The most forgotten rule of Tildes, and why I'm leaving
I considered sending this only as a PM to Deimos, but since it actually involves the community and Deimos has no real control over it, I think it's better suited as a public post.
Users are always quick to point to the "paradox of tolerance" clause in the Tildes vision:
Tildes will not be a victim of the paradox of tolerance; my philosophy is closer to "if your website's full of assholes, it's your fault".
But I believe there's an even more important clause, right in the actual Tildes Docs:
If people treat each other in good faith and apply charitable interpretations, everyone's experience improves. (emphasis mine)
A lot of users here, including some well-known power users, are quick to call "Hate!" where there is no actual hate. Controversial statements are quickly interpreted to their most extreme. Yes, there have been some hateful incidents here and I won't deny that, but a lot of well-meaning discussions are lumped into the mix and shut down because they might lead to hate or because they are associated with hate.
Honest discussions, political or otherwise, can't be had in a climate like this. Echo chamber, hivemind, circlejerk... call it whatever, but that's where things are heading.
For the record, I absolutely agree with this part of the Tildes vision, as written by Deimos:
I believe that it's possible to support the ability to freely discuss important and controversial topics without also being obligated to allow threats, harassment, and hate speech.
Threats, harassment, and hate speech have no place anywhere. But sadly, instead of supporting controversial topics as written, it seems certain topics will have no place here because they are controversial. Tildes right now is not the Tildes we were promised, and seems to be veering further away by the day.
If this is the Tildes everyone wants, that's fine of course. But to me, it's no better than Reddit.
It seems a bit odd to me that people that are so quick to be annoyed by "power users" on such a small site.
Don't get me wrong, I totally understand why we would want to steer away from actual power users, who steer influence on the site. But in it's current state, Tildes is very small. You are going to recognize names, and given the number of topics on the front page, it's not hard to find something to contribute to the discussion on most discussions.
Attacking users who are contributing valuable dialogue in a site's infancy, is in my opinion, a terrible idea. The users that are actually contributing something are why I keep coming back. Because there is content to look at.
Yeah, "power users" here are just normal users anywhere else due to the size of the site.
They're normal users with a higher activity than other users, so they get more noticed and more talked about.
“Fame” will always bring in criticism.
I really can't explain it either. I think they're giving "power users" (God I hate this term), too much credit. To do what? I'm not sure. It's not like you commenting on a specific thing will suddenly landslide the opinions on the topic in your favour.
The topic of power users is interesting to me at this point. There are definitely a handful of people doing not the majority of posting, but a lot more posting than others. Off the top of my head: you, catt, goldfish, dubteedub, asimov, and calico show up in a lot of threads. I post a lot in ~news and ~enviro and then occasionally pop in to comment, but if we were to stop posting or just post occasionally I think that the speed at which things got to the site and were discussed would be greatly reduced.
I find it odd here because I contributed very little on Reddit. I have amassed about 4k karma over almost 6 years. But over here, when I browse the site, I will make 4-5 posts every few hours of activity. I felt like on Reddit there was little chance that there was anything that I found hadn't already been posted. For the most part here, if I see something I will likely have found something new to contribute to the site.
If people are noticing the same people post alot and think its influencing the site they have the ability to post to those threads too. This would put them on the same "level" and allow them to influence too.
It's also a community so you should recognize people.
The (not serious) solution would be to have multiple accounts with funny names or variants and comment using those.
Although I remember a discussion the other day about throwaway accounts and anonymous posting.
What's the site's policy on alt accounts, given the limited access to the site?
I'm sitting on a couple of invites I haven't decided what to do with.
Totally okay, just don't use them to manipulate ie don't vote yourself, don't dogpile, etc. See the Code of Conduct for more official info
I see. I'll check it out later. Thank you.
I'm not sure if there was/is any consensus, but the thread I was referring to is this one: https://tildes.net/~tildes.official/2x3/daily_tildes_discussion_allowing_users_to_post_anonymously
One of the main problems was that by allowing anonymous posting or easy to make throwaway accounts, it made it easy to abuse and thus not be able to hold those users accountable for the things they said. That is limited currently because of needing to use your invites to create a new account, but I am certain this is one of many things that are currently being considered along with the reputation system.
The only reason I can think of is envy. Yeah I know, "Y-you're just jealous!" sounds very immature, but what would people prefer? I'm not going to limit/filter the content that I want to put out just because other users aren't putting out just as much (Not implying I'm a power user, that'd be a tad pretentious lol). There's no reason to shit on power users. They're posting content and keeping the site alive
I disagree. I don't think it's envy. We are not 5 year olds.
Honestly, I think it's a type of personality. Or, at least, a personality trait. I haven't made a single negative comment about power users. But I'd be lying if I saif I don't feel a very, very small hint of animosity towards them.
Why? Not because of anything rational. I understand that, because of the small nature of the site, these users are very much necessary or, at least, very useful. My animosity towards them is not
irrational. rational*It's exclusively based on frequency.
On reddit, I feel like most users are like: “Oh, the 1007th reiteration of the same effortless repetition of a 7 year old pun! HILARIOUS, HAHAHAHAH im dying [insert row of emojis]” Whereas me, at the 4th time seeing the same meme, already feel like strangling somebody.
Today, immediately after hearing of the death of Stefán Karl Stefánsson, the first thing I did was go into RES filters and add a filter with his name to filter out any post about him. Because otherwise, I'd go insane.
Anything that's repeated ad nauseam makes me irrationally angry and annoyed and frustrated at my inability to stop it. I cannot deal with ads, or popular songs on the radio. They annoy me to no end. It's not a conscious decision, I didn't choose to be this way. I'm just like that and I cannot change it, believe me, I've tried. My life would be so much easier if I could stop being annoyed at these things. But I really can't.
That's why I had to unsubscribe from all the major default subreddits and block all the users with a very high comment karma whose comments I always found without fail on literally every single post on my front page.
I believe the Tildes' users annoyed at the power users aren't necessarily annoyed at the power users themselves, but at the frequency with which they participate on the site. And it comes from an irrational feeling rather than deliberate ponderation. At least that's how I feel.
What differentiates me from most of these users is that I generally try to ignore this feeling and don't comment on it, since I know it isn't rational not worth acting upon. If we're lucky, a RES equivalent that allows us to filter out certain users will be developed in the near future and we can filter out anyone we don't want to see all that often.
I suppose that's an issue inherent to the userbase, then. Personally, I saw people being recognized and regulars popping up and it reminded me of old school gaming forums where people knew each other, for better or for worse. I like that feeling of community and camaraderie, so I've been striving to make content worth reading/discussing. I wish the power user thing would encourage the others similarly, but I understand why it doesn't
TLDR: Usernames to me are no different from songs or actors or rich visionaries.
(To me) Absolutely anything can become annoying if seen enough times. I love Elon Musk and the vision he has for the world, but I had to filter him out on Reddit. Why? Because having him pop up every single day on my front page (regardless of what the post was actually about) made me start to hate him. Now that I don't see him as much, I like him again.
I think Emma Stone is a great actress but for a short period of time I kind of hated her, for the mere reason of being on so many highly advertised movies. And this is just one example of many, many, many other instances.
Bob Ross, Bill Nye... Really wholesome, great guys, right? Hate them too. Why? Reddit's circlejerk over them. Only reason.
It just feels like I'm having all these people/things/memes/opinions/jokes/films (DAE Thanos and BALANCE MEMES xdxdxdxd) shoved down my throat all the time and it really, really, really drives me insane.
If I stopped having access to ad-blockers I think I'd end up in a psych guard. Ads repeat themselves over and over so much.
I think this way of feeling is actually shared by most if not all people. Just imagine a really innocent ad that gets repeated so many times that you end up really, really hating it. I think most people can relate to this.
To understand where I'm coming from, just imagine you have a tolerance that's waaaay lower than the average person's and it's not just ads but basically everything.
Again, I'd change it if I could and I've tried. But I really can't. So I just try my best to hide away from the content.
That honestly sounds like a slightly terrifying thing to live with. Things are repeated so often on TV, on the internet—hell, I get sick of driving the same route to work every day to the point where I'll take a longer route just to look at something different, and I make that drive on autopilot so I'm not really even consciously "awake" during it—but to have it be that pervasive that you start to actively hate people you otherwise have no intrinsic problem with, that sounds mildly scary. Have you sought professional help, or do you think it's not something that bothers you enough to make that effort?
I don't think anyone would take me seriously. I just avoid TV and ads like the plague. And use a Noise Cancelling headphones with in ear headphones and a high wattage fan system to keep me isolated from certain unpleasant noises.
I mean, it is very annoying, but I never thought of it as being so abnormal that it would require a therapist's help. Whenever I've told people they've just attributed it to a weird, excentric, grumpy personality. I've also never gone into as much detail as I did today, though. So who knows...
Interesting. I can relate a bit—I have a sound must be constantly present habit in my house. TV on as soon as I get home; fans running in just about every room, or at least any room I'm going to be spending any time in. Electrical outages find me scrambling to find something that makes noise, phone, tablet, anything. Silence is to be avoided at all costs, and I'm not even sure why. Probably because I live alone, but writing it out (I have previously on reddit) makes me wonder what exactly is so terrible about the silence.
I'm glad that you seem to realize it's a problem that only you can fix and that you're not asking people to post less.
I've never heard of such a thing before.
I've always been quite dismissive of people who hate things because they're popular, because it seems to me like a childish "I need to be special" thing. I've never considered it from the viewpoint you've presented, which is interesting.
Your quality of life seems to suffer quite a bit because of this. Have you ever gone (or have you ever considered going) to a doctor with this? I wonder if it's something a mental health professional could help with.
It does, but I really don't know any better.
Not really. No one ever takes me seriously when I speak about this issue (honestly when I made the comment I was expecting confrontational or mocking replies). I'd be going through my country's free healthcare system and I don't think they'd pay me any attention for there are people out there in much worse circumstances and in more need of help. I wouldn't want to get laughed out of a psychologist's office. And I don't have the money to go through a paid therapist.
I don't know enough about it to be certain, but I'm skeptical.
If anything, there's a chance that it might be a sympton (?) of a certain disorder I might suspect I have, which is just incurable. And I don't even think they treat it in people like me. That's all supposing I have it, which is only a possibility (I might just be my own flavour of weird... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )
Thanks for answering!
Could it be useful to use something like stylish and change it around so that you don't see names or all names are changed to something like <Anonymous>? That way the content of the comment shouldn't bother you and noticing the same name would not happen (unless mentioned in the text of a comment).
It could be useful. But wouldn't it turn this into a completely (like 4chan) anonymous website?
I want to know who I'm interacting with. I just don't want to notice them too often.
I can only speak for myself, though. Maybe these people that are really annoyed by powerusers would actually like this feature. So I actually think it would be a nice feature to have for those who might want it.
My slight annoyance is exclusively at the username (assuming I've seen it too much already). I could agree 100% with what someone says yet still be annoyed that it was them who said it.
Again, it's pretty irrational and it probably doesn't make sense to most people.
There are many sins which can be committed via CSS.
Slowing the hit of information by, say, hiding author names by default but revealing them on hover or click, is an option. That might be interesting to play with.
I get it. I used to have a customized style sheet on reddit. If I really wanted to see who posted what, I could use toolbox or RES and get the real name. Otherwise, it was simply <username>.
I think there are legitimate reasons to voice concern about certain users gaining too much influence on a site, but that's not what OP was even referencing in this case.
Directing some of the blame at "power users" here doesn't make any sense to me, and it's something I am seeing more and more of on this site.
Yeah I'm worried it's gonna turn into how tripcode users on 4chan are treated eventually
To be fair Kat, you and a handful of other users (whom I will not name) are the first to show up when a controversial topic is posted. In a way it feels like brigading, even if you guys do not mean it intentionally.
What he says there rings true for me. It seems that most of the "power users" see in very black and white terms and are very quick to jump to extremes, even when it is not warranted. It's hard to have open discussions when a handful of people push so aggressively against anything that is not their own views. Those same users are very quick to label people as the extreme of whatever view opposes their own (i.e. I personally do not support the Antifa's Black Bloc Militant tactics so I get called a white supremacist, yet there is no basis or reason for that claim). It puts those of us who might have slightly more conservative views on topics on the defensive from the start, even if we are not meaning to be.
The irony is, I have very liberal views on may subjects, yet because I have taken a mildly conservative stance on a couple of things I get labeled in extremes.
No, no of course not. Although, others have.
I was just trying to provide more perspective on OP's view.
I didn't mean for you to take it personally, I just get where he is coming from.
As someone who agrees with your stance on many, many things, I do think the entire social justice movement regularly blasts itself in its own foot and creates unnecessary tension where there does not need to be any. Let me preface this by stating the fact that I am 99.9% on board with just about all mainstream left-wing social causes in the USA.
I find it extremely disappointing and counter-productive that the same group of people who try to get other people to use "inclusive" language use some extremely divisive (on the face anyways) language themselves. Take the "toxic masculinity" argument from the other day for instance. I'm paraphrasing here, but the general premise from many people was "that is a good description of the phenomenon, if you understand what it means you should have no problem with it". That's not inclusive, that's not inclusive at all. It's frankly downright divisive and combative right off the bat.
I wish I had spoken up, but I did not, partially because I agreed with one side over the other and I would have been picking a fight with the side I agreed with.
If we're aiming to create an inclusive and empathetic society, the social justice advocates need to drop the divisive language and tactics that they currently use. Using phrases that will absolutely be seen as an attack, i.e. toxic masculinity above, needs to be stopped. Silencing voices in the process of elevating minority voices needs to be stopped. There is a large gap between ignorance, people who disagree, and agitators - responding to all of those groups by hostilely calling them out often hurts more than it helps. That kind of action does not help our cause, it hurts it. For every one person you convert, you piss off many people.
If I wasn't clear and you want examples from recent threads, I can provide them. E: grammar
I'm honest-to-goodness curious: do you think "White Privilege" is a phrase that people need to stop using?
I have come to hate the concepts of both masculinity and femininity. I believe they are limiting and outmoded. But I realize that not all of the traits-people-commonly- attribute-to-men are bad. So how, in your opinion, should I draw attention to theBAD-traits-people-commonly-attribute-to-men-and-which-men-show-more-frequently-which-I-believe-is-not-their-fault-because-we-dont-teach-our-boys-enough-interpersonal-communication?
That one is certainly in a significantly greyer zone than "toxic masculinity", but I do believe it suffers from similar problems. Those problems hurt the efficacy of the message and in some cases zero it out or hurt the "cause".
I think you should do it exactly how you did it there - with a decent explanation instead of using exclusive-by-nature, and by extension divisive, shorthand which will immediately put groups of people on the defensive.
It's just bonkers to me that in trying to be more inclusive and empathetic towards minority groups, people immediately turn around and use marginalizing language against the former majority groups.
People can't seriously think that is a recipie for success right?
I get where you're coming from that phrases like "toxic masculinity" make a lot of people mad when they don't understand the meaning, and some people on the left (like yourself) would rather use something more PC. But personally, if someone is going to see "toxic masculinity" and just instantly assume it's an attack, get offended, and batten down the hatches, that's on them. It shows the kind of narrow minded thinking they're capable of, and that's the kind of person that I can't see myself having a productive discussion with, let alone convincing of anything.
There are plenty of people accross the political spectrum who are more interested in having an actual conversation then swaying the masses with easy rhetoric. While there is a place where rebranding and mass-appeal politics works (political campaigns), I'm not in that sphere, so I'm not going to water down or rebrand my views to try and reach people I'm not interested in talking to.
I feel like you're ignoring the whole "let's be inclusive but use uninclusive language" point of my post. You readily admit that the phrase "toxic masculinity" can be easily interpreted disfavorably, yet instead of working to remedy the situation like you probably would for most minority groups, you attack the person who is not comfortable with your language for very understandable reasons.
This is why I don't voice this opinion regularly. Because imho, you're being just as blind and stubborn as the people you're railing against.
It isn't constructive most of the time in real life, and it definitely isn't within the spirit of the rules of this site, as OP referenced.
Sorry, I wasn't intentionally ignoring that point. I'm not ignoring it, I disagree that anyone that "toxic masculinity" excludes isn't worth me personally including.
I disagree it can be "easily interpreted disfavorably". It's really not that misleading a term. If I say "blue dog", why would anyone assume I'm implying that all dogs are blue? If someone misunderstands and then actually seeks an explanation then sure, whatever, that's easy to move on from. But if they misunderstand and instantly shut down intellectually... that's just not my problem, sorry. It's not "blind" and "stubborn" to choose who I want to spend my time engaging with.
And as for your comparison to adjusting language for minority groups, that's just such a false equivalency. When minorities want you to adjust your language, we want you to stop using slurs or language that has been used to oppress. Toxic masculinity is a scientifically accepted term in psychology and sociology, it's not some insult that kids on the playground or trolls on the internet have come up with. For all the right's claims to be logical and rational, it's absurd how quickly they'll disavow any science (or even any scientific term) that hurts their feelings.
Blue dog cannot be misinterpreted to be an attack on a group that someone identifies with. This seems like much more of a false equivalence than the one you accused me of.
Just because something is a scientific term doesn't mean it has carte blanche to be used. You cannot expect the rest of the world to be experts in psychology, especially since throwing around various psychological terms can be very off-putting.
You can defend your actions and rhetoric however you want. This is just one of your allies trying to give you (and others) constructive criticism. I've been ignored and attacked (not saying that you are attacking me here) for this position before, so I'm used to it.
Just know that some of your ideological allies think you're doing us a disservice.
Fair enough, I guess a fairer comparison would be "radical feminism" which again, doesn't insinuate that all feminists are radical.
I understand you're providing constructive criticism, and thank you for that, but trust me I've thought it over and I disagree that it's useful for me specifically. If I were trying to get elected, or if I were a promininent public figure, I'd be a bit more concerned about the way I use language. Right now though, it's not worth the effort and energy for me to make concessions for reactionaries.
I, respectfully, would like you to possibly consider that not everyone you're currently writing off as a reactionary deserves the treatment you're dishing out.
I do a lot of work on behalf of my local Democratic party, and there are large groups of people who are woefully ignorant, and they get significantly more difficult to reach out to because of interactions with people that act similar to how you've portrayed your standard operating procedure here.
The people I'm specifically referring to as "reactionary" here are the ones who... well... "react" defensively (aggressively even) to the term toxic masculinity.
And I'm not sure exactly what you think my "standard operating procedure" is. I've tried to make it pretty clear that these just aren't the kind of people I want to have a conversation with. I'm not attacking them, I'm walking away from them, because it's not my job to accomodate their ignorance. Good on you for putting in the effort, but I don't want to and I don't have to, and if they somehow see my retreat as an attack, then they're even further gone than I thought.
What I'm saying is that sometimes well-meaning but ignorant people will predictably react defensively and that maybe the onus is on you to use more inherently inclusive language.
Dunno how quickly you noped out of that thread, but I made some headway on helping some people understand why "toxic masculinity" needs a serious re-branding.
Or at least, it would appear so based on the amount of votes I got.
I didn't post because normally people espousing that view get shouted down by a small, vocal minority group in real-life when that issue gets brought up.
Let's just say that I'm extremely active in my local Democratic party and those kinds of reactions are a serious problem and seriously harm our outreach efforts as they basically shutdown legitimate conversation and derail everything into a shit-flinging contest.
Eh, I got frustrated with the large amount of people attacking me for taking a stance that was against the norm. We were having a good discussion, sorry about my harsh response it wasn't necessarily directed at you and I really don't have anything against you personally. There was just one point where I had like 3 or 4 comments from you and I got frustrated and took it out on you. I enjoy the discussion and you actually take the time to formulate intelligent replies and I appreciate that. Although I might suggest keeping it to one thread, jumping all over like that can get frustrating for the person on the defence.
So yea, my bad.
As for that post, I don't remember who it was, but yea, last week when I commented on a topic about the Antifa I was basically called a Nazi for not supporting their militant tactics. When in reality I don't support either group (for different reasons obviously). It was on a Vox link that JayJay posted if I remember correctly.
But I mean, Zekka literally just made a multiple page long rant mostly about me (and a couple others) and a big part of it called me a racist (not true btw). So yeah, it's been said directly at me, even if my name was replaced with an emoji.
Oh, do you mean like the time that you implied another user was racist when they defended freedom of speech for bigots?
I agree with /u/EscReality on this.
Well, I applaud your reasonableness now, but I think this is another case of exactly what /u/EscReality was talking about.
100% agreement, but I do believe it is important to remember the principle of charity when evaluating another user's comment, at least until it is certain they are acting in bad faith (though, I equally know that I too struggle with that from time to time).
This is what I was talking about and it's probably a good thing I was not a participant of that discussion.
I feel like I've been bamboozled here, because compared to the previous thread @Tenlock has completely reversed course: we've gone from "you've got my vote [to ban pure politics]" to "it seems certain topics will have no place here because they are controversial."
What am I missing?
I honestly only recognize you because people keep calling you a power user. In my experience you post no more often than I would expect anyone to. I think people are either making a fuss of it now so that when the trust system is added they won't have to "compete" with you for added privileges, or they're just jealous that they don't have anything interesting to say on as many things as you do.
Complaining about “power users” on this site is just idiotic. If it bothers you that much and you are unable to ignore usernames then develop a plug in that hides them or something. Consume the content. Who contributes it is irrelevant.
I would if I knew how. I can only wait for a RES equivalent with that feature.
I believe their username is just a lot easier to remember than most's.
I wasn't being mean hearted or anything. I have removed the post
Same. Arguing about gender pay gap is very different than racial superiority (and let's not pretend we're talking about black hair is more dominant in demographics when discussing race realism).
You know, now that you mention it, "sage"-ing might be a really useful tool to help controversial threads to cool down over time and not constantly be brought back to the front page to drag in more people.
Either at the level of individual commenters opting-out of the activity bump, or a moderator-level action preventing new comments from bumping the post, it seems like something worth exploring a little further.
I don't want a downvote, but these meta threads have been distracting. I'll rather not unsub from ~tildes or ~talk too. Maybe, we need a tag to filter on, though I'm honestly not sure how to group these.
I think a
ranttag would be appropriate. I think the meta-discussion and so forth is important, but I don't come to this site to read about people talking about the site. Not that these discussions are inherently bad, just not what everyone always wants to see.I don't think "rant" is bad, but I think having the tag added for you might be. I was thinking maybe "bye" or something.
I'll support a "rant" tag.
Slightly off-topic but how do you add tags? Can all users add them? Or only some higher trust users do?
And I love that we don't have it. Otherwise I probably wouldn't have your wonderful comment (I'm being honest here, not sarcastic or anything like that) which explains why someone would want to downvote a post that really resonated with me.
Now, instead of just downvoting and moving on, you explained why you didn't like this post. And offered criticism which can be used to further improve the site and users' behavior. I believe that's a wonderful thing.
Isn't that exactly what a downvote is? Saying you disagree or dislike it without giving a chance to the other party to discuss the topic?
I would love the ability to sage on this site. I feel like something causing an argument (or just a long conversation) has proven itself not to automatically mean it's worth sticking to the top of the website until it's over.
Even in non-controversial topics, sometimes following up a question and being friendly afterwards feels weird because it'll bump something that's worthless to most other users.
We used to call it "flouncing" in a private Facebook group I was a member of many years ago. It's a very dramatic attention-seeking way of leaving. And, in my experience on Reddit, some of these flouncers don't actually leave. Having gotten the attention they sought, they stay around.
There are certain controversial topics that warrant no debate, no benefit of the doubt, no charitable interpretations.
It would be nice if you actually gave examples, "well-meaning discussions, charitable interpretations, honest discussions" are all subjective metrics, and open for debate. I don't want to presume what you're referring to. However, people with racist, transphobic, homophobic, etc opinions usually do not think of themselves as hateful, racist, etc. In fact, people like that love to think their beliefs are scientific, rational, in good-faith, etc. That doesn't mean anyone should give them the benefit of the doubt because they don't realize their own hateful ideology.
It had to do with racism I think. I looked through OP's history and found this removed post. I'm guessing this is what OP is talking about. There's a lot of hating on "race realism" which I think is a good way to deal with racism-with-a-new-paint-job.
I agree, perhaps not to the same degree of zeal, but context really matters. Tildes should have a court system.
yea but I thought that was like joke/entertainment, it would be cool if we had something more serious and engrained in Tildes.
That's just a tongue-in-cheek subreddit without actual power.
I thought Karma court was about some Redditors stealing photos/content from others or sometimes reposting popular posts from other subreddits and using that to gain karma points.
Frankly, it's going to take a while for people to decompress after coming in from reddit or facebook or wherever. Those forums have been teaching and rewarding negative behaviors for many years. That doesn't go away just because we ask nicely. It's going to take work on the part of the users here to show people a different way, and it's never going to be 'done' because it's going to flare up with every wave of new invites and every wave of open registrations once we reach that point.
As much as I despise the downvote button and culture, I have to admit (shamefully) that I've rushed to downvote certain comments a few (very few, I promise) times while on this site. Only to remember we don't really have a downvote button. And if I care enough about this topic to show my disagreement, then I need to make a higher-than-pressing-a-button-effort comment about it.
But the longer I'm here, the more I adapt to the lack of it. So I'm optimistic about the site's future. And I trust most users will have a similar experience. At least, I hope so.
It's just going to take time and reflection. No one has ever solved these problems, and people who come rushing into Tildes expecting it to have them solved at this alpha state are in for some disappointment. Maybe by the time we're fully open registration, but not yet.
I've honestly had this same exact experience of seeing something that's low effort or just nonsensical babble and wanting to downvote, but remembering that it doesn't exist here.
I think your reflection about making a comment in those times to show disagreement is exactly the reason why I'm liking it here more than Reddit or any other social media. Thanks for putting it into much better words than I could in my mind.
You're entitled to your opinion, regardless of what I think of it.
Hope you find a community more to your liking.
That's a very nice way of saying bye Felicia.
Hey, thanks for posting.
I think it's always going to be hard to discuss controversial topics. People feel really strongly about them, and it's difficult to avoid falling back on easier-but-worse arguments or burning out on talking about them entirely. I absolutely think Tildes has potential to be a great platform for discussing these topics, but.... we're still in alpha, and we're still missing a lot of tools to help us make those discussions less painful.
I think everyone really needs to remember Daily Tildes discussion - Just... try to relax a bit.
I think this also applies to folks worried about alt right talking points sneaking in. Nobody wants that crap here. I don't think Deimos does either, and I've seen him take quick and reasoned action whenever actual clearly bad-faith users pop up. The site's in good hands IMO.
Also, to address part of your post specifically:
I think this goes the other way, too. I don't think anyone you're describing actually wants to shout out everyone they disagree with. They likely feel strongly about not making the same mistakes that Reddit made (of which there are many), and want Tildes to be the best site it can be. We're all here together, you know :)
I love your response and totally agree with referencing the "try to relax a bit" post. It seems like every day there's a dramatic discussion about how something is ruining the site.
Thanks :)
People really need to remember that it's not as big of a deal as they think it is. We're all here to build a better site and community together, there's no need to spend our time with our gaze locked to our navel.
I would say that all the things you pointed out are reasons you should not only stay on tildes, but actively voice out these opinions when you find it necessary. Be the change you want to see and all that good stuff. By leaving you are just as much contributing to an echo chamber while simultaneously reinforcing your own bubble.
I'm not talking about conservatives or bigotry or any of that. Is OP a conservative? Does it matter? Topics like this are getting really exhausting.
My point was that if OP is browsing tildes, and he/she a comment that he/she believes contradicts the clauses mentioned in the post above, then he should vocalize that in the instances they occur- not in a post like this. All this post does is provide a platform for everyone to shout from and get angry about- on both sides of the spectrum. And when someone tells you you are wrong, it is really hard to just let it go.
I do think this community (tildes as a whole) very heavily leans towards a certain demographic, and I'm not saying that from a political perspective. I don't think the answer to that is to get users that are "opposite" of what users here tend to be, but maybe we should provide avenues that cultivate different forms of discussion.
For instance, every group on tildes seems to be very general and encapsulates a large variety of subtopics, but the group that immediately stands out to me is anime. I'm definitely not saying there is anything wrong with anime by any means, I like it, but to a lot of people it seems to be a more niche topic that could easily fall under ~tv. Am I calling for the removal of ~anime? Of course not. Do I think its existence implies a precedent for the user base of this site? Absolutely, and I think it serves as a simple, non-toxic/non-accusatory example of how we could improve the health of the community.
I feel like in any community that tends to lean a certain way officially (This site is very left leaning), there will always be dissent when discussing the "other side". Besides 4chan with its total anonymity, I don't think a model for a site could work where we all discuss politics with impunity and almost no bias. People feel strongly towards certain things and react negatively towards things that challenge their things. That's human nature, and it's never going to be perfectly balanced unless there's no moderation whatsoever. I also think it's pertinent to point out that far too many people on this site get way too into politics. This site was supposed to be more than just slinging around buzzwords and disparaging groups of people, guys. We have like 9 other boards that aren't politics based. If that stuff annoys/angers you, filter it out. This site isn't just shout politics and I wish people wouldnt form judgements based on that ever-tumultuous state of affairs
Thank you for making a public post, I find it preferable to get things in the open and I agree with you. Tildes sounds great in theory but it's having some growing pains right now.
I agree with this and is the approach I try to take.
I will add on to this conversation by linking the wiki for group polarization to better understand the implications for a hard line moderation:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_polarization
And another article on combatting this phenomenon:
https://www.spring.org.uk/2009/09/group-polarization-the-trend-to-extreme-decisions.php
We need diverse viewpoints. So the question shouldn't be should we ban certain topics, but rather what the moderation surrounding those topics looks like.
Maybe instead of a single moderator closing a thread down, trusted users can be polled on whether to do so?
Maybe if a thread is controversial, a special commenting mode or an auto mod is enabled that has stricter rules around posting (e.g. one that is like /r/neutralpolitics.
And based on the articles that I posted, I encourage you to stay Tenlock. You might ruffle some users feathers and they might ruffle yours but at least if they are being ruffled, it means we have something we can disagree on and talk about.
The key is to correctly identify what is hateful/abusive and what is not while working towards not having a closed system where polarization can occur.
A poll doesn't have to be about locking the thread, it could be about whether a thread is controversial or not so the strict commenting rules I mentioned become active.
I think Tildes is a good place to have those conversations that are controversial where users can do the work of disproving the hateful rhetoric. Meanwhile, everyone is expected to have an even higher bar to reach that prevents the disingenuous tactics some groups take from being used and cries of censorship are silenced because everyone is playing by the same hard rules as everyone else.
These are just brainstorming ideas to keep a solid core for discussion across the site. I would welcome reading your ideas.
I would have to respectfully disagree with your solution then.
I think that way moderation is set up and acted on is fundamentally flawed for the traditional forum set up, especially one geared toward high quality discussion.
What I have noticed over the years is:
I personally would be interested in creating a moderator structure that mimics a government (as silly as that sounds) where we have different tiers, segmented roles but checks/balances applied, high transparency, and accountability provided by the users.
But as it is right now, we have the opportunity to work towards a new and creative way to effectively moderate by trying different solutions and seeing the results.
An example of this happening is StackOverflow: some questions are closed within the first 5 minutes by a group of 5 (or fewer) people watching their favorite tag, or they sit in the queue for months.
I'm not even sure what the problem is. I've seen only a handful of topics locked or shut down and it's always been pretty clear why.
It sometimes can take a bit of time for a thread to be locked.
However, if a post can be identified as controversial and goes into a 'Controversial' mode, we could negate locking it altogether by having an auto mod be very strict on posting guidelines and elevate those guidelines to a set of strict rules. Then a thread won't have to be locked and when a user can't back up their claim or begins slinging insults or being condescending, their post gets removed but the topic stays open.
Sounds like a good idea. What do you think could be a criteria for a post to be marked as "controversial" and what would the strict rules look like?
I think if you were wanting to automate flagging posts automatically, you could look at how many standard deviations away from the average comment per hour a thread is to basically identify it as an outlier. Then look at the shape of a comment chain to see how it compares to other comment chains on the site.
Those are just two factors I can think of that is basic calculations, you could do sentiment analysis to see how comments are comparing to each other.
Non automated approach would be just to have users click a button for controversial if a thread is controversial to trigger the mode.
I think posting guidelines would look like:
And maybe a controversial one but:
Often times you will see something like this:
'You are wrong'
'You are wrong'
'Really?'
I don't think going line by line through a comment trying to pick is an effective means of talking about the thesis around a comment. To me it comes off of trying to inflict death by a thousand papercuts or doing gish-gallop style debating.
A lot of these suggestions seems difficult for an automod to enforce. How would the automod interpret a source that is not a link, such as a quoted chapter from a book? And how can an automod interpret personal attacks? Performing sentiment analysis on comments seems like a big step from the current state of tildes.
By source I mean a hyperlink somewhere off site. For personal attacks, it would require a running list of words such:
'cunt'
'idiot'
'moron'
Things like that at it's very basic self. It wouldn't catch everything but even a small percent of catches with a low Type 1 error would keep thinks more civil, faster, than waiting on people moderators.
Sentiment analysis is a pie in the sky thought.
Really, these ideas I'm floating around aren't easy at all. However, I was hoping they would prompt more of a discussion around what moderation could look like that could reduce the human error that can occur with human moderators using poorly defined rules and examples as their base.
Maybe some kind of user reporting system of marking the OP of a thread as "controversial" meaning that something in there warrants some kind of moderator to look over? Probably use some kind of scale about number of comments in a post compared to number of 'controversial' flags?
I would generally prefer users to be the ones marking a topic as controversial rather than an algorithm so I prefer this suggestion. The OP could also potentially mark it as controversial when posting to factor into calculations.
I have not really experienced what you are talking about, I feel debates have been heated which is fine, I think the solution is exactly what you are doing, raising awareness about what you feel. People are people and will react in ways that you can't strangle out or account for. As someone who hasn't felt how you feel about Tildes, ill be happy to listen, and do my personal best to change. But quitting because it's not perfect I would call disappointing and not a strong move... good luck I guess.
I completely agree with you. And I think and talk about it often. Though I use different words.
In my experience, people love assuming, meaning no matter how clear you are and how careful you are in the wording of your thoughts, people will most of the time interpret it the way they want, which might or might not be the way you intended for it to be interpreted.
Hell, even if you go out of your way to specifically tell people to take your words as they are, at face value, without trying to find a double meaning, they'll still assume you mean different things.
I hate that. But that's as human as it gets. I've never been on a community that wasn't like that.
So, my question is, if you're leaving Tildes, where are you going?
This kind of reminds me of The Fundamental Attribution Error, wherein, people will always interpret words (edit: and actions) based on internal factors and biases, rather than on external factors or experiences that have shaped those beliefs.
It moreso applies in general human behavior and less so on message boards, but I still think it's an important concept to keep in mind when people are making comments that might seem, erm, less thoughtful or offputting.
I think in terms of what's healthy for a community, the subject of a debate can be much more telling than its tone. I would support a community that tolerated inventive swears, ancient curses, and literal sword fights (have fun, mods!) about deep dish vs. thin crust, Game Boy vs. Game Gear, Senna vs. Prost, or tabs vs. spaces, but am absolutely uninterested in toleration of "honest discussion" that includes things like hate speech, no matter how civil it might be.
So my take is that one should describe "controversial", because that use sounds pretty damn loaded to me. I dispute the idea that a horrible opinion, when presented coherently, injects actual controversy into a debate. "Controversial" is a word is too often used to either say "this is an awful idea that I am too milquetoast to condemn", or "I wish to get my indefensible BS on the grown-up table".
All communities will have their own floors for what is "genuinely controversial" and, below that, what is removable. I don't mean to condemn you by association, but when you say "no controversial ideas; echo chamber!" I hear "oh, cool, so probably a few less racists." I guess my take is that I hope you find a place with a floor low enough for you to relax on. One of the main things that appealed to me about Tildes is that the floor is higher.
This is why I have all politics related tags filtered out.
Regardless of what the community wants to happen in regard to civility of the discussion, it quickly becomes a yelling match or an echo chamber everywhere I have seen on the internet and the political sections are easily the most toxic part of any website with open discussion like tildes/reddit, granted I haven't seen it as bad here on tildes I'm certain it will happen eventually.
Sadly it is just not possible to discuss politics/similar 'controvertial' topics on the internet these days no matter how hard you try to create an environment for it, but thankfully it is really easy to not see it here on tildes ever.
Sadly the 'promoting abject racism.' may be the point at which you stop being calm about it, which is understandable. But for others its simply;
And the 90% of threads being fine is just for now and it honestly pretty ridiculous for a community of like 5k people that are for the most part individually vetted for invites. Add double that, go public, and that number of civil threads plummets, unless drastic measures are taken, which I don't know what could be done but I'm sure that is something Deimos knows and has at least some plan for.
For me the policy is to ignore it here on tildes, and based on the threads the last day or two on ~tildes about the exact issue I think I have made the right choice. At least for myself.
Actually you can. Check out /r/neutralpolitics and /r/changemyview on reddit. The thing is, though, they've had to go bonkers using very rigid structures for the discussion to keep it functional. CMV's wiki has all the rules and rationale behind it. It's a ton of work.
In absence of that kind of effort I think you're right. Almost no one makes the effort. Even those places on reddit won't last with the burnout/turnover.
Those are the exact communities I was hoping Tildes would be able to emulate. Being able to use a whole site that has discussion of that level of quality (not those subs are always amazing), was what made Tildes such a tantalizing idea to me, and why I joined so early. However, without more mod tools and many, many more moderators, I think controversial topics will almost invariably lead to the ugliness we have seen so far. Bringing in more diverse viewpoints would help with this problem, but stricter moderation is the main antidote, in my opinion. I am very hopeful that those topics will be able to be discussed productively at some point, though.
I also want to remind people that race/gender/politics/etc. aren't the only topics allowed to be discussed on the site. There are plenty of other groups were great discussion can be had, and I am hoping people create 150, or even 50 comment threads about other topics besides purely the above, not they they are not worth discussing, but because a healthy mix makes the site as a whole better and makes us all more well informed.
And nothing of value was lost. Going over your previous comments, I only see dishonest debating practices, semantic gymnastics and appeals to authority. You do not really make an effort to understand your companion's argument and construct pretty shoddy strawmen instead. Once called out on, you hide behind the mother of all lazy cop-outs - "hivemind" and "circlejerk"
Bye Felicia