted by a confirmation hearing fight or raising the debt ceiling/passing the budget or whembly will post something about Hunter Biden and compare it to Hillary's emails or the Clinton Foundation, etc. We all know this, it's been the same narrative in the OT politics threads for more than a decade.

The politics thread didn't get repeatedly locked because Dakka didn't have enough rules. The thread locks came because too many people chose to willfully violate rule #1, the primary rule for the owner of the sandbox nice enough to let us play in it, instead of using the ignore function or walking away. Dakka didn't make the politics thread be catnip for everybody's mean streak and there's no rule RiTides could write that would solve that problem at his website either.

Prestor Jon wrote:

How would that be pushing racism or sexism or bigotry or violence? If the poster has no influence over the creation or implementation of the policy nor the ability to correct or stop the policy then what is the problem with someone expressing an opinion on it on a message board? You're ascribing a level of power to that action that just doesn't exist. Somebody posts a favorable opinion about the child separation policy and dozens? if other posters read it and some maybe most maybe all of them disagree or don't like it but no one is actually harmed by it. You're not having a discussion of anything if your starting point is that there is only one correct allowable view on something. That is what wrecked the political discussion threads here, the need to turn the topic into either a source of affirmation of personal views or an arena for rhetorical combat to crush opposing views. There was never a time when an actual nuanced conversation about public education or foreign policy wasn't quickly buried under pages of partisan bickering. Every attempt to discuss root sources of national/political problems was met with a deluge of outrage over the "both sides" fallacy. Whenever RiTides gets his website we all know what's going to happen. The same people will post the same arguments, this time it will be about how evil Mitch McConnell (who is terrible that's true, the nicest thing I can say about Mitch is that he always seems to be professionally dressed while on the job) won't get out of the way to let Pelosi, Schumer and Biden implement their wonderful plan to fix everything. The fact that there is no plan to fix everything because everyone in Congress gains more political influence and monetary wealth from letting their constituents suffer won't ever be examined for more than a page or two before the thread gets distracted by a confirmation hearing fight or raising the debt ceiling/passing the budget or whembly will post something about Hunter Biden and compare it to Hillary's emails or the Clinton Foundation, etc. We all know this, it's been the same narrative in the OT politics threads for more than a decade.

The politics thread didn't get repeatedly locked because Dakka didn't have enough rules. The thread locks came because too many people chose to willfully violate rule #1, the primary rule for the owner of the sandbox nice enough to let us play in it, instead of using the ignore function or walking away. Dakka didn't make the politics thread be catnip for everybody's mean streak and there's no rule RiTides could write that would solve that problem at his website either.

(Prestor, it looks like your quotes are messed up, so I'll try and cut out what I think is your response, lemme know if I missed something.)

1. You don't need to be able to create policy or law to support and/or push violence or bigotry of any kind. And both of those are largely detrimental to a good-faith discussion.

2. Sometimes there is only one socially acceptable view. I mean, otherwise by your logic what's the harm in letting anyone say whatever racist stuff they want, or say they want all of X dead. Oh wait, that's how we get the likes of parler, 4chan, 8chan, etc.

3. I believe you're not reading what I've written correctly. You can support the immigration policy trump implemented, and you can even have a discussion based on what you (the hypothetical you) may believe its merits to be, or lack thereof. You cannot have a civil/good-faith discussion if, again, the starting point is "I like and support it because it hurts people"

4. Dakka's moderation of the politics thread was basically non-existent. Except, of course, to shut it down completely when it really went off the rails because, again, they didn't really moderate it, and maybe they didn't know what a successful political discussion moderation looked like or required. Either way, that's a failure right there in my eyes. A handful of people repeatedly stirred everyone else up, and even if someone stopped engaging with them, there was always someone else who would engage them, creating a never-ending cycle. If the mod team had stepped in and removed the problem posters who had been reported many times, the threads may have gone differently. And for the record, they could have absolutely banned them from just OT and let them participate on the rest of the site still.

 Wolfblade wrote:

Jerram wrote:
Appealing to higher powers to silence people who disagree with you is never a way to encourage discussion.

I believe you are confusing "silencing people who disagree with you" with "silencing people who are deliberately trying to stir gak/not engaging in good faith."

Ironically, you're currently being an example of bad faith. No one here has advocated silencing the other side solely because they're "the other side." Instead, people want bad faith punished.

To use the example before about the immigration policy, there's a discussion that could be had in good faith about the merits, or lack thereof, but there cannot be a discussion if the starting point is "I like it because it hurts people who are different than me."

How is an honest and direct statement about if you support a government policy and why a bad faith argument? A bad faith argument is a negotiation tactic wherein one party deliberately misleads the other in order to gain an advantage or sabotage negotiations. If poster X writes a post that states "I believe policy Y is a good idea because I hate everyone who lives south of the US border." because that is an honest representation of poster X's view on the subject that is not bad faith. That's a true statement about their opinion on an issue. It may be a morally repugnant opinion but if it's true it's not bad faith.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_faith#:~:text=Bad%20faith%20is%20a%20concept,to%20compromise%2C%20for%20political%20effect.

Bad faith (Latin: mala fides) is a sustained form of deception which consists of entertaining or pretending to entertain one set of feelings while acting as if influenced by another.[1] It is associated with hypocrisy, breach of contract, affectation, and lip service.[2] It is not to be confused with heresy (supposedly false religious faith). It may involve intentional deceit of others, or self-deception.

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/bad-faith

bad faith
noun
lack of honesty and trust:
Bad faith on the part of both negotiators doomed the talks from the outset.

https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/2020-07/Good_Faith-vs-Bad_Faith-Arguments_or_Discussions.pdf

BAD FAITH: A “Bad Faith” discussion is one in which one or both of the parties has
a hidden, unrevealed agenda—often to dominate or coerce the other individual into
compliance or acquiescence of some sort—or lacks basic respect for the rights, dignity,
or autonomy of the other party. Disrespect for the other party may include dishonesty. A
person engaged in bad faith does not accept the other person as s/he is, but demands
that s/he change in order to satisfy his/her requirements or to accept his/her will.

Prestor Jon wrote:


The politics thread didn't get repeatedly locked because Dakka didn't have enough rules. The thread locks came because too many people chose to willfully violate rule #1, the primary rule for the owner of the sandbox nice enough to let us play in it, instead of using the ignore function or walking away. Dakka didn't make the politics thread be catnip for everybody's mean streak and there's no rule RiTides could write that would solve that problem at his website either.

So much This

 Wolfblade wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 Wolfblade wrote:
To use the example before about the immigration policy, there's a discussion that could be had in good faith about the merits, or lack thereof, but there cannot be a discussion if the starting point is "I like it because it hurts people who are different than me."

You preach on about certain posters commenting in bad faith... but what I just highlighted is the all-time-high of bad faith arguments as no one in that conversation articulated that, either here or in Wasteland.

You supported israel's border policy/defense tactics which includes gunning down civilians.

There were many reasons why I support it - it was a nuance position that I've tried to explain in detail, but we don't need to hash it out here. The point being it wasn't anything near the premise that you started with.

Hey guys, this has been a very useful discussion but we obviously can't really have a political debate in here given Dakka's rules. So just noting that if this keeps going, the thread will have to be locked here.

Hopefully most of this can just wait a few weeks and we can discuss on the alternate space I'm setting up. Thanks again for the feedback which has been extremely helpful on that front so far!

 Wolfblade wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

How would that be pushing racism or sexism or bigotry or violence? If the poster has no influence over the creation or implementation of the policy nor the ability to correct or stop the policy then what is the problem with someone expressing an opinion on it on a message board? You're ascribing a level of power to that action that just doesn't exist. Somebody posts a favorable opinion about the child separation policy and dozens? if other posters read it and some maybe most maybe all of them disagree or don't like it but no one is actually harmed by it. You're not having a discussion of anything if your starting point is that there is only one correct allowable view on something. That is what wrecked the political discussion threads here, the need to turn the topic into either a source of affirmation of personal views or an arena for rhetorical combat to crush opposing views. There was never a time when an actual nuanced conversation about public education or foreign policy wasn't quickly buried under pages of partisan bickering. Every attempt to discuss root sources of national/political problems was met with a deluge of outrage over the "both sides" fallacy. Whenever RiTides gets his website we all know what's going to happen. The same people will post the same arguments, this time it will be about how evil Mitch McConnell (who is terrible that's true, the nicest thing I can say about Mitch is that he always seems to be professionally dressed while on the job) won't get out of the way to let Pelosi, Schumer and Biden implement their wonderful plan to fix everything. The fact that there is no plan to fix everything because everyone in Congress gains more political influence and monetary wealth from letting their constituents suffer won't ever be examined for more than a page or two before the thread gets distracted by a confirmation hearing fight or raising the debt ceiling/passing the budget or whembly will post something about Hunter Biden and compare it to Hillary's emails or the Clinton Foundation, etc. We all know this, it's been the same narrative in the OT politics threads for more than a decade.

The politics thread didn't get repeatedly locked because Dakka didn't have enough rules. The thread locks came because too many people chose to willfully violate rule #1, the primary rule for the owner of the sandbox nice enough to let us play in it, instead of using the ignore function or walking away. Dakka didn't make the politics thread be catnip for everybody's mean streak and there's no rule RiTides could write that would solve that problem at his website either.

(Prestor, it looks like your quotes are messed up, so I'll try and cut out what I think is your response, lemme know if I missed something.)

1. You don't need to be able to create policy or law to support and/or push violence or bigotry of any kind. And both of those are largely detrimental to a good-faith discussion.

2. Sometimes there is only one socially acceptable view. I mean, otherwise by your logic what's the harm in letting anyone say whatever racist stuff they want, or say they want all of X dead. Oh wait, that's how we get the likes of parler, 4chan, 8chan, etc.

3. I believe you're not reading what I've written correctly. You can support the immigration policy trump implemented, and you can even have a discussion based on what you (the hypothetical you) may believe its merits to be, or lack thereof. You cannot have a civil/good-faith discussion if, again, the starting point is "I like and support it because it hurts people"

4. Dakka's moderation of the politics thread was basically non-existent. Except, of course, to shut it down completely when it really went off the rails because, again, they didn't really moderate it, and maybe they didn't know what a successful political discussion moderation looked like or required. Either way, that's a failure right there in my eyes. A handful of people repeatedly stirred everyone else up, and even if someone stopped engaging with them, there was always someone else who would engage them, creating a never-ending cycle. If the mod team had stepped in and removed the problem posters who had been reported many times, the threads may have gone differently. And for the record, they could have absolutely banned them from just OT and let them participate on the rest of the site still.

I personally place more value on the honesty of a statement than the content of it. If somebody supports a given policy because he/she is a bigoted racist I would prefer that they simply say so and be honest. That would be a good faith argument, there would be no deception (the hallmark of a bad faith argument). I would be disheartened to see a racist opinion but I would value the honesty. It would be fairly simple and straightforward, in my opinion, to dismantle an argument rooted in the irrational hatred of group X and I would welcome the opportunity to do so. If somebody tried to hide their racist rationale for supporting a policy through sophistry and other rhetorical tricks that would be a bad faith argument and a waste of time. I would much prefer an honest discussion about a policy and personal views on it regardless of whether or not such a discussion brought in racist or sexist or any other bigoted -ist views to a dishonest and futile discourse of sophistry and semantics and word salad just to avoid difficult realities like racism. I'd rather have that honest discussion than not have the discussion at all. There is an opportunity for positive effects from the conversation while there is nothing to be gained from not having it at all.

Prestor Jon wrote:

How is an honest and direct statement about if you support a government policy and why a bad faith argument? A bad faith argument is a negotiation tactic wherein one party deliberately misleads the other in order to gain an advantage or sabotage negotiations. If poster X writes a post that states "I believe policy Y is a good idea because I hate everyone who lives south of the US border." because that is an honest representation of poster X's view on the subject that is not bad faith. That's a true statement about their opinion on an issue. It may be a morally repugnant opinion but if it's true it's not bad faith.

Because there's nothing to have a good-faith discussion about, and the most that can be done is essentially insult the user because anything they say to support such a statement is most likely bigoted. If it's not promoting good faith, it's almost certainly bad-faith. By your overly literal and technical interpretation of the term "bad faith" using logical fallacies would be fine, so long as they truly believed what they were saying. But we know that isn't the case, and you even say so later. Furthermore, the Wikipedia article you linked even explains there's a lot more to bad faith than the snippet you linked. I also want to highlight from your quote from cato.org, bold mine:

BAD FAITH: A “Bad Faith” discussion is one in which one or both of the parties has
a hidden, unrevealed agenda—often to dominate or coerce the other individual into
compliance or acquiescence of some sort—or lacks basic respect for the rights, dignity,
or autonomy of the other party. Disrespect for the other party may include dishonesty. A
person engaged in bad faith does not accept the other person as s/he is, but demands
that s/he change in order to satisfy his/her requirements or to accept his/her will.

Again, bold mine. If, for example, person X is saying they hate everyone south of Y border and supports locking all of them up in inhumane conditions if they try to cross Y border, and person Z on the forum is openly from south of Y border, they cannot have a good-faith argument with each other. X has already stated indirectly that they hate Z, and cannot have a good-faith discussion with each other because X has already stated they do not respect their rights unless they conform to their standards.

Now, if they stated they supported and liked a policy of locking everyone up who tried to cross Y border because of N economic reasons, or something, then you could have a reasonable discussion with them based on merit and facts, assuming both sides are open to having their mind changed. (I mean, we are talking mostly hypothetically anyways)

And again, there are more reasons than just "bad-faith" to not want someone openly spouting or pushing bigoted or violent positions. It's how you get shitholes like 4chan and 8chan. Just because they may not be able to directly implement or change policy does not mean it's something that should be allowed.

Didn't we already establish that posters who called for the extermination of all Danes would be banned, even if they sincerely held that belief? The notion that someone should not be censured for arguing something abhorrent isn't true in the first place, so why are we arguing as though it is?

 Wolfblade wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

How is an honest and direct statement about if you support a government policy and why a bad faith argument? A bad faith argument is a negotiation tactic wherein one party deliberately misleads the other in order to gain an advantage or sabotage negotiations. If poster X writes a post that states "I believe policy Y is a good idea because I hate everyone who lives south of the US border." because that is an honest representation of poster X's view on the subject that is not bad faith. That's a true statement about their opinion on an issue. It may be a morally repugnant opinion but if it's true it's not bad faith.

Because there's nothing to have a good-faith discussion about, and the most that can be done is essentially insult the user because anything they say to support such a statement is most likely bigoted. If it's not promoting good faith, it's almost certainly bad-faith. By your overly literal and technical interpretation of the term "bad faith" using logical fallacies would be fine, so long as they truly believed what they were saying. But we know that isn't the case, and you even say so later. Furthermore, the Wikipedia article you linked even explains there's a lot more to bad faith than the snippet you linked. I also want to highlight from your quote from cato.org, bold mine:

BAD FAITH: A “Bad Faith” discussion is one in which one or both of the parties has
a hidden, unrevealed agenda—often to dominate or coerce the other individual into
compliance or acquiescence of some sort—or lacks basic respect for the rights, dignity,
or autonomy of the other party. Disrespect for the other party may include dishonesty. A
person engaged in bad faith does not accept the other person as s/he is, but demands
that s/he change in order to satisfy his/her requirements or to accept his/her will.

Again, bold mine. If, for example, person X is saying they hate everyone south of Y border and supports locking all of them up in inhumane conditions if they try to cross Y border, and person Z on the forum is openly from south of Y border, they cannot have a good-faith argument with each other. X has already stated indirectly that they hate Z, and cannot have a good-faith discussion with each other because X has already stated they do not respect their rights unless they conform to their standards.

Now, if they stated they supported and liked a policy of locking everyone up who tried to cross Y border because of N economic reasons, or something, then you could have a reasonable discussion with them based on merit and facts, assuming both sides are open to having their mind changed. (I mean, we are talking mostly hypothetically anyways)

And again, there are more reasons than just "bad-faith" to not want someone openly spouting or pushing bigoted or violent positions. It's how you get shitholes like 4chan and 8chan. Just because they may not be able to directly implement or change policy does not mean it's something that should be allowed.

Allowing more viewpoints and honest declarations of views and opinions benefits the discussion. Dismissing and marginalizing objectionable views merely gifts them with the secrecy they need to fester and metastasize. Abhorrent views should be challenged that’s how they can be changed. A famous example of this would be https://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/544861933/how-one-man-convinced-200-ku-klux-klan-members-to-give-up-their-robes" target="_new" rel="nofollow">Daryl Davis who has had a tremendously positive impact on hundreds of lives directly and even more lives through the ripple effect of those interactions that never would have taken place if he had deemed those people unworthy of engagement because of their racist views.

Of course that doesn’t mean that every discussion should be treated as a zero sum game of rhetorical combat. Discussions don’t have to change anyone’s minds to be positive worthwhile interactions.

Prestor Jon wrote:

Allowing more viewpoints and honest declarations of views and opinions benefits the discussion. Dismissing and marginalizing objectionable views merely gifts them with the secrecy they need to fester and metastasize. Abhorrent views should be challenged that’s how they can be changed. A famous example of this would be https://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/544861933/how-one-man-convinced-200-ku-klux-klan-members-to-give-up-their-robes" target="_new" rel="nofollow">Daryl Davis who has had a tremendously positive impact on hundreds of lives directly and even more lives through the ripple effect of those interactions that never would have taken place if he had deemed those people unworthy of engagement because of their racist views.

Of course that doesn’t mean that every discussion should be treated as a zero sum game of rhetorical combat. Discussions don’t have to change anyone’s minds to be positive worthwhile interactions.

To a certain point, if the person is open to their mind being changed, I'd agree. But that's clearly not a common thing. I mean your example, while a great thing to get people to give up and reject bigotry, has taken place over 30 years. That's roughly only 6-7 per year, by someone who is essentially a professional at it, and in what I can only assume were face-to-face interactions, which are FAR more personal than our mostly anonymous message board postings. On top of that, people in hate groups who interact with people they claim to hate (and know they are, unlike online interactions) are more likely to change their views too. Basically, it's not a great example, and you shouldn't expect anyone to de-radicalize via online interaction because everything that was there that helped someone reject their racist views just isn't there in an online forum. There's a reason that red-pilling is a mostly online thing. To radicalize someone, you usually only need something flashy that sounds good and appeals to the notion that they're under attack while deradicalizing them relies on a personal connection with that person to show them that the group they hate really isn't that awful and gets them to question their hate which can take years.

tl;dr: an online forum does not offer the same level of engagement and benefits that let Daryl Davis succeed in deradicalizing a little more than a handful of people per year.

Yeah a lot of people are not willing to be convinced. They will present a claim that will be 'dismissed' or 'marginalized' by a half dozen posters pointing out the logical flaws, providing evidence to the contrary, and revealing how the claim has no legitimacy whatsoever. And the person who made that claim will continue to make it, continue to insist they are right based on lies, and continually try to insert themselves into the conversation with their theory that was completely and utterly debunked. Then say they are being persecuted when others don't take them seriously anymore.

Politics got introduced to this debate, and look at how quickly things ended up back to the norm of the old politics. Yeah this is why I generally fight against any idea that it should come back at all.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Yeah a lot of people are not willing to be convinced. They will present a claim that will be 'dismissed' or 'marginalized' by a half dozen posters pointing out the logical flaws, providing evidence to the contrary, and revealing how the claim has no legitimacy whatsoever. And the person who made that claim will continue to make it, continue to insist they are right based on lies, and continually try to insert themselves into the conversation with their theory that was completely and utterly debunked. Then say they are being persecuted when others don't take them seriously anymore.

Yep.

Let’s see how it works out on RITides’ board.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Yeah a lot of people are not willing to be convinced. They will present a claim that will be 'dismissed' or 'marginalized' by a half dozen posters pointing out the logical flaws, providing evidence to the contrary, and revealing how the claim has no legitimacy whatsoever. And the person who made that claim will continue to make it, continue to insist they are right based on lies, and continually try to insert themselves into the conversation with their theory that was completely and utterly debunked. Then say they are being persecuted when others don't take them seriously anymore.

In those situations it’s spawned more problems, it’s turned into spamming the thread and thread derailment/off topic problems. That occurs throughout the board whether it was politics or GW pricing or primaris releases or faction support etc. Those are the type of people that need to be put on ignore and be contacted by mods about their posting habits. Everyone deserves to be allowed to be heard and participate until they prove that they are unable or unwilling to do so. That is a behavior issue not a content issue. I bring up behavior vs content to tie this back to my discussion with wolf blade I realize it’s not relevant to musketeer’s post.

 insaniak wrote:

 Wolfblade wrote:
Or, by banning those who participate only in bad faith, it lets actual discussion flourish.

The problem, as discussed earlier, is recognising 'bad faith' posts. One person's 'bad faith post' is someone else's simple difference of opinion. We even saw examples of that in action in this very thread.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
I feel you. That was made all too clear in certain threads this year. But if you have fewer rules, people have no choice but to like it or lump it. The more rules, the more people can appeal to them when they need to cry to mods when someone hurts their pride/feelings...

Allowing people to be rude to each other would not solve the problem of people taking their grudges to other parts of the forum.

To make it very, very clear - having Dakka be an environment that encourages verbal free-for-alls is the exact opposite of what the site's owners want. That is not in any way a welcoming environment, and is not what the majority of forum-goers want. People come here because it's a place to discuss their hobby. That should be an enjoyable experience, not one where you should expect to be insulted because you have a different opinion to someone else.

Expecting people to display a modicum of common courtesy while they are here really shouldn't be a big ask.

I'm not pushing for anything. Its the boss(whoever runs the show here) trainset. I signed up, so I voluntarily put myself in the rule structure.(which I believe I have followed pretty well, even in the covid thread) I just believe In less intrusion in general, these are my principles.

Prestor Jon wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Yeah a lot of people are not willing to be convinced. They will present a claim that will be 'dismissed' or 'marginalized' by a half dozen posters pointing out the logical flaws, providing evidence to the contrary, and revealing how the claim has no legitimacy whatsoever. And the person who made that claim will continue to make it, continue to insist they are right based on lies, and continually try to insert themselves into the conversation with their theory that was completely and utterly debunked. Then say they are being persecuted when others don't take them seriously anymore.

In those situations it’s spawned more problems, it’s turned into spamming the thread and thread derailment/off topic problems. That occurs throughout the board whether it was politics or GW pricing or primaris releases or faction support etc. Those are the type of people that need to be put on ignore and be contacted by mods about their posting habits. Everyone deserves to be allowed to be heard and participate until they prove that they are unable or unwilling to do so. That is a behavior issue not a content issue. I bring up behavior vs content to tie this back to my discussion with wolf blade I realize it’s not relevant to musketeer’s post.

I may have zoned out a bit during Wolfblade and your back and forth, but isn’t that what we’ve been saying from the start?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, I noticed some of SolarCross’w posts went missing in the CT thread. Since politics and bad arguing don’t get deleted, what does?

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Didn't we already establish that posters who called for the extermination of all Danes would be banned, even if they sincerely held that belief? The notion that someone should not be censured for arguing something abhorrent isn't true in the first place, so why are we arguing as though it is?

How would your example come up organically in a politics thread? I don’t see a person could fit that in, like if there was a discussion in EU fiscal policy and poster X wrote “Well we won’t have to worry about this issue after we exterminate all the Danes.” Excuse me what? What are you talking about? “The Danish menace. Surely you realize that the EU will never fulfill its glorious potential until we wipe out the vermin in our midst, the subhuman scum that reside in Denmark.”
Clearly such a person is suffering from severe problems IRL that aren’t going to be fixed by a message board. I would understand mods dealing with such a poster with at least a temp ban and an encouragement to seek help.
On the other hand if during a discussion on EU immigration and open borders within it poster X wrote “Why should EU countries give up control of their borders? What have the Danes contributes to European society beyond over rates breakfast pastry? Why should my country have to let them in just because?”
In such an instance the reputation of the wonderful people of Denmark has been impugned but I don’t think it’s really harmed the discussion. I think that instance calls for an eloquent defense of an open border policy and possibly a list of contributions from the Danish people but no disciplinary action beyond maybe a cautionary word.
Extreme behavior is obviously extreme but it’s also rare.

Prestor Jon wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Didn't we already establish that posters who called for the extermination of all Danes would be banned, even if they sincerely held that belief? The notion that someone should not be censured for arguing something abhorrent isn't true in the first place, so why are we arguing as though it is?

How would your example come up organically in a politics thread?

Who cares how it shows up? That's totally beside the point of what happens if it comes up.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Yeah a lot of people are not willing to be convinced. They will present a claim that will be 'dismissed' or 'marginalized' by a half dozen posters pointing out the logical flaws, providing evidence to the contrary, and revealing how the claim has no legitimacy whatsoever. And the person who made that claim will continue to make it, continue to insist they are right based on lies, and continually try to insert themselves into the conversation with their theory that was completely and utterly debunked. Then say they are being persecuted when others don't take them seriously anymore.

In those situations it’s spawned more problems, it’s turned into spamming the thread and thread derailment/off topic problems. That occurs throughout the board whether it was politics or GW pricing or primaris releases or faction support etc. Those are the type of people that need to be put on ignore and be contacted by mods about their posting habits. Everyone deserves to be allowed to be heard and participate until they prove that they are unable or unwilling to do so. That is a behavior issue not a content issue. I bring up behavior vs content to tie this back to my discussion with wolf blade I realize it’s not relevant to musketeer’s post.

I may have zoned out a bit during Wolfblade and your back and forth, but isn’t that what we’ve been saying from the start?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, I noticed some of SolarCross’w posts went missing in the CT thread. Since politics and bad arguing don’t get deleted, what does?

That might be what you meant but to me it came across a lot closer to preemptive band of specific people and zero tolerance for anyone who had the audacity to post a “bad faith argument.” I never migrated to the wasteland so I am ignorant of whatever transpired over there which seems to have created or exacerbated a lot of hard feelings. The thread just struck me as a lot of people coming on a little strong pushing for rules against this and that and it made me want to chime in and push back a little bit. That led to wolfblade and I engaging in what I think has been a civil and beneficial back and forth clarifying our personal views on it. If we’re working towards the same goal that’s awesome.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Wolfblade wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Didn't we already establish that posters who called for the extermination of all Danes would be banned, even if they sincerely held that belief? The notion that someone should not be censured for arguing something abhorrent isn't true in the first place, so why are we arguing as though it is?

How would your example come up organically in a politics thread?

Who cares how it shows up? That's totally beside the point of what happens if it comes up.

Why would be imperative to create a rule for a situation that is unlikely to ever occur?

Well, you may have phrased it better than the term “bad faith”, but that was what we were talking about. (And giving examples of users who posted like that enough to be a major hinderance to discussion.)

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Well, you may have phrased it better than the term “bad faith”, but that was what we were talking about. (And giving examples of users who posted like that enough to be a major hinderance to discussion.)

Yeah you guys are in agreement about not having a favorable view towards whembly’s posts. Unfortunately that’s set whembly up as the Littlefinger to RiTides’ Ned Stark. Don’t let whembly post his bad faith arguments RiTides! I am personally inviting whembly to please come post at my new politics discussion website.

I don’t know how it’s going to work out but I definitely need to buy more popcorn.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Well, you may have phrased it better than the term “bad faith”, but that was what we were talking about. (And giving examples of users who posted like that enough to be a major hinderance to discussion.)

The problem there is that relies on subjectivity, which will always be an issue

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Well, you may have phrased it better than the term “bad faith”, but that was what we were talking about. (And giving examples of users who posted like that enough to be a major hinderance to discussion.)

The problem there is that relies on subjectivity, which will always be an issue

It’s become abundantly clear that some people see much less or much more subjectivity there than others. Before creating a rule against bad faith arguments you’d need to first establish the definition of a bad faith argument. If creating such a definition is difficult than so will enforcing a rule against them.

Prestor Jon wrote:
[

 Wolfblade wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Didn't we already establish that posters who called for the extermination of all Danes would be banned, even if they sincerely held that belief? The notion that someone should not be censured for arguing something abhorrent isn't true in the first place, so why are we arguing as though it is?

How would your example come up organically in a politics thread?

Who cares how it shows up? That's totally beside the point of what happens if it comes up.

Why would be imperative to create a rule for a situation that is unlikely to ever occur?

For the same reason you have any rule. In case it does come up, you have a pre-established procedure to deal with it, instead of trying to figure it out on the fly, and so everyone knows what is and is not allowed.

Prestor Jon wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Well, you may have phrased it better than the term “bad faith”, but that was what we were talking about. (And giving examples of users who posted like that enough to be a major hinderance to discussion.)

The problem there is that relies on subjectivity, which will always be an issue

It’s become abundantly clear that some people see much less or much more subjectivity there than others. Before creating a rule against bad faith arguments you’d need to first establish the definition of a bad faith argument. If creating such a definition is difficult than so will enforcing a rule against them.

That's exactly what I was getting at, with a lot of people's definition is anyone who disagrees with them, but that has already been covered here.

Prestor Jon wrote:

Clearly such a person is suffering from severe problems IRL that aren’t going to be fixed by a message board.

That's completely subjective. Which is my entire point: you're already comfortable with making completely subjective judgments about banning subjects for the health of the discussion, you just disagree about where that line should be drawn.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

Clearly such a person is suffering from severe problems IRL that aren’t going to be fixed by a message board.

That's completely subjective. Which is my entire point: you're already comfortable with making completely subjective judgments about banning subjects for the health of the discussion, you just disagree about where that line should be drawn.

That’s a valid point. The person detailing a thread with off topic posts about the need for genocidal programs may not be suffering from anything other than a different view of what is funny or appropriate. Regardless of the motivation blatant off topic detailing posts should be discouraged. The content of such posts is irrelevant beyond identifying them as non sequiturs to the thread topic. I don’t think that is a controversial or difficult to codify and enforce position to hold.

For what it's worth, you guys rather effectively shot down my simplistic / idealistic basic ruleset and made some good points about blanket, benign rules not really working. It is going to be subjective, and for better or worse, I'll be making the subject calls to start with (on my unofficial board set up for this - which is really all that's relevant at the moment since the discussion itself isn't happening on Dakka on these topics anymore).

I'm going to do my best to put forth an environment for a solid debate and useful discussion. I'm also really not going to take into account things that happened here in the past, or at the Wasteland, etc though - I feel like that both isn't fair and in some ways isn't feasible. If someone wants to turn over a new leaf and post in a constructive manner at the ETC (I think that name is going to stick now ) then they're going to have a chance to do that. But if they're drowning everyone else out with posts that are not adding to the discussion, then I'll hopefully have a slow-mode or other feature to address it.

I'm just not going to preemptively make use of that, or keep someone from joining, or assume because they support an argument it can be extrapolated that they are a certain kind of person. It's all going to be based on what they post, and I'll try to be as attentive and nimble at the beginning as possible to steer things in the right direction.