Edit: I'm going to lock this thread now. It's going totally fine, but I think it's mostly run its course, and we don't need it getting bumped back up to the top of the site constantly for two more...
Edit: I'm going to lock this thread now. It's going totally fine, but I think it's mostly run its course, and we don't need it getting bumped back up to the top of the site constantly for two more days. If we had other functions to accomplish this I'd use them instead, but with the site's current sorting/behavior, locking it is the best option I have (kind of like needing to edit this into my existing top comment instead of being able to sticky a new explanation).
If you have concerns about this, you can feel free to PM me about them.
Original comment below:
Alright, I banned go1dfish, but I guess I'll leave this thread up as some form of transparency on it. Was it justified for me to ban him? I don't know, and today, I honestly just don't care any more. I already tried explaining my reasoning for removing his comment to him far more times than I would usually bother, and he's been completely unwilling to even attempt to understand. Maybe I'll change my mind and unban him later, I don't know.
[Edited out stuff I posted in frustration that I shouldn't have]
A pretty good litmus test IMO is whether or not people who "express a different opinion" ever interact with the community beyond expressing that opinion. Do they (at least occasionally) make...
A pretty good litmus test IMO is whether or not people who "express a different opinion" ever interact with the community beyond expressing that opinion. Do they (at least occasionally) make comments about cars? Cooking? Gaming? Or do they literally only inject themselves into culture war drama?
I've never seen go1dfish do anything except race bait and whine about censorship on any forum he pops up on. That's a pretty good sign that he does not intend on good faith participation.
In fact, this might lend itself to an interesting experiment - give threads a "controversy" score somehow, and give users a similar score based on their ratio of participation in "controversial" threads. Make it based only on participation, not on comment score so you don't artificially censor "unpopular opinions." People with a high controversy score get rate limited in controversial threads - forcing them to participate in the greater community if they want to talk politics/culture wars/whatever. It seems like that would solve a huge part of the problem with people who only come around to disrupt the community. Hell, it might even convince a few trolls to change their stripes.
I've seen him comment intelligently regarding programming quite a few times. That's not to say censorship isn't his primary concern, but it's not accurate to say he never does anything else.
I've never seen go1dfish do anything except race bait and whine about censorship on any forum he pops up on. That's a pretty good sign that he does not intend on good faith participation.
I've seen him comment intelligently regarding programming quite a few times. That's not to say censorship isn't his primary concern, but it's not accurate to say he never does anything else.
That's because he's clearly quite a good IT professional. Problem is that his view clearly is not compatible with tildes (absolute free speech Vs moderated)
That's because he's clearly quite a good IT professional.
Problem is that his view clearly is not compatible with tildes (absolute free speech Vs moderated)
Well, there goes my ability to comment! I love a good debate, and I've been known to get a bit too invested in a controversial topic. So, even if I'm arguing the "good guy" side of a topic, I'll...
give threads a "controversy" score somehow, and give users a similar score based on their ratio of participation in "controversial" threads. Make it based only on participation, not on comment score so you don't artificially censor "unpopular opinions." People with a high controversy score get rate limited in controversial threads
Well, there goes my ability to comment! I love a good debate, and I've been known to get a bit too invested in a controversial topic. So, even if I'm arguing the "good guy" side of a topic, I'll get tagged as a "controversial" user just for participating in the debate.
Trust me, I'm right there with you. But maybe the entire secret to a healthy forum, and to breaking down ideological bubbles is to force people into at least some minimal level of "normal"...
Trust me, I'm right there with you. But maybe the entire secret to a healthy forum, and to breaking down ideological bubbles is to force people into at least some minimal level of "normal" participation, so that access to the ideological skinner box is itself a reward instead of a compulsion. It would seriously impede the ability for bad actors to act badly, but it would also sort of force everyone else to take a breath occasionally, which seems like it would be an overall good thing no matter how you spin it.
I mean, that's sort of how it works in real life, right? If you are the sort of person who is always bringing up controversy in your group of friends, you'll tend to get excluded pretty quickly. That becomes your social identity. Not only that, but when you are included, people are quick to tune you out. But if you and someone else primarily connect over your love of baking, suddenly when you do speak up about something controversial, you aren't just the "controversial friend" spouting off again - you are a cake enthusiast who has real concerns. People are more likely to listen, and you are less likely to find yourself simply preaching to the choir.
That's an interesting notion. I don't know if it could work the same way on a site like Tildes where everyone presents as faceless usernames. I do recognize some of the most frequent posters'...
That's an interesting notion. I don't know if it could work the same way on a site like Tildes where everyone presents as faceless usernames. I do recognize some of the most frequent posters' names from time to time but honestly I tend to skip over who said what in a typical thread. I'm not correlating X's opinion on TV shows in this thread with X's opinion on Trump in another thread to form a picture of who X is. It may happen occasionally but even then it's usually accidental. Normally you guys are all an anonymous stream of "somebodys," to me at least. I don't have any opinions about, or even concepts of, most people posting here.
Maybe little avatars would help with that. Maybe it's not a problem that needs to be solved.
i actually really like this post. i didn't expect something i would like this much to show up in this topic (i was super worn out by the thread i posted earlier so i procrastinated on reading it)
i actually really like this post. i didn't expect something i would like this much to show up in this topic (i was super worn out by the thread i posted earlier so i procrastinated on reading it)
I'm really surprised go1dfish lasted as long as he did here. I remember him from when he was back on reddit, and he has always been the kind of user who'd run afoul of the "no tolerance for...
I'm really surprised go1dfish lasted as long as he did here. I remember him from when he was back on reddit, and he has always been the kind of user who'd run afoul of the "no tolerance for intolerance" rule here. I joined this site because of all the assurances it wouldn't go down the road reddit did as far as tolerating racists. I think you made the right call.
Yeah, this was inevitable. I was actually surprised that he lasted this long, because I knew my attitude to moderation was totally opposed to his. Turns out it was mainly because he somehow picked...
Yeah, this was inevitable. I was actually surprised that he lasted this long, because I knew my attitude to moderation was totally opposed to his. Turns out it was mainly because he somehow picked up a fundamental misunderstanding that I was only ever going to remove hate speech, and he hadn't noticed all the other stuff I've been removing (which still hasn't been very much overall, but it's certainly not all hate speech).
Same here. I've been seeing go1dfish's anti-censorship commentary on Reddit for years, and I was... surprised, to say the least... that he was so enthusiastic about your vision for Tildes. I knew...
I was actually surprised that he stayed around this long, because I knew my attitude to moderation was totally opposed to his.
Same here. I've been seeing go1dfish's anti-censorship commentary on Reddit for years, and I was... surprised, to say the least... that he was so enthusiastic about your vision for Tildes. I knew there had to be a misunderstanding there somewhere.
It makes a lot more sense now that I realize that he thought something along the lines of: "he's only removing things that are illegal in Canada under their stricter speech laws."
It makes a lot more sense now that I realize that he thought something along the lines of: "he's only removing things that are illegal in Canada under their stricter speech laws."
i just want to add something because i'm obliquely referenced several times in the OP: i hardcore disgaree that discussion promoting censorship was a wrong way for my topic to go -- it's fine if...
i just want to add something because i'm obliquely referenced several times in the OP: i hardcore disgaree that discussion promoting censorship was a wrong way for my topic to go -- it's fine if everyone who posts in my topic disagrees with me.
goldfish seemed to think that that stuff being posted in my topic was somehow disrespectful to my wishes -- i wouldn't have bothered posting a topic if i didn't want people who seriously disagreed with me to reply.
I think you're completely justified in doing so, and I appreciate that you've decided to leave the topic up. There's been a lot of drama lately so hopefully it can begin to die down now.
I think you're completely justified in doing so, and I appreciate that you've decided to leave the topic up.
There's been a lot of drama lately so hopefully it can begin to die down now.
Please don't reconsider. Goldfish has proven time and again he's a zealot, hypocrit, and a child. The most damning thing regarding goldfish was his massive freakout when r/FatPeopleHate was...
Please don't reconsider. Goldfish has proven time and again he's a zealot, hypocrit, and a child. The most damning thing regarding goldfish was his massive freakout when r/FatPeopleHate was banned, which was literally the most censored sub on Reddit. He spammed these crazy comments Mandarin everywhere.
Conservativee subs have always been the most censorship happy, far more than any left leaning sub, yet he never rides them for it. He proven time and again he only cares about censorship when it's not rightwingers doing it.
I don't think so. First, part of the reason I came to tildes was for the strong moderation. More importantly, he continuously was "JAQing off" about race. And then he continued to do so by airing...
I don't think so. First, part of the reason I came to tildes was for the strong moderation. More importantly, he continuously was "JAQing off" about race. And then he continued to do so by airing his grievances and doubling down, and then complaining about "censorship" when he really means "moderation."
This is a blatent mischaracterizaton of go1dfish's activity on the site. To my knowledge they did not even address race in any form until yesterday, when they gave a rational, well reasoned...
More importantly, he continuously was "JAQing off" about race.
This is a blatent mischaracterizaton of go1dfish's activity on the site. To my knowledge they did not even address race in any form until yesterday, when they gave a rational, well reasoned response (reproduced above) to the well meaning, but complete and utter tripe response in the OP yesterday. If anything, go1dfish was constantly JAQ'ing about their perceived evils of the state, taxation and censorship.
I disagreed with the removal of their comment from the thread yesterday, but grudgingly accepted that it would derail the thread into yet another tedious, unsourced, mudslinging shit-show about human intelligence, racial bias and the multitude issues that come with that.
In the censorship thread he directly referenced posting statistics such as one of African Americans having lower IQ as something he did not want to see removed. Whether this represents his beliefs...
In the censorship thread he directly referenced posting statistics such as one of African Americans having lower IQ as something he did not want to see removed. Whether this represents his beliefs or not, a statistic like that is misleading and damaging if it's presented outside the context that it is in nearly every psychology textbook where it's mentioned - the context being the fact that IQ tests are biased.
I can't claim to know what he thought on the issues he didn't talk much about, but the fact that he thought this was acceptable to do shows both a fundamental misunderstanding of the sciences and a misunderstanding of when people choose to start a "discussion" on a topic. While I disagreed with him on many issues, I did not personally see him as much of a problem, aside from the fact that he was completely and entirely mislead of the premise of this website and just exactly what will end up being censored.
A side note: are you familiar with the term "tainted evidence" as it applies linguistically to conversations? I believe it might explain why quite a few people may have been mislead about his beliefs.
I noticed you mentioned this yesterday, again without a source. I read this article which seems fairly well sourced and discusses a number of possible biases including cultural, what an IQ test is...
Whether this represents his beliefs or not, a statistic like that is misleading and damaging if it's presented outside the context that it is in nearly every psychology textbook where it's mentioned - the context being the fact that IQ tests are biased.
I noticed you mentioned this yesterday, again without a source. I read this article which seems fairly well sourced and discusses a number of possible biases including cultural, what an IQ test is actually measuring, etc. Some of this supports your argument, some does not. The point is, it's easy to make an assertion that confirms your assumption, and if it conforms to our own internally held beliefs (the righteous desire for all humans to be treated equally) people will upvote the argument without even requiring a basic source to back up the words. I do not wish to be tarred and feathered out of town the way /u/go1dfish has been though, so I feel like I should stop arguing before I'm labeled creepy, weird and racist because the thing I've learned is it can happen to anyone
shows both a fundamental misunderstanding of the sciences
Again, according to you. Are you an intelligence researcher - likely not? Am I? Absolutely not. Again a source to a reputable journal and 5-10 years of my own education on the subject would let me judge this. A link to a Vox article will not.
Literally all over the Wikipedia page. Go open a psychology textbook. Or talk with any psychologist. This is common knowledge in the field. Like someone asking for a source on global warming, I...
again without a source
Literally all over the Wikipedia page. Go open a psychology textbook. Or talk with any psychologist. This is common knowledge in the field. Like someone asking for a source on global warming, I just simply do not have the time to do your research for you.
I'm well aware this doesn't help my argument, but my discussions on the original thread about intelligence were the extent of which I was willing to engage. I'm tired of making the same argument and I don't have the time to compile a list of carefully curated reports and journals proving something that's quite literally in the textbooks.
Are you an intelligence researcher
My job title and education have nothing to do with this, but since it's no secret if you go read my post history on reddit, I will let you know that I have a degree in neurobiology and work in the health sciences.
A link to a Vox article will not.
I've never linked a Vox article as a source. Nearly every source I link on this website is a journal article.
This was an unfair accusation against you, and I apologize. When this topic has come up in the past, the Ezra Klein / Sam Harris article on Vox has repeatedly been linked as evidence / argument.
I've never linked a Vox article as a source. Nearly every source I link on this website is a journal article.
This was an unfair accusation against you, and I apologize. When this topic has come up in the past, the Ezra Klein / Sam Harris article on Vox has repeatedly been linked as evidence / argument.
I found myself with some time while waiting on something work related and dug up a few articles you might find interesting. Article 1 Article 2 Article 3 Article 4 Article 5
I found myself with some time while waiting on something work related and dug up a few articles you might find interesting.
Thank you, this is a much more helpful reply and now I have reading to do! edit: When it comes to any sort of political, moral or scientific argument it is imperative in my view to provide...
Thank you, this is a much more helpful reply and now I have reading to do!
edit:
When it comes to any sort of political, moral or scientific argument it is imperative in my view to provide adequate sources -- otherwise you far too often end up with baseless assertions (e.g. for a less charged example 'life for average people in socialist countries is obviously worse than in capitalist countries' -- I can find said thread if needed).
One of the points I thought go1dfish made particularly well addresses why I think this is necessary:
To properly reject ideas with any sort of force of reason, you have to actually give them consideration, not just ignore other viewpoints because you are so strongly convinced of your own correctness. This doesn't mean you have to believe them, only that you try to understand where they are coming from so that you can more effectively counter-argue against it.
Providing reputable sources helps me (and others) assess that IQ tests are indeed biased, and more effectively argue so in the future, in a way that common knowledge does not.
Yes, I am aware of how debate is supposed to work, logical fallacies that are often fallen back upon, and other realities of an honest discussion. I think it's important to be aware of the...
Yes, I am aware of how debate is supposed to work, logical fallacies that are often fallen back upon, and other realities of an honest discussion.
I think it's important to be aware of the realities of what's expected as a reasonable amount of learning someone needs to do before broaching a subject. When there's an entire section on Wikipedia with a slew of sources, and googling "IQ test bias study" returns millions of results, much like climate change science, if you are expecting an honest discussion on the topic you are going to need to do some learning of your own first.
The reality is that there's a fatigue when fighting the same old tired line that's been pushed since the 70s. It's been debated ad nauseam in the field, and much like climate science, you're going to experience people online who simply do not have the time to tell you why you are wrong. You have an imperative, if you are truly trying to be honest about your viewpoint, to do some of this research yourself before coming to a scientist and making a claim.
I would challenge you, and anyone else who thinks similarly, to research the counterargument when you run into such stark opposition to your opinion. If everyone on the internet is writing off your point and telling you it's a racist, bigoted, or otherwise wrong point - you should at the very least consider that this is a possibility and take it as a sign that you need to do your own research rather than relying on the opinion of others. It's easy to say "the burden of proof rests upon you", but that's a cop-out and if this is something you are truly interested in and would like to know more about, take the initiative rather than passing it off to someone else.
Now, let me be very clear, because I see the signs of it starting already. I do not believe there are fundamental inequalities in intelligence between different races, and even if such differences...
If everyone on the internet is writing off your point and telling you it's a racist, bigoted, or otherwise wrong point - you should at the very least consider that this is a possibility and take it as a sign that you need to do your own research rather than relying on the opinion of others.
Now, let me be very clear, because I see the signs of it starting already. I do not believe there are fundamental inequalities in intelligence between different races, and even if such differences did exist, they would almost certainly be a result of our incomplete understanding of intelligence and inability to separate bias in culture, poverty, different types of intelligence, and a whole variety of other things.
I think it's important to be aware of the realities of what's expected as a reasonable amount of learning someone needs to do before broaching a subject. When there's an entire section on Wikipedia with a slew of sources, and googling "IQ test bias study" returns millions of results, much like climate change science, if you are expecting an honest discussion on the topic you are going to need to do some learning of your own first.
The analogy to arguing about climate change is well taken, but telling me to google it or read wikipedia discounts that there are incredibly charged opinions on either side of this argument; a random google search may lead me to an alt-right conspiracy website that would argue into whatever nazi bullshit they would have me believe about race.
For instance, the first page of a google search for "IQ test bias study" yields a paper with 71 citations (the most recent of which, being 26 days ago) from John Hopkins (Bad News Concerning IQ Tests, Authors(s): Robert A. Gordon and Eileen E. Rudert, Source: Sociology of Education, Vol. 52, No. 3 (Jul., 1979), pp. 174-190), the conclusion of which states in so many words:
In concurrence with previous studies, no indications of racial bias in IQ tests were found.
Followed by the rather large caveat, which I don't claim to understand:
This evidence could be nullified only by assuming that explicit selection on IQ scores occurs throughout our status attainment models, as discussed earlier. Since the use of IQ tests for selection purposes is typically a matter of public record, such an assumption seems highly unrealistic.
other than to get a general idea that "hey, what we just said could be completely wrong if our assumptions are incorrect". Granted this paper is from 1979, and is likely outdated, but the point remains that telling me to google it is fundamentally less instructive than providing sources (as you so helpfully did in your second comment).
As I'm very cognizant that we have now spent even more time on this argument, I hope we can leave it here for today, and additionally that I do not leave you (or other users) with the impression that I am defending the use of science to attempt to justify racial bias (though, I fear that even by discussing this as I have, and stating that I believe it is clear from the original comment this was not go1dfish's intent, such an effect is likely unavoidable for some). I'm going to go take a very long break from the internet and decompress a bit, hope you have a good one.
Apologies, I did not mean to imply that you held this position in any way shape or form. Just pointing out to people who do, or are questioning themselves on their viewpoint. You're absolutely...
Now, let me be very fucking clear
Apologies, I did not mean to imply that you held this position in any way shape or form. Just pointing out to people who do, or are questioning themselves on their viewpoint.
a random google search may lead me to an alt-right conspiracy website that would argue into whatever nazi bullshit they would have me believe about race.
You're absolutely right it can, but if you're unable to use the scientific method to assess the quality of these papers, then you have no right to be holding a scientific debate on the matter. You should either be deferring to the experts in the field, or starting your academic career in the sciences by learning the fundamentals.
telling me to google it is fundamentally less instructive than providing sources (as you so helpfully did in your second comment).
Completely agreed. I was merely pointing out the realities of arguing with a scientifically established fact. Sure you can find the same on climate science as well, but anyone with even a minimal training in climate science knows that there's broad agreement in the field by people who are not motivated by politics.
Bad News Concerning IQ Tests
I'd like to address this further, but I don't currently have access to this article. I'd be happy to provide my two cents after I can acquire a copy.
I think an issue here is "just google it" often gets told to laypeople who have no idea how to verify any sort of scientific method. These people are distinctly vulnerable to accidentally reading...
You're absolutely right it can, but if you're unable to use the scientific method to assess the quality of these papers, then you have no right to be holding a scientific debate on the matter. You should either be deferring to the experts in the field, or starting your academic career in the sciences by learning the fundamentals.
I think an issue here is "just google it" often gets told to laypeople who have no idea how to verify any sort of scientific method. These people are distinctly vulnerable to accidentally reading and absorbing terrible viewpoints just because they're the top thing on Google.
I mean, true. It's not fair to expect someone else to do all your research for you. That plus the JAQ phenomenon means folks trying to explain can get tired out super fast, and those people...
I mean, true. It's not fair to expect someone else to do all your research for you. That plus the JAQ phenomenon means folks trying to explain can get tired out super fast, and those people deserve to have a pleasant experience online.
Unfortunately, I worry that if everyone takes a 'do your own research' stance, then folks who just don't know might end up going to random alt right, nazi, or otherwise misleading sites and get taken in. While the idea that they shouldn't participate in debates if they don't have the foundational knowledge to understand the debate is all well and good, that idea isn't going to stop people from doing it anyways. And then that just ends up with more people sucked in by the far right. I'm not really sure if there's a good way to balance those things.
Last comment, I swear! I made a very similar point about the futility of arguing this on Tildes, Reddit, etc. yesterday in the same thread that go1dfish's original comment was made in. I...
You're absolutely right it can, but if you're unable to use the scientific method to assess the quality of these papers, then you have no right to be holding a scientific debate on the matter. You should either be deferring to the experts in the field, or starting your academic career in the sciences by learning the fundamentals.
Last comment, I swear! I made a very similar point about the futility of arguing this on Tildes, Reddit, etc. yesterday in the same thread that go1dfish's original comment was made in. I absolutely agree here (and yet, I got sucked into such an argument anyways, apologies once again).
Yeah, anyone who's interacted with goldfish much knows those are his pet issues. Race doesn't come up much. They just happen to overlap strongly with the pet issues of racists and alt righters. I...
If anything, go1dfish was constantly JAQ'ing about their perceived evils of the state, taxation and censorship.
Yeah, anyone who's interacted with goldfish much knows those are his pet issues. Race doesn't come up much. They just happen to overlap strongly with the pet issues of racists and alt righters.
I think the original comment was well intentioned, but I don't think it was likely to produce civil conversation in an already flared-up thread (thus justifying the removal of the entire chain). Deimos shouldn't need to spend a ton of time carefully watching threads to make sure they don't explode, so a stricter moderation approach is imo the best approach here. I had suggested reposting as another topic but reposting the same comment with the addition of accusations of censorship isn't super helpful.
i really share the view that most of this stuff shouldn't have been deleted. (his digression in my thread should have been moved though, it was pretty irrelevant to what everyone but goldfish was...
i really share the view that most of this stuff shouldn't have been deleted. (his digression in my thread should have been moved though, it was pretty irrelevant to what everyone but goldfish was talking about)
i'm annoyed that like most libertarian dudes who register for an online forum, goldfish took paragraphs and paragraphs of moral outrage at the idea that racism would be censored and like, two sentences of moral outrage at the actual racism.
that's not the same as saying "i am a racist" but when I read that I think "oh, you spend a lot more time feeling sorry for racists than feeling sorry for targets of racism" and my reaction to that is "holy fuck"
a lot of people are willing to articulate the sixteen paragraph long, exhausting case for maybe-white-supremacy, but like, when definite white supremacy happens, they're mysteriously absent from the discussion.
I don't understand this mentality at all. Imagine if alternate universe Trump (that is, a flaming liberal we'll call Lump) had been elected, but had the same insane number of ethical and moral...
I don't understand this mentality at all. Imagine if alternate universe Trump (that is, a flaming liberal we'll call Lump) had been elected, but had the same insane number of ethical and moral lapses surrounding their campaign and presidency. Would you want to be a part of T_D then? Would brigading conservative subreddits then be acceptable? Would all of the shit that goes along with T_D and voat now be ok, just because it's directed against the right? If so, there is absolutely no leg to stand on for us to criticize those places, if we would use the same awful tactics in service of a less xenophobic (well, excluding conservatives I suppose) goal
A left wing voat minus the toxicity would really just be lefty reddit... and that exists. Probably multiple ones, but the one I know of is https://www.jstpst.net/ (run by devtesla and some other...
A left wing voat minus the toxicity would really just be lefty reddit... and that exists. Probably multiple ones, but the one I know of is https://www.jstpst.net/ (run by devtesla and some other folks in that circle)
You've definitely been putting in a lot of work. I appreciate what you've done here and everything you do. I hope you're able to get some rest and some help with moderation. But no matter what...
You've definitely been putting in a lot of work. I appreciate what you've done here and everything you do. I hope you're able to get some rest and some help with moderation. But no matter what you've already made a great site, it's incredibly apparent every time I visit other sites now how low effort and full of issues they are. So for that thank you. Don't be too afraid of stepping away for a bit to live your life.
That's awful, Deimos, I'm so sorry to hear this. (edit: this was in response to Deimos' personal troubles, not to his banning of go1dfish!) I haven't been here much today (just logged in 20...
That's awful, Deimos, I'm so sorry to hear this. (edit: this was in response to Deimos' personal troubles, not to his banning of go1dfish!)
I haven't been here much today (just logged in 20 minutes ago) but it sounds like it's been a wild day. For what it's worth, I have really enjoyed the site so far.
Again, I don't know what went on today specifically, but it's strange to hear people comment on 'censorship' of controversial ideas. We just finished a ~200 comment thread on trigger warnings which got pretty heated at times, and I don't think anything except lame insults were removed. Opinions were shared and I think a few of us actually found some common ground.
It might be time for everyone on our side of the world to just get to bed early and turn the page on today. But I'll be back tomorrow. And I imagine all the other users like me who have come to really enjoy this place will be back too.
reading the thread, coming back later to check out new comments, and realising a certain comment that you might remember has been removed. (is my guess)
reading the thread, coming back later to check out new comments, and realising a certain comment that you might remember has been removed. (is my guess)
I think you made the right call and you should leave the ban in place. I'm pretty new here but the best things about this site so far are people passionately and kindly discussing their shared...
I think you made the right call and you should leave the ban in place. I'm pretty new here but the best things about this site so far are people passionately and kindly discussing their shared interests and their differences of opinion. Abusing site mechanics to promote a discussion most people don't want to be having, and harassing users who disagree with you like go1dfish was doing shouldn't be tolerated.
Thanks for starting the site and being pretty even-handed so far. Hopefully you can bring on some people to help you with moderation duties soon.
I haven't been active on tildes lately (lots of stuff going on irl, also I've been being a little batty about a response i wanted to write to a user on here), so i don't know what all has been...
I haven't been active on tildes lately (lots of stuff going on irl, also I've been being a little batty about a response i wanted to write to a user on here), so i don't know what all has been going on... but I'm sad to see a ban like this. In my experience, go1dfish has come across as intellectually honest to a fault- I'm surprised to hear you say he was unwilling to attempt to understand - do you think that there might have been a better way this could have been resolved?
I know you said you don't care about whether this ban was justified or not... at least today. Maybe later you would be willing to consider an appeal.
This is fairly off-topic, but it's good to see a comment from you! It's been quite a while. With that out of the way, I would like to give my own perspective here. At a fundamental level, I don't...
This is fairly off-topic, but it's good to see a comment from you! It's been quite a while.
With that out of the way, I would like to give my own perspective here. At a fundamental level, I don't really agree with either your viewpoints or go1dfish's, as is evident by the occasional debates we've had. That being said, there's definitely a difference in how you two both carry yourselves. I know you've gotten pretty heated in the past on a few occasions (as many others have, including myself), but overall I usually find my discussions and debates with you enjoyable. You generally seem like you're entering these discussions in good faith and I appreciate having the opportunity to exchange viewpoints with you. The problem with go1dfish, unfortunately, is that these debates were, more often than not, not very enjoyable at all. It always felt like they weren't being started in good faith, and the discussions frequently seemed to derail into a lengthy back-and-forth about some tangential point that he seems to obsess over, in this case the perceived "censorship", and it frankly felt like talking to a brick wall because he would completely miss the entire point of an argument repeatedly. This was further highlighted with his arguments with Deimos himself, the site's admin, the guy who ultimately gets the final say in anything regarding Tildes if he damn well pleases.
In short, he could be infuriatingly stubborn and argumentative, even when the site admin himself has made a clear decision with a clear reason. And honestly, that's just go1dfish's personality. Apparently he has a preexisting reputation on that point.
As Crespyl noted, contrary opinions are important. I just think that some are more welcome than others. Despite our disagreements, I would count yours among them.
Glad to see you're still active here (our conversation about the definition of nazi was actually what i referred to above xD.) My grandma died recently so it's been super hectic with extended...
Glad to see you're still active here (our conversation about the definition of nazi was actually what i referred to above xD.) My grandma died recently so it's been super hectic with extended family flying in, and cleaning up her house after (she was a hoarder) so I haven't had much time to derp around on here... and i was being all avoidant about getting my thoughts sorted out into a cogent/concise response about dem nazis. :P
I must admit i haven't payed close attention to those arguments, and its possible my affinity for go1dfish has biased my perception of him in such situations - I long had appreciation for his work in identifying legitimate overreach of moderation power, and apparent misconduct on the part of some admins. When we worked to get /u/publicmodlogs into something presentable for the wider reddit community, it was surprising to hear him speak of alexis and other reddit admins with respect after I had long been soured on some of them. He seemed to be able to give people the benefit of the doubt, even when i would have moved on, and I think that sort of sensitivity is an extremely valuable quality that makes him endearing.
I know he's passionate about his ideology. We haven't spoken much about it personally, but I know it's driven him to maintain snew, to work on his fairshare project in the past, and to develop notabug. If I keep this in mind, it actually does make it more believable that having a debate with him might get frustrating.
I don't know what to say really, except that on notabug right now, he has mentioned that he did not realize it was deimos' anniversary, and he wanted to apologize to him for creating stress on this special day. He's also explicitly disavowed racism in all its forms, for what it's worth. I know that my credibility on this site isn't very high, but it seems like he really enjoyed interacting with people here, engaging in stimulating debates - so I really do hope he gets to come back. Maybe this event will help to encourage him to temper his emotions a bit and consider his audience more thoughtfully (sort of like I've had to struggle to do :P )
He then went on to imply that Deimos banned him because it was his anniversary: Sure, there was an apology in another comment, but go1dfish also managed to use this incident to "prove" his point...
he did not realize it was deimos' anniversary, and he wanted to apologize to him for creating stress on this special day.
He then went on to imply that Deimos banned him because it was his anniversary:
Also, I had no fucking clue it was the guy's anniversary.
This is precisely why moderation of forums needs to happen via objectively defined rules rather than subjective on the spot determinations.
People get pissy for reasons out of the control of others and do things they otherwise might not do.
Sure, there was an apology in another comment, but go1dfish also managed to use this incident to "prove" his point about how moderation is subjective. Let's not pretend that he's filled with remorse for his actions here.
He's also explicitly disavowed racism in all its forms, for what it's worth.
That doesn't necessarily mean he's not racist. It's not like all racists say "Yes, I'm a racist!" Some of them believe they are not being racist when they use false and/or flawed statistics to prove that black people are stupider than other people.
There are no usernames displayed on that site. That's the point. And there's nothing there to indicate that "Kat" or any username posted that post. I see merely "submitted 11 hours ago to...
There are no usernames displayed on that site. That's the point. And there's nothing there to indicate that "Kat" or any username posted that post. I see merely "submitted 11 hours ago to t/whatever". No username. Not yours, not anyone's.
Yes, your username appears at the beginning of the copy-pasted text, but I assume that's just a copying error rather than anything malicious.
Yeah, I see what you mean. if I had copied this thread it would read: , because when copying the page that's where the logged in users name would be. Having your handle there implies that you were...
i assume whoever pasted all of that changed it just to troll, i mean even the title is obviously intended to provoke an emotional reaction from go1dfish himself. I would not worry about it.
i assume whoever pasted all of that changed it just to troll, i mean even the title is obviously intended to provoke an emotional reaction from go1dfish himself. I would not worry about it.
Ha! Oh, man. I'm sorry to hear that. I hope you and your family are doing alright. Don't worry too much about that. You can always take your time with that one, or even not respond to it at all....
our conversation about the definition of nazi was actually what i referred to above
Ha!
My grandma died recently so it's been super hectic with extended family flying in
Oh, man. I'm sorry to hear that. I hope you and your family are doing alright.
and i was being all avoidant about getting my thoughts sorted out into a cogent/concise response about dem nazis. :P
Don't worry too much about that. You can always take your time with that one, or even not respond to it at all. I'm not going to hold it against you regardless of what you decide to do :)
go1dfish-related stuff
Yeah, I don't really feel too strongly about him one way or the other, and I don't really know that much about him. You may be right that with some tempering of emotions, being allowed back could be good for the community. I honestly don't know, and I'm not going to take a stance on that because of it. The only thing I can comfortably say is that he definitely rubbed people the wrong way, was told that he was rubbing people the wrong way, argued about rubbing people the wrong way, and ultimately kept it up long enough to reach the apex in question. What ends up coming out of that is something of a mystery right now, and ultimately I'll be accepting Deimos' decision on the matter whether he allows go1dfish back or not.
I'm glad your back. I was honestly wondering why we haven't seen you here for a while. I'm also sorry about your grandma. I think the point that this was brought up at all honestly shows a lack of...
I'm glad your back. I was honestly wondering why we haven't seen you here for a while.
I'm also sorry about your grandma.
...he has mentioned that he did not realize it was deimos' anniversary...
I think the point that this was brought up at all honestly shows a lack of responsibility. It doesn't matter that it was his anniversary. Deimos has always been professional, and to imply that go1dfish may not have been banned if it was a different day is simply wrong. Deimos, and honest this community, gave him a huge benefit of a doubt. Deimos and others tried to explain to him, but he refused to listen.
Ultimately his actions were disrespectful to this community. I'm honestly sorry he's banned, because he did contribute positive things here too, but I also think it's the right call.
i posted this in another comment: he had like fifty paragraphs of defense ready for people who might falsely be accused of being racists. never did i see him show the same moral outrage for like,...
i posted this in another comment: he had like fifty paragraphs of defense ready for people who might falsely be accused of being racists. never did i see him show the same moral outrage for like, targets of racism. it's kind of obvious which of these populations he identifies with
i could apologize and say "maybe he thought everyone already knew that it's bad to be targeted by racism," but instead i'll avoid being passive aggressive about it and say i think go1dfish is seriously unintentionally racist
I was surprised by the ban at first; his attitude is the sort of thing I'd expect to see someone get banned from a specific community or subreddit for, but not an entire site. But if these are the...
not glad he was banned
I was surprised by the ban at first; his attitude is the sort of thing I'd expect to see someone get banned from a specific community or subreddit for, but not an entire site. But if these are the standards desired for Tildes as a whole, I'm cool with it. Prioritizing rational discussion is a nice change of pace.
Remember that there are no partial bans on Tildes (yet). Deimos' only option now is a full ban. Partial, group-specific, bans may be implemented in the future, but we don't have that luxury here...
but not an entire site.
Remember that there are no partial bans on Tildes (yet). Deimos' only option now is a full ban. Partial, group-specific, bans may be implemented in the future, but we don't have that luxury here and now.
Honestly, no. Multiple people were trying to tell him that he was out of line, off topic, and ignoring the main points. He just wasn't listening or having it. He ended up arguing about pedantic...
I'm surprised to hear you say he was unwilling to attempt to understand - do you think that there might have been a better way this could have been resolved?
Honestly, no. Multiple people were trying to tell him that he was out of line, off topic, and ignoring the main points. He just wasn't listening or having it. He ended up arguing about pedantic differences between races as a way of trying to argue against censorship, in the context of people being frustrated by people who argue about the differences between races in racist lenses or bad faith. He even got so far as to get deep into a "black people can have low IQs" hypotheticals for some reason—in a thread about people accidentally arguing in favour of white supremacy! Honestly, the lack of self-awareness on his part was astounding.
And it didn't stop there. He still made room to include the pedantic differences in racial differences in his big rant about censorship here. There's no call to continue hammering it in when nobody was disputing it. I don't want to presume why he so earnestly wanted to keep talking about the subject when nobody wanted him to continue or argue the point.
On top of this, he avoided and dismissed all responsibility for the consequences of his arguments. When someone pointed out "yes, there could be a possible discussion but here's what everyone else is concerned about", he just refused to entertain that those concerns were relevant in his blind quest to freak out about censorship as much as possible. When others like @Cocoa above pointed out the flaws in his understanding and insistence to keep going on, he just ignore those points and arguments to keep making rants and arguments about censorship, culminating in him making this thread.
So ultimately, he was making people uncomfortable, being extremely argumentative, kept wanting to discuss racial differences when nobody was interested, would not stop when asked, threw a few tantrums, and overall just made the Tildes experience worse for everyone. He was told multiple times by multiple people why he was out of line or why things happened, and he just refused to consider that his views were misguided.
I wonder if go1dfish is on the spectrum. I don't mean that as some sort of insult, but it while his reasoning capacity seems perfectly fine, his emotional and social perception seems limited to...
I wonder if go1dfish is on the spectrum. I don't mean that as some sort of insult, but it while his reasoning capacity seems perfectly fine, his emotional and social perception seems limited to some extent, which possibly made it difficult/impossible for him to understand the contextual nuances that everyone kept pointing out.
hi, i'm seriously on the spectrum and i think some of these theories could be correct. we don't have enough evidence though. i used to post like him on a lot of places online, and i still...
hi, i'm seriously on the spectrum and i think some of these theories could be correct. we don't have enough evidence though. i used to post like him on a lot of places online, and i still sometimes do.
i think his original sin is being racist or at least having extreme empathy for racists while having like, none for their victims. his sin is also looking for complicated explanations that cast antiracist shit in a negative light, while missing the fucking obvious over and over -- literally one of the behaviors i listed in my original post. some of that might be accounted for by autism, part of it is probably becoming accustomed to being the smart guy in nerd social circles. but i'm in danger of just describing myself.
As yet another person on the spectrum, I agree. Whataboutism like that used to be something I fixated on a lot, but (a) I don't know that speculating would do anyone any good, and (b) even if...
As yet another person on the spectrum, I agree. Whataboutism like that used to be something I fixated on a lot, but (a) I don't know that speculating would do anyone any good, and (b) even if certain things are more difficult for me, I still have a responsibility to not be hurtful.
I hope so. Tildes needs a few contrary opinions around, and I've generally appreciated his (and yours, for what it's worth) contributions to the discussion on this site.
I hope so. Tildes needs a few contrary opinions around, and I've generally appreciated his (and yours, for what it's worth) contributions to the discussion on this site.
Don't even sweat it. It's very clear he was only interesree racist propaganda at this point. He even tagged this post "race realism". Even without that, he was causing enough drama to justify...
Don't even sweat it. It's very clear he was only interesree racist propaganda at this point. He even tagged this post "race realism". Even without that, he was causing enough drama to justify tossing him out based on that alone.
I fully 100% support any bans you make. I don't need to know any details. Since you asked about this particular ban: I am glad you made this ban. I feel that it needed to be done to protect the...
I fully 100% support any bans you make. I don't need to know any details.
Since you asked about this particular ban: I am glad you made this ban. I feel that it needed to be done to protect the site.
I'd also be interested to know if you're looking at how invite codes are used. I want a diverse range of opinion on the site, but if one user is inviting multiple people who go on to be banned that's something that might need to be looked at.
I agree that ban transparency is vital, and even more so as the site matures. I'm not asking for a big blowout "User X was just banned and here's why" megathread every time, but a public changelog...
I agree that ban transparency is vital, and even more so as the site matures. I'm not asking for a big blowout "User X was just banned and here's why" megathread every time, but a public changelog on user profiles would be great. Just a timeline indicating when the account was created, when it was banned (and by whom, and for what reason), and when it was reinstated (if that happens, also with attribution and a reason message). This timeline should be visible to all and immutable.
You can see how a 200 thread post after every ban is extraordinarily tedious, right? I'm just a user here. I'm under no illusion that I have any power to run this site. If I have strong opinions...
We should demand details and justification of every ban.
You can see how a 200 thread post after every ban is extraordinarily tedious, right?
I'm just a user here. I'm under no illusion that I have any power to run this site. If I have strong opinions about how a site like Tildes should be run I'm free to fuck off and set up my own site. But I have no right to demand other people change the way they work to suit my preference.
lmao well I guess you definitely gave him multiple chances to cool off that he opted to not take. personally I'd have liked to see him come around since he's clearly a talented programmer and has...
lmao well I guess you definitely gave him multiple chances to cool off that he opted to not take. personally I'd have liked to see him come around since he's clearly a talented programmer and has some valuable insight in that area, but making the experience worse for everyone else isn't worth it if he's not interested in changing. banning him is totally justified
edit: actually, i think maybe just a temporary ban is in order. I think he mostly just needs some time to cool off, and I enjoyed seeing a counter-perspective that wasn't outright insane like you might see on T_D. I think if we can sort out the issues of "censorship" he could be a decent contributor to the site. that said, I think it's your call on if it's worth the effort.
You did the right thing. Like I said elsewhere, the problem here is that the approach needed to protect communities in 2018 is not the same as it was in 2010. People like go1dfish (who is a well...
You did the right thing. Like I said elsewhere, the problem here is that the approach needed to protect communities in 2018 is not the same as it was in 2010. People like go1dfish (who is a well known troll to begin with) implement a form of censorship which is arguably more insidious than anything done here or on reddit - they intentionally represent themselves as "expressing an opinion" as cover for their disruptive tactics. Slowly, the "opinion" they are expressing clearly morphs into outright trolling and disruption. By the time this becomes apparent, everyone who isn't a troll has already thrown up their hands in frustration. But the disruptors are not frustrated by the disruption of the forum (obviously) - they are emboldened by it, and continue to push until real discussion becomes impossible. The way to frustrate them is to interrupt their strategy through bans and comment removals. Which is what you did.
I mean, we see it right here in this post. He is taking the traditional route of hooking in naive "free speech" advocates by crying censorship, and then sets that hook by finishing it up with his real message - racism. It's as clear as day that the entire reason he is here is to spread that message. He's not taking a break to talk about puppies, or video games, or cars - every action he takes on every forum is about spreading his message of intolerance. He is the textbook definition of an insincere actor.
The bigger issue though is that while go1dfish is, and always has been, a blunt instrument - the tactics he uses are employed much more surgically and elegantly by others with the same goal. go1dfish will always get himself banned eventually (maybe that's his goal - to be a martyr) but those who follow in his footsteps are much more difficult to pin down. Which is precisely why these times demand a tougher moderation approach - because if you don't nip this sort of thing in the bud, you will end up finding two heads for each one you cut off.
So does that make him the first person to be banned from Tildes? Personally, I’m exactly 50/50 on your decision. Yes, he was a shit-bag who just wants to stir shit up but on the other hand, he...
So does that make him the first person to be banned from Tildes?
Personally, I’m exactly 50/50 on your decision. Yes, he was a shit-bag who just wants to stir shit up but on the other hand, he didn’t take it too far in my opinion. I found his points to be somewhat valid, minus the digression.
I’ll agree on one thing, if someone’s constantly stirring shit up, I’ll personally ban them without a second thought. I’ve had the mispleasure of meeting someone like that on Discord. Personally...
I’ll agree on one thing, if someone’s constantly stirring shit up, I’ll personally ban them without a second thought.
I’ve had the mispleasure of meeting someone like that on Discord. Personally banned them but the higher-ups thought that they didn’t do anything too serioius so they were invited back in without even a strike.
So looking at OP’s history, I’ll change my stance - OP outright deserved the ban.
Hell no! That happened months ago! Here: Daily Tildes discussion - our first ban There were two other publicly announced bans around the same time, and Deimos has said more recently that there...
So does that make him the first person to be banned from Tildes?
So you mean a ban that was widely commented on? That would restrict it to the two bans which Deimos posted topics about. I already provided you a link to the topic announcing the first ban. The...
So you mean a ban that was widely commented on? That would restrict it to the two bans which Deimos posted topics about.
Since then, he's just been banning people quietly behind the scenes. He announced the first few bans because they were the first few bans so he used them as demonstrations of his approach to moderating. But, after that, I assume he treated subsequent bans as "business as usual": it's not worth announcing every single ban on a forum.
I don't know if it was the right call, but it's your site. If you wanted to, you could shut down tildes forever and ban all the users. (Not that I want you to, that would be a very abrupt move!)
I don't know if it was the right call, but it's your site. If you wanted to, you could shut down tildes forever and ban all the users.
(Not that I want you to, that would be a very abrupt move!)
I'm honestly tired of the mentally ill building their own private Alamos and waving the flag of 'free speech.' I don't think that guy belongs here. I don't think he belongs on Reddit. I wouldn't...
I'm honestly tired of the mentally ill building their own private Alamos and waving the flag of 'free speech.' I don't think that guy belongs here. I don't think he belongs on Reddit. I wouldn't listen to him on a sidewalk at a public bus stop because I'd throw my headphones in. Editorial work shouldn't be reviled, it should be revered.
I'm sorry to see the user banned but in my book he was "extremist free speech advocate" and extremist is never a good word. It's like to say that it was unexpected but unfortunately it's not the...
I'm sorry to see the user banned but in my book he was "extremist free speech advocate" and extremist is never a good word.
It's like to say that it was unexpected but unfortunately it's not the truth.
Goldfish was more pro anarchism then free speech and while i am very impressed by the technical solution of his website, I don't think its view on freedom of speech is correct as it enables any kind of ideology, even the bad ones. Given he was okay with that, I'm quite surprised he lasted this long here.
If you boil it down to the basics I see it as this: @Deimos has in mind a site where discussions are "civil" and benefitial. Depending on your definition of civility the ban might be right or it...
If you boil it down to the basics I see it as this: @Deimos has in mind a site where discussions are "civil" and benefitial. Depending on your definition of civility the ban might be right or it might be wrong but in the end it doesn't matter. The vision that @Deimos is putting forth with the site is his own and a lot of people agree with it otherwise we wouldn't be here.
Individuals like @go1dfish operate outside of what he invisions this site being. I can be written in the rules or it can be all in his head but we agree to operate within the bounds of @Deimos making those decisions at this point. If you don't think it's the type of community you want to engage with find one that is more to your liking. If you disagree with the community but see value in it then keep participating but have a clearer picture of where the boundaries are. If you agree then cheers, the site is the place you've always hoped for.
It sounds very much like attempts to delineate the boundaries were made, they weren't followed, the end. Any, literally any individual who is making an honest to goodness attempt to participate within the boundaries of a community IRL or online has to know when to back off. If a person is just trying to be antagonistic then I can't see any way that they are acting in good faith.
As I understand how web communities form, it's decisions like this that shape the tone of conversation for years. In this case, I believe for the better.
As I understand how web communities form, it's decisions like this that shape the tone of conversation for years. In this case, I believe for the better.
When someone says something like this, and says they are totally not racist, then they are most definitely racist af, and we don't need white supremacists on this site
I was trying to say that discussion about the potential differences of races is not intolerant.
When someone says something like this, and says they are totally not racist, then they are most definitely racist af, and we don't need white supremacists on this site
If your argument is that anyone who a) claims not to be racist and b) discusses the topic is in fact racist, then how do you propose someone who a) is not, in fact, racist and b) still wishes to...
When someone says something like this, and says they are totally not racist, then they are most definitely racist af
If your argument is that anyone who a) claims not to be racist and b) discusses the topic is in fact racist, then how do you propose someone who a) is not, in fact, racist and b) still wishes to discuss it should do so?
I propose they don't. It's a delicate, sensitive, touchy subject and it's not worth discussing in public and risk coming across as intolerant. Because lets be honest, that's what Tildes, Reddit,...
how do you propose someone who a) is not, in fact, racist and b) still wishes to discuss it should do so?
I propose they don't. It's a delicate, sensitive, touchy subject and it's not worth discussing in public and risk coming across as intolerant.
Because lets be honest, that's what Tildes, Reddit, Tumblr, Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, etc. is: public. This is the kind of touchy subject you discuss either in private, face-to-face, with a good buddy of yours where you both know you have a mutual interest in the topic and you both know that neither of you harbors no racist intentions. Or, you discuss it in an academic setting, a classroom where there is a professor or TA who can moderate and there is a shared expectation of respect and intellectual curiosity. (In other words, it's a safe space for learning.)
But you are seriously lacking in social graces and common sense if you bring up a topic like this in a room full of 100 people who you don't know and run the gamut in terms of gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, comfort level with controversial topics, etc, etc. And it's easy to lose sight of the fact that when you are on a discussion forum you are far closer to the room full of 100 random people than you are to the classroom or in private with a good buddy. The disconnect between "I'm sitting here in my office/home alone in front of a screen" and "there are literally hundreds/thousands/millions of people sharing this website with me" causes people to lose sight of that. And perhaps more to the point in light of this thread, you are a special kind of stupid if you persist with discussing a controversial topic when a number of people in the room with you pipe up and say "your conversation is making me uncomfortable."
You are in public when you are on a discussion forum. If you actively decide to bring up controversial topics in this context, you reap what you sow.
I should note that my reply wasn't so much about what tildes allows as the massive moonjump of reasoning you made. I think this line in your comment is pertinent to that as well: No you aren't. It...
I should note that my reply wasn't so much about what tildes allows as the massive moonjump of reasoning you made.
I think this line in your comment is pertinent to that as well:
you are a special kind of stupid if you persist with discussing a controversial topic when a number of people in the room with you pipe up and say "your conversation is making me uncomfortable."
No you aren't. It might make you incredibly tone-deaf, ignorant, and/or uncaring, and in the case of a site like tildes it may make you unwelcome, but it doesn't make you stupid and it certainly doesn't make you racist.
I don't really give a toss about whether the OP is unbanned or if race-realism (a subject I have no interest in) is an off-limits topic for discussion on tildes - at least not directly. But claiming that "if you discuss X from any angle, then you are a racist and especially if you claim you aren't" is a monumentally unhelpful approach to anyone after the buzz wears off from calling the silly people bad names.
I'm not @KyloCommunist1917. I didn't make the "massive moonjump of reasoning." I'm just trying to explain the connection to you. You can argue that it shouldn't be this way until you're blue in...
I'm not @KyloCommunist1917. I didn't make the "massive moonjump of reasoning." I'm just trying to explain the connection to you. You can argue that it shouldn't be this way until you're blue in the face, but that won't change the fact that this is the way it is: if you make people uncomfortable by tactlessly discussing controversial topics in public, some of those people are going to assume you're a bigot, so the best way to stay out of this kind of trouble is to just keep your mouth shut.
Holding your tongue on matters like this isn't going to kill you.
You're replying to the explanation for this ban. The comment you replied to here is the comment in which Deimos explains why he banned go1dfish: That's the explanation for the ban. If you're...
Could you please link to the explanation for this ban?
You're replying to the explanation for this ban. The comment you replied to here is the comment in which Deimos explains why he banned go1dfish:
I already tried explaining my reasoning for removing his comment to him far more times than I would usually bother, and he's been completely unwilling to even attempt to understand.
That's the explanation for the ban.
If you're looking for the explanation about why Deimos removed the comment by go1dfish which triggered this debacle, here is the conversation between Deimos and go1dfish about that removal. You'll have to carefully trace the trail of replies between those two, because other people jumped in to add their two cents' worth as well.
Is there a list of forbidden topics anywhere on the wiki?
There is no official wiki for Tildes. If you mean the official documentation, there is no list of forbidden topics there. Feel free to check the documentation for yourself.
However, I don't know if most sites would have a list of forbidden topics. In my experience, behaviours are more likely to be forbidden than topics (omitting the obvious case that a forum specifically about apples would implicitly forbid topics like aardvarks, abacuses, and architecture).
Thank you for the response. I unfortunately don't have time to read through this stuff today, but I appreciate you taking the time to respond! The reason I asked if there is a list of forbidden...
Thank you for the response. I unfortunately don't have time to read through this stuff today, but I appreciate you taking the time to respond!
The reason I asked if there is a list of forbidden topics is because from skimming this thread, it sounded like this person was banned for discussing a forbidden topic. It seems I'm not fully understanding the situation, so I appreciate the links!
And yes, for some reason I keep calling the documentation a wiki when it is not.
It's your site! And your choice on what to censor. Have you read this? https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tscc3e5eujrsEeFN4/well-kept-gardens-die-by-pacifism If I were you I'd delete this post and...
It's your site! And your choice on what to censor.
Oh holy fuck can we stop with all these meta-drama posts already. Is this going to be yet another 100+ comment back-and-forth thread? The past several days have been a fucking trash fire.
Oh holy fuck can we stop with all these meta-drama posts already. Is this going to be yet another 100+ comment back-and-forth thread?
The past several days have been a fucking trash fire.
I would support a temporary moratorium on meta posts... Please, please just use the site! Stop navel gazing! Be nice to people! We don't need to constantly talk about what it is we're doing wrong...
I would support a temporary moratorium on meta posts... Please, please just use the site! Stop navel gazing! Be nice to people! We don't need to constantly talk about what it is we're doing wrong or right or too much of or not enough of -- we just need to post interesting things and have constructive discussions.
Yeah, I don't want to ban meta posts, but one of the founding philosophies of the site is "trust users, punish abusers". I'd say the community is currently abusing meta threads to yell at each...
Yeah, I don't want to ban meta posts, but one of the founding philosophies of the site is "trust users, punish abusers". I'd say the community is currently abusing meta threads to yell at each other the past few days and maybe we can't handle that sort of responsibility right now.
The meta culture here is toxic. We need a moratorium on meta posts for like a week so I can just browse interesting content without running into more drama.
The meta culture here is toxic. We need a moratorium on meta posts for like a week so I can just browse interesting content without running into more drama.
Too much meta chokes out actual content and makes a community impenetrable to any newcomers. People shouldn't need crash courses on whatever Drama is currently happening in order to make sense of...
Too much meta chokes out actual content and makes a community impenetrable to any newcomers. People shouldn't need crash courses on whatever Drama is currently happening in order to make sense of the site.
I wouldn't mind if there was a separate, designated place for meta content. Because that stuff can be important, it shouldn't be stifled. But removing it from the front page would stop it from...
I wouldn't mind if there was a separate, designated place for meta content. Because that stuff can be important, it shouldn't be stifled. But removing it from the front page would stop it from feeding this sort of mania. If it was relegated to its own area then only those who want to see it would. This is the approach MetaFilter takes and I think it's a good one.
Here on Tildes, creating something like ~tildes.meta (and not subscribing everyone to it by default) could be a good way to implement it.
I think this is a fantastic idea. It'd be even better once the 'bubbling up' function of subgroups is implemented, so only the top meta posts would make it out into ~tildes.
Here on Tildes, creating something like ~tildes.meta (and not subscribing everyone to it by default) could be a good way to implement it.
I think this is a fantastic idea. It'd be even better once the 'bubbling up' function of subgroups is implemented, so only the top meta posts would make it out into ~tildes.
doesn't any discussion of tildes equal "meta" discussion? what would be the difference between ~tildes and ~tildes.meta? Or perhaps more specifically, when should i post to ~tildes.meta versus...
doesn't any discussion of tildes equal "meta" discussion? what would be the difference between ~tildes and ~tildes.meta?
Or perhaps more specifically, when should i post to ~tildes.meta versus ~tildes?
Maybe "meta" isn't the right label. I think ~tildes as a general umbrella should contain all of the following (spread among relevant subgroups as needed): official announcements official polls /...
Maybe "meta" isn't the right label.
I think ~tildes as a general umbrella should contain all of the following (spread among relevant subgroups as needed):
official announcements
official polls / requests for user feedback
feature requests
bug reports
test sandbox (currently served by ~test and it's fine there too)
general discussion about the current state and future of the site
disagreement about moderator activity in another part of the site
other rants / callouts / flameouts
I think the last two categories fall under what we've been calling "meta." On MetaFilter, whenever commenters start to steer a discussion off-topic or in a toxic direction, the mods will remove the offending posts and leave a little note like "That's not really what this discussion is for, if you have a problem take it MeTa" (the name for the meta area of the site). Then aggrieved parties have a place they can vent or petition, without spiraling the original thread into a vortex.
Perhaps you could filter out some of the tags these post have had? This particular one does not have the "meta" tag (I believe that the last mirroring post did). Maybe filter out the "race...
Perhaps you could filter out some of the tags these post have had? This particular one does not have the "meta" tag (I believe that the last mirroring post did). Maybe filter out the "race realism" tag? While these are not great solutions for the community as a whole and Tildes is meant to be a tolerable place to be, I could certainly understand filtering these out if you find them bothersome.
This is a good example of where the ability to downvote was useful on Reddit. It was an easy way for things like this to be buried by general user action.
This is a good example of where the ability to downvote was useful on Reddit. It was an easy way for things like this to be buried by general user action.
"Silent posting" or some equivalent, wherein a user can make a post without bumping the whole thread, would go a long way toward reducing the traction controversial threads are getting on Tildes...
"Silent posting" or some equivalent, wherein a user can make a post without bumping the whole thread, would go a long way toward reducing the traction controversial threads are getting on Tildes (imo).
At the moment, controversial threads spiral out of control because they are always near the top of the feed. One advantage of reddit was that these topics would eventually drift down the page and people would gradually move on to other content (the downside of this, of course, was that it also snuffed out productive conversation). But there's no de-escalation on Tildes. The conversation just burns hotter and hotter.
It's a great model for sustaining conversation over multiple days, but it also evokes a feeling of "Oh god, not this again!" every time one of these controversial threads gets bumped. You just can't get away from these threads. They're there, all the time, dominating the conversation.
Edit: I know everyone has an opinion on the feature missing from Tildes, but this is mine; there's no way to engage in a clickbait or controversial thread without making it the centre of attention.
I think you nailed it. Activity sort was for low-activity periods (and will serve that purpose in all small, new groups that need help going forward). Tildes itself is starting to move past that...
I think you nailed it.
Activity sort was for low-activity periods (and will serve that purpose in all small, new groups that need help going forward). Tildes itself is starting to move past that low activity level recently for anyone subbed to all the groups. The automatic bump is starting to become a problem.
Perhaps for bumpage we shouldn't look for base activity such as a single reply from a single account. Maybe it shouldn't bump until it's got multiple replies from multiple accounts. I'd say more than two accounts, that should help avoid the constant bumping from back-and-forth arguments when two people get into it.
Threads need to be harder to bump in the activity sort. It's too much power for a single person or even a pair of debaters.
I've kinda enjoyed reading these threads, in all fairness. It's like a trial by fire introduction to the big names of tildes opinions of what the site should be. This is still my pick for favorite...
I've kinda enjoyed reading these threads, in all fairness. It's like a trial by fire introduction to the big names of tildes opinions of what the site should be.
This is still my pick for favorite comment in any of these threads.
I can do without the drama, but I think posts about the site and its policies are par for the course in the early days of a place like this as features are implemented and more users join. People...
I can do without the drama, but I think posts about the site and its policies are par for the course in the early days of a place like this as features are implemented and more users join. People are just more passionate about certain things. I imagine other websites experienced similar things as they were developing as well, but I can't be certain of that.
I've taken a course on psychometric testing and have administered edit: numbers hundreds of IQ tests (of different versions) over the past 8 years or so now. I can't stress enough the idea that IQ...
I've taken a course on psychometric testing and have administered edit: numbers hundreds of IQ tests (of different versions) over the past 8 years or so now.
I can't stress enough the idea that IQ tests are awful measure of GI, and for the most part, in the real world, mean very little. Moreover, IQ tests themselves have long histories of both explicit and implicit racial biases (especially any verbal reasoning section). Show me some longitudinal data on Raven's Progressive Matrices by demographic data and maybe you'll get me to nod my head, but that's one very specific subset of IQ as a whole, so even then I wouldn't take it to mean much.
Anyone that sees the correlation between race and IQ as this super valid end-all-be-all thing, I've found, is usually going to lead towards a pretty negative conversation.
That's a fantastic question and I'm glad you asked :) IQ is a (in my opinion) rusty attempt at measuring General Intelligence, but the entire concept of creating a test to test what encompasses...
That's a fantastic question and I'm glad you asked :)
IQ is a (in my opinion) rusty attempt at measuring General Intelligence, but the entire concept of creating a test to test what encompasses all functions of the different domains of ones cognitive ability in many different domains (ex. working memory, verbal reasoning, mathematic reasoning, etc.). On the whole, we can get millions of people to do this, then we start to group people by different demographics and age ranges. These tests are generally standardized around different age ranges following the traditional bell curve -- only a certain % of people are expected to have very high IQ or very low IQ while everyone elses' scores get shifted.
The benefit that comes from administering IQ tests is that you can take a child from one area of the US in a particular age group and compare them to another child somewhere else from a similar age group and compare how they're functioning cognitively. It's a great tool for clinicians to use to help diagnose any developmental delays or suggest students might need an IEP. For some of the research I do now, we run a condensed IQ exam to all initial participants aged 18-65 and for ethical reasons; if they score below a certain (albeit, arbitrary) threshold, then we exclude them from the study for two reasons: 1) The cognitive tasks we ask them to do might cause more stress/difficulty to preform, which would be an undue burden on a voluntary participant; 2) for individuals who don't meet our IQ threshold, it could ethically be argued they might not have fully understood the research consent & privacy protection forms and could be driven more towards the monetary compensation or some other factor.
Basically, IQ test have usefulness in certain clinical situations or ethical considerations, but in terms of living out every day life, someone's IQ doesn't mean jack shit. I've had participants come into studies not meet the IQ threshold that I know for a fact could outsmart any of my research assistants in my lab at chess, or hustle them into giving them their wallets, for example. The fact is that GI is just such a difficult concept to capture and measure from someone, that there are times when IQ can be a useful proxy or tool.
For myself, I am actually very critical of psychology and psychological testing and am the first to point out flaws in methodology of measurements. So, to me, it's critical to know the flaws of IQ testings inside and out and to not make a big hoo-ha about them meaning anything. Not everyone in psychological fields shares this same view though. And, if you know the explicit and implicit racial history of them (used to make sure low-IQ people (generally African-Americans) served on the front lines in WWI; or as part of Jim Crow voting tests) and social class biases around them, looking at demographic group IQ data can be quite challenging.
umm... With all due respect, this isn't about you. I don't see anything in go1dfish's post about "power users" or the quantity of your (or anyone else's) posting/commenting. He's complaining about...
umm... With all due respect, this isn't about you. I don't see anything in go1dfish's post about "power users" or the quantity of your (or anyone else's) posting/commenting. He's complaining about censorship as he sees it happening on Tildes, not about any particular users.
I don't know if you didn't notice, but that whole second section is replying to a comment made by Kat, and even though go1dfish didn't specifically get into the "power user" issue, I think this...
I don't know if you didn't notice, but that whole second section is replying to a comment made by Kat, and even though go1dfish didn't specifically get into the "power user" issue, I think this has the common thread of publicly bullying Kat.
...which iirc, you had issues with happening to other users in the OP of that exact thread.
(I've just realized that this probably sounds a little smug depending on if you noticed or not, so I just want to say that I'm being genuine in telling you that, I couldn't tell if you were aware)
There's a subtle difference. The OP of that thread was name-calling certain tilders and directing criticisms at them personally. This thread happened to be triggered by go1dfish's reply to a...
There's a subtle difference. The OP of that thread was name-calling certain tilders and directing criticisms at them personally. This thread happened to be triggered by go1dfish's reply to a certain tilder, but none of his criticisms in this thread or that other thread are directed at that tilder personally. That other OP was publicly criticising two users; go1dfish is not criticising Kat at all.
Oh no, I would hate to see you leave Tildes. You've contributed so much and I really appreciate it and enjoy reading your comments. I really hope this you'll stay on.
Oh no, I would hate to see you leave Tildes. You've contributed so much and I really appreciate it and enjoy reading your comments.
Nooo I'm just going to pile on with the others and say please don't go. I always appreciate seeing your input and I for one like having recognisable regulars around.
Nooo I'm just going to pile on with the others and say please don't go. I always appreciate seeing your input and I for one like having recognisable regulars around.
I think you think too highly of yourself. I also hate how fast quickly Tildes is turning into some sort of user drama fest. Seriously, if you wish to leave the community there's no need to make...
I think you think too highly of yourself. I also hate how fast quickly Tildes is turning into some sort of user drama fest.
Seriously, if you wish to leave the community there's no need to make more drama out of something like OP did. Be the bigger person.
Contribute to the community for the sake of building up a community in Tildes, but the term 'power user' is the total opposite of what Tildes should stand for.
Nooooo dude, don't go! It is especially important that people like you stay on the site, now that it's obviously being brigaded by nazis. They want to control the conversation in as many places as...
Nooooo dude, don't go! It is especially important that people like you stay on the site, now that it's obviously being brigaded by nazis. They want to control the conversation in as many places as possible. Don't make it easy for them.
For the record, I've always appreciated your contributions to this site. Most of the time I never reply to you just because there's nothing left to be said except some version of "I agree" or...
For the record, I've always appreciated your contributions to this site. Most of the time I never reply to you just because there's nothing left to be said except some version of "I agree" or "great points". Please know that there are many others who feel the same way, as should be evident by these other wonderful people echoing the same sentiment :)
Hi Kat. I think you're a sweet person and an excellent edition to Tildes. Although you already have an overwhelming outpouring of support, I want you to know that you personally have already...
Hi Kat. I think you're a sweet person and an excellent edition to Tildes. Although you already have an overwhelming outpouring of support, I want you to know that you personally have already helped to shape my opinions and understand more. This is something I can't be thankful enough for. Whether you decide to stay or leave, I want you to know that you are a wonderful person and I thank you for the scintillating conversations we've had.
Hi! I disagree with you about a few things. But I agree with you about very many more things. I've been silently upvoting the posts of yours that I agree with. I would miss your posts. For one...
Hi!
I disagree with you about a few things. But I agree with you about very many more things. I've been silently upvoting the posts of yours that I agree with. I would miss your posts. For one thing, you've made me work harder to make my replies more considerate. (Although that's a very recent thing).
If it matters to you that it matters to others you could make a new account and maybe every so often? Though I don’t think you should have to, just an idea to make the site more enjoyable for you...
If it matters to you that it matters to others you could make a new account and maybe every so often? Though I don’t think you should have to, just an idea to make the site more enjoyable for you since others seem to care. There’s no reason to even have usernames on this site. That’s the whole point I thought — contributing for the sake of contributing and that’s it.
Please don't go! I don't post here often, but I see your posts and comments often, and I enjoy seeing them. I enjoy that there is a group of familiar users here whom I've started to get to know...
Please don't go! I don't post here often, but I see your posts and comments often, and I enjoy seeing them. I enjoy that there is a group of familiar users here whom I've started to get to know and recognize. This is in stark contrast to Reddit, where users are often faceless, nameless content-providers (unless of course they have a "^relevant username").
I've noticed that the drama here has grown since I joined a month ago, and it might take some time to work things out. But the best part of Tildes is the nice people who post here. Some trolls, or some people acting in bad faith, or some people who just don't know how to be nice, have gotten in, but I'm pretty sure that Tildes' goal is to make it a nicer place to be. To focus on the nicer, more reasonable people, and to encourage others to act that way. Hopefully we'll get there--but don't let the jerks win!
The government has basically shut down under the weight of its own infighting. It's not a strong connection, but all the Tildes drama and Auspol drama was happening at the same time so it felt...
The government has basically shut down under the weight of its own infighting. It's not a strong connection, but all the Tildes drama and Auspol drama was happening at the same time so it felt like everything was just very shouty and childish all around the same time.
With the hindsight of the reaction to the thread you link to yourself, maybe you should consider not making new topics to directly single out and bully individual users? If it's not okay to do so...
With the hindsight of the reaction to the thread you link to yourself, maybe you should consider not making new topics to directly single out and bully individual users? If it's not okay to do so against people who have done things bad enough to get them banned, it's not okay to do it to anyone else.
I have issues with pretty much everything you say here, but this is the biggest and most obvious problem. Stop it. You're hurting people.
Oh, for the sake of fuck. I'm sick of playing nice with you. This is not your website and it will not be run by your rules. If you don't like it here, leave. Go back to notabug.
Oh, for the sake of fuck. I'm sick of playing nice with you.
This is not your website and it will not be run by your rules. If you don't like it here, leave.
Honestly, I think the reason why your post was removed and that you strongly disagree with it has been well established. I agree with Deimos. What you posted was not appropriate in context. And...
Honestly, I think the reason why your post was removed and that you strongly disagree with it has been well established.
I agree with Deimos. What you posted was not appropriate in context.
And honestly reading this post, I don't even believe it was in good faith. Comparing tanning abilities with intelligence between races is just disingenuous.
@Deimos, I was about to PM you last night saying: Thanks for all the work on Tildes code, and I don’t know how you deal with all the community drama. And now this. I worry it might burn you out on...
@Deimos, I was about to PM you last night saying: Thanks for all the work on Tildes code, and I don’t know how you deal with all the community drama.
And now this.
I worry it might burn you out on the project. Maybe you might consider delegating these community tasks to a rotating group of users. Like user A, B, C, help for 6 weeks as some sort of tribunal. Then they lose their powers and users D, E, F have a go.
I feel strongly about the non-permanent status of these users. When I brought up mod term limits before, someone else commented “yes, it should be a civic duty, like jury duty, not a Supreme Court appointment for life.” That would help with certain users setting the tone permanently, and also help user A, B, C from burning out themselves.
Maybe give that some thought so that we don’t lose you...
It's annoying to some people -- that's really it I'm sure. People seem to dislike teacher's pets, especially really visible ones. Especially ones that are in every political post policing and...
It's annoying to some people -- that's really it I'm sure. People seem to dislike teacher's pets, especially really visible ones. Especially ones that are in every political post policing and contributing -- you're bound to raise some hackles that way.
I don't care personally. It doesn't affect me one bit how someone spends their time.
Side note: I wish is that the silly zekka callout thread hadn't been posted but maybe I'm in the minority there.
Edit: given that Deimos banned goldfish I think that this place probably isn't for me.
Good luck to Deimos. For his own sanity he should just start banning what he doesn't want on the site instead of being light handed.
What a bad day he's had (it was his anniversary today!) Nobody deserves that kind of stress.
I mostly just wish it had stayed in ~talk instead of being moved to ~tildes, as it's an example of precisely the kind of thing that drove me to unsub from ~talk in the first place.
Side note
I mostly just wish it had stayed in ~talk instead of being moved to ~tildes, as it's an example of precisely the kind of thing that drove me to unsub from ~talk in the first place.
I get it, you were defending the free discussion of controversial topics. That's valid and very consistent with your other stances. Doesn't mean it's a good idea to mix in discussion of the topics...
I get it, you were defending the free discussion of controversial topics. That's valid and very consistent with your other stances. Doesn't mean it's a good idea to mix in discussion of the topics themselves with the defense of the discussion of those topics. It's confusing, and it distracts from what you're actually trying to say.
My advice is to step back and take a breather for a bit. I know you feel strongly about censorship, and it's an important discussion to have. Please just remember that we're all here to make Tildes a better site that avoids the mistakes Reddit and others made, and part of that is going to involve figuring out what works and what doesn't. Sometimes that's going to look like falling on the strict side and removing things that might cause discussions to fall apart further. There's no need (and this is to everybody) for a thousand meta posts about the same stuff for days on end.
Looks like it's time for me to start looking into filtering things out by tag. These censorship arguments are getting a bit old, and lessening my enjoyment of Tildes.
Looks like it's time for me to start looking into filtering things out by tag. These censorship arguments are getting a bit old, and lessening my enjoyment of Tildes.
Back on Reddit I filtered out 'trump', 'russia', 'mueller', 'clinton', and 'putin'. It made my browsing SO much more enjoyable. As an Australian, my cares for American political infighting are...
Back on Reddit I filtered out 'trump', 'russia', 'mueller', 'clinton', and 'putin'. It made my browsing SO much more enjoyable.
As an Australian, my cares for American political infighting are fairly low.
yeah, I have been filtering politics, trump and similar tags... looks like I'm going to have to add censorship to the list, or straight up unsub from ~tildes for a while. The past few days seeing...
yeah, I have been filtering politics, trump and similar tags... looks like I'm going to have to add censorship to the list, or straight up unsub from ~tildes for a while. The past few days seeing what has slipped past my filters has shown me the choice was right to hide those posts. This site has some major meta growing pains right now.
Censorship, really? You really want to go down that silly road? Even though you can argue that it is all censorship that is still very much missing the point in using words like that. There is a...
Censorship, really? You really want to go down that silly road? Even though you can argue that it is all censorship that is still very much missing the point in using words like that. There is a perfectly acceptable word for what you are describing, a word that has been used for years now -- Moderation
Now there is good moderation, bad moderation and awful moderation. On all three of these you can technically put the censorship label. However censorship is mostly used in a negative context where people want to attach a level of severity that isn't there. It is often implied to be related to censorship from governments or to be on the same level. Which frankly, is offensive to people facing censorship in their daily lives and can't simply avoid it by creating a alt account/moving to another tilde/etc. To quote the wikipedia definition "Censorship is the suppression of speech", which simply is fundamentally impossible because of how tildes work.
So think about this for a moment. Do you really want to discuss how tildes are moderated? Or do you want to make it a political issue by equaling moderating (removal of posts and comments) with how some governments persecute their citizens? Because in my opinion the first is perfectly acceptable and I would welcome that discussion. On the other hand if it is the latter I am going to pass.
I just wanted to make this post to let both @Deimos and the other wonderful contributors out here that the vast majority of the community is with you. The vision of Tildes is inspiring and the...
I just wanted to make this post to let both @Deimos and the other wonderful contributors out here that the vast majority of the community is with you. The vision of Tildes is inspiring and the work that goes into making this a community of honest debaters doesn't go unnoticed. I have read countless discussions here and, although I don't always agree, I have always been treated with kindness and respect. It feels to me like (most) members here are genuinely trying to come to a common shared understanding of a subject rather than soapboxing and grand-standing. To achieve this in a national and global climate of divisiveness and alienation is no small feat. I would like to commend @Deimos for the great work he's done in hand-picking this community, growing it, and taking the hard choices necessary to keep the Tildes true to its vision
Racists, homophobes, transphobes, and bigots usually almost never think of themselves as racist. It's just so tiring arguing against bad opinions. Debating race realism is like debating a racist...
Racists, homophobes, transphobes, and bigots usually almost never think of themselves as racist.
It's just so tiring arguing against bad opinions. Debating race realism is like debating a racist version of flat earth theory, who has the time.
Even if IQ was a good metric of general intelligence...
Even if it wasn't a well proven fact that IQ tests have certain biases built into them...
Even if you didn't have to cherry pick data just to support your conclusion...
Even if "race" was a legitimate scientific category and not just a social construct...
Even if we assumed the researchers investigating this topic were doing so in good-faith...
Even if we had any reason to think that intelligence has ever not been evolutionary prioritized for any human population...
Even if race realism didn't have its root in early 1900s scientific racism and eugenics...
Even if people hadn't devoted entire studies and books to debunking race realism scientifically...
Even if race realism wasn't something white supremacists hide behind to justify their bigotry (seriously, pulling the " but asians are smarter than whites" is classic white supremacist tactic)...
Even if the scientific consensus wasn't definitively against race realism...
You cannot seperate historical influences, cultural influences, geographical influences,unseen biases in interpretation, unseen biases in methodology from genetic influences on topics such as this. Pretending that you can have a meaningful discussion about topics such is an intellectual circle-jerk.
Jesus, you step away from the computer for a few days and everything just explodes... Honestly, I think I'm loving Tildes a little bit more just flicking through this thread. What goldf1sh posted...
Jesus, you step away from the computer for a few days and everything just explodes...
Honestly, I think I'm loving Tildes a little bit more just flicking through this thread. What goldf1sh posted above is clearly out of line (the statistics they're referring to are not only deliberately created to maintain the racist status quo of the early 1920s, but are also better explained by broader socioeconomic differences between POC communities and white communities that are rooted way back into slavery in the US), but it is more interesting to see how this debate about censorship is playing out.
It seems like Tildes is becoming a wild experiment into what happens when online platforms actually enforce their terms of service. In the context of Facebook and Twitter debates around Alex Jones, it can be argued that Tildes is providing a small-scale glimpse into what would happen if larger websites decided to play by their own rules. It's the same situation: someone clearly presented misinformation, it was removed for violating the Terms of Service, and they doubled down on it by claiming censorship. Only here, there was actual enforcement. That is beautiful to see.
Idk about this whole 'poweruser' drama. Isn't it still too early in the site's development to really have those? If not, where do I apply to become one?
I believe @AFineAccount was being sarcastic when asking where they should apply to become a so-called "power user". That "Where do I apply for X?" line is a bit of a sarcasm trope. The...
What you're thinking of I think is moderators and people with permissions
I believe @AFineAccount was being sarcastic when asking where they should apply to become a so-called "power user". That "Where do I apply for X?" line is a bit of a sarcasm trope. The meta-message is that there is no place to apply for X because X does not exist.
On one hand, I partially agree with your objection to the removal. On the other hand you twisted yourself pretty far into technicalities, like the explicit definition of never. There is a time and...
On one hand, I partially agree with your objection to the removal. On the other hand you twisted yourself pretty far into technicalities, like the explicit definition of never. There is a time and place to have that particular argument, and that was not one of them.
Personally, I find your regular comments about taxation and government to be far more problematic for society. Personally, I would have removed those for being subversive and harmful to the collective good of society before the above post in the OP question.
I personally consider harmful rhetoric against society to be just as bad as rhetoric against people. Politics is an extension of people and separating them is impossible.
I personally consider harmful rhetoric against society to be just as bad as rhetoric against people. Politics is an extension of people and separating them is impossible.
What if someone believes that a form of society is harmful and oppressive? I don't think it's a good precedent to say we shouldn't critique forms of government and society, because there are many...
What if someone believes that a form of society is harmful and oppressive? I don't think it's a good precedent to say we shouldn't critique forms of government and society, because there are many available forms with benefits and drawbacks.
I'm still waiting on someone to show me a society without government and (especially) taxes. It's a theoretical fiction that people have latched on to and subsequently started pushing for very...
I'm still waiting on someone to show me a society without government and (especially) taxes. It's a theoretical fiction that people have latched on to and subsequently started pushing for very stupid and harmful changes to society.
How many people are going to die because a bunch of anti-tax people thought the free market was going to fix global warming?
Just because nobody's come up with a functional society that doesn't rely on taxes for collective funding, doesn't mean folks can't discuss it. Labeling such discussion as 'subversive' is...
Just because nobody's come up with a functional society that doesn't rely on taxes for collective funding, doesn't mean folks can't discuss it. Labeling such discussion as 'subversive' is worrying. Imagine if someone with a hyper-capitalist leaning decided that any comments that advocate for collective ownership were 'harmful to society' and should be removed?
Discussing is one thing, using that same rhetoric as a talking point to continually teardown the legitimacy of government and rally people against it causing them to vote in assholes who pass laws...
Discussing is one thing, using that same rhetoric as a talking point to continually teardown the legitimacy of government and rally people against it causing them to vote in assholes who pass laws and appoint people to destroy the government and by extension ruin a ton of people's lives it becomes another thing. That other thing is a significant problem and has already led to the deaths of many, many people.
Meta posts/politics are full of narrow collection of words. Can we train a model? Because it looks like the same stuff gets repeated over and over. I came to tildes to discuss about more facts,...
Meta posts/politics are full of narrow collection of words. Can we train a model? Because it looks like the same stuff gets repeated over and over.
I came to tildes to discuss about more facts, give me something I don't know. Not what's "right"
Edit: I'm going to lock this thread now. It's going totally fine, but I think it's mostly run its course, and we don't need it getting bumped back up to the top of the site constantly for two more days. If we had other functions to accomplish this I'd use them instead, but with the site's current sorting/behavior, locking it is the best option I have (kind of like needing to edit this into my existing top comment instead of being able to sticky a new explanation).
If you have concerns about this, you can feel free to PM me about them.
Original comment below:
Alright, I banned go1dfish, but I guess I'll leave this thread up as some form of transparency on it. Was it justified for me to ban him? I don't know, and today, I honestly just don't care any more. I already tried explaining my reasoning for removing his comment to him far more times than I would usually bother, and he's been completely unwilling to even attempt to understand. Maybe I'll change my mind and unban him later, I don't know.
[Edited out stuff I posted in frustration that I shouldn't have]
A pretty good litmus test IMO is whether or not people who "express a different opinion" ever interact with the community beyond expressing that opinion. Do they (at least occasionally) make comments about cars? Cooking? Gaming? Or do they literally only inject themselves into culture war drama?
I've never seen go1dfish do anything except race bait and whine about censorship on any forum he pops up on. That's a pretty good sign that he does not intend on good faith participation.
In fact, this might lend itself to an interesting experiment - give threads a "controversy" score somehow, and give users a similar score based on their ratio of participation in "controversial" threads. Make it based only on participation, not on comment score so you don't artificially censor "unpopular opinions." People with a high controversy score get rate limited in controversial threads - forcing them to participate in the greater community if they want to talk politics/culture wars/whatever. It seems like that would solve a huge part of the problem with people who only come around to disrupt the community. Hell, it might even convince a few trolls to change their stripes.
I've seen him comment intelligently regarding programming quite a few times. That's not to say censorship isn't his primary concern, but it's not accurate to say he never does anything else.
That's because he's clearly quite a good IT professional.
Problem is that his view clearly is not compatible with tildes (absolute free speech Vs moderated)
Well, there goes my ability to comment! I love a good debate, and I've been known to get a bit too invested in a controversial topic. So, even if I'm arguing the "good guy" side of a topic, I'll get tagged as a "controversial" user just for participating in the debate.
Trust me, I'm right there with you. But maybe the entire secret to a healthy forum, and to breaking down ideological bubbles is to force people into at least some minimal level of "normal" participation, so that access to the ideological skinner box is itself a reward instead of a compulsion. It would seriously impede the ability for bad actors to act badly, but it would also sort of force everyone else to take a breath occasionally, which seems like it would be an overall good thing no matter how you spin it.
I mean, that's sort of how it works in real life, right? If you are the sort of person who is always bringing up controversy in your group of friends, you'll tend to get excluded pretty quickly. That becomes your social identity. Not only that, but when you are included, people are quick to tune you out. But if you and someone else primarily connect over your love of baking, suddenly when you do speak up about something controversial, you aren't just the "controversial friend" spouting off again - you are a cake enthusiast who has real concerns. People are more likely to listen, and you are less likely to find yourself simply preaching to the choir.
That's an interesting notion. I don't know if it could work the same way on a site like Tildes where everyone presents as faceless usernames. I do recognize some of the most frequent posters' names from time to time but honestly I tend to skip over who said what in a typical thread. I'm not correlating X's opinion on TV shows in this thread with X's opinion on Trump in another thread to form a picture of who X is. It may happen occasionally but even then it's usually accidental. Normally you guys are all an anonymous stream of "somebodys," to me at least. I don't have any opinions about, or even concepts of, most people posting here.
Maybe little avatars would help with that. Maybe it's not a problem that needs to be solved.
i actually really like this post. i didn't expect something i would like this much to show up in this topic (i was super worn out by the thread i posted earlier so i procrastinated on reading it)
I'm really surprised go1dfish lasted as long as he did here. I remember him from when he was back on reddit, and he has always been the kind of user who'd run afoul of the "no tolerance for intolerance" rule here. I joined this site because of all the assurances it wouldn't go down the road reddit did as far as tolerating racists. I think you made the right call.
Yeah, this was inevitable. I was actually surprised that he lasted this long, because I knew my attitude to moderation was totally opposed to his. Turns out it was mainly because he somehow picked up a fundamental misunderstanding that I was only ever going to remove hate speech, and he hadn't noticed all the other stuff I've been removing (which still hasn't been very much overall, but it's certainly not all hate speech).
Same here. I've been seeing go1dfish's anti-censorship commentary on Reddit for years, and I was... surprised, to say the least... that he was so enthusiastic about your vision for Tildes. I knew there had to be a misunderstanding there somewhere.
It makes a lot more sense now that I realize that he thought something along the lines of: "he's only removing things that are illegal in Canada under their stricter speech laws."
Yes, it does.
i just want to add something because i'm obliquely referenced several times in the OP: i hardcore disgaree that discussion promoting censorship was a wrong way for my topic to go -- it's fine if everyone who posts in my topic disagrees with me.
goldfish seemed to think that that stuff being posted in my topic was somehow disrespectful to my wishes -- i wouldn't have bothered posting a topic if i didn't want people who seriously disagreed with me to reply.
I think you're completely justified in doing so, and I appreciate that you've decided to leave the topic up.
There's been a lot of drama lately so hopefully it can begin to die down now.
Please don't reconsider. Goldfish has proven time and again he's a zealot, hypocrit, and a child. The most damning thing regarding goldfish was his massive freakout when r/FatPeopleHate was banned, which was literally the most censored sub on Reddit. He spammed these crazy comments Mandarin everywhere.
Conservativee subs have always been the most censorship happy, far more than any left leaning sub, yet he never rides them for it. He proven time and again he only cares about censorship when it's not rightwingers doing it.
Actually:
https://www.reddit.com/r/paleoconservative/comments/nnc54/rconservative_isnt_just_banning_posts_theyve/
Like c'mon at least be accurate.
I don't think so. First, part of the reason I came to tildes was for the strong moderation. More importantly, he continuously was "JAQing off" about race. And then he continued to do so by airing his grievances and doubling down, and then complaining about "censorship" when he really means "moderation."
This is a blatent mischaracterizaton of go1dfish's activity on the site. To my knowledge they did not even address race in any form until yesterday, when they gave a rational, well reasoned response (reproduced above) to the well meaning, but complete and utter tripe response in the OP yesterday. If anything, go1dfish was constantly JAQ'ing about their perceived evils of the state, taxation and censorship.
I disagreed with the removal of their comment from the thread yesterday, but grudgingly accepted that it would derail the thread into yet another tedious, unsourced, mudslinging shit-show about human intelligence, racial bias and the multitude issues that come with that.
The fact that so many of you (apparently) can pat yourself on the back about this ban after having (incorrectly) labeled go1dfish's interactions on this website as 'racism' is sad, and is just another nail in the coffin of this site becoming 'left-wing Voat'
In the censorship thread he directly referenced posting statistics such as one of African Americans having lower IQ as something he did not want to see removed. Whether this represents his beliefs or not, a statistic like that is misleading and damaging if it's presented outside the context that it is in nearly every psychology textbook where it's mentioned - the context being the fact that IQ tests are biased.
I can't claim to know what he thought on the issues he didn't talk much about, but the fact that he thought this was acceptable to do shows both a fundamental misunderstanding of the sciences and a misunderstanding of when people choose to start a "discussion" on a topic. While I disagreed with him on many issues, I did not personally see him as much of a problem, aside from the fact that he was completely and entirely mislead of the premise of this website and just exactly what will end up being censored.
A side note: are you familiar with the term "tainted evidence" as it applies linguistically to conversations? I believe it might explain why quite a few people may have been mislead about his beliefs.
I noticed you mentioned this yesterday, again without a source. I read this article which seems fairly well sourced and discusses a number of possible biases including cultural, what an IQ test is actually measuring, etc. Some of this supports your argument, some does not. The point is, it's easy to make an assertion that confirms your assumption, and if it conforms to our own internally held beliefs (the righteous desire for all humans to be treated equally) people will upvote the argument without even requiring a basic source to back up the words. I do not wish to be tarred and feathered out of town the way /u/go1dfish has been though, so I feel like I should stop arguing before I'm labeled creepy, weird and racist because the thing I've learned is it can happen to anyone
Again, according to you. Are you an intelligence researcher - likely not? Am I? Absolutely not. Again a source to a reputable journal and 5-10 years of my own education on the subject would let me judge this. A link to a Vox article will not.
Literally all over the Wikipedia page. Go open a psychology textbook. Or talk with any psychologist. This is common knowledge in the field. Like someone asking for a source on global warming, I just simply do not have the time to do your research for you.
I'm well aware this doesn't help my argument, but my discussions on the original thread about intelligence were the extent of which I was willing to engage. I'm tired of making the same argument and I don't have the time to compile a list of carefully curated reports and journals proving something that's quite literally in the textbooks.
My job title and education have nothing to do with this, but since it's no secret if you go read my post history on reddit, I will let you know that I have a degree in neurobiology and work in the health sciences.
I've never linked a Vox article as a source. Nearly every source I link on this website is a journal article.
This was an unfair accusation against you, and I apologize. When this topic has come up in the past, the Ezra Klein / Sam Harris article on Vox has repeatedly been linked as evidence / argument.
A fair criticism that deserves to be brought up. Quality of source is of utmost important when attempting to make a point.
I found myself with some time while waiting on something work related and dug up a few articles you might find interesting.
Article 1
Article 2
Article 3
Article 4
Article 5
Thank you, this is a much more helpful reply and now I have reading to do!
edit:
When it comes to any sort of political, moral or scientific argument it is imperative in my view to provide adequate sources -- otherwise you far too often end up with baseless assertions (e.g. for a less charged example 'life for average people in socialist countries is obviously worse than in capitalist countries' -- I can find said thread if needed).
One of the points I thought go1dfish made particularly well addresses why I think this is necessary:
Providing reputable sources helps me (and others) assess that IQ tests are indeed biased, and more effectively argue so in the future, in a way that common knowledge does not.
Yes, I am aware of how debate is supposed to work, logical fallacies that are often fallen back upon, and other realities of an honest discussion.
I think it's important to be aware of the realities of what's expected as a reasonable amount of learning someone needs to do before broaching a subject. When there's an entire section on Wikipedia with a slew of sources, and googling "IQ test bias study" returns millions of results, much like climate change science, if you are expecting an honest discussion on the topic you are going to need to do some learning of your own first.
The reality is that there's a fatigue when fighting the same old tired line that's been pushed since the 70s. It's been debated ad nauseam in the field, and much like climate science, you're going to experience people online who simply do not have the time to tell you why you are wrong. You have an imperative, if you are truly trying to be honest about your viewpoint, to do some of this research yourself before coming to a scientist and making a claim.
I would challenge you, and anyone else who thinks similarly, to research the counterargument when you run into such stark opposition to your opinion. If everyone on the internet is writing off your point and telling you it's a racist, bigoted, or otherwise wrong point - you should at the very least consider that this is a possibility and take it as a sign that you need to do your own research rather than relying on the opinion of others. It's easy to say "the burden of proof rests upon you", but that's a cop-out and if this is something you are truly interested in and would like to know more about, take the initiative rather than passing it off to someone else.
Now, let me be very clear, because I see the signs of it starting already. I do not believe there are fundamental inequalities in intelligence between different races, and even if such differences did exist, they would almost certainly be a result of our incomplete understanding of intelligence and inability to separate bias in culture, poverty, different types of intelligence, and a whole variety of other things.
The analogy to arguing about climate change is well taken, but telling me to google it or read wikipedia discounts that there are incredibly charged opinions on either side of this argument; a random google search may lead me to an alt-right conspiracy website that would argue into whatever nazi bullshit they would have me believe about race.
For instance, the first page of a google search for "IQ test bias study" yields a paper with 71 citations (the most recent of which, being 26 days ago) from John Hopkins (Bad News Concerning IQ Tests, Authors(s): Robert A. Gordon and Eileen E. Rudert, Source: Sociology of Education, Vol. 52, No. 3 (Jul., 1979), pp. 174-190), the conclusion of which states in so many words:
Followed by the rather large caveat, which I don't claim to understand:
other than to get a general idea that "hey, what we just said could be completely wrong if our assumptions are incorrect". Granted this paper is from 1979, and is likely outdated, but the point remains that telling me to google it is fundamentally less instructive than providing sources (as you so helpfully did in your second comment).
As I'm very cognizant that we have now spent even more time on this argument, I hope we can leave it here for today, and additionally that I do not leave you (or other users) with the impression that I am defending the use of science to attempt to justify racial bias (though, I fear that even by discussing this as I have, and stating that I believe it is clear from the original comment this was not go1dfish's intent, such an effect is likely unavoidable for some). I'm going to go take a very long break from the internet and decompress a bit, hope you have a good one.
Apologies, I did not mean to imply that you held this position in any way shape or form. Just pointing out to people who do, or are questioning themselves on their viewpoint.
You're absolutely right it can, but if you're unable to use the scientific method to assess the quality of these papers, then you have no right to be holding a scientific debate on the matter. You should either be deferring to the experts in the field, or starting your academic career in the sciences by learning the fundamentals.
Completely agreed. I was merely pointing out the realities of arguing with a scientifically established fact. Sure you can find the same on climate science as well, but anyone with even a minimal training in climate science knows that there's broad agreement in the field by people who are not motivated by politics.
I'd like to address this further, but I don't currently have access to this article. I'd be happy to provide my two cents after I can acquire a copy.
I think an issue here is "just google it" often gets told to laypeople who have no idea how to verify any sort of scientific method. These people are distinctly vulnerable to accidentally reading and absorbing terrible viewpoints just because they're the top thing on Google.
If you're not willing to half-ass an effort you shouldn't expect anymore than the same of others.
I mean, true. It's not fair to expect someone else to do all your research for you. That plus the JAQ phenomenon means folks trying to explain can get tired out super fast, and those people deserve to have a pleasant experience online.
Unfortunately, I worry that if everyone takes a 'do your own research' stance, then folks who just don't know might end up going to random alt right, nazi, or otherwise misleading sites and get taken in. While the idea that they shouldn't participate in debates if they don't have the foundational knowledge to understand the debate is all well and good, that idea isn't going to stop people from doing it anyways. And then that just ends up with more people sucked in by the far right. I'm not really sure if there's a good way to balance those things.
The hope is that there's always one participator willing to engage in a meaningful manner. Not everyone will be able to all the time, unfortunately.
Last comment, I swear! I made a very similar point about the futility of arguing this on Tildes, Reddit, etc. yesterday in the same thread that go1dfish's original comment was made in. I absolutely agree here (and yet, I got sucked into such an argument anyways, apologies once again).
Yeah, anyone who's interacted with goldfish much knows those are his pet issues. Race doesn't come up much. They just happen to overlap strongly with the pet issues of racists and alt righters.
I think the original comment was well intentioned, but I don't think it was likely to produce civil conversation in an already flared-up thread (thus justifying the removal of the entire chain). Deimos shouldn't need to spend a ton of time carefully watching threads to make sure they don't explode, so a stricter moderation approach is imo the best approach here. I had suggested reposting as another topic but reposting the same comment with the addition of accusations of censorship isn't super helpful.
i really share the view that most of this stuff shouldn't have been deleted. (his digression in my thread should have been moved though, it was pretty irrelevant to what everyone but goldfish was talking about)
i'm annoyed that like most libertarian dudes who register for an online forum, goldfish took paragraphs and paragraphs of moral outrage at the idea that racism would be censored and like, two sentences of moral outrage at the actual racism.
that's not the same as saying "i am a racist" but when I read that I think "oh, you spend a lot more time feeling sorry for racists than feeling sorry for targets of racism" and my reaction to that is "holy fuck"
a lot of people are willing to articulate the sixteen paragraph long, exhausting case for maybe-white-supremacy, but like, when definite white supremacy happens, they're mysteriously absent from the discussion.
I don't understand this mentality at all. Imagine if alternate universe Trump (that is, a flaming liberal we'll call Lump) had been elected, but had the same insane number of ethical and moral lapses surrounding their campaign and presidency. Would you want to be a part of T_D then? Would brigading conservative subreddits then be acceptable? Would all of the shit that goes along with T_D and voat now be ok, just because it's directed against the right? If so, there is absolutely no leg to stand on for us to criticize those places, if we would use the same awful tactics in service of a less xenophobic (well, excluding conservatives I suppose) goal
All I'll say is that your edit:
Is a lot different than the original text:
And I would argue voat - toxicity = .... about nothing.
A hypothetical isn't a straw man. At least get your logical fallacies right if you're going to completely disengage from discussion.
A left wing voat minus the toxicity would really just be lefty reddit... and that exists. Probably multiple ones, but the one I know of is https://www.jstpst.net/ (run by devtesla and some other folks in that circle)
as you can see it's very small
edit there's also https://raddle.me/ that i just found
You've definitely been putting in a lot of work. I appreciate what you've done here and everything you do. I hope you're able to get some rest and some help with moderation. But no matter what you've already made a great site, it's incredibly apparent every time I visit other sites now how low effort and full of issues they are. So for that thank you. Don't be too afraid of stepping away for a bit to live your life.
That's awful, Deimos, I'm so sorry to hear this. (edit: this was in response to Deimos' personal troubles, not to his banning of go1dfish!)
I haven't been here much today (just logged in 20 minutes ago) but it sounds like it's been a wild day. For what it's worth, I have really enjoyed the site so far.
Again, I don't know what went on today specifically, but it's strange to hear people comment on 'censorship' of controversial ideas. We just finished a ~200 comment thread on trigger warnings which got pretty heated at times, and I don't think anything except lame insults were removed. Opinions were shared and I think a few of us actually found some common ground.
It might be time for everyone on our side of the world to just get to bed early and turn the page on today. But I'll be back tomorrow. And I imagine all the other users like me who have come to really enjoy this place will be back too.
How would that be determined?
reading the thread, coming back later to check out new comments, and realising a certain comment that you might remember has been removed. (is my guess)
I think you made the right call and you should leave the ban in place. I'm pretty new here but the best things about this site so far are people passionately and kindly discussing their shared interests and their differences of opinion. Abusing site mechanics to promote a discussion most people don't want to be having, and harassing users who disagree with you like go1dfish was doing shouldn't be tolerated.
Thanks for starting the site and being pretty even-handed so far. Hopefully you can bring on some people to help you with moderation duties soon.
I haven't been active on tildes lately (lots of stuff going on irl, also I've been being a little batty about a response i wanted to write to a user on here), so i don't know what all has been going on... but I'm sad to see a ban like this. In my experience, go1dfish has come across as intellectually honest to a fault- I'm surprised to hear you say he was unwilling to attempt to understand - do you think that there might have been a better way this could have been resolved?
I know you said you don't care about whether this ban was justified or not... at least today. Maybe later you would be willing to consider an appeal.
This is fairly off-topic, but it's good to see a comment from you! It's been quite a while.
With that out of the way, I would like to give my own perspective here. At a fundamental level, I don't really agree with either your viewpoints or go1dfish's, as is evident by the occasional debates we've had. That being said, there's definitely a difference in how you two both carry yourselves. I know you've gotten pretty heated in the past on a few occasions (as many others have, including myself), but overall I usually find my discussions and debates with you enjoyable. You generally seem like you're entering these discussions in good faith and I appreciate having the opportunity to exchange viewpoints with you. The problem with go1dfish, unfortunately, is that these debates were, more often than not, not very enjoyable at all. It always felt like they weren't being started in good faith, and the discussions frequently seemed to derail into a lengthy back-and-forth about some tangential point that he seems to obsess over, in this case the perceived "censorship", and it frankly felt like talking to a brick wall because he would completely miss the entire point of an argument repeatedly. This was further highlighted with his arguments with Deimos himself, the site's admin, the guy who ultimately gets the final say in anything regarding Tildes if he damn well pleases.
In short, he could be infuriatingly stubborn and argumentative, even when the site admin himself has made a clear decision with a clear reason. And honestly, that's just go1dfish's personality. Apparently he has a preexisting reputation on that point.
As Crespyl noted, contrary opinions are important. I just think that some are more welcome than others. Despite our disagreements, I would count yours among them.
Glad to see you're still active here (our conversation about the definition of nazi was actually what i referred to above xD.) My grandma died recently so it's been super hectic with extended family flying in, and cleaning up her house after (she was a hoarder) so I haven't had much time to derp around on here... and i was being all avoidant about getting my thoughts sorted out into a cogent/concise response about dem nazis. :P
I must admit i haven't payed close attention to those arguments, and its possible my affinity for go1dfish has biased my perception of him in such situations - I long had appreciation for his work in identifying legitimate overreach of moderation power, and apparent misconduct on the part of some admins. When we worked to get /u/publicmodlogs into something presentable for the wider reddit community, it was surprising to hear him speak of alexis and other reddit admins with respect after I had long been soured on some of them. He seemed to be able to give people the benefit of the doubt, even when i would have moved on, and I think that sort of sensitivity is an extremely valuable quality that makes him endearing.
I know he's passionate about his ideology. We haven't spoken much about it personally, but I know it's driven him to maintain snew, to work on his fairshare project in the past, and to develop notabug. If I keep this in mind, it actually does make it more believable that having a debate with him might get frustrating.
I don't know what to say really, except that on notabug right now, he has mentioned that he did not realize it was deimos' anniversary, and he wanted to apologize to him for creating stress on this special day. He's also explicitly disavowed racism in all its forms, for what it's worth. I know that my credibility on this site isn't very high, but it seems like he really enjoyed interacting with people here, engaging in stimulating debates - so I really do hope he gets to come back. Maybe this event will help to encourage him to temper his emotions a bit and consider his audience more thoughtfully (sort of like I've had to struggle to do :P )
He then went on to imply that Deimos banned him because it was his anniversary:
Sure, there was an apology in another comment, but go1dfish also managed to use this incident to "prove" his point about how moderation is subjective. Let's not pretend that he's filled with remorse for his actions here.
That doesn't necessarily mean he's not racist. It's not like all racists say "Yes, I'm a racist!" Some of them believe they are not being racist when they use false and/or flawed statistics to prove that black people are stupider than other people.
There are no usernames displayed on that site. That's the point. And there's nothing there to indicate that "Kat" or any username posted that post. I see merely "submitted 11 hours ago to t/whatever". No username. Not yours, not anyone's.
Yes, your username appears at the beginning of the copy-pasted text, but I assume that's just a copying error rather than anything malicious.
Yeah, I see what you mean.
if I had copied this thread it would read:
, because when copying the page that's where the logged in users name would be. Having your handle there implies that you were the one who posted it.
i assume whoever pasted all of that changed it just to troll, i mean even the title is obviously intended to provoke an emotional reaction from go1dfish himself. I would not worry about it.
Ha!
Oh, man. I'm sorry to hear that. I hope you and your family are doing alright.
Don't worry too much about that. You can always take your time with that one, or even not respond to it at all. I'm not going to hold it against you regardless of what you decide to do :)
Yeah, I don't really feel too strongly about him one way or the other, and I don't really know that much about him. You may be right that with some tempering of emotions, being allowed back could be good for the community. I honestly don't know, and I'm not going to take a stance on that because of it. The only thing I can comfortably say is that he definitely rubbed people the wrong way, was told that he was rubbing people the wrong way, argued about rubbing people the wrong way, and ultimately kept it up long enough to reach the apex in question. What ends up coming out of that is something of a mystery right now, and ultimately I'll be accepting Deimos' decision on the matter whether he allows go1dfish back or not.
I'm glad your back. I was honestly wondering why we haven't seen you here for a while.
I'm also sorry about your grandma.
I think the point that this was brought up at all honestly shows a lack of responsibility. It doesn't matter that it was his anniversary. Deimos has always been professional, and to imply that go1dfish may not have been banned if it was a different day is simply wrong. Deimos, and honest this community, gave him a huge benefit of a doubt. Deimos and others tried to explain to him, but he refused to listen.
Ultimately his actions were disrespectful to this community. I'm honestly sorry he's banned, because he did contribute positive things here too, but I also think it's the right call.
I don't know. "We can't discuss race realism? But what about suntans?" strikes me as the opposite of intellectually honest.
i posted this in another comment: he had like fifty paragraphs of defense ready for people who might falsely be accused of being racists. never did i see him show the same moral outrage for like, targets of racism. it's kind of obvious which of these populations he identifies with
i could apologize and say "maybe he thought everyone already knew that it's bad to be targeted by racism," but instead i'll avoid being passive aggressive about it and say i think go1dfish is seriously unintentionally racist
not glad he was banned, but still
I was surprised by the ban at first; his attitude is the sort of thing I'd expect to see someone get banned from a specific community or subreddit for, but not an entire site. But if these are the standards desired for Tildes as a whole, I'm cool with it. Prioritizing rational discussion is a nice change of pace.
Remember that there are no partial bans on Tildes (yet). Deimos' only option now is a full ban. Partial, group-specific, bans may be implemented in the future, but we don't have that luxury here and now.
I did say I'm not opposed to the outcome.
Honestly, no. Multiple people were trying to tell him that he was out of line, off topic, and ignoring the main points. He just wasn't listening or having it. He ended up arguing about pedantic differences between races as a way of trying to argue against censorship, in the context of people being frustrated by people who argue about the differences between races in racist lenses or bad faith. He even got so far as to get deep into a "black people can have low IQs" hypotheticals for some reason—in a thread about people accidentally arguing in favour of white supremacy! Honestly, the lack of self-awareness on his part was astounding.
And it didn't stop there. He still made room to include the pedantic differences in racial differences in his big rant about censorship here. There's no call to continue hammering it in when nobody was disputing it. I don't want to presume why he so earnestly wanted to keep talking about the subject when nobody wanted him to continue or argue the point.
On top of this, he avoided and dismissed all responsibility for the consequences of his arguments. When someone pointed out "yes, there could be a possible discussion but here's what everyone else is concerned about", he just refused to entertain that those concerns were relevant in his blind quest to freak out about censorship as much as possible. When others like @Cocoa above pointed out the flaws in his understanding and insistence to keep going on, he just ignore those points and arguments to keep making rants and arguments about censorship, culminating in him making this thread.
So ultimately, he was making people uncomfortable, being extremely argumentative, kept wanting to discuss racial differences when nobody was interested, would not stop when asked, threw a few tantrums, and overall just made the Tildes experience worse for everyone. He was told multiple times by multiple people why he was out of line or why things happened, and he just refused to consider that his views were misguided.
I wonder if go1dfish is on the spectrum. I don't mean that as some sort of insult, but it while his reasoning capacity seems perfectly fine, his emotional and social perception seems limited to some extent, which possibly made it difficult/impossible for him to understand the contextual nuances that everyone kept pointing out.
hi, i'm seriously on the spectrum and i think some of these theories could be correct. we don't have enough evidence though. i used to post like him on a lot of places online, and i still sometimes do.
i think his original sin is being racist or at least having extreme empathy for racists while having like, none for their victims. his sin is also looking for complicated explanations that cast antiracist shit in a negative light, while missing the fucking obvious over and over -- literally one of the behaviors i listed in my original post. some of that might be accounted for by autism, part of it is probably becoming accustomed to being the smart guy in nerd social circles. but i'm in danger of just describing myself.
As yet another person on the spectrum, I agree. Whataboutism like that used to be something I fixated on a lot, but (a) I don't know that speculating would do anyone any good, and (b) even if certain things are more difficult for me, I still have a responsibility to not be hurtful.
Honestly, I do too. He doesn't strike me as racist or malicious, but he does strike me as someone who is somewhat out of control.
I hope so. Tildes needs a few contrary opinions around, and I've generally appreciated his (and yours, for what it's worth) contributions to the discussion on this site.
I'm sure go1dfish will be happy to hear that - I know I am. I'd like to pick up some activity on here again so it's nice to have a fan. :P
Don't even sweat it. It's very clear he was only interesree racist propaganda at this point. He even tagged this post "race realism". Even without that, he was causing enough drama to justify tossing him out based on that alone.
So he didn't but I don't think it matters.
I fully 100% support any bans you make. I don't need to know any details.
Since you asked about this particular ban: I am glad you made this ban. I feel that it needed to be done to protect the site.
I'd also be interested to know if you're looking at how invite codes are used. I want a diverse range of opinion on the site, but if one user is inviting multiple people who go on to be banned that's something that might need to be looked at.
Whooa I support the ban but we need transparency too. We should demand details and justification of every ban.
I agree that ban transparency is vital, and even more so as the site matures. I'm not asking for a big blowout "User X was just banned and here's why" megathread every time, but a public changelog on user profiles would be great. Just a timeline indicating when the account was created, when it was banned (and by whom, and for what reason), and when it was reinstated (if that happens, also with attribution and a reason message). This timeline should be visible to all and immutable.
Yes exactly
You can see how a 200 thread post after every ban is extraordinarily tedious, right?
I'm just a user here. I'm under no illusion that I have any power to run this site. If I have strong opinions about how a site like Tildes should be run I'm free to fuck off and set up my own site. But I have no right to demand other people change the way they work to suit my preference.
lmao well I guess you definitely gave him multiple chances to cool off that he opted to not take. personally I'd have liked to see him come around since he's clearly a talented programmer and has some valuable insight in that area, but making the experience worse for everyone else isn't worth it if he's not interested in changing. banning him is totally justified
edit: actually, i think maybe just a temporary ban is in order. I think he mostly just needs some time to cool off, and I enjoyed seeing a counter-perspective that wasn't outright insane like you might see on T_D. I think if we can sort out the issues of "censorship" he could be a decent contributor to the site. that said, I think it's your call on if it's worth the effort.
You did the right thing. Like I said elsewhere, the problem here is that the approach needed to protect communities in 2018 is not the same as it was in 2010. People like go1dfish (who is a well known troll to begin with) implement a form of censorship which is arguably more insidious than anything done here or on reddit - they intentionally represent themselves as "expressing an opinion" as cover for their disruptive tactics. Slowly, the "opinion" they are expressing clearly morphs into outright trolling and disruption. By the time this becomes apparent, everyone who isn't a troll has already thrown up their hands in frustration. But the disruptors are not frustrated by the disruption of the forum (obviously) - they are emboldened by it, and continue to push until real discussion becomes impossible. The way to frustrate them is to interrupt their strategy through bans and comment removals. Which is what you did.
I mean, we see it right here in this post. He is taking the traditional route of hooking in naive "free speech" advocates by crying censorship, and then sets that hook by finishing it up with his real message - racism. It's as clear as day that the entire reason he is here is to spread that message. He's not taking a break to talk about puppies, or video games, or cars - every action he takes on every forum is about spreading his message of intolerance. He is the textbook definition of an insincere actor.
The bigger issue though is that while go1dfish is, and always has been, a blunt instrument - the tactics he uses are employed much more surgically and elegantly by others with the same goal. go1dfish will always get himself banned eventually (maybe that's his goal - to be a martyr) but those who follow in his footsteps are much more difficult to pin down. Which is precisely why these times demand a tougher moderation approach - because if you don't nip this sort of thing in the bud, you will end up finding two heads for each one you cut off.
So does that make him the first person to be banned from Tildes?
Personally, I’m exactly 50/50 on your decision. Yes, he was a shit-bag who just wants to stir shit up but on the other hand, he didn’t take it too far in my opinion. I found his points to be somewhat valid, minus the digression.
Though I digress, happy anniversary dude.
I’ll agree on one thing, if someone’s constantly stirring shit up, I’ll personally ban them without a second thought.
I’ve had the mispleasure of meeting someone like that on Discord. Personally banned them but the higher-ups thought that they didn’t do anything too serioius so they were invited back in without even a strike.
So looking at OP’s history, I’ll change my stance - OP outright deserved the ban.
Δ
Hell no! That happened months ago! Here: Daily Tildes discussion - our first ban
There were two other publicly announced bans around the same time, and Deimos has said more recently that there have been other bans since then.
Months? Damn, late to the party it seems.
There have been others, I believe this is the 4th or 5th public ban.
Huh, interesting. But surely this must be the first prolific one... right?
I think that honour actually goes to HypnoToad, but he was before my time.
Define a "prolific" ban.
Well, for starters, this very thread’s pretty damn lively.
So you mean a ban that was widely commented on? That would restrict it to the two bans which Deimos posted topics about.
I already provided you a link to the topic announcing the first ban. The second ban was mentioned by Deimos only incidentally. He posted another topic for the third ban: Daily Tildes discussion - banning for bad-faith/trolling behavior.
Since then, he's just been banning people quietly behind the scenes. He announced the first few bans because they were the first few bans so he used them as demonstrations of his approach to moderating. But, after that, I assume he treated subsequent bans as "business as usual": it's not worth announcing every single ban on a forum.
I don't know if it was the right call, but it's your site. If you wanted to, you could shut down tildes forever and ban all the users.
(Not that I want you to, that would be a very abrupt move!)
I'm honestly tired of the mentally ill building their own private Alamos and waving the flag of 'free speech.' I don't think that guy belongs here. I don't think he belongs on Reddit. I wouldn't listen to him on a sidewalk at a public bus stop because I'd throw my headphones in. Editorial work shouldn't be reviled, it should be revered.
I'm sorry to see the user banned but in my book he was "extremist free speech advocate" and extremist is never a good word.
It's like to say that it was unexpected but unfortunately it's not the truth.
Goldfish was more pro anarchism then free speech and while i am very impressed by the technical solution of his website, I don't think its view on freedom of speech is correct as it enables any kind of ideology, even the bad ones. Given he was okay with that, I'm quite surprised he lasted this long here.
If you boil it down to the basics I see it as this: @Deimos has in mind a site where discussions are "civil" and benefitial. Depending on your definition of civility the ban might be right or it might be wrong but in the end it doesn't matter. The vision that @Deimos is putting forth with the site is his own and a lot of people agree with it otherwise we wouldn't be here.
Individuals like @go1dfish operate outside of what he invisions this site being. I can be written in the rules or it can be all in his head but we agree to operate within the bounds of @Deimos making those decisions at this point. If you don't think it's the type of community you want to engage with find one that is more to your liking. If you disagree with the community but see value in it then keep participating but have a clearer picture of where the boundaries are. If you agree then cheers, the site is the place you've always hoped for.
It sounds very much like attempts to delineate the boundaries were made, they weren't followed, the end. Any, literally any individual who is making an honest to goodness attempt to participate within the boundaries of a community IRL or online has to know when to back off. If a person is just trying to be antagonistic then I can't see any way that they are acting in good faith.
And nothing of value was lost.
As I understand how web communities form, it's decisions like this that shape the tone of conversation for years. In this case, I believe for the better.
When someone says something like this, and says they are totally not racist, then they are most definitely racist af, and we don't need white supremacists on this site
If your argument is that anyone who a) claims not to be racist and b) discusses the topic is in fact racist, then how do you propose someone who a) is not, in fact, racist and b) still wishes to discuss it should do so?
EDIT: Added quote
I propose they don't. It's a delicate, sensitive, touchy subject and it's not worth discussing in public and risk coming across as intolerant.
Because lets be honest, that's what Tildes, Reddit, Tumblr, Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, etc. is: public. This is the kind of touchy subject you discuss either in private, face-to-face, with a good buddy of yours where you both know you have a mutual interest in the topic and you both know that neither of you harbors no racist intentions. Or, you discuss it in an academic setting, a classroom where there is a professor or TA who can moderate and there is a shared expectation of respect and intellectual curiosity. (In other words, it's a safe space for learning.)
But you are seriously lacking in social graces and common sense if you bring up a topic like this in a room full of 100 people who you don't know and run the gamut in terms of gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, comfort level with controversial topics, etc, etc. And it's easy to lose sight of the fact that when you are on a discussion forum you are far closer to the room full of 100 random people than you are to the classroom or in private with a good buddy. The disconnect between "I'm sitting here in my office/home alone in front of a screen" and "there are literally hundreds/thousands/millions of people sharing this website with me" causes people to lose sight of that. And perhaps more to the point in light of this thread, you are a special kind of stupid if you persist with discussing a controversial topic when a number of people in the room with you pipe up and say "your conversation is making me uncomfortable."
You are in public when you are on a discussion forum. If you actively decide to bring up controversial topics in this context, you reap what you sow.
I should note that my reply wasn't so much about what tildes allows as the massive moonjump of reasoning you made.
I think this line in your comment is pertinent to that as well:
No you aren't. It might make you incredibly tone-deaf, ignorant, and/or uncaring, and in the case of a site like tildes it may make you unwelcome, but it doesn't make you stupid and it certainly doesn't make you racist.
I don't really give a toss about whether the OP is unbanned or if race-realism (a subject I have no interest in) is an off-limits topic for discussion on tildes - at least not directly. But claiming that "if you discuss X from any angle, then you are a racist and especially if you claim you aren't" is a monumentally unhelpful approach to anyone after the buzz wears off from calling the silly people bad names.
I'm not @KyloCommunist1917. I didn't make the "massive moonjump of reasoning." I'm just trying to explain the connection to you. You can argue that it shouldn't be this way until you're blue in the face, but that won't change the fact that this is the way it is: if you make people uncomfortable by tactlessly discussing controversial topics in public, some of those people are going to assume you're a bigot, so the best way to stay out of this kind of trouble is to just keep your mouth shut.
Holding your tongue on matters like this isn't going to kill you.
My apologies - I didn't check the name before I posted.
Could you please link to the explanation for this ban?
Is there a list of forbidden topics anywhere on the wiki?
Thanks for your work on this site.
You're replying to the explanation for this ban. The comment you replied to here is the comment in which Deimos explains why he banned go1dfish:
That's the explanation for the ban.
If you're looking for the explanation about why Deimos removed the comment by go1dfish which triggered this debacle, here is the conversation between Deimos and go1dfish about that removal. You'll have to carefully trace the trail of replies between those two, because other people jumped in to add their two cents' worth as well.
There is no official wiki for Tildes. If you mean the official documentation, there is no list of forbidden topics there. Feel free to check the documentation for yourself.
However, I don't know if most sites would have a list of forbidden topics. In my experience, behaviours are more likely to be forbidden than topics (omitting the obvious case that a forum specifically about apples would implicitly forbid topics like aardvarks, abacuses, and architecture).
Thank you for the response. I unfortunately don't have time to read through this stuff today, but I appreciate you taking the time to respond!
The reason I asked if there is a list of forbidden topics is because from skimming this thread, it sounded like this person was banned for discussing a forbidden topic. It seems I'm not fully understanding the situation, so I appreciate the links!
And yes, for some reason I keep calling the documentation a wiki when it is not.
It's your site! And your choice on what to censor.
Have you read this?
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tscc3e5eujrsEeFN4/well-kept-gardens-die-by-pacifism
If I were you I'd delete this post and all its comments too!
Oh holy fuck can we stop with all these meta-drama posts already. Is this going to be yet another 100+ comment back-and-forth thread?
The past several days have been a fucking trash fire.
I would support a temporary moratorium on meta posts... Please, please just use the site! Stop navel gazing! Be nice to people! We don't need to constantly talk about what it is we're doing wrong or right or too much of or not enough of -- we just need to post interesting things and have constructive discussions.
Yeah, I don't want to ban meta posts, but one of the founding philosophies of the site is "trust users, punish abusers". I'd say the community is currently abusing meta threads to yell at each other the past few days and maybe we can't handle that sort of responsibility right now.
The meta culture here is toxic. We need a moratorium on meta posts for like a week so I can just browse interesting content without running into more drama.
Too much meta chokes out actual content and makes a community impenetrable to any newcomers. People shouldn't need crash courses on whatever Drama is currently happening in order to make sense of the site.
I wouldn't mind if there was a separate, designated place for meta content. Because that stuff can be important, it shouldn't be stifled. But removing it from the front page would stop it from feeding this sort of mania. If it was relegated to its own area then only those who want to see it would. This is the approach MetaFilter takes and I think it's a good one.
Here on Tildes, creating something like ~tildes.meta (and not subscribing everyone to it by default) could be a good way to implement it.
I think this is a fantastic idea. It'd be even better once the 'bubbling up' function of subgroups is implemented, so only the top meta posts would make it out into ~tildes.
doesn't any discussion of tildes equal "meta" discussion? what would be the difference between ~tildes and ~tildes.meta?
Or perhaps more specifically, when should i post to ~tildes.meta versus ~tildes?
Maybe "meta" isn't the right label.
I think ~tildes as a general umbrella should contain all of the following (spread among relevant subgroups as needed):
I think the last two categories fall under what we've been calling "meta." On MetaFilter, whenever commenters start to steer a discussion off-topic or in a toxic direction, the mods will remove the offending posts and leave a little note like "That's not really what this discussion is for, if you have a problem take it MeTa" (the name for the meta area of the site). Then aggrieved parties have a place they can vent or petition, without spiraling the original thread into a vortex.
You mean... something like... maybe... ~tildes?
Have you tried unsubscribing from ~tildes? I'm guessing that would reduce the amount of meta posts you see on your Tildes feed.
Perhaps you could filter out some of the tags these post have had? This particular one does not have the "meta" tag (I believe that the last mirroring post did). Maybe filter out the "race realism" tag? While these are not great solutions for the community as a whole and Tildes is meant to be a tolerable place to be, I could certainly understand filtering these out if you find them bothersome.
The
ranttag is probably the best one to filter.Sticking my head in the sand and pretending the problem doesn't exist isn't a good solution.
This is a good example of where the ability to downvote was useful on Reddit. It was an easy way for things like this to be buried by general user action.
"Silent posting" or some equivalent, wherein a user can make a post without bumping the whole thread, would go a long way toward reducing the traction controversial threads are getting on Tildes (imo).
At the moment, controversial threads spiral out of control because they are always near the top of the feed. One advantage of reddit was that these topics would eventually drift down the page and people would gradually move on to other content (the downside of this, of course, was that it also snuffed out productive conversation). But there's no de-escalation on Tildes. The conversation just burns hotter and hotter.
It's a great model for sustaining conversation over multiple days, but it also evokes a feeling of "Oh god, not this again!" every time one of these controversial threads gets bumped. You just can't get away from these threads. They're there, all the time, dominating the conversation.
Edit: I know everyone has an opinion on the feature missing from Tildes, but this is mine; there's no way to engage in a clickbait or controversial thread without making it the centre of attention.
I think you nailed it.
Activity sort was for low-activity periods (and will serve that purpose in all small, new groups that need help going forward). Tildes itself is starting to move past that low activity level recently for anyone subbed to all the groups. The automatic bump is starting to become a problem.
Perhaps for bumpage we shouldn't look for base activity such as a single reply from a single account. Maybe it shouldn't bump until it's got multiple replies from multiple accounts. I'd say more than two accounts, that should help avoid the constant bumping from back-and-forth arguments when two people get into it.
Threads need to be harder to bump in the activity sort. It's too much power for a single person or even a pair of debaters.
Sorry but @Deimos didn't upvote one of my comments so I'm gonna write a 5 paragraph post about it.
I've kinda enjoyed reading these threads, in all fairness. It's like a trial by fire introduction to the big names of tildes opinions of what the site should be.
This is still my pick for favorite comment in any of these threads.
I can do without the drama, but I think posts about the site and its policies are par for the course in the early days of a place like this as features are implemented and more users join. People are just more passionate about certain things. I imagine other websites experienced similar things as they were developing as well, but I can't be certain of that.
Yes. There's a lot to figure out and it only makes sense that we try to discuss it early on.
The degree to which you are determined to discuss a correlation between race and IQ is weird and creepy.
I've taken a course on psychometric testing and have administered edit: numbers hundreds of IQ tests (of different versions) over the past 8 years or so now.
I can't stress enough the idea that IQ tests are awful measure of GI, and for the most part, in the real world, mean very little. Moreover, IQ tests themselves have long histories of both explicit and implicit racial biases (especially any verbal reasoning section). Show me some longitudinal data on Raven's Progressive Matrices by demographic data and maybe you'll get me to nod my head, but that's one very specific subset of IQ as a whole, so even then I wouldn't take it to mean much.
Anyone that sees the correlation between race and IQ as this super valid end-all-be-all thing, I've found, is usually going to lead towards a pretty negative conversation.
If not even the people administering IQ tests believe in their usefulness for determining GI, then why are we still using them?
That's a fantastic question and I'm glad you asked :)
IQ is a (in my opinion) rusty attempt at measuring General Intelligence, but the entire concept of creating a test to test what encompasses all functions of the different domains of ones cognitive ability in many different domains (ex. working memory, verbal reasoning, mathematic reasoning, etc.). On the whole, we can get millions of people to do this, then we start to group people by different demographics and age ranges. These tests are generally standardized around different age ranges following the traditional bell curve -- only a certain % of people are expected to have very high IQ or very low IQ while everyone elses' scores get shifted.
The benefit that comes from administering IQ tests is that you can take a child from one area of the US in a particular age group and compare them to another child somewhere else from a similar age group and compare how they're functioning cognitively. It's a great tool for clinicians to use to help diagnose any developmental delays or suggest students might need an IEP. For some of the research I do now, we run a condensed IQ exam to all initial participants aged 18-65 and for ethical reasons; if they score below a certain (albeit, arbitrary) threshold, then we exclude them from the study for two reasons: 1) The cognitive tasks we ask them to do might cause more stress/difficulty to preform, which would be an undue burden on a voluntary participant; 2) for individuals who don't meet our IQ threshold, it could ethically be argued they might not have fully understood the research consent & privacy protection forms and could be driven more towards the monetary compensation or some other factor.
Basically, IQ test have usefulness in certain clinical situations or ethical considerations, but in terms of living out every day life, someone's IQ doesn't mean jack shit. I've had participants come into studies not meet the IQ threshold that I know for a fact could outsmart any of my research assistants in my lab at chess, or hustle them into giving them their wallets, for example. The fact is that GI is just such a difficult concept to capture and measure from someone, that there are times when IQ can be a useful proxy or tool.
For myself, I am actually very critical of psychology and psychological testing and am the first to point out flaws in methodology of measurements. So, to me, it's critical to know the flaws of IQ testings inside and out and to not make a big hoo-ha about them meaning anything. Not everyone in psychological fields shares this same view though. And, if you know the explicit and implicit racial history of them (used to make sure low-IQ people (generally African-Americans) served on the front lines in WWI; or as part of Jim Crow voting tests) and social class biases around them, looking at demographic group IQ data can be quite challenging.
My favorite example comes from a question back in the 1930s:
Caesar is to Salad as Napolean is to ________
.
.
.
Brandy. Brandy was generally a Southern, white dominate liquor in the 40s in the US and especially a bottle that was top shelf and more expensive. Thus, someone from a lower-class or racially different background wouldn't have as much experience with a cultural question such as this because it simply wasn't in their reality. Now, imagine an entire test that 'tells you if you're smarter or stupider' based around questions with these in it and there's a pretty clear divide. IQ tests today do their due diligence in selecting vocab words that might be well known, but all vocabulary ability can also be traced back to socio-economic status in some way. This is one of the reason I mentioned Raven's Progressive Matricies in my past post, because it's a non-verbal assessment.
Edit: I can't figure out how to add spoiler text in Tildes yet
Can you not say “X have better Y than Z because statistics” without being racist?
umm... With all due respect, this isn't about you. I don't see anything in go1dfish's post about "power users" or the quantity of your (or anyone else's) posting/commenting. He's complaining about censorship as he sees it happening on Tildes, not about any particular users.
I don't know if you didn't notice, but that whole second section is replying to a comment made by Kat, and even though go1dfish didn't specifically get into the "power user" issue, I think this has the common thread of publicly bullying Kat.
...which iirc, you had issues with happening to other users in the OP of that exact thread.
(I've just realized that this probably sounds a little smug depending on if you noticed or not, so I just want to say that I'm being genuine in telling you that, I couldn't tell if you were aware)
There's a subtle difference. The OP of that thread was name-calling certain tilders and directing criticisms at them personally. This thread happened to be triggered by go1dfish's reply to a certain tilder, but none of his criticisms in this thread or that other thread are directed at that tilder personally. That other OP was publicly criticising two users; go1dfish is not criticising Kat at all.
I concur, seems to me that @Kat’s making a big hoo-ha out of thin air.
Personally, I have no problems with them.
Oh no, I would hate to see you leave Tildes. You've contributed so much and I really appreciate it and enjoy reading your comments.
I really hope this you'll stay on.
Nooo I'm just going to pile on with the others and say please don't go. I always appreciate seeing your input and I for one like having recognisable regulars around.
I think you think too highly of yourself. I also hate how fast quickly Tildes is turning into some sort of user drama fest.
Seriously, if you wish to leave the community there's no need to make more drama out of something like OP did. Be the bigger person.
Contribute to the community for the sake of building up a community in Tildes, but the term 'power user' is the total opposite of what Tildes should stand for.
Nooooo dude, don't go! It is especially important that people like you stay on the site, now that it's obviously being brigaded by nazis. They want to control the conversation in as many places as possible. Don't make it easy for them.
For the record, I've always appreciated your contributions to this site. Most of the time I never reply to you just because there's nothing left to be said except some version of "I agree" or "great points". Please know that there are many others who feel the same way, as should be evident by these other wonderful people echoing the same sentiment :)
Hi Kat. I think you're a sweet person and an excellent edition to Tildes. Although you already have an overwhelming outpouring of support, I want you to know that you personally have already helped to shape my opinions and understand more. This is something I can't be thankful enough for. Whether you decide to stay or leave, I want you to know that you are a wonderful person and I thank you for the scintillating conversations we've had.
o7
Hi!
I disagree with you about a few things. But I agree with you about very many more things. I've been silently upvoting the posts of yours that I agree with. I would miss your posts. For one thing, you've made me work harder to make my replies more considerate. (Although that's a very recent thing).
What? You're the best. How could you possibly be destroying the website.
If it matters to you that it matters to others you could make a new account and maybe every so often? Though I don’t think you should have to, just an idea to make the site more enjoyable for you since others seem to care. There’s no reason to even have usernames on this site. That’s the whole point I thought — contributing for the sake of contributing and that’s it.
Nah, Kat. You're cool.
Please don't go! I don't post here often, but I see your posts and comments often, and I enjoy seeing them. I enjoy that there is a group of familiar users here whom I've started to get to know and recognize. This is in stark contrast to Reddit, where users are often faceless, nameless content-providers (unless of course they have a "^relevant username").
I've noticed that the drama here has grown since I joined a month ago, and it might take some time to work things out. But the best part of Tildes is the nice people who post here. Some trolls, or some people acting in bad faith, or some people who just don't know how to be nice, have gotten in, but I'm pretty sure that Tildes' goal is to make it a nicer place to be. To focus on the nicer, more reasonable people, and to encourage others to act that way. Hopefully we'll get there--but don't let the jerks win!
It's starting to feel a tad like the Australian government in here.
I'm not really up to date on my Australian politics. What's the reference?
The government has basically shut down under the weight of its own infighting. It's not a strong connection, but all the Tildes drama and Auspol drama was happening at the same time so it felt like everything was just very shouty and childish all around the same time.
Makes sense when you put it like that I just wasn't aware of the situation. Thanks!
With the hindsight of the reaction to the thread you link to yourself, maybe you should consider not making new topics to directly single out and bully individual users? If it's not okay to do so against people who have done things bad enough to get them banned, it's not okay to do it to anyone else.
I have issues with pretty much everything you say here, but this is the biggest and most obvious problem. Stop it. You're hurting people.
Which is total bullshit imo. People post lots of content and we want to punish them? That's kinda the opposite of incentivizing a healthy forum.
Oh, for the sake of fuck. I'm sick of playing nice with you.
This is not your website and it will not be run by your rules. If you don't like it here, leave.
Go back to notabug.
Honestly, I think the reason why your post was removed and that you strongly disagree with it has been well established.
I agree with Deimos. What you posted was not appropriate in context.
And honestly reading this post, I don't even believe it was in good faith. Comparing tanning abilities with intelligence between races is just disingenuous.
@Deimos, I was about to PM you last night saying: Thanks for all the work on Tildes code, and I don’t know how you deal with all the community drama.
And now this.
I worry it might burn you out on the project. Maybe you might consider delegating these community tasks to a rotating group of users. Like user A, B, C, help for 6 weeks as some sort of tribunal. Then they lose their powers and users D, E, F have a go.
I feel strongly about the non-permanent status of these users. When I brought up mod term limits before, someone else commented “yes, it should be a civic duty, like jury duty, not a Supreme Court appointment for life.” That would help with certain users setting the tone permanently, and also help user A, B, C from burning out themselves.
Maybe give that some thought so that we don’t lose you...
Ummm. What's all this about people hating on @Kat for being a power user? Why would they even do that?
Well, three days ago there was a thread about Power Users. It was the catalyst.
It's annoying to some people -- that's really it I'm sure. People seem to dislike teacher's pets, especially really visible ones. Especially ones that are in every political post policing and contributing -- you're bound to raise some hackles that way.
I don't care personally. It doesn't affect me one bit how someone spends their time.
Side note: I wish is that the silly zekka callout thread hadn't been posted but maybe I'm in the minority there.
Edit: given that Deimos banned goldfish I think that this place probably isn't for me.
Good luck to Deimos. For his own sanity he should just start banning what he doesn't want on the site instead of being light handed.
What a bad day he's had (it was his anniversary today!) Nobody deserves that kind of stress.
I mostly just wish it had stayed in ~talk instead of being moved to ~tildes, as it's an example of precisely the kind of thing that drove me to unsub from ~talk in the first place.
I get it, you were defending the free discussion of controversial topics. That's valid and very consistent with your other stances. Doesn't mean it's a good idea to mix in discussion of the topics themselves with the defense of the discussion of those topics. It's confusing, and it distracts from what you're actually trying to say.
My advice is to step back and take a breather for a bit. I know you feel strongly about censorship, and it's an important discussion to have. Please just remember that we're all here to make Tildes a better site that avoids the mistakes Reddit and others made, and part of that is going to involve figuring out what works and what doesn't. Sometimes that's going to look like falling on the strict side and removing things that might cause discussions to fall apart further. There's no need (and this is to everybody) for a thousand meta posts about the same stuff for days on end.
Looks like it's time for me to start looking into filtering things out by tag. These censorship arguments are getting a bit old, and lessening my enjoyment of Tildes.
Honestly, I'd filter out anything that is political in nature such as anything with a "-gate" suffix.
Back on Reddit I filtered out 'trump', 'russia', 'mueller', 'clinton', and 'putin'. It made my browsing SO much more enjoyable.
As an Australian, my cares for American political infighting are fairly low.
As a Singaporean, I concur. American politics is a shit-show right now and I can't be bothered with it as long as it doesn't spread.
yeah, I have been filtering politics, trump and similar tags... looks like I'm going to have to add censorship to the list, or straight up unsub from ~tildes for a while. The past few days seeing what has slipped past my filters has shown me the choice was right to hide those posts. This site has some major meta growing pains right now.
Censorship, really? You really want to go down that silly road? Even though you can argue that it is all censorship that is still very much missing the point in using words like that. There is a perfectly acceptable word for what you are describing, a word that has been used for years now -- Moderation
Now there is good moderation, bad moderation and awful moderation. On all three of these you can technically put the censorship label. However censorship is mostly used in a negative context where people want to attach a level of severity that isn't there. It is often implied to be related to censorship from governments or to be on the same level. Which frankly, is offensive to people facing censorship in their daily lives and can't simply avoid it by creating a alt account/moving to another tilde/etc. To quote the wikipedia definition "Censorship is the suppression of speech", which simply is fundamentally impossible because of how tildes work.
So think about this for a moment. Do you really want to discuss how tildes are moderated? Or do you want to make it a political issue by equaling moderating (removal of posts and comments) with how some governments persecute their citizens? Because in my opinion the first is perfectly acceptable and I would welcome that discussion. On the other hand if it is the latter I am going to pass.
I just wanted to make this post to let both @Deimos and the other wonderful contributors out here that the vast majority of the community is with you. The vision of Tildes is inspiring and the work that goes into making this a community of honest debaters doesn't go unnoticed. I have read countless discussions here and, although I don't always agree, I have always been treated with kindness and respect. It feels to me like (most) members here are genuinely trying to come to a common shared understanding of a subject rather than soapboxing and grand-standing. To achieve this in a national and global climate of divisiveness and alienation is no small feat. I would like to commend @Deimos for the great work he's done in hand-picking this community, growing it, and taking the hard choices necessary to keep the Tildes true to its vision
Racists, homophobes, transphobes, and bigots usually almost never think of themselves as racist.
It's just so tiring arguing against bad opinions. Debating race realism is like debating a racist version of flat earth theory, who has the time.
Even if IQ was a good metric of general intelligence...
Even if it wasn't a well proven fact that IQ tests have certain biases built into them...
Even if you didn't have to cherry pick data just to support your conclusion...
Even if "race" was a legitimate scientific category and not just a social construct...
Even if we assumed the researchers investigating this topic were doing so in good-faith...
Even if we had any reason to think that intelligence has ever not been evolutionary prioritized for any human population...
Even if race realism didn't have its root in early 1900s scientific racism and eugenics...
Even if people hadn't devoted entire studies and books to debunking race realism scientifically...
Even if race realism wasn't something white supremacists hide behind to justify their bigotry (seriously, pulling the " but asians are smarter than whites" is classic white supremacist tactic)...
Even if the scientific consensus wasn't definitively against race realism...
You cannot seperate historical influences, cultural influences, geographical influences,unseen biases in interpretation, unseen biases in methodology from genetic influences on topics such as this. Pretending that you can have a meaningful discussion about topics such is an intellectual circle-jerk.
Jesus, you step away from the computer for a few days and everything just explodes...
Honestly, I think I'm loving Tildes a little bit more just flicking through this thread. What goldf1sh posted above is clearly out of line (the statistics they're referring to are not only deliberately created to maintain the racist status quo of the early 1920s, but are also better explained by broader socioeconomic differences between POC communities and white communities that are rooted way back into slavery in the US), but it is more interesting to see how this debate about censorship is playing out.
It seems like Tildes is becoming a wild experiment into what happens when online platforms actually enforce their terms of service. In the context of Facebook and Twitter debates around Alex Jones, it can be argued that Tildes is providing a small-scale glimpse into what would happen if larger websites decided to play by their own rules. It's the same situation: someone clearly presented misinformation, it was removed for violating the Terms of Service, and they doubled down on it by claiming censorship. Only here, there was actual enforcement. That is beautiful to see.
Idk about this whole 'poweruser' drama. Isn't it still too early in the site's development to really have those? If not, where do I apply to become one?
I believe @AFineAccount was being sarcastic when asking where they should apply to become a so-called "power user". That "Where do I apply for X?" line is a bit of a sarcasm trope. The meta-message is that there is no place to apply for X because X does not exist.
On one hand, I partially agree with your objection to the removal. On the other hand you twisted yourself pretty far into technicalities, like the explicit definition of never. There is a time and place to have that particular argument, and that was not one of them.
Personally, I find your regular comments about taxation and government to be far more problematic for society. Personally, I would have removed those for being subversive and harmful to the collective good of society before the above post in the OP question.
As much as I disagree with his stances on taxes, I'd definitely say they shouldn't be removed. That just gives me a bad vibe.
I personally consider harmful rhetoric against society to be just as bad as rhetoric against people. Politics is an extension of people and separating them is impossible.
What if someone believes that a form of society is harmful and oppressive? I don't think it's a good precedent to say we shouldn't critique forms of government and society, because there are many available forms with benefits and drawbacks.
I'm still waiting on someone to show me a society without government and (especially) taxes. It's a theoretical fiction that people have latched on to and subsequently started pushing for very stupid and harmful changes to society.
How many people are going to die because a bunch of anti-tax people thought the free market was going to fix global warming?
Just because nobody's come up with a functional society that doesn't rely on taxes for collective funding, doesn't mean folks can't discuss it. Labeling such discussion as 'subversive' is worrying. Imagine if someone with a hyper-capitalist leaning decided that any comments that advocate for collective ownership were 'harmful to society' and should be removed?
Discussing is one thing, using that same rhetoric as a talking point to continually teardown the legitimacy of government and rally people against it causing them to vote in assholes who pass laws and appoint people to destroy the government and by extension ruin a ton of people's lives it becomes another thing. That other thing is a significant problem and has already led to the deaths of many, many people.
Meta posts/politics are full of narrow collection of words. Can we train a model? Because it looks like the same stuff gets repeated over and over.
I came to tildes to discuss about more facts, give me something I don't know. Not what's "right"
Posting a new comment as well in case people look for a new one with an explanation: I've edited in the explanation for the lock into my top comment.