Journal of Other Forum Analysis (Volume II, Issue 2)

[BIONIC]

B-Cunts has spoken:

It would be nice if the Policy update thread would ever get updated.

In the last discussion thread, I asked for the updated rules around the C word to be added to that thread, it was said it was going to happen and then never did? And something like the speculating on mental decline and 51st state jokes would be good to have there as a reminder.

Otherwise sometimes some rules feel like a gotcha and a "Well if you read literally every thread you'd know" moment

This has pretty much cemented for me that I'm much better off putting my time and energy elsewhere other than here. If you can be banned for mentioning topics that aren't outlined officially anywhere and the justification is that you just "should have known", we've slipped into a power dynamic that just closely mimics the exact failings we have with modern democracy, in that the moderation team operate as they see fit and we're given avenues to voice our concerns only for those concerns to not matter at all because what the mods say goes and there is zero room for dialogue or rocking the boat.

I do not make that comparison to modern politics lightly either, especially with the slow march towards autocratic control we're seeing across much of the West. It's why this recent debacle has sickened me enough to actively post in this thread for the first time, despite the fact that a lot of these feelings have been creeping up on me for a year or so already. It sometimes feels here like you're posting with a corrupt cop peering over your shoulder just waiting for the first opportunity to nab you. I've joked before that you need legal rep to post here sometimes because you don't know if using a word or talking about a topic will get you banned for reasons you literally would never have conceived of, and the fact that the rules aren't clearly outlined is very convenient for shaping discussions in ways you do or don't want them to go.

There is no reason the letter of the law should not be posted clearly and concisely for everyone to see. It's a god damned web forum. We aren't dealing with state secrets and infohazards.

And for anyone who reads this and feels like I'm over-politicising things here, yeah I'm full aware of that. Frankly it's quite hard not to.

I feel awkward saying this considering you’re complaining about rules not being available and transparent but comparing mods to cops will get you banned.

Thanks for the warning and it is genuinely appreciated.

Ironically it isn't like that didn't cross my mind also. At this point to me it would feel like a reinforcement of what I'm talking about. That criticising the opaqueness and the unpredictability of the forum's moderation, even just through an analogy that I think is fairly warranted and is not imo logically fallacious, would not be tolerated. That itself is a very large part of the wider general problem I feel is worth raising.

I would however think that this thread would be the safe place to say this, though, especially when the intent isn't to be inflammatory but to highlight that I think a lot of work needs to be done to a place I enjoy coming to but increasingly feel uncomfortable taking part in.

Moderation has always been a moving target, at no point was there an exhaustive list of all the things that could get you into trouble. It has also always greatly depended on context. It is entirely unreasonable to expect us to write all this down in a neat jurisprudence way.

There's basically two guidelines, where if you follow them you will never get banned:

1. Don't be a jackass
   
2. Don't be a bigot
   

Those basically sum up the expected behavior in the FAQ in broad strokes and most of what we do falls under one of those two categories. Most users easily follow these guidelines and have never received so much as a warning, let alone a ban. Heck, most of the people that post the most have never even been reported, let alone actioned. One of the major problems is that a lot of people feel like, so long as they are on what they view as the correct side of an issue, regardless of how inconsequential that issue is, that it gives them the right to break one or both of these rules. We might give a little bit of leeway when it comes to calling out bigots, but a lot of people take it way too far and as a result we wind up having to step in.

As for why we aren't actioning the suicide posts, it's because those are just examples of black humor and not making light of suicide. Most of the posts being talked about are a Spider-Man reference or a Simpsons reference or a reference from The Office. Trump wasn't on that roof because he was having a mental health emergency, he was up there because he was mapping out locations for that stupid ballroom he wants to build. As such, the posts weren't making light of suicide, but joking about how the scene closely mirrored scenes from popular media and how much people hate him because of all the horrible things he does on a daily basis.

If anyone does actually make light of a mental health emergency, that would obviously be actionable because it falls under the "don't be a jackass" category of moderation, but that isn't what was going on there.