Journal of Other Forum Analysis (Volume II, Issue 1)

[HaughtyFrank]

Hello everyone! We're coming up on our 4th anniversary this month and I almost can't believe it's been that long. It feels like we got started yesterday. It feels like we've been doing this forever. Two years ago I stepped down as General Manager and I've tried to leave the day-to-day management of the site to the staff as much as possible, but I've still been doing what I can to help and to ensure that the technical and logistical needs of the site were being met.

The pressure of being the sole owner of ResetEra has always remained, however, and personal health concerns have made it increasingly difficult to shoulder that on my own. I've wrestled with this decision for a long time now, but when I'm honest with myself I know I won't be able to keep doing this forever. The right thing to do was to find a responsible buyer for the site.

It never stops being funny

I love how he just disappeared. Didn't give a rats ass about the forum itself

[Cauliflower Of Love]

thanks alot mullvad

[Snoopy]

I wonder how you would explain to your wife you sold your shares to your ex business partner so you could buy Fallout 76 Collectors Edition and he’s run off with 4 million.

[Besticus Maximus]

I wonder how you would explain to your wife you sold your shares to your ex business partner so you could buy Fallout 76 Collectors Edition and he’s run off with 4 million.

Easy, you break the news on discord 

[Alpacx]

Dubs in the Constructive Community Discussion thread:

Two things, this whole "we want to put mods on ignore" thing is part of why more people don't talk in here at all. I mean, damn guys. We're all really feeling the love.

Second, if I can be brutally honest, you all still blame each other for the election and so treat each other like crap. Stop doing that.

It also doesn't help that people bring their arguments from bluesky or Twitter or whatever onto Era. Or that you guys use Era as a battlefield for your discord wars.

You can't even say we don't ban people for being jerks because we very blatantly do. The problem is that some of you feel like being jerks is totally justified because you feel "in the right" and that it gives you free rein to be a jerk. The number of times I've been quoted and the person has totally misrepresented what I posted is absurd and it's largely because you guys are all on discord with your buddies and convince each other that someone is saying something they haven't actually said. Or you're just assuming that they're making the same point that someone you saw on Twitter make.

Heck, in this thread we literally had people argue that they should be allowed to be jerks.

Beyond that, it really doesn't help when you guys rush into a thread about something that should be fun and immediately try and turn it to shit. Stop doing that.

B-Dubs you have no one to blame but yourself for letting the trans mafia run the place with the longest leash of all time.

Imagine posting this the day after that Nepenthe "and I know you didn't pick up a book" attack on Embiid went without notice.

[Cauliflower Of Love]

let me see what i can do

[Cheers]

10 million are still millions. But countries are fraction of the size and population of the US are protesting more about less.

How many of them actually accomplish their goals? 

In Mexico, protesting has become almost institutionalized to the point of only union leaders, organizers and politicians benefit from it. A far cry when people actually died in those protests like 40 years ago, know they are almost daily controlled events in the capital.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/politco-trump-team-pauses-new-student-visa-interviews-worldwide-as-it-weighs-expanding-social-media-vetting.1199952/#post-140534577

He got a two month ban

User Banned (2 Months): Continued trolling and thread derailment after just coming off a ban for the same behavior.

And I ask my weekly questions:

Where are the protests?

Upgraded:

User Banned (Permanent): Continued trolling and thread derailment after just coming off a ban for the same behavior, created alt.

[BIONIC]

Dubs in the Constructive Community Discussion thread:

Two things, this whole "we want to put mods on ignore" thing is part of why more people don't talk in here at all. I mean, damn guys. We're all really feeling the love.

Second, if I can be brutally honest, you all still blame each other for the election and so treat each other like crap. Stop doing that.

It also doesn't help that people bring their arguments from bluesky or Twitter or whatever onto Era. Or that you guys use Era as a battlefield for your discord wars.

You can't even say we don't ban people for being jerks because we very blatantly do. The problem is that some of you feel like being jerks is totally justified because you feel "in the right" and that it gives you free rein to be a jerk. The number of times I've been quoted and the person has totally misrepresented what I posted is absurd and it's largely because you guys are all on discord with your buddies and convince each other that someone is saying something they haven't actually said. Or you're just assuming that they're making the same point that someone you saw on Twitter make.

Heck, in this thread we literally had people argue that they should be allowed to be jerks.

Beyond that, it really doesn't help when you guys rush into a thread about something that should be fun and immediately try and turn it to shit. Stop doing that.

B-Dubs you have no one to blame but yourself for letting the trans mafia run the place with the longest leash of all time.

So, just to have it reiterated first, I think the request to put mods on ignore is a bit silly and not something I've ever seen on any other forum. It's very obviously something staff wouldn't feel incentivized to work on and if I were in your position, I'd consider it a bit rude as well. So I get where you're coming from here and I've expressed in this thread and the last that this is the type of reaction it's likely to generate.

So with that being said, I think it's worth looking a bit deeper into why this request is so prominent. Well, I think one of the reasons is the need some people here have to erase from view everything they aren't personally interested in. I imagine the people who talk about having 300 people blocked and who put any thread mentioning anime or comics on Ignore rather than just scroll past it make up a large number of the people asking to be able to ignore a staff member they personally dislike.

I don't think that's the only thing going on, though. I think there are also people who feel that the way moderation is handled on Era has led to a culture where they are actively uncomfortable in the presence of mods. To be clear, I don't think that's necessarily fair, especially for a lot of mods who came later, and as I said in my previous post I'm against the notion that mods shouldn't be able to interact as normal members of a community. But at the same time, it's kind of frustrating how every time this thing comes up, the blame is put solely on the users and this uncharitable interpretation is painted over them.

I'd like to point to the below part of your post for a moment:

First of all, yes. This absolutely happens. I've seen it happen to several members of staff and it's ridiculous. There are clearly some ridiculous people on this forum who demand too much of a random Era mod and are always willing to read anything they say in the worst possible way. The thing is, you also do this to us. Not just you, I've seen staff do it from time to time all across the years I've been here. In fact, this is something that users have brought to this very thread over and over again. They constantly feel that y'all are doing this to them.

The difference, of course, is that you have the power to ban people. And the power to control the accepted interpretation of this forum. Because while you may not see it yourself, there are also many users here that look to you and the other mods (especially the admins) to guide the accepted interpretation of an event or person. And while it's probably unfair to put that on any one person, there IS a power imbalance there. And it's one that I don't think you've always handled very well. It's especially frustrating to see the complaint we bring to this thread so often, that staff have a habit of interpreting the users in the worst possible way every time, being turned around and said about us. Because at the very least, we need to admit that this is a mutual problem.

And you're even doing it right here in this very quote. You seem to have this slightly paranoid interpretation that we're all on some discord server talking shit about you and getting riled up and bringing that back to the forum. Well, I'm sure some people are. I do know there are Era discords. But I'm not really a part of any of them (I think I joined a Sonic one and then never posted there), and I'd be willing to bet money that the majority of people aren't. And even for the few that do, in turn, does criticism of them mean you don't also do this? That there aren't Staff groups where you all decide what you think a user meant and how to handle it? Isn't that the very basis of the mod team? It's just that you have the power to take action based on your interpretation.

So my point is, yes, I agree that the things you describe do happen and some users are kinda ridiculous with it. But at the same time, you do the exact same things to us while ignoring the power difference. When you post a condescending dismissal of a person based on an interpretation of something they've said that isn't accurate to their intentions, it has an impact on the culture of the forum. You have more power to shape this place than we do. At the very least, until there are changes in how both sides of this forum treat each other, this issue will only continue to grow.

Hopefully this is readable and makes sense.

[Cheers]

Dubs in the Constructive Community Discussion thread:

Two things, this whole "we want to put mods on ignore" thing is part of why more people don't talk in here at all. I mean, damn guys. We're all really feeling the love.

Second, if I can be brutally honest, you all still blame each other for the election and so treat each other like crap. Stop doing that.

It also doesn't help that people bring their arguments from bluesky or Twitter or whatever onto Era. Or that you guys use Era as a battlefield for your discord wars.

You can't even say we don't ban people for being jerks because we very blatantly do. The problem is that some of you feel like being jerks is totally justified because you feel "in the right" and that it gives you free rein to be a jerk. The number of times I've been quoted and the person has totally misrepresented what I posted is absurd and it's largely because you guys are all on discord with your buddies and convince each other that someone is saying something they haven't actually said. Or you're just assuming that they're making the same point that someone you saw on Twitter make.

Heck, in this thread we literally had people argue that they should be allowed to be jerks.

Beyond that, it really doesn't help when you guys rush into a thread about something that should be fun and immediately try and turn it to shit. Stop doing that.

B-Dubs you have no one to blame but yourself for letting the trans mafia run the place with the longest leash of all time.

So, just to have it reiterated first, I think the request to put mods on ignore is a bit silly and not something I've ever seen on any other forum. It's very obviously something staff wouldn't feel incentivized to work on and if I were in your position, I'd consider it a bit rude as well. So I get where you're coming from here and I've expressed in this thread and the last that this is the type of reaction it's likely to generate.

So with that being said, I think it's worth looking a bit deeper into why this request is so prominent. Well, I think one of the reasons is the need some people here have to erase from view everything they aren't personally interested in. I imagine the people who talk about having 300 people blocked and who put any thread mentioning anime or comics on Ignore rather than just scroll past it make up a large number of the people asking to be able to ignore a staff member they personally dislike.

I don't think that's the only thing going on, though. I think there are also people who feel that the way moderation is handled on Era has led to a culture where they are actively uncomfortable in the presence of mods. To be clear, I don't think that's necessarily fair, especially for a lot of mods who came later, and as I said in my previous post I'm against the notion that mods shouldn't be able to interact as normal members of a community. But at the same time, it's kind of frustrating how every time this thing comes up, the blame is put solely on the users and this uncharitable interpretation is painted over them.

I'd like to point to the below part of your post for a moment:

First of all, yes. This absolutely happens. I've seen it happen to several members of staff and it's ridiculous. There are clearly some ridiculous people on this forum who demand too much of a random Era mod and are always willing to read anything they say in the worst possible way. The thing is, you also do this to us. Not just you, I've seen staff do it from time to time all across the years I've been here. In fact, this is something that users have brought to this very thread over and over again. They constantly feel that y'all are doing this to them.

The difference, of course, is that you have the power to ban people. And the power to control the accepted interpretation of this forum. Because while you may not see it yourself, there are also many users here that look to you and the other mods (especially the admins) to guide the accepted interpretation of an event or person. And while it's probably unfair to put that on any one person, there IS a power imbalance there. And it's one that I don't think you've always handled very well. It's especially frustrating to see the complaint we bring to this thread so often, that staff have a habit of interpreting the users in the worst possible way every time, being turned around and said about us. Because at the very least, we need to admit that this is a mutual problem.

And you're even doing it right here in this very quote. You seem to have this slightly paranoid interpretation that we're all on some discord server talking shit about you and getting riled up and bringing that back to the forum. Well, I'm sure some people are. I do know there are Era discords. But I'm not really a part of any of them (I think I joined a Sonic one and then never posted there), and I'd be willing to bet money that the majority of people aren't. And even for the few that do, in turn, does criticism of them mean you don't also do this? That there aren't Staff groups where you all decide what you think a user meant and how to handle it? Isn't that the very basis of the mod team? It's just that you have the power to take action based on your interpretation.

So my point is, yes, I agree that the things you describe do happen and some users are kinda ridiculous with it. But at the same time, you do the exact same things to us while ignoring the power difference. When you post a condescending dismissal of a person based on an interpretation of something they've said that isn't accurate to their intentions, it has an impact on the culture of the forum. You have more power to shape this place than we do. At the very least, until there are changes in how both sides of this forum treat each other, this issue will only continue to grow.

Hopefully this is readable and makes sense.

No that makes no goddamn sense at all!

[Jansen]

https://bsky.app/profile/yurilowenthal.bsky.social/post/3lqad6pjmrs2r

And for those who keep asking, no, I will not be returning as Yosuke for the Persona 4 remake. I asked. Maybe I even begged, but they don’t want me to come back.

Lol I don't think I've seen someone in the industry confirm a game cuz they're buttmad

[HaughtyFrank]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/luke-bateman-booktok-drama-a-book-deal-with-no-manuscript-pretty-privilege-and-publishing.1200561/

Slightly famous guy gets book deal, people mad and for some reason make it specifically about race?

I like how the thread is like "Well, of course the Black people who actually wrote a book are getting fucked over by the white guy who didn't do anything."

[Daffy Duck]

How will the loonies handles this…

https://www.resetera.com/threads/the-witcher-3-wild-hunt-has-sold-over-60-million-units-cyberpunk-2-in-pre-production-dev-amount-per-project-as-of-april-30-2025.1200651/

[killamajig]

How will the loonies handles this…

https://www.resetera.com/threads/the-witcher-3-wild-hunt-has-sold-over-60-million-units-cyberpunk-2-in-pre-production-dev-amount-per-project-as-of-april-30-2025.1200651/

we need to ask kunty. he calls the shots on what games people can talk about. Its like the Pope giving an edict

[killamajig]

So, just to have it reiterated first, I think the request to put mods on ignore is a bit silly and not something I've ever seen on any other forum. It's very obviously something staff wouldn't feel incentivized to work on and if I were in your position, I'd consider it a bit rude as well. So I get where you're coming from here and I've expressed in this thread and the last that this is the type of reaction it's likely to generate.

So with that being said, I think it's worth looking a bit deeper into why this request is so prominent. Well, I think one of the reasons is the need some people here have to erase from view everything they aren't personally interested in. I imagine the people who talk about having 300 people blocked and who put any thread mentioning anime or comics on Ignore rather than just scroll past it make up a large number of the people asking to be able to ignore a staff member they personally dislike.

I don't think that's the only thing going on, though. I think there are also people who feel that the way moderation is handled on Era has led to a culture where they are actively uncomfortable in the presence of mods. To be clear, I don't think that's necessarily fair, especially for a lot of mods who came later, and as I said in my previous post I'm against the notion that mods shouldn't be able to interact as normal members of a community. But at the same time, it's kind of frustrating how every time this thing comes up, the blame is put solely on the users and this uncharitable interpretation is painted over them.

I'd like to point to the below part of your post for a moment:

First of all, yes. This absolutely happens. I've seen it happen to several members of staff and it's ridiculous. There are clearly some ridiculous people on this forum who demand too much of a random Era mod and are always willing to read anything they say in the worst possible way. The thing is, you also do this to us. Not just you, I've seen staff do it from time to time all across the years I've been here. In fact, this is something that users have brought to this very thread over and over again. They constantly feel that y'all are doing this to them.

The difference, of course, is that you have the power to ban people. And the power to control the accepted interpretation of this forum. Because while you may not see it yourself, there are also many users here that look to you and the other mods (especially the admins) to guide the accepted interpretation of an event or person. And while it's probably unfair to put that on any one person, there IS a power imbalance there. And it's one that I don't think you've always handled very well. It's especially frustrating to see the complaint we bring to this thread so often, that staff have a habit of interpreting the users in the worst possible way every time, being turned around and said about us. Because at the very least, we need to admit that this is a mutual problem.

And you're even doing it right here in this very quote. You seem to have this slightly paranoid interpretation that we're all on some discord server talking shit about you and getting riled up and bringing that back to the forum. Well, I'm sure some people are. I do know there are Era discords. But I'm not really a part of any of them (I think I joined a Sonic one and then never posted there), and I'd be willing to bet money that the majority of people aren't. And even for the few that do, in turn, does criticism of them mean you don't also do this? That there aren't Staff groups where you all decide what you think a user meant and how to handle it? Isn't that the very basis of the mod team? It's just that you have the power to take action based on your interpretation.

So my point is, yes, I agree that the things you describe do happen and some users are kinda ridiculous with it. But at the same time, you do the exact same things to us while ignoring the power difference. When you post a condescending dismissal of a person based on an interpretation of something they've said that isn't accurate to their intentions, it has an impact on the culture of the forum. You have more power to shape this place than we do. At the very least, until there are changes in how both sides of this forum treat each other, this issue will only continue to grow.

Hopefully this is readable and makes sense.

Bdubs ....

[Eric Cartman]

Hammerstein is also pretty stupid:

But to answer your question, I mean the problem we're having these days is that an awful lot of people seem to be ok with nazis. Yeah. Used to be nobody fucked with nazis. No matter where you were on the political spectrum, or how much you understood about european colonialism - you didn't fuck with nazis. Now, everyone is all, "I just use the nazi guy to keep up with the sports." And I'm telling you millions of people are going to die.

Is more like: "I bought a car from the Nazi company" or "we went to the moon with help of a Nazi".

Can't help but feel the devaluing of the word nazi has also had a boy-crying-wolf effect.

Eras favorite nazi bar anecdote was talking about, like, fucking skinhead biker gangs with iron cross and HH tatoos and shit. Fucked up people on the literal fringe of society.

But the way era fling 'nazi' around...
Did an okay sign in a photo? That's a paddlin'.
Played one of the biggest selling games of last year, based on one of the worlds most recognisable IPs? That's a paddlin'.
Forgot my dipping sauce? Oh, you better believe that's a paddlin'.

[benji]

You in particular don't remember anything of note because I told you last time we talked to fucking read and I know you haven't picked up a book since then.

Regardless, those people were wrong about I/P, and I was saying as such. They weren't inherently wrong about Liz Cheney, because Liz Cheney was meant as a desperate swing to appeal to conservatives, and no one was falling for that shit.

Like any book at all? She's never specified. Not the title, not the author, not the subject, etc.

[Eric Cartman]

Anybody touting UBI without costing is full of shit.

15,000/year per person with a modest phaseout rate is "costs as much as what the federal government already spends on everything else."

I don't think Era would be happy living in their utopia on $15k.

UBI actually has sort of broad support from the entire political spectrum - the left obviously see it as a comprehensive social security net, so no surprise there, but the right also see the appeal in that it dramatically simplifies benefits by completely replacing them.

You don't need to spend anything on investigating claimants or setting targets or anything like that - everybody gets a basic living wage off the bat, and if you are gainfully employed you keep everything you make after that (removing the disincentives to work trap a lot of low income social security can inadvertently create).

Most of the real world trials have been pretty successful AFAIK.
Its biggest blocker is the 'free money' kneejerk reaction, even though a lot of people already get that in terms of more complicated rebate type stuff, which is inherently iniquitous because not everyone knows what benefits are allowed at what threshholds and how to apply for them etc.

[benji]

You in particular don't remember anything of note because I told you last time we talked to fucking read and I know you haven't picked up a book since then.

Regardless, those people were wrong about I/P, and I was saying as such. They weren't inherently wrong about Liz Cheney, because Liz Cheney was meant as a desperate swing to appeal to conservatives, and no one was falling for that shit.

Read a book huh? Well, I read this one and it said you don't know what you're talking about:


edit: Remember, you aren't supposed to be reading history books:

https://www.resetera.com/threads/fatima-houssana-and-9-of-her-family-members-murdered-24-hours-after-film-accepted-in-cannes-festival.1167453/#post-138677715

I was discussing this earlier, but one of the few upsides of the modern internet is the amount of recording, cataloguing, and direct participation within political and cultural discourse that happens is unprecedented in human history, and narratives are harder to take root without willful ignorance or malice at play. Capitalists and their pet politicians cannot just write convenient history books that rely on the passage of time and propagandization to whitewash their crimes when the far more entertaining TikTok is there showcasing the truth in 4K. I am genuinely curious to see, even in 10-15 years, what a historical look-back on Gaza is going to look like. "I was there." "I marched." "I was against this." You sure about that? Where's the proof? Oh, you were actually on a video game forum telling people to ignore Gaza during the election season? Hmm.

[HaughtyFrank]

I'm not disagreeing with anything you're saying. But I think it's okay to say that while this kind of scenario always bites BIPOC the hardest it sucks for everyone who is putting in the work and not getting the benefits that someone who can come in with that head start just gets right off the bat.

I think it's a little bit dismissive to go "everyone is getting screwed" in a topic that we all apparently recognize hurts by BIPOC people more, especially when the video the topic is framed around was done by a Black woman.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/luke-bateman-booktok-drama-a-book-deal-with-no-manuscript-pretty-privilege-and-publishing.1200561/post-140569221

Exmod Volimar trying his hardest to not get banned (the magical words "dismissive" have been spoken) for daring to tell Nepenthe that a publishing deal like this kind of screws everyone over who isn't famous.

Edit: I spoke too soon

I'm recognizing how much it hurt BIPOC in pretty much every post I make but if you want to call it dismissive because I think that these kinds of deals hurt all authors who don't get the benefit of having 100,000 followers when they're trying to negotiate a book deal then go ahead. I'm not though. And I'm not going to put up with having you say that I am when it's factually not true. Since I can't ignore an admin, please do us both the courtesy of not addressing me anymore.

[Eric Cartman]

Listen to Black people. That'd be a good place to start. Because somehow, some way, the shit that leaves y'all constantly Bamboozled is never a mystery nor surprise to us.

When we tell y'all Fetterman is a fraud, listen to us.

When we tell y'all David Hogg is an ineffective showboat, listen to us.

When we tell y'all your leftist movements aren't recognizeable to us, and they really should be, listen to us.

When we tell y'all Jussie Smollet was definitely a real victim, listen to us.

When we tell y'all killing an old homeless man is just a little chaos, listen to us.

When we tell y'all publicly bitch slapping a dude at a work event because he made 2 jokes about your wife over the span of 20 years is appropriate, listen to us.

The more you listen to us, the more you'll realise what absolute fucking idiots we are. Y'all.

[Eric Cartman]

Dubs in the Constructive Community Discussion thread:

Two things, this whole "we want to put mods on ignore" thing is part of why more people don't talk in here at all. I mean, damn guys. We're all really feeling the love.

Second, if I can be brutally honest, you all still blame each other for the election and so treat each other like crap. Stop doing that.

It also doesn't help that people bring their arguments from bluesky or Twitter or whatever onto Era. Or that you guys use Era as a battlefield for your discord wars.

You can't even say we don't ban people for being jerks because we very blatantly do. The problem is that some of you feel like being jerks is totally justified because you feel "in the right" and that it gives you free rein to be a jerk. The number of times I've been quoted and the person has totally misrepresented what I posted is absurd and it's largely because you guys are all on discord with your buddies and convince each other that someone is saying something they haven't actually said. Or you're just assuming that they're making the same point that someone you saw on Twitter make.

Heck, in this thread we literally had people argue that they should be allowed to be jerks.

Beyond that, it really doesn't help when you guys rush into a thread about something that should be fun and immediately try and turn it to shit. Stop doing that.

B-Dubs you have no one to blame but yourself for letting the trans mafia run the place with the longest leash of all time.

[benji]

I'd love to see any evidence of "Black people" especially the ones on ResetERA.com sayin those things about Fetterman or Hogg before 2023.

[Eric Cartman]

Persoanlly, I can forgive Embiid not taking someones words as advice to improve their literacy when being told "Like, read a book nigga" by a forum adminstrator as an apropos of nothing response terminating a discussion

[benji]

This is like the only thread about David Hogg I found from before this month: https://www.resetera.com/threads/david-hogg-is-a-national-treasure.372417/

[killamajig]

I'm sure I've said it before, but I appreciate/respect your posts Nola and wish more people would take the time to read/understand them.

Response to...
https://www.resetera.com/threads/taylor-lorenz-somebody-needs-to-do-it.1199367/page-5#post-140569839

I don't think this was always the case, at least on the broad left in America.

Storytime warning about what I will call the emergent schism on the left

(which I am trying to be fair and steel manning the argument/explanation):


Spoiler
When I first came onto the internet it was actually a fairly big point of pride amongst liberals and leftists in America and in almost every community I found that had some level of intelligent political discourse to be able to articulate your ideological position and be willing to hold people in your own political party to account.


It was often a big point of pride to contrast with Republicans who were mostly NPC's just regurgitating either Fox News talking points, Bush propaganda, or whatever Rush Limbaugh said.


Libertarians that disagreed with the Bush Admin's war would also stake out this contrast and so a lot of online debates were between liberals and leftists and ideological libertarians. Republicans were increasingly just the brainwashed cancer of US politics on the internet.



Something really changed during Obama and then fell off the deep end with Trump.



I think with Obama you had a sense(rightly so) of him being unfairly maligned from all angles in a way that was much more vicious than recent presidents like Clinton and so people that really believed in him really felt a need to circle the wagons to defend him.


Which often led to infighting on the left too. Where people still rooted in an ideals first politics on the left would feel obligated to hold him account on drone strikes, or his questionable pre-emptive rightward conciliatory negotiating practices, his deference to neoliberal arguments, or talk about how he marketed himself as a visionary New Deal reformist but governed as a neoliberal institutionalist and incrementalist.


This fracturing further gets exacerbated with Bernie's run in 2016 where it did really feel like it created a formal fault line for where the left orientated anti-Bush, anti-Iraq War coalition could collapse and sort into.


Progressive Institutionalist pragmatists vs New Deal/Socialist Reformists.


People still believing Obama's type of governing incrementalism and neoliberal pragmaticism was the best path to win elections and reach the largely shared ideals like UHC, social justice, ending Citizens United, immigration reform, safety net enhancement etc. Pointing to things they viewed as validation of that like the ACA, CHIP, and Obama's blue wall. Others on the left believing that that particular approach conceded too many arguments and principles to the right unnecessarily, was losing focus on the ideals, losing focus on the hunger people had for big reform, were becoming too captured and comfortable to the corruption of moneyed influence, and was imperiling larger systemic stability and party credibility by ignoring the systemic issues and immiserative sentiments that were manifesting from decades of neoliberal capitalism under both parties.



Then Trump shows up with his cult following that takes the Bush cult worship after 9/11 to another level with a layer of depravity and incivility our politics hasn't seen in our lives. Combine this with a Dem Party increasingly captured and critically dependent on big moneyed interests, then Trump breaking that blue wall and winning in 2016, and what emerges is a decay of ideological politics within the party itself and the rise of resistance politics as the core Democratic Party and Progressive Institutionalist identity.



But leftist politics still remains heavily centered around outcome and reformist orientated politics. And it's a well understood concept that the party most aligned with you is going to be the more persuadable party to push, so a lot of criticism emanates from the left to the Dem Leadership and liberals defending them.

Which Resistance Dems do not like.


Institutionalist Resistance Dems, many already conditioned to rationalize Dem Party policy as necessary pragmaticism(even as that pragmaticism was increasingly orientated around donor interests), increasingly don't want to hear anything if it doesn't pertain to fighting Trump. Especially as the 2024 election approaches.

People on the reformist left argue defeating Trump shouldn't come at the expense of sacrificing principles like opposing genocide or require bending the knee on social justice or long held ideological projects like UHC. That the Dem Party as an institution has fallen from grace and that to actually build lasting support requires challenging the Dem institution and forcing it to re-orientate a return to class based economic based messaging, civil rights, and directly speaking to people's material conditions in bolder ways.

So when these two things come into conflict you get a lot of institutionalists reflexively wanting to scold leftists to fall in line and stay on message. Which for obvious reasons is shared by party elites, Dem centrists, and lots of media allies. Implied within that attack is that Dem Party messaging is 1.) correctly and optimally fine tuned for the present moment and even if not it's what we have to live with for now so therefore 2.)message discipline and total support for party candidates is a non-negotiable. Not voting for Biden/Harris becomes the highest crime imaginable. Even the act of voting non-committed in a symbolic primary or protesting the genocide is called into question as potentially being an in-kind benefit to helping fascists.


In the process they have backed into an unofficial alliance with resistance neocons, Israeli genocide defenders, centrist and right wing Dems, and moneyed interest groups that want a politics that pushes back out the anti capitalist/anti imperialist/leftist ideals regaining currency within the population and cements the Democratic Party into the Corporatist Party vs the Republican Fascist Party. Which many Resistance progressives/liberals are more than willing to play into out of their disgust at leftists for what they perceive as being a reason 2024 went the way it did.


So that is how you get threads like this with people that will earnestly say they are progressives, then spend all their calories attacking someone like Taylor Lorenz and use as justification the lack of civility and decorum toward someone like Biden


That is how you get an onslaught of Dems that descended on Jon Stewart with intense vilification for acknowledging the elephant in the room about Biden's age and unpopularity


That is how you get self describing progressive people that will demand others to fall in line behind Biden/Harris and literally put their fingers in their ears to drown out the chants of Gaza protestors while positioning themselves as the morally superior person within such dynamics.


That is how you get entire cultural communities like LeopardsEatingFaces that channels the emerging nihilism and grief processing of Trump winning a second term and lashing out at anyone that broke rank. Be it Taylor Lorenz or a Palestinian in Michigan with relatives in Gaza.


Additional Thoughts lol


Spoiler
There is validity to both sides here which makes this a pretty intractable problem right now, but ultimately the people tethered to the institutionalist argument have the power here.

There can really not be any healing or coalition building without that wing building the bridge first because ultimately they are the firewall for the party.

And that is because the party can still win under this Balkanized dynamic because the system is two party locked, Republicans are incompetent, and enough people will continue to fall into the lesser evil argument for Dems to win power during thermostatic swings against Republicans. That is not the case if more progressive institutionalists exert pressure in the right direction or shift into the other camp....for now. As the long term support for the party continues to erode and dissipate.

The one positive I will say is that it does seem there is some contorted recognition amongst some Institutionalist Progressives that maybe the blue no matter who stuff and militant policing of party dissent is in need of adjusting when it leads to a party of Gavin Newsom's, Chuck Schumer's, and Pelosi's that are false allies to the "Resistance"

However, I don't see a whole ton of those Institutional Progressives taking the next step and also applying that skepticism to the corporatist approved messaging strategies and donor friendly policies the corrupted Dems and their corporate aligned consultants have tried to pass off as the pragmatic electoral strategy necessary to defeat Trump even though it keeps losing.....

[Eric Cartman]

So, just to have it reiterated first, I think the request to put mods on ignore is a bit silly and not something I've ever seen on any other forum. It's very obviously something staff wouldn't feel incentivized to work on and if I were in your position, I'd consider it a bit rude as well. So I get where you're coming from here and I've expressed in this thread and the last that this is the type of reaction it's likely to generate.

So with that being said, I think it's worth looking a bit deeper into why this request is so prominent. Well, I think one of the reasons is the need some people here have to erase from view everything they aren't personally interested in. I imagine the people who talk about having 300 people blocked and who put any thread mentioning anime or comics on Ignore rather than just scroll past it make up a large number of the people asking to be able to ignore a staff member they personally dislike.

I don't think that's the only thing going on, though. I think there are also people who feel that the way moderation is handled on Era has led to a culture where they are actively uncomfortable in the presence of mods. To be clear, I don't think that's necessarily fair, especially for a lot of mods who came later, and as I said in my previous post I'm against the notion that mods shouldn't be able to interact as normal members of a community. But at the same time, it's kind of frustrating how every time this thing comes up, the blame is put solely on the users and this uncharitable interpretation is painted over them.

I'd like to point to the below part of your post for a moment:

First of all, yes. This absolutely happens. I've seen it happen to several members of staff and it's ridiculous. There are clearly some ridiculous people on this forum who demand too much of a random Era mod and are always willing to read anything they say in the worst possible way. The thing is, you also do this to us. Not just you, I've seen staff do it from time to time all across the years I've been here. In fact, this is something that users have brought to this very thread over and over again. They constantly feel that y'all are doing this to them.

The difference, of course, is that you have the power to ban people. And the power to control the accepted interpretation of this forum. Because while you may not see it yourself, there are also many users here that look to you and the other mods (especially the admins) to guide the accepted interpretation of an event or person. And while it's probably unfair to put that on any one person, there IS a power imbalance there. And it's one that I don't think you've always handled very well. It's especially frustrating to see the complaint we bring to this thread so often, that staff have a habit of interpreting the users in the worst possible way every time, being turned around and said about us. Because at the very least, we need to admit that this is a mutual problem.

And you're even doing it right here in this very quote. You seem to have this slightly paranoid interpretation that we're all on some discord server talking shit about you and getting riled up and bringing that back to the forum. Well, I'm sure some people are. I do know there are Era discords. But I'm not really a part of any of them (I think I joined a Sonic one and then never posted there), and I'd be willing to bet money that the majority of people aren't. And even for the few that do, in turn, does criticism of them mean you don't also do this? That there aren't Staff groups where you all decide what you think a user meant and how to handle it? Isn't that the very basis of the mod team? It's just that you have the power to take action based on your interpretation.

So my point is, yes, I agree that the things you describe do happen and some users are kinda ridiculous with it. But at the same time, you do the exact same things to us while ignoring the power difference. When you post a condescending dismissal of a person based on an interpretation of something they've said that isn't accurate to their intentions, it has an impact on the culture of the forum. You have more power to shape this place than we do. At the very least, until there are changes in how both sides of this forum treat each other, this issue will only continue to grow.

Hopefully this is readable and makes sense.

Could be literally any staff member they're talking about who routinely acts like this

[Eric Cartman]

Was Jan 6th really so fucking long ago that retardera actually think normalising political assassination is going to work out in their favour?

[killamajig]

Liberalism doesn't beat fascism and you aren't going to vote it away.

[Cauliflower Of Love]

Performative activism is though.

[benji]

Actually, wait wait wait wait, I already did this joke but get to do it again:

Listen to Black people. That'd be a good place to start. Because somehow, some way, the shit that leaves y'all constantly Bamboozled is never a mystery nor surprise to us.

When we tell y'all Fetterman is a fraud, listen to us.

When we tell y'all David Hogg is an ineffective showboat, listen to us.

When we tell y'all your leftist movements aren't recognizeable to us, and they really should be, listen to us.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/how-donald-trump-won-the-2024-election-definitive-edition-256-million-americans-studied.1199412/post-140526648

Okay, done: