I’m worried that the Israel-Palestine conflict is tearing Tildes apart
Let me preface this by saying that I’m genuinely not trying to stir the pot. I’m hoping we can discuss this in a civil manner.
The discussion about the I-P conflict has me worried that Tildes is tearing itself apart. In the past few months, I’ve seen (at least) one pro-Palestinian user get banned, another stop posting here, and at least two Jewish Tilderinos quit. I get that Israel and Palestine are really important issues, that affect millions of people. But I’ve seen a degradation in the rhetoric, and I don’t want that to consume this place. We all need to “remember the human” behind the screen, and that folks have a view for a reason. I like this place. I don’t want to see it go away.
I’m sorry if I haven’t articulated myself well. I just had to get this off my chest. It’s been bothering me for a few weeks now.
There was a Ted Talk I saw years ago, about a guy who spent a long time (years I think) traveling the world. And one of the things he mentioned was, everywhere he went, the people there always had some other group of people they would warn him about. That those other people were horrible, dirty, uncivilized, wrong, evil, misguided, greedy, thieves ... something. Whatever those people were, it was bad, and the people where he was would warn him about them.
And everywhere he went, he said he generally found people were the same. They were all just people. They have lives, concerns, work, homes, family, all that. He'd meet the latest "other" and find they were just like everyone else; normal.
The Middle East is famous across the world for being regionally divisive. Peoples who live sometimes only a hundred or so miles apart virulently despise one another. In many cases, they'll say their division with "the others" goes back centuries. Sometimes millennia. Are they "the worst" example of othering, of people who have their Others they oppose to the bitter bloody end? I don't know, but they're certainly in the running.
So there's no point in discussions. Especially not online. What can get solved that hasn't been over so many years? There are groups who hate each other in ways it's hard to understand. Ways that transcend logic or empathy, ways that just define hate when you wonder what that word means. They hate the Other.
Palestinians, Jews, Arabs, Muslims, Christians, every nation-state there, and one of any of several multiple dozens of non-nation-state factions (religious, terrorist, or otherwise) in that region, they just about all have some out group they hate well past the point of genocidal violence.
You can't reason with that. There's no debate. There's no discussion, no meeting halfway; they're not interested. They just want to hate. They feel it's a cultural imperative, a religious cause, an principled calling. They feel their ancestors call upon them to foster and further the hate. They feel revenge and honor require them to hate. They just hate.
I know this because if they didn't hate, they'd stop hating. They'd stop attacking, murdering, warring ... if there was no hate, they'd stop. But they don't, because they do. They just keep finding weapons, either offensively or defensively, and using them. They use bare fists, they weaponize resources and water and anything they can think up a way to use to inflict hardship or destruction upon their Other.
Including the Internet.
Here, online, various factions (some more obvious than others) are weaponizing online discussion to further their aims while also attempting to destroy those of their Other. They seek to shift public perception in their favor, while casting their Other as an irredeemable demon hellbent on total and undeniable evil. You don't even have to do the math; they're happy to do it for you and explain that it adds up to why you should hate who they tell you to, just as much as they do.
They want you to hate who they hate.
The role of professional nation-state diplomats is to engage in discourse with their peers, in the interests of establishing and maintaining a worldwide community of discussion not war. Where before we'd become upset at something a neighbor had done, and express our discontent by forming a war party and attacking them to explain it ... diplomacy is where we use words not weapons.
The words don't always work, true. But it's worth a shot. Maybe whatever happened was an accident, or a misunderstanding. Maybe whatever happened isn't worth a bunch of people dying over, and there's some non-violent way the two nations can come to terms without going to war. That's the main goal of diplomacy, and it does seem to be working. At least a little. There's less massive, widespread, huge wars that engulf entire continents.
Even in the Middle East. But even with that diplomacy, there's still that hate. Which some refuse to let go of. They just have to have revenge, the last word, the victory. They arm up, they strike, and what are those hit supposed to do; take it? Let it happen again? So they hit back, even if only to defend themselves. Which goads it all on, back and forth, constant violence.
Constant hate. More than enough to never let any of it die. They hate that much.
The Internet, certainly not Tildes, is not going to solve that. So as Joshua said in Wargames, "Strange game. Only winning move is not to play."
I don't play chess, but I do like stories. Movies are fun. My position is if more people watched more movies, maybe fewer of them would find themselves focusing on hate. But they're not going to listen to me, and I doubt they'll listen to you either. Yes, the you reading this.
A lot of people throughout history have looked at the conflicts in that region thinking they needed to find way, a reason, a something, that would stop the hate and end the violence. Some of those people were even good at it. Good statespeople, good diplomats, good leaders. People who are objectively good at influencing their fellow humans.
And they all failed. I know this because the hate is still in the headlines. Even before this most recent period of active weaponized hate, it seemed like every day or so I was reading about the effects of all that hate. Bombings, attacks, whatever. We all know what happens, what is happening, and what's very unfortunately going to continue happening.
It's a problem we can't solve. If you can, I encourage you to solve it. Hop on a plane, fly down there, stop the hate. But I doubt any of us can stop it from our phones or computers. So arguing about it is just a fast lane to discussions like this thread.
Where we wonder if the hate is spreading.
Don't let it. Watch a movie instead. Be thankful you're not caught up in the hate, and don't volunteer to join in it. Anyone who insists you should just wants you to hate as they hate. It's a virus they want to spread, because if they can get enough people to hate as they hate, then they can win.
Which just means more hate. After all, it was a winning strategy.
Watch a movie, or at least play some nice chess. Do almost anything else, except join the hate.
Whenever I read a book I do a little review and paste in a couple of quotes. For Jingo I did the exact one above, along with the below. Not especially relevant but trading Pratchett quotes is always worth it.
Revenge and "protecting your culture" are two of the bigger problems in keeping conflicts ongoing.
"We're stopping the war now" is a hard line to tell people who've lost families, and its one of the reasons such things rarely happen. It's a lot more often "we are incapable of continuing the war".
This is a war where neither side is capable of making the other side incapable of fighting, and neither is going to ever consider stopping because of all the previous/ongoing violence. I really don't know what diplomat could ever hope to solve that.
Great comment, though I do want to suggest one thing. While you are right that engaging in a discussion with someone personally invested in the conflict due to culture, family, or experience is likely futile, I have found moments of productivity discussing with people around the periphery. When people feel like they have to pick a side or can't make sense of what they are observing, I've given historical context and examples that helped them realize they don't need to pick a side and things are more complicated than they appear.
As you say, don't join the hate, but sometimes we can help others make the same decision not to join as well.
Yes. Often when I find myself wanting to argue some kind of political issue, it usually is because there is a deep rooted fear of losing control of my safety, which can come out as aggression due to desperation mixed with confusion.
I want to know why and how others lost control of their safety, so I may avoid making a similar mistake, and/or avoid making it worse for them by altering my words/actions/voting preferences if possible.
I don’t think there’s anything to fret over. People will come and go, but I’ve noticed that the conversations about the conflict usually stay quite tame so those few instances were likely bound to happen regardless
Besides the weekly conflict thread, I don’t even really see it spilling over into other chats. I could be mistaken, but I strongly believe there’s nothing to fear
For what it's worth, having filtered the relavant tags in my setting has prevented me from seeing pretty much all of the drama (this being the major exception, missing those tags).
Same. Tag filters are great.
My news consumption philosophy that if it doesn't affect me and I can't affect it, there's no reason for me to go out of my way to learn about it.
I have absolutely no idea what's going on, and I'm happier for it. If I did take the time to educate myself, it'd make my life worse, without making anyone else's life better.
If pressed to take a side, I stand with the civilians whose lives are being fucked over, and refuse to limit that to any particular nationality.
One of my concerns is that some of these users had been here a long time. Having a set of folks who’ve been here since the beginning is a good way of helping to maintain the site’s culture and help acclimate new users. Without them, the site eventually becomes a revolving door. It also concerns me that they managed to go a long time just fine, then ended up being banned.
If they have been here since nearly the beginning, they should know better than to cross certain lines. They should know to just report problematic stuff, and walk away from the discussion, instead of getting involved, escalating the argument even more, and/or personally attacking/insulting other users. But in almost all perma-bans of long-time users I've seen, it's typically been a last straw situation though. They've usually done similar things before, been warned multiple times for it, and often even been temp banned before too.
p.s. If you're talking about who I think you're talking about, they have definitely been warned multiple times for their bad behavior, and IIRC were temp banned several times before too. So, despite me genuinely liking them as a person, and agreeing with their stances and opinions 99% of the time, TBH their ban wasn't totally unexpected either. I will definitely miss them, but they often took things way too far, and got way too personal with others they disagreed with. IMO their major problem was that they had one foot still way too firmly entrenched in reddit and reddit culture, and so they kept repeating the same bad behavior, which is considered normal on reddit, but is not acceptable here.
I think there's a lot to unpack in how people on each side are getting treated here, and what kind of behavior is allowed, what is tolerated, and what results in a ban. The idea that it isn't spilling over into other chats minimizes how the people most emotionally charged over the issue are viewing it, as well as those who are most affected by what is happening. If you think these conversations don't lead to people on the website to have long held beliefs about others or for people to inject those beliefs into other conversations, my personal history on this website is a clear indicator that isn't true and that people can and will spread falsities about others casually based on their emotional reaction to conversations that happened on this website that they may not have even participated in (or will simply regurgitate the biased beliefs of others which they hold in high esteem).
I had to read that a few times through to (I hope) parse it.
I don’t think it’s Tildes’ responsibility to alter community rules around topic discussion in response to the emotional charge of particular topics or users.
The rules are the rules. I had to adjust too. After some good communal guidance (a couple of removed replies and a temp ban once I think) they’ve become pretty clear to me and I’ve successfully and gratefully adjusted for the better (mostly, tomorrow I might be a dick, but it’s been a while).
I believe if someone is participating in good faith these hard-learned rules are clear and not in need of readdressing for any single particular topic.
As I read the thread and massage my reply here I realized it’s helpful to clarify that there are actually two issues here:
Emotional maturity. What’s been called emotionally “charged “ elsewhere I’m going to call emotional maturity because I believe it is the same thing. I am open to other descriptors that might be less pejorative, but I think it’s fair in part because it’s been my experience that trauma often retards emotional maturity. That’s been my personal experience- I am not trying to insult anyone.
The I-P conflict.
Having emotional maturity can and should include not participating for one’s own protection. I try very not to engage with Trump supporters for my own protection. If you have been traumatized by the I-P conflict, I would hope you would think long and hard about whether participating in threads like the weekly discussion here is good for your mental health. Please do.
I’ve been writing and rewriting this reply to find and clarify what I think is a decent contribution to the discussion- while wearing down the battery on my phone, so I’m going to stop here even though this might read as incomplete.
I hope it’s constructive, and for the record- thank you and I won’t worry that Tildes might implode over this.
Take care of yourselves first.
I am in complete agreement that the rules should not be altered. The problem is not the rules, so much as it is a community problem around what social norms are present, what social norms are tolerated, what social norms are encouraged, and how people who are unaware of the social norms are interpreting them. This is an incredibly complex topic to broach, but I'll do my best to summarize some of the higher level concepts at play here.
Tildes is a community. While none of us necessarily represent the values we hold as a community, we all contribute to what that set of values looks like. Every action we take on the website - every vote, every label, every report, every reply, every conversation we start helps to shape the community. We all have the power to shape the outcome of that community. If someone is being a dick and we ignore it, we send a signal to people in the community that at least some dicks will be tolerated. If someone is being a dick and we report it, we help to control what shows up in the community, because we send signals that it should be reviewed. If someone is being a dick and three people reply to the dick and tell them that they are being a dick, we send a signal to the community that this behavior will not be tolerated. All of these actions send different signals and importantly get interpreted in different ways - the person who is a dick and gets replied to may get the message that it was their behavior or that it is themselves that is being attacked, depending on how those replies are interpreted. Or, they might think that it's actually just a small number of people in the community who are replying to them and that they are in the right, especially if they get other signals such as people replying and agreeing, or finding that their comment has many more votes than the replies do.
I lay that out to say that we all have an active duty to Tildes, to interact with the community and to help shape it in the ways we see that are beneficial. Of particular note, how engaged someone is within the community and how much free emotional bandwidth they have are key indicators in whether someone is going to simply scroll by, ignore, or otherwise not interact with problematic content. That's the moderators job, they might think, or surely that has already been reported, or maybe even just I don't have time for this shit. To be clear, this is not a moral judgement. Imagine you were someone who was struggling to get by in your day to day, perhaps possessing a few minority identities, and you simply go to Tildes to read a few articles or interact with a community you enjoy. The onus of helping to guide the community does not rest on your shoulders, and if people who have more free time and energy want to keep people like you around on the website it is definitely more their burden to shoulder than yours.
One of the cultural problems I've noticed on Tildes is a lack of a sense of responsibility to help the community self-correct (or attempting to self-correct but doing so in a shallow manner which ends up creating more problems than solving - I'll touch on this later). To be clear, this is not just a problem on Tildes - it is a problem in most online spaces. People often feel like they do not have power to take action, that their action is ultimately pointless, or do not feel an onus to help the communities they are a part of. I think a lot of this has to do with the generally low stakes nature of the internet - it's huge, disagreeing with someone will generally at worst make them not like you on a particular website, and the connections you form with people can feel less fulfilling or at least temporal in a nature that real life connections often do not share. What ends up happening is that spaces online get bullied by people who are mean, over time, by repeatedly testing the rules. They'll be a dick to everyone who self identifies as queer, but be careful to never say anything overtly queerphobic, and manage to stick around because they are never violating the rules. Sometimes the community at large might push back against them, but they'll likely have allies in the community as well, who might disagree with them but in particular moments only catching a small snippet of a conversation choose to side with the bigot, because they seem more reasonable at the time.
I bring all this up because its specifically these kinds of interactions between individuals on emotionally charged issues with real personal stakes (bigotry towards minority statuses that they hold) that cause the queer and the bigot above to become enemies and for them to cause drama elsewhere. A lack of action by moderators as well as a lack of action by fellow community members stepping in to mediate or otherwise keep the bigot in check might cause the queer person to escalate around the bigot - they are tired of the shit they keep bringing into every interaction. To everyone else this makes the queer seem confrontational, escalatory, or otherwise a problem to the community. The community may even respond negatively to and eventually throw the queer out for their behavior rather than trying to mediate or fully understand what's going on. Remember how I said I'd touch on problematic shallow corrective behavior earlier - this is how that can play out in a way that's counter to the wishes of those who are jumping in to correct. This signals a certain set of values for the community, especially to the other queers who might have been watching this unfold over months, years, and may drive them off the website. Now, I'm not saying someone having a minority status should give them a free pass to be a dick all the time because of the minority stresses they encounter, but am merely presenting this as an issue that needs to be considered when we think about how communities drift over time. In fact, I'm not sure anyone has ever solved this problem, and I'm currently one of many people on the internet helping run an alternative social media website with the goal of tackling this specific problem (with a bias towards creating a safe space for minorities) and we certainly don't have all the answers yet either. I'm mostly just bringing this up as food for thought - to understand why it's important to have meta-discussions on the community itself - the values it holds, concern over wedges that are driving the community apart, and to re-engage people and invigorate and empower them to take action to help shape the community to be better.
Hopefully that helps you understand a little bit more about why I left the comment I did. And I hope it also inspires one or two Tildes users to get a little bit more engaged and to help the people around them in the communities they find themselves in.
Holy smokes. Okay. I’m going to have to think about that and reread it a few times to wrap my head around it, but I wanted to say thank you.
I’m clearly not nearly as deeply engaged in this community or in online discussions/relations as you are.
One food-for-thought, and point of context that came to mind for me though, is that I don’t have any idea who is who on this site except for Deimos. I mean, I’ve seen your (Gaywallet’s) username from time to time and one or two other frequent posters- but I don’t keep track of who has said what on other threads.
I don’t think I want that level of engagement, either. For me, that just seems like a recipe for grudges and resentments to build. Maybe I’m missing out on deeper connections, but like you mentioned, everybody gets to choose their bandwidth.
In any event, thanks for all the words.
Of course, no judgement about that here. Frankly, less engagement online and more engagement in real life tends to make people happier.
Either way, thank you for listening and engaging 💜
If you've heard of Beehaw before, gaywallet and a few other users started it after a disagreement on Tildes. Can't remember many details so I'll leave it at that.
I meant the topic wasn’t spilling over into other chats, which as far as I’ve noticed it is not
Yeah I haven't really noticed anything too extensive either. Especially considering the charged nature of the subject typically, I almost expect some amount of strife surrounding it no matter where the conversation is happening. I think if you're going to look at what is happening on Tildes and make any kind of assessment of the impact of this subject, it's worth considering the impact the subject has outside of Tildes as well. After all this is more of a comparative assessment of value, if all social fabrics face significant tension over the subject, then the degree to which it is happening in any particular social dynamic is compared to the others.
I see this as basically two parts.
I have little sympathy for anyone banned. The rules are pretty clear and to my understanding most users who violate them are still given warnings. Its not "don't be a asshole, EXCEPT for when you think its ok to be". The one or two bans I'm aware of(in general, not necessarily in this instance) seemed pretty earned in either their behavior or their rhetoric.
As for the rest, that's their choice.
I do think the subject is mostly worthless to discuss. You can pretty quickly tell who's just posting all the information for one side or the other and ignoring the rest, and its a situation most people are just bad at discussing. They want to shove it in some Villain/Victim template and it just doesn't track at all, and it only gets worse when you start looking at the realities of urban combat in highly populated civilian areas.
The amount of just blatantly false information is extreme, and even the "maybe its real" information is constantly argued over and changed as stories develop.
Worse its the sort of conflict that everyone thinks they know stuff about and you can endlessly google for atrocities and examples of stupidity and malice, so watching people rapid fire google up articles showing that the other side was horrible is really not very interesting or productive.
The only real upside of having topics about it in my eyes is at least if you want you can peruse through the news being posted and pick out if there's anything interesting, but even then I feel like if you post an article that others don't like, it can quickly devolve into the nonsense from above.
I'd almost encourage making those topics "posts only" with no replies and no editorializing, but that's not really my call. In the end it's mostly Deimos decision, and burden, to deal with this shit, and figure out the best way forward. Honestly I think subjects like this really show people's character and ability to deal with difficult topics. As sad as it is there are plenty of people who are perfectly reasonable until you get to their pet issue and then they're just outright childish/horrible. They will use all manner of justification, but especially in situations where I'm decently certain they're not personally affected I find it pretty telling how quickly some people devolve into the same attacks, deflections, and bad faith arguments they're so quick to call out in their opponents.
I wish Tildes let us filter out users. I think there are definitely people on Tildes I'd be happy to discuss Gaza with, but there's also a subset on both sides of the issue who I'm very much not interested in discussion with.
To be fair, I think with how atypical the urban combat in Gaza has been from a modern perspective and the extent of collateral damage, suggesting it's inescapable isn't doing your argument for nuance any favours.
Overall though I agree with you though, currently discussion on this is best avoided, even here.
If you use uBlock Origin, you can add the following custom filters to block a user.
More filters are available on the wiki.
Meanwhile, I wish Tildes would let us report/label the post - not just the comments.
That would be a good feature.
@cfabbro is that in the plans for the site?
Yep. Adding an exemplary label to topics, and a way to report topics are both on Tildes Gitlab, and have already been approved by Deimos. But, as with a lot of feature requests, they have simply not been implemented yet. Presumably because they're not super important, so haven't been prioritized. The need to report a topic has thankfully been pretty damn rare so far, and in the few cases where it has been needed a PM to @Deimos has sufficed.
p.s. In the very rare cases of especially problematic topic submissions (like overt hate speech, legitimately dangerous misinformation/conspiracy theories, obvious scams/spam, or potential malware being linked to), those of us with topic editing have just changed the title to something that warns other users away from it, changed the link to something benign if needed, and moved the topic to ~test until Deimos could arrive to deal with it. I think that's only happened 3 or 4 times in the history of Tildes though.
cc: @Habituallytired
I disagree with letting people filter out other users. Some users may have views that you don't like, but being able to filter them out feels like it goes against the spirit of Tildes.
Now, if a user is actually being abrasive or disruptive in a way that goes against Tildes guidelines, they should be banned from the site completely. Muting specific users will just turn Tildes into an echo chamber and lead to a degradation in the quality of conversations.
What about user blocking goes against the spirit of Tildes? Tildes isn't a dedicated debate site, it's a link aggregation and discussion community. And IMO it's precisely within its spirit to allow people to block/ignore other users... from the Tildes docs:
https://docs.tildes.net/philosophy/content
And if one user doesn't want to see anything from another user anymore, that's their prerogative, fine, and giving them the ability to do that is a good thing, IMO. Since otherwise they're likely to just continue arguing with each other in topic after topic on the same subject, which makes the experience here worse for everyone.
Also, people always complain about "echo chambers" and "safe spaces" but those aren't necessarily bad things. They're typically a hell of a lot friendlier than sites where debate on every subject is allowed or encouraged. And nobody wants to debate everything all the time. People also need places to discuss non-contentious subjects with others too, without having to worry about getting into an argument with someone who strongly disagrees. So it's nice (and often much needed in this day and age) to sometimes be able to retreat to somewhere "safe" where there are generally like-minded people who agree on the majority of topics.
p.s. Also worth noting is that the user blocking feature has already been approved on Tildes Gitlab, it just hasn't been implemented yet: https://gitlab.com/tildes/tildes/-/issues/462
I think it's worth viewing the entire section instead of just the end. I interpreted this section to mean that users should be able to see the topics and posts they want to see without algorithmic meddling.
With the code of conduct saying that users should act with civility and contribute in good faith, I think that users should be expected to "agree to disagree" and step away from a discussion if it isn't productive.
I'm no internet "free speech" advocate, but I always saw personal bans on social media sites as a way to outsource moderation to each user when sites became too big for moderators to handle. With a site as small and tight knit as Tildes, I thought that the users should be able to discuss with civility and have moderators step in to enforce conduct violations.
I guess the feature is already built, and unlike Alexander Hamilton, Deimos is still alive to say what they meant. Also, I'm pretty sure that you're a moderator, so you would know more about the workload of the moderation team.
Yeah, that section is about algorithmic sorting in general, but I think the underlying philosophy applies to topic tag filtering, and even user blocking as well.
I see it more as simply a personal preference thing, and empowering users to make their own decisions about what they want to see, and who they want to interact with. If two users feel they have an irreconcilable, fundamental, difference of opinion, and don't want to interact with each other anymore, or see each other's posts, moderation actions aren't ever going to solve that so long as they're both being civil. But why force those people to continue doing so. Especially when they will still be able to block each other using userscripts or uBlock. So all you're doing by not adding the feature to the site itself is make it more of a PITA to accomplish.
The only real "moderator" on Tildes itself is Deimos, who is also the sole admin. I am a moderator on /r/Tildes, a "reporter" on Tildes Gitlab, and have some additional permissions on Tildes (editing titles, links, tags, moving topics), but I'm not a moderator here, as such. I can't remove topics, comments, or ban anyone (nor would I want to be able to).
He already approved the user blocking feature request, which I think says a lot. IIRC his only major problem with it was deciding how best to implement it, which AFAIK was never decided on. I can't find the old topic where he discussed it though, and we can't search users comments, so I'm not able to easily find it again. :/
If we talk about an option to ignore an user, as in never see their comments or submissions again and the change affecting only what you see, that's fine.
But I would protest very strongly against adding the ability to actually block an user from participating like reddit or hubski does, I think that's a terrible idea. It's easily abusable, it's one of the most annoying reddit features and it effectively killed hubski for me.
I agree this is often the case, but it can also be the opposite. Especially on charged culture wars-related topics, not being exposed to different views likely reduces direct conflict but often amplifies fringe opinions that are not exactly sensible and hate towards the other side.
I've hated this functionality from both sides. Blocking someone should never give them any indication they've been blocked; that was incredibly shitty and anti-privacy of reddit, it just encourages them to make alt accounts to evade your block. Nobody has the right to a captive audience or know that I'm choosing to filter out their content.
Whenever I see someone complaining about Reddit’s blocking implementation, I make sire to remind them of how to use container tabs to create new accounts and continue as if nothing happened.
Speaking for myself only here, but some of us may want a partial echo chamber at least on certain topics. There are particular topics where there are views / comments / posts / users I would rather never see again, period, regardless of whether they're considered to be following the rules.
That doesn't mean I personally "never want to see views that disagree with me" though I also think that's a valid choice- but it does mean I want to be selective in what views are allowed to reach my eyeballs on topics I may not want to block overall from my view.
Just to give a personal example (I am not aiming to debate this topic here either, just as an example only) - when it comes to discussions about LGBTQ+ rights- I personally will not even remotely entertain arguments against those rights, and I never want to see them, especially when I see them presented in a way that is at least borderline bad faith. If someone truly doesn't understand and is asking questions in actual good faith- then maybe- but honestly it's something where "I've had it" with certain views on certain topics, and would just rather those views not be allowed to reach my eyes.
Removing them from my ability to view them only creates a better site experience for me, and if the person I block is following the rules, my blocking does not harm them at all, as they can still contribute / discuss at their leisure.
Some of this is just a means of self-control, because certain views I find awful will often provoke me to want to respond, and having options to help remove that impulse to waste my time is useful. Not all conversations like this are fruitful or useful, so I do not find removing my impulse to join them to be contributing negatively to the quality of discussion.
It's difficult to balance. I think that if people need to avoid a subject for their mental well being, then they should do so. I also don't have much patience for people who argue in bad faith, politely or not.
I do think that exposure to a diversity of perspectives and experiences can enrich us, but within certain parameters. I'll give an example along the lines of your LGBTQ+ example, and I promise I'm not fishing for a response.
I have a good friend growing up who went through a full MtF surgical transition, and I drove them to their appointments, supported them in social situations, etc. I also have a brother who is openly gay and married. I'm also old enough that these things happened in a very different feeling time. And like you, I don't really feel the need to engage in conversations of "should these people I care about be allowed to be who they are?"
I also have decades of experience in technology, higher education, research, and more recently, medical research, public policy, and medical ethics. I was sucked into a conversation here on Tildes a few months ago that somehow led me to share a journal article describing how different governments of West Atlantic countries ended up with different policies around transition or affirming care for minors based on the same data. The gist was a discrepancy in wording like "we recommend" vs "we suggest" in care guidelines for doctor's based on whether the underlying study demonstrated safety vs safety and efficacy. This is something that I have a unique position to speak to given my experience. However, it could be uncomfortable for people's to read my perspective because it could appear to be one of those bad faith attacks against trans rights that latches on to anything seemingly legitimate to launch attacks with. But for folks who can hang with me through the long'ish paper, it should, if anything, strengthen the argument for minor care by reconciling the guidance with the data, making the care offered unimpeachable from a medical perspective.
That didn't stop at least one ruffled reply to me with information quite incorrect from a medical research perspective around how clinical results are quantified, which I tried to gently correct.
So I get it. It's hard to tell what is good vs bad faith when something is challenging our perspectives on closely held issue. Perhaps it wouldn't hurt to politely point out instances of bad faith arguments. I know I have quite clearly but politely told people here that I don't feel they are arguing in good faith and why, and it seemed to have an effect on them.
Anyway, thanks for the discussion, and have a great day!
That's fair, and I appreciate your example, in wanting to provide what you truly believe is a good faith, data-backed, well-reasoned point to "enrich" discussions- but I think that's tangential to my point.
(Speaking as if blocking/muting exists for sake of argument). Who someone blocks is different person-to-person. So while someone might have blocked you for the information you provided, thinking you're arguing in bad faith, I don't think your example would have come across to me that way to me personally, unless other signs pointed to that being the case.
I still think if someone else blocked you, or if I ended up not doing so- both of those outcomes are acceptable. The point is not to imply that I am myself the best arbiter of good faith vs. bad faith- the point is simply that users should have the power to remove from their view/experience of a site content they do not wish to see, and with the power to do so on a user-by-user level. Will collateral damage be that some users will block content that might have deepened their understanding of a topic? Yes, but I think minimally so as not to be a real concern and arguably that happens more broadly, and less selectively, already when people filter out entire topics.
If others want to engage with bad faith arguments in polite and civil ways and try to see if they can bring someone around to a good faith approach to a conversation- more power to them- however, I don't have the time, energy, or desire to do that most of the time, and I'd rather just mute that person forever. Especially since in multiple cases I've seen bad faith arguments I have no time for- and then those same people later purposely post provocative articles to the site under a guise of discussion.
Having the ability to just quash that completely with a mute/block would just be wonderful, as muting a topic / term is too broad- sometimes its the individual that needs muted - and I don't expect the site/mod/admin level moderation to get that deep in the weeds as they're making decisions for the site as a whole - and it differs between users and experiences - so having options to do my own account-based pseudo-moderation would be great.
(I also do want to note - I know this functionality is available via Tildes Re-Extended browser extension, and I use it for that purpose, but given the number of different devices/browsers/etc I use, having the functionality at a site level rather than client level is preferable)
That's fair. I think people should be able to customize their experience, and should certainly do so especially when it involves mental health self care. Having spent much of my career in higher education, I have a bias that tends towards exposure to broad viewpoints, and I hope I gave an example of how sometimes we can be positively enriched by such. However, Tildes isn't a classroom, and not everyone uses the site for the same reason.
I agree that client side features aren't as slick as sitewide features. Thanks for the reply, and have a great night!
I also use this site less because I have to see ignorant casual transphobia. I still use it because I need some discussion forum and I'm sure as fucking hell not going to use reddit, and discord is not a replacement for a traditional forum, it's a supplement.
I would like tildes a lot more if we had, I dunno, an LGBT topic czar that monitored for those kinds of comments and hid them but told the user politely why it's wrong. Hell, I'd do it some of the time. But there are frequently times when I have to be reminded constantly that something like 1/4 of America thinks I'm the devil just for existing and as much as I like pushing back on it on tildes to exercise the muscle it's exhausting.
Perhaps folks who are willing to be "tagged in" to have the educational conversations? I'm someone that usually has the spoons to educate - comes with the job - but that could come off as tagging in people to like, fight instead.
There is. Go down to label, and click “malice”. That is effectively the report button.
and to be clear, it does work. Deimos has messaged me explicitly before to please use it when someone is being an asshole and I responded when I shouldn't have. This is ultimately a community moderated site.
That is an idea I would strongly oppose.
I come to Tildes for discussion and debate, not to read pre-approved positions on a given topic.
Tildes has had issues in the past with queer users having to deal with bullshit. I’m sad to see it is still a problem. I think the difficulty here is that: a) even in polite form, it comes off as “you shouldn’t exist”, and b) has a bad tendency to degenerate into slurs. I don’t know if there’s data, but I suspect Tildes has a higher proportion of queer users versus Reddit or other sites.
Ultimately, Tildes has never been a free speech absolutist site. We are still trying to figure out exactly where to draw the line.
It certainly isn't a free speech site, however it's also not a safe space.
Both of those things are important to have at times, but that doesn't mean we should be shifting all spaces to be one or the other. Tildes currently splits the difference quite well, and while there's always room for improvement that doesn't mean we should abandon the attempt.
To be clear I would want the comment hidden and the message sent to the user via DM. I don't think any useful discussion comes from transphobia.
As much as I like teaching people why it is wrong and why they should be respectful of others and how to be respectful of trans people I do not really care to see the exact same closeminded shit opinion that I've had to see my entire life all the time.
I think this really goes against the spirit of Tildes.
Anyone at any time has the right to join a conversation they may not have contributed to in the past, lurking is a fundamental part of any forum that can allow you to gather lots of nuance on something you've never publicly commented on. This is a public space to discuss, not an exclusive club where one has to prove themselves or gain rep over time. The core foundation of assuming good faith from other commenters is to always take the most charitable interpretation of their message, consciously digging through post history is almost always in direct opposition that. I've certainly been guilty of doing it before, but if a user hasn't already been breaking the rules of tildes I don't think it should ever be called out as a means of excluding someone from a conversation.
Especially in LGBT topics I personally believe in allowing outsiders (if we can even call lurkers or people who just haven't vocalized their sexual orientation or gender identity that) into the discussion whenever possible so long as they're respectful and looking to learn. The desire to openly discuss within the rules of tildes inherently makes that a good-faith effort that shouldn't be shut down.
I've been on this website for five years, taken extended breaks from commenting during that, and I'm pretty sure I've only vaguely commented on my queerness for the first time this week. Should that disqualify me from conversations around LGBT discussions even if I've read many of them on this website during that time? Let alone that ibuprofen's comment is more of a general argument for exchange of information and debate rather than specific nuance within LGBT discussions.
I understand the feelings to protect a safer area for LGBT discussion, but I think comments from people you may not usually interact with are to be expected on this very generalized site-wide thread focused on meta discussions.
The difficulty with this is that queer people are having to have the same discussion over and over again. These convos start because someone writes a Guardian column and people out of the loop don't understand what the problem is and naively post it to tildes and say "but what's the problem, this is just common sense". This leaves queer people having to tidy up the gish-gallop of bullshit, while other people on Tildes very politely tell them that they are disgusting.
It drives people away, and it drives the wrong people away.
I totally understand how that can be tiring to always have to defend themselves and it is not something that anyone can expect people to do.
But I do believe there is also some value with those kind of "what is the big deal" type of discussions. For all of Reddits faults, with more than a decade on the site I have personally learned a lot about all kinds of issues I was ignorant about simply by seeing those kind of discussions and posts.
I don't know any good solutions because it is unreasonable to demand every queer person to constantly inform every new ignorant who appears online of these things. But people will also stay ignorant if their views are newer challenged.
Perhaps some sort of periodic "Ask your ignorant questions" thread may be in order. Probably with a more inviting title than that, but I think a dedicated space would satisfy the need to educate while allowing folks to opt out of seeing discourse they're done seeing.
That's probably better than a deliberate (or public) tag-in. But it doesn't fully address those borderline comments outside of those threads - someone above elaborated on this in depth but I can't find that comment.
I'd almost rather not put that thread in LGBT as odd as that sounds.
It certainly would only attract the honestly ignorant, but having those conversations somewhere may still benefit the less honest in ways we won't immediately see. To echo one of winther's points, my time lurking around reddit discussions gave me a much better understanding of many issues, especially LGBTQ+ ones. I'll fully admit that I once was dishonestly ignorant with respect to that, and while reading reddit threads wasn't the whole picture on why my perspective changed, it certainly helped open my mind and heart to that change.
I agree that people should not have to debate about their right to exist or debate about whether their feelings are valid on Tildes or in real life.
I very much disagree that you should need to qualify yourself to take part in discussions. LGBT includes a wide range of gender and sexual identities. Some people may not engage in discussions about their identity in certain places, or publicly express their identity at all. If people are still questioning their identity, they can feel pretty isolated if they get ostracized in an LGBT space for not being out yet.
Creating a safe space shouldn't mean that only certain types of people are allowed to participate or that only certain types of people's voices are valued. A safe space should set up certain truths that users must agree to if they want to participate in the discussion, but nobody should be silenced for how they identify themselves.
Edit: I also want to point out that hate is not an identity. Some people may claim that being against something is an identity, but it's not. That is telling others who you are not. An identity is who you are.
Correct, which is why this hostility seems misplaced. Is a key part of the site's whole ethos not the idea that one should read more than one writes? Isn't that why the comment box is at the bottom of every page?
I was responding to a suggestion to create a supermoderator to police a topic for acceptable comments, hide them, and tell the person what they should have said.
That would be a fundamental change to how this site operates.
I would have jumped in with the same comment regardless of the topic for which it had been suggested.
I haven't demanded anything whatsoever.
Uh... that's pretty much how Tildes already works though. Deimos regularly polices the site, and ~lgbt in particular, removes any overtly LGBT+phobic or problematic comments, warns those users not to behave similarly again, or even outright bans them if what they said was particularly bigoted, hateful, or insulting towards another user.
Obviously an admin removing hateful speech is crucial.
But the proposal for a topic-specific supermod was made in the context of criticizing the current environment.
Deimos removes far more than just overt hate speech. And the original goal of the site was to delegate some of that responsibility to other users using a trust/reputation system, so I don't see how what the original user was suggesting is any different than that. The only power that would likely be reserved for admins only is sitewide bans.
Of course you see much more of what's removed — I didn't mean to imply that only hate speech is removed or should only be removed. I'm not criticizing what's removed or advocating that less be removed here at Tildes.
No worries, I didn't read it that way.
That is an interesting fact given that at least some users here have expressed that there isn't enough moderation and others are concerned what more moderation could lead to. Of course this just shows how difficult this thing is when different people have very different experiences on the same site.
Yeah, unfortunately you can't please everyone. And it's not always easy to determine the intent behind comments, good or ill. Or if a comment was made in good faith or bad. Good moderation is fucking difficult, even under the best circumstance, but IMO Deimos does a pretty damn good job of keeping most problematic views and assholes off the site though. But as he said in the original blog post announcing Tildes creation:
Which is a difficult path to walk, and state to maintain, but one that is worthwhile, IMO.
I mean, they're talking about moderation in a specific community which this person doesn't participate in... their participation seems rather relevant?
Maybe Tildes should include certain policies that apply to specific tags. I don't think that anyone should have to qualify themselves to discuss a topic, but there should be certain rules in place to ensure that nobody tries to deny anyone's right to exist or try to invalidate their feelings if they want to participate in discussions.
Comments can be tagged as malice if they are breaking the site rules, but if there are additional rules governing discussion in certain tags, we can have a safe space that is still open for anyone to participate in.
Can you share where the specific conduct rules for the LGBT topic beyond the Tildes code of conduct is listed?
The LGBT sidebar doesn't have additional rules and there is nothing stated next to the comment box on posts.
I'm certainly not going to tell you to leave this website, but minorities being driven off Tildes due to casual bigotry is why we started beehaw, and you might enjoy the space.
I’m sorry y’all are still having to deal with this. Please don’t forget to label them as malice when you see them.
He said he didn’t care to debate this here, it was just an example, and it’s off topic. Please move this to a different thread.
I'm all for examples of heavy urban combat that didn't end in civilian casualties and massive collateral damage. I have not found any.
Could it be less bad? I'm sure. I'm skeptical from my limited amateur knowledge and tangential professional exposure it can be the precision ideal strike some seem to envision, and don't really understand where people are deriving their evidence from.
Correct. Urban combat will result in either civilian casualties, or in displacement of civilians. "Clean" fighting in populated urban environments just isn't. Certainly hasn't been since the advent of artillery, probably even since the development of siege tactics.
Making it possible to evacuate safely seems like something to aim for. (The opposite of siege tactics.)
Still hugely disruptive of course, but Poland and other countries taking in Ukrainian refugees seems like a good thing?
The neighboring countries are comparatively small and poor, already suffer from high unemployment.
Kuwait, Jordan and Lebanon in particular have history of taking in Palestinian refugees and having it hurt them. Radicalized Palestinians speak Arabic and could become influential political players in any country that took them in within the region.
I was speaking more generally, but yes, neighboring countries have done a lot previously, particularly Jordan. There are other countries in the world that could do more. Not holding my breath, though.
This is what I've heard a lot of as well, that these countries no longer want to take Palestinians in due to past radicalization of their own people. I feel bad for everyone involved, but I wish there was something more that could be done, aside from just watching this happen.
Even if there are only a small percentage of bad actors, it's a risk. They did a political assassination in Jordan. I don't know but have read that they were a catalyst for the civil war in Lebanon. In the region, they are not just refugees but political players.
Absolutely, only because they've been so radicalized by their leaders who don't even live among them. It's so gross to have these poor people played like pawns.
It's also a very different sized area. The whole of Israel/Gaza/West Bank is close to the size of California, while being relatively crammed like the Bay Area, from my experience spending time in Israel and living in the Bay Area. Ukraine to Poland is much larger of a space difference. It's also not like other countries next door to Gaza are really taking in those refugees in the same or even close to the same numbers as Poland took in from Ukraine.
Uhh the whole of that area is the size of New Jersey, not California. It is much much much smaller.
Now if you're talking population, LA has 3.8 million, and that region has I think somewhere around 10-15 million total, while the whole of california is 39 million
That's fair. I just remember the time it took to drive across the country and it was about the same amount of time it took to drive from one end of California to the other, so that's where I got my brain math from for sizing.
The idea still stands, that it's a much more cramped area than Poland-Ukraine.
Oh, sure. Making it possible to leave is nice and helps a bit. But the only way it's ever going to be a 'clean' fight is if all the civilians leave. Who makes them leave and how doesn't really matter, that always has the optics of displacement.
I'm not suggesting there should be no casualties. Some level of civilian casualties, probably a lot higher than anyone would conceivably like, are indeed a reality of urban warfare. I'm a realist at heart, I understand that.
But I think it's important to point out that the scale of civilian destruction in this war is really only comparable to something like the Allied campaigns in Desden and Hamburg, something that surely would land someone in front of The Hauge today. Israel has dropped 30,000 bombs so far, that's an insane number of strikes, especially in such a small area. For context, that's more bombs than were dropped from 2004-2010 in Iraq. What's worse is that US intelligence has estimated half of those bombs have been unguided. And the resulting destruction that can be seen via satellite is accordingly massive. An estimated 70% of the homes and 50% of the buildings in Gaza have been destroyed. That's basically what the result of carpet bombing in Dresden and Hamburg achieved. And keep in mind that was a campaign that was principally aimed at de-housing a labour force and breaking German will to resist.
We have a ton of recent examples of urban combat; the destruction and civilian casualties in Mosul, Raqqa, Bakhmut, and even Mariupol have been much less than we've seen in Gaza. What we're seeing in Gaza is worse than any contemporary example, and should absolutely not be given a free pass.
30k bombs does sound like a lot, but why are you using the timeframe 2004-2010? The main invasion of Iraq was 2003, which would be the much more apt comparison. From this source, The US (and UK combined?) dropped 29k (19,948+9,251 if you want to search the numbers) in one month (see page 2). The stat that you dropped, if correct, is really misleading since it counts the number of bombs after the US already bombed the crap out of Iraq.
Edit: this is not a defense of Israel's conduct and yada yada yada.
Well the opening of the Iraq war involved SEAD and the defeat of a conventional military force across an entire country. The following decade of COIN is a somewhat better fit in for scale of intensity in my opinion, but I’ll agree it’s not perfect.
Perhaps a better comparison is the campaign against ISIS. I don’t have the figure in front of me but I’ll dig it up later: the coalition didn’t drop more than 5,000 bombs a month across all of Iraq and Syria. Israel dropped 6,000 in the opening 6 days.
Here's the figure I was thinking about, source is in the comments: https://twitter.com/wesleysmorgan/status/1712506126762197457
And just because I have a little more time to address this now that I'm at home, I really don't think it's misleading at all but I also wasn't the clearest in my original comment.
The issue isn't the number of bombs -- the issue is the number of bombs dropped in urban areas and the resulting civilian casualties. In two years of the war in Ukraine, some ~11,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed. In five months of war in Gaza, about twice that many civilians have died.
So yes, they dropped a lot of bombs on Iraq during the month of invasion. "Shock and Awe," after all. But there was no shortage of military targets in preparation of a ground invasion. How many of those were dropped on urban areas and/or killed civilians? Certainly some of them, civilian casualties in the month of the invasion are estimated to be around ~4,000 people. That's quite a bit less than what we're seeing in Gaza and I think illustrates the point I'm trying to make quite clearly.
By the way, in the next 5 years, some ~90,000 civilians would die. So after 5 months in Gaza, we're approaching 1/4 of the civilian death toll of 5 years in Iraq. That's pretty unsettling to me. And of course that's just looking at death toll which lags the acute lack of housing, food and health care in Gaza that was not present in Iraq and that will only make things much worse the longer this continues.
*All figures from non-NGO Wikipedia sources because imo NGOs deliberately inflate casualty reports.
I think this is a good synopsis. I'd also add that I've had productive conversations with people, including on Tildes, about the conflict. However, it really requires taking a historians mindset that there are these past events that happened, which caused other things to happen, along with a divergence of narratives, beliefs, and interpretations of the same facts. If you take a personal stake in one side being unambiguously and persistently in the right, then you will be blind to the mistakes and atrocities committed by that "side." It's a complicated subject, so if someone isn't interested in nuance, then the conversation is pretty much a nonstarter.
I don't think it is tearing the site apart, but it is allowing some people to demonstrate why they aren't ready for the sorts of conversations that Tildes tries to foster.
The only thing I would add is that the topic is an emotional mine field, especially for people who have friends or family in the region.
Someone might have the best of intentions to discuss but explode in response to a comment that seems to denigrate the lived experience of their loved ones.
As an American, I was horrified that US citizens were not being extracted from Gaza and that Biden did not emphasize that issue to the Israeli government. That is based on a very loose connection to other Americans. I can't imagine if I had friends or family in Israel or Gaza.
That's a good point. There is a very big difference between discussing it from a distance, and having family and friends dying.
What I would say in that regard is that there is a big difference between debating/discussing online, and engaging in protest/information campaigns/activism, and everyone should try and make clear what they are doing.
However, in the event that you (royal you, not you you) are someone who is discussing at a distance, and end up talking with someone who is personally affected and disagrees, have the self awareness to wish the person well, and exit the conversation. Don't debate historical nuance with someone who's cousin just died, that's just cruel, and an unfair expectation.
It took me a few posts to realize that it would probably be better for everyone involved that some people - including myself - just don't engage in conversation around it. There is not once that I've tried to engage without starting to get emotional, which just defeats the point.
When we're in the middle of it, we can't really look at things objectively. Couple that with the fact that a lot of us from the general area are raised on unfathomable amounts of propaganda, so much so that it becomes second nature, and it becomes hard to discuss anything from a non biased place.
I would be in massive favor disallowing replies to the megathreads. It's too accessible for anyone to write their first emotional response to an emotional situation.
I'm sorry that you are close to such a terrible situation, and hope things get better. I think it is important that people protect their own mental well being, and if that means not engaging certain subjects, then that's what it means.
Take care, and thanks for the reply!
I very much agree with this, and I personally don't think that it's worth keeping up-to-date about it. Both sides are filled with both victims and villains, and I feel like the only thing that discussion of the topic can result in is more justifications for atrocities.
Uh, are you talking about the Hamas attack or the Israel attack, or both? In any case, I don't think either are worth defending.
I'm literally talking about nearly every single urban engagement in history.
So, you're talking about the Hamas attack too ... ?
The Israel-Hamas conflict debate is tearing families apart... one of my best friends is no longer talking to his very pro-Isreal father because of it. So it's not surprising the same thing is happening to some extent on Tildes too. It's why I have filtered out the
israeltag, and don't participate in any discussion on it.IMO, it's just not worth participating in such discussions, even on Tildes. Sure, the discussions here are generally more civil than elsewhere on social media, but people here occasionally still get really heated, misinterpret others intent/meaning, say inappropriate shit, and get justifiably temp banned or even perma banned because of that. And ultimately, I think most people have already made up their minds, so I just don't see the point in arguing with anyone over it.
I'm guessing there's a lot of us who feel the same way, and thus have never participated in these discussions. Even if the people commenting on these threads are getting into flamewars, many of us are actually just avoiding them. So what you're seeing is still just a subset of Tildes.
I feel like I'm pretty active here since I've joined and I'm kinda of the same mind. Social media in general is not really a good way to try and make changes in the world, in my mind anyways. I personally try to stay informed and know generally what's going on, and have my own personal/private feelings about matters that I chat with with friends.
I sometimes go into the threads, less often posting comments. I do not think it’s tearing the site apart. It’s a very minor part of what goes on here. People will naturally get upset, some will say things that get them banned.
Out of sight, out of mind. It's one of my filtered tags since useful discourse is hard to come by even here and neither side is willing to give an inch on anything.
I'm sorry if I'm one of the people who have contributed to your distress by being contrary on the topic. It's been a rough couple of months, and this is actually one of the few safe-ish places I can have these sort of discussions that's neither typically malicious and hostile,nor an echo chamber-- I find people I can have a dialogue with while safely behind my computer (letting me take a few deep breaths before composing a reply). I haven't had Deimos yell at me yet, so I think I've been doing OK but I hope I'd be told if I've been getting close to any lines -- I do know my comments have lead to a few spirals that have gotten threads locked.
As a side note, I do owe @rosco a response for their thoughtful reply from my last thread, but my life's been a bit of a mess (close friend has a death in his family...) for the last week and I haven't been able to scrounge up the energy. I always debate with necro-ing an older thread for a thorough reply or not and this is making me feel like it may be a bad idea.
I may be one of those folks as well. I have a few friends who are pretty heavily affected by the conflict (they've lost a good number of family members) and a few of my old collaborators in the region have been killed in the bombings. I appreciate being able to chat about this, particularly with folks who don't necessarily share my perspective. But it's hard to keep subjectivity when it ends up being pretty close to home for folks on all sides.
I hope I'm not adding to your grief either and I'm sorry if I have. Don't feel pressure to respond in the other thread, I understand where you're coming from and hold no ill will. I mentioned the part about assuming best intent because I can often forget it myself. Thanks for the little shout out and I hope you're taking time for yourself and those close to you.
For what it’s worth, I actually find Tildes is the most reasonable place on the internet to discuss this topic, and the only place I am not absolutely nauseated at the idea of clicking on the “view comments” of such posts. I have really only seen thoughtful and nuanced comments regarding the conflict here. It’s been a breath of fresh air. Admittedly I might be arriving late, after any possibly unhinged comments have already been deleted.
I’ve been really concerned at the level of divisiveness this topic causes. In the meatspace I have heard people who I thought were pretty reasonable saying some really unhinged stuff. Social media has been fucking awful with this topic. One friend told me that IG had decided to curate her feed with alternating photos of cute puppies/kittens with photos of beheaded people, dead kids or even videos of parents wailing over their dead children. This is literally the same technique that the CIA uses to brainwash people/drive people insane, utilizing dopamine hits to burn the images permanently into the brain. It’s fully not OK. Zuckerberg should be charged with multiple felonies for that, but nobody seems to be paying attention to that aspect of all of this - or if they are, they don’t have power to do anything about it.
IMO most old time users who have complained about the new users have serious nostalgia goggles on. The first few years of Tildes existence were kinda awful, IMO. There were serious growing pains, and tons of super heated arguments all over the site because of so many users thinking this was just another Reddit clone where the same general lack of site-wide rules applied, and anything (no matter how controversial) could be discussed.
But most users who have remained here have seriously mellowed out since then (myself included), adjusted to the new standards as the culture here got fully established, and most of the real troublemakers were eventually banned. And IMO the new users from the latest wave have been impressively well behaved compared to previous waves. Sure, there is a bit more noise in the comments these days, but I care less about that than I do about other issues new users can cause. And eventually the new users will learn that top-level comments should ideally be reserved for more substantial comments.
My memory is a bit different, I guess. There were certainly some users seemingly with the Midas-touch-of-shit who’s names I still remember. But as you said, people were banned, left, or mellowed out and while we had less activity, it was a bit more thoughtful in my opinion.
The summer 2023 Reddit influx has very clearly, in my view, changed the atmosphere here. Don’t get me wrong, Tildes is still unquestionably better than most other places and I’m happy it’s still chugging along. But there’s been so many more glib or snarky comments, hot takes, misapplied exemplary labels, uncharitable readings and escalations, and other common internet comment issues. Not every thread, not always extreme, but definitely a general “vibe” shift.
lol @ Midas-touch-of-shit.
I actually agree with both you and @cfabbro.
@cfabbro is right that older users have mellowed. Including me. I used to enjoy bantering with the Aussie whose name begins with two A's, because he is such a wonderfully interesting guy with clearly articulated and strongly held views. But then Diemos would delete some of those threads, because I would veer towards bickering, and I would get my panties in a bunch, until I slowly learned to engage less. I'm not naming doubleA, but you know who I mean.
I think you are right that with so many new folks, and with Deimos taking a lighter touch, newer users tend to be less thoughtful, make glib comments, use exemplary as a super upvote, post a new thread instead of commenting in a mega thread etc... There is less thoughtfulness. But the site is still thoughtful enough to be interesting.
Overall I am really glad we have so many folks participating now. Early on, I noticed some strong personalities that conflicted strongly with each other. Some opted to leave. Some were perma banned. With a greater number of users, I just don't see the same small set of users having the same old debates, or re-engaging in prior hostilities which were locked down. It's not so much that the quality of the users are better, nor that I am am better, but that there is less of a need to participate now. There are so many other users, I have no need or desire to comment as much or post as much.
I think there might be a balance between having a few very active users, where you know your thoughtful comment will not be lost in the crowd, vs having more users where you find yourself less thoughtful but also less angered by the few who seem toxic. For example, with fewer users, I found myself wanting to comment more on threads that dealt with minority issues that I really have no business commenting on, which is toxic to those minority users, as they have to deal with that all the time.
But us older users are still around, and still ready to provide a thoughtful comment, even if some of us occasionally change our names.
It's possible my own perception is a bit skewed because of being much more aware of so much of the drama back then. But I think if you compare the heated arguments back then to now, and even the general tone of the majority of discussions, it's much better now than it was during all the other big influxes of new users.
Every big influx back then was a total shitshow which usually lasted for a few months afterwards. And for the first few years we had wave after wave of influxes, so things never really settled down until we had that big dip in invite interest for an extended period a few years ago. But this recent influx has been relatively peaceful and uneventful except in a few contentious topics here and there (mostly Israel-Gaza war ones).
I don't know where you're getting that impression from. There were several unofficial censuses in the early years, and Tildes users have always been a majority English speaking and American. E.g. Results from the 2020 census: https://pastebin.com/nHH6nN5n
Per capita, I think New Zealand is the country that is actually over-represented :)
I once read a research article discussing tension and stress and conflict that consistently appear when churches grow from approximately 50 members to 100, and then again when they reach approximately 500 participants and again if they grow significantly beyond that.
Social dynamics are different with different numbers of people. Villages are different than towns are different than cities.
Thanks for raising the issue.
I am sad to see a couple of people gone who have either left or been banned because of threads on this topic. One of them I have seen on reddit pursuing his usual interests.
I like the suggestion made above to make this topic posts only with comments disabled.
I don't know how much if any due process Deimos gives regarding bans. I have experience with fatigued, over worked short tempered judges through my work. I would imagine being a moderator with a demanding day job would lead to similar dynamics. I am not criticizing Deimos but no one is perfect.
I don't think there is much to gain from discussing this topic here. It leads to extremely strong feelings for many groups of people on all sides.
I think part of the issue is that people feel that their opinion matters to other people because the internet has given a platform that people didn't have in the past.
Not to say that people's emotions on subjects are not valid, but just because you can say something to an online audience doesn't mean that you are "right" or that anyone else is "right".
For many of us, this conflict only vaguely affects us. For others, this conflict affects their families or affects them personally. No matter what you say, someone else will have experienced this differently and come to a different conclusion.
Sharing your perspective is fine, but you cannot make someone else see it your way. You can share what information may have influenced your thinking, but you can't make someone interpret it the same as you do.
Your post confused me, as I have basically seen non of this discussion happening. Granted, I have not subscribed to ~news but when I checked I saw very little in the way of topics there. Then I realized I also am not subscribed to ~misc and when I checked I realized it has basically turned into a political space.
I guess people will find a way to discuss politics online. But also, at the same time, it isn't a problem for all of tildes. In fact, it seems that it is only an issue on a small fraction of the website and doesn't seem to spill over to other parts. At least not from where I am standing. I just wanted to share that bit of perspective.
My opinion is that the Palestinians and Israelis should live together in peace and freedom.
I don't have the power to make that happen, nor do I know how to make it happen.
I stay out of such conversations
I'm late to this, and I can't speak too much on it as my activity here has – barring the last few days, at least – somewhat waned, so I'm not sure how much I may have missed.
But I do want to say that I've been awfully disappointed in what I've been seeing here lately. Maybe what is here is what was designed to be here. There is debate, there is discussion, and there are plenty of longform posts explaining detailed thoughts. This much I can't ignore.
To me, though, Palestine is enduring a genocide, and I just don't have the wherewithal to see something so objectively awful get debated. It is exhausting from the very start. Imagine if you saw a discussion on the validity of eugenics; perhaps nobody says "I like eugenics," but nonetheless they are giving the topic the respect of thought, time and argument, despite it deserving none of those things. That is how I feel when I see defenses of Israel's actions.1 Tildes has become a very emotional place for me to be, and the emotions are very frequently painful ones. I would ignore posts with the tags, but it wouldn't change the fact that I know the anti-Palestine sentiment is still there.
Despite all this, Tildes has plenty of discussion besides this. There are a great many users here, a chunk of which have said as much here that they explicitly do not participate in this. I strongly believe Tildes has the staying power now to survive this, even if several users leave.
So, is Tildes itself being torn apart? I don't think so. But I am starting to wonder if it is the place for me.
1. Indeed, some may not need to imagine the eugenics analogy, as I somewhat recall exactly such a discussion having happened here before.