About nine months ago this lifeboat came into existence following massive purges by Reddit admins against non-establishment conforming materials. Those purges never ended, which is why this particular forum has become the overall bastion for KIA2/GG materials.
On the creation of this site we were presented a set of 16 rules which we, the users, were questioned about. Overwhelming we found that the rules were overbearing and redundant.
Many of these rules are redundant, unnecessary, or bad.
The most obvious of which is that there are THREE rules covering NSFW/pornographic material. It was pointed out by myself as well as numerous other users that these were redundant and pointless, and the assumption was that these would be changed as the rules were simply temporary.
It's nine months on.
Those are only the most egregiously obvious.
The reason I make this post today is that our rules are so open-ended and confusing that even our illustrious mods have no idea WTF they mean.
I was personally banned for a day for a rule 15 violation after which u/DomitiusOfMassilia/ admitted he misunderstood what the rule meant. Immediately after I watched him make the same mistake with another. Now, a week after, I notice that the majority of action is taken under rules 2, 15, and 16. Almost all content removals are based on slurs/bad language/insults.
This post is largely upvoted while Dom's statement of removal is largely downvoted. That's just one example. This is becoming far too common. Please do not make the same mistakes that murdered KIA1.
Note that I am not calling out Dom specifically. I think the rules themselves are dogshit tier and must be fixed. I like this community, even if I do think you're a bunch of faggots. And goddamnit u/TheImpossible1 there's no women involved here so kindly fuck off.
Can we please have a serious discussion about our rules and the impacts that they have, and FIX THEM? We do not need SIXTEEN RULES, especially when it's clear not even our mods understand them all.
You don't have another choice...
This is the case for about 80%-90% of all rule enforcements both here, and on Reddit. That isn't really going to mean anything to me when I can expect that response from basically any enforcement action, regardless of how egregious it is or not.
Typically the only times I get upvoted responses is when someone is a Leftist agitator and is explicitly violating the rules (meaning I have to tell them off), or if it's an annoying bot that I have to ban.
Rule 2, 15, and 16 happen to be the most violated rules. Typically because it's not totally uncommon for someone to post angrily...
I tried to be as specific as possible in the rules, that's why there are 16 of them in the first place. By creating specificity, I am deliberately disabling myself from adding subjective interpretation, and preventing myself from
If I eliminate rules, I guarantee subjective enforcement. I'm going to allow myself to do that because it will end in arbitrary and tyrannical enforcement.
Specificity -> More specific written rules -> strict enforcement -> no unwritten rules
Vagueness -> Few generalized written rules -> broad subjective enforcement -> vast unwritten rules
That's a trade off that you can't avoid. The first is preferable. It's why Reddit claims they have 9 rules, and our Revised Code has closer to, like 50 or more. We're actually identifying what is actually against the rules by being specific. It's also why the number of rules keeps going up.
That's actually one of the reasons that I haven't created a list of slurs. The Euphemism treadmill exists, and I will need to cover almost every slur I can think of. I've actually done this before in a time long ago in a very different place. The slur list will probably be over 1,000 slurs long. It will take a significant amount of work to detail them all. Given the Euphamism Treadmill, we'll probably have to have some sort of system to add or remove slurs every so often.
I want to explain a fraction of this phenomenon, as it may not be obvious to you. If you delete a comment, we can't tell if it was really justified (there were tools to check on reddit, but not here) in being removed. We could trust you..but I hope you'll agree that some skepticism is healthy. And I know you're not in a great spot there, because this is not a free speech site, as much as I and others might like it to be.
So what about the votes? It's just the little evidence available. If someone is being a big troll or agitator, that leaves a clear trail and so it's simple enough to give you a pat on the back for cleaning up. If I can't see any evidence and an otherwise interesting or entertaining conversation is cut short or partially erased, I'm gonna be irritated and lean towards you overreacting. It's not really fair, but it's part of being a janny that you seem capable of handling.
Relatedly: can we get a modlog here? That's a great confidence-building tool.
I think you should be prepared to make an exception based on context. Example: "niggerfaggot" is a signal-label from voat, which carries no real negative charge to it. Though you do specify "angry" posting, so I guess that'd be obvious enough.
We have an official mod log, but I don't think it's public.
I am prepared for that, but it may need to be written down to be sure.
Definitely. However, then OP can also not cite downvoting of DoM as proof that users disagree with his call.
The problem is not really with what is 'really' offensive, but what can be used against us. If one has to be inducted into the minutiae of signal-labels from Voat to realize that something has no real negative charge (e.g. I was unaware of this), then it is a very potent weapon to wield against us.
That said, some slurs are more dangerous than others.
I know. I think killroy knew it was a weak argument himself. While I think a democratically-moderated forum is an interesting idea, it's not what we've signed up for here.
Mm, a fair point. It shouldn't demand special knowledge. They use it as a weird sort of aggressive endearment, close to how one might shit talk a friend during a game. Anyone using it differently shouldn't get a pass just for using the term itself. So it ends up coming down to demanding the moderator investigate context/motive every time, which seems like a failure due to exhaustive effort.
I wouldn't be able to support a zero tolerance ban because even I can use a slur to be crass sometimes. Other times I can try to explain the behaviors implied in the slurs. I could compromise on banning "low effort slur usage", because it should be apparent if the person is making a genuine communicative effort, even though the compromise would mean I lose some slack in speech allowance.
I hate this, but since you argued weaponization, I have to agree. Whether it be actual feds, discord trannies, or asspained autists, there do exist simple language superweapons. Even if zero people care when some shit gets flung here, if the wrong outsider takes a look it could cause some trouble. Even modern imageboards have to learn to deal with this angle, and they're supposed to be the free speech bastions. Though they usually get taken out with obvious things like cp spam and declarations of homicide, rather than some charged labels.
I'm very wary of the optics angle, but I can't advocate for others to take a stand when I think they'll be fighting a losing battle.
I fear we're approaching the day when it's actually illegal in the US to use slurs, in which case we'd be forced to comply as part of the .win network rules. So it may not be a matter for us to discuss after a while.
I recognize niggerfaggot as just something that I saw on 4chan for years. Eventually something reaches the point of simply being jargon or parlance from another website where it was allowed to grow, and it becomes normal to use, like Oldfag and Newfag.
I also recognize Niggerfaggot as the name a NSFW MLP artist used for a while (don't know if they're still around). The fireworks over that name was hilarious to watch every time it came up.
Some stuff should be democratic, other stuff cannot be - or at least is very risky. E.g. we cannot let users vote on the sitewides. But if users do not want a rule of choice, it should generally be up to them.
It is not even that. I can investigate it, determine that it's not 'bad', and the admins will still decide that it's bad. Or if we are here, the people contacting the hosting services will seize on it, and the hosting services are not going to investigate it. They just want to avoid bad press.
Of course, this applies to any number of things. But then one has to determine to what extent something adds value, which justifies taking some measure of risk. Honestly, I don't think users calling people 'niggerfaggot' adds that much to justify taking any risk with the sub.
I don't think we're going to get a zero tolerance policy. Slurs should be allowed. Within reason. That said, if a user unironically calls someone 'faggot' in every single comment, in my view that is undesirable for reasons of sub pollution alone.
Racial slurs are too risky. Don't blame me, blame America.
This is not really 'optics'. It's more: what can we do to prevent being taken down. That said, if every comment is 'nigger this nigger that', that does create some optics problems. We want to be able to attract people here.
That's the good thing about your Constitution. That will never be the case. Corporate tyranny is where it's at.