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.
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.
Hm, I did notice it getting used on multiple chans, but I just assumed it started with voat since they used it so much more frequently.
Now that's some deep lore, haha.
And half the joke is that its so over the top edgy it ceases to be useful as a slur any longer.
There is a reason nobody there gets upset at the x-fag label. Only at whatever the X part is, because newfags are cancer.
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.
Fair enough. Ex-voaters aren't so numerous or special that they demand special risk. I think you can agree on some simple terms that reddit treats as slurs, such as "faggot" and "tranny". Not exactly intellectual labels, but they're pretty useful for communicating issues that pop up regularly. The exception you mention about pollution is acceptable to me.
I am eagerly awaiting the inevitable attacks to hit the .win network. So far, I've been pleasantly surprised with their ability to stay online. Just hosting the_donald was a damned big target. Now they're practically challenging the citadel by trying to make their own reddit (I think .win is more threatening than the other places like saidit).
Though that's their issue, a bad actor trying to remove us merely has to convince the .win admins that our presence is a liability and I don't know them personally so who knows how easy that may be. I don't think they've stopped by to lay official mandate? I assume Dom would make a sticky about it if so.
Contradiction? Or implying a total corporate takeover like cyberpunk without lasers.
From watching more niche sites struggle with foreign hosts during attacks, I don't think even america is a useful blame target. If someone wants to break your business partner that has no skin in your game aside from a one-sided contract, it won't take a federal effort to accomplish it. I hope one day we are done with all this cancel culture and deplatforming stuff.
They are useful, and they are also not very risky.
So far, as far as I know, they have been very cool. But that of course is no guarantee for the future. If we do allow more dodgy stuff, like unironic racial slurs, we may indeed become more of a liability.
Racial slurs are risky, precisely because of corporate tyranny. We don't fear that anyone will be prosecuted by the government, but that the corporate tyrants will do what they do best.
I meant the culture - the absolute hysteria about words and any sort of rational speech regarding race. Not the state per se.