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Uhh, what. I never said that. I said the average poster here is unwilling to discuss anything outside of their leftist safe space views so attempting to have any real discussion outside of far left is relatively pointless.
In fact if you're so genuinely upset by a small Pokémon forum politics thread that you have to angrily wall of text calling out users who aren't even involved in your rant I suggest you take a break and go do something else. Nothing anyone posts here matters. Relax.
You have zero reading comprehension if these are your takeaways, and the entire point of that post was trying to make it so that posting something here can actually matter instead of it just being opinion dumping about far-off things that nobody here has any influence on. You're also projecting anger that doesn't exist onto me and talking about a "small Pokemon forum politics thread" like I didn't just point out that people are still interacting and doing politics and power relations just by existing here. I wrote a lot because despite my many past experiences of being ignored, talked over, or shut down in situations where others get to speak, I would actually like to see this space improve instead of just being about dunking on people like you for your terrible politics. Maybe read past the second line next time, you may learn something.
Uhh, what. I never said that. I said the average poster here is unwilling to discuss anything outside of their leftist safe space views so attempting to have any real discussion outside of far left is relatively pointless.
Man, it's fucking wild that you'll accuse us of being unwilling to discuss anything outside of our safe spaces (as if this thread is a leftist safe space lmao) while simultaneously in the same fucking sentence saying that you don't want to have a real discussion with us. Like, do you have any self-awareness at all? A little bit?
You're right about one thing, though, this thread is pointless and it's thanks to you and people with similar mentalities as you for that.
I went and asked juoean for the context of those DMs and I think people should read because they don’t show her as being stubborn and unreceptive (or instigating) at all, it’s just another well-thought-out response by her with good reasoning but she gets no response, gets quietly banned and smeared in this thread just like lilyhollow, and then Oglemi starts talking about users forming “tribunals” and “cabals” as if he doesn’t have the power to just ban anyone for any reason (and as if people knowing each other/agreeing with their views is a “cabal”). This is not right.
I went and asked juoean for the context of those DMs and I think people should read because they don’t show her as being stubborn and unreceptive (or instigating) at all, it’s just another well-thought-out response by her with good reasoning but she gets no response, gets quietly banned and smeared in this thread just like lilyhollow, and then Oglemi starts talking about users forming “tribunals” and “cabals” as if he doesn’t have the power to just ban anyone for any reason (and as if people knowing each other/agreeing with their views is a “cabal”). This is not right.
From their response it seemed we had reached an understanding? And then they proceeded to continue doing the exact thing I had moderated them for before? In what world does that not constitute further action?
It seems like you have an inherent misunderstanding into the role of a moderator in a community; it's probably a good thing you aren't anymore.
From their response it seemed we had reached an understanding? And then they proceeded to continue doing the exact thing I had moderated them for before? In what world does that not constitute further action?
It seems like you have an inherent misunderstanding into the role of a moderator in a community; it's probably a good thing you aren't anymore.
If you think that’s “reaching an understanding” instead of you ducking out of the conversation without addressing any of the very reasonable things she said, it would probably be a good thing if you weren’t a mod anymore. Very cheap shot to take at me but not the own you think it is to inflate your ego over your limited power on a Pokémon website
Similarly, maybe address any of the things I directed at you?
Edit: Thought a little bit more about that petulant jab and decided to add some context. The two places I ever moderated here were RBY and RBY C&C, because my interest was in improving the RBY community and creating resources, not flexing my power on people when my job is improve the community. The fact that you use my distaste for being punitive as a dunk on me is really just sad more than anything, especially given your total unwillingness to respond to any criticism.
From their response it seemed we had reached an understanding? And then they proceeded to continue doing the exact thing I had moderated them for before? In what world does that not constitute further action?
It seems like you have an inherent misunderstanding into the role of a moderator in a community; it's probably a good thing you aren't anymore.
As far as I can gather, what is agreed to is the time at which the topic came up, and that at that point it may have been off topic for the thread. The response in totality disagrees with you, at least as far as I can tell though I'll admit I am not always the best at parsing Juoean.
Uhh, what. I never said that. I said the average poster here is unwilling to discuss anything outside of their leftist safe space views so attempting to have any real discussion outside of far left is relatively pointless.
In fact if you're so genuinely upset by a small Pokémon forum politics thread that you have to angrily wall of text calling out users who aren't even involved in your rant I suggest you take a break and go do something else. Nothing anyone posts here matters. Relax.
The argument is that moderation is unequal, and that low effort posts which should ostensibly be moderated due to the rules in this thread are left up. Surely you understand that by bringing you up, Sablette would be implying that this is one such example of uneven moderation. This feels like playing stupid yourself to make her look stupid.
If you think that’s “reaching an understanding” instead of you ducking out of the conversation without addressing any of the very reasonable things she said, it would probably be a good thing if you weren’t a mod anymore. Very cheap shot to take at me but not the own you think it is to inflate your ego over your limited power on a Pokémon website
Similarly, maybe address any of the things I directed at you?
Talking about cheap shots while posting someone else's DMs is very funny. You're extremely lucky I'm someone that does not actually give a fuck otherwise you'd probably be banned.
And idk how you come to the conclusion that radical leftism is somehow moderated more in here than other ideas or posters... like ya I'm not going to give a fucking highlight everytime I delete an RL post...
And seriously, if you can't disentangle your real world experiences from your online smogon ones idk what to tell you; ya this thread ends up boring.... and?
Bettering the site is admirable but dumpstering on people isn't it, especially antagonizing unaffiliated mods. it doesn't better the site, it just makes you look like an asshole and perpetuates the hostility in and out of this thread, even if it's retributive.
Sorry what the fuck are you actually talking about, I posted her DM with consent and literally nothing you said in that DM was private info. Are you afraid of people posting DMs they get from a moderator on behalf of a moderator action? Threatening a ban for that is ridiculous, especially when you flat out lied about her.
And seriously, if you can't disentangle your real world experiences from your online smogon ones idk what to tell you; ya this thread ends up boring.... and?
What a privileged and out of touch conclusion to come to, I’m not sure I can explain this to you if I tried. I’m glad that whatever discrimination that happens to you doesn’t follow you online. I wish I could say the same.
You have made a bunch of (entirely fair) criticisms of this post, but you haven't addressed why you flat out lied about them. And then, hours later, you call someone out for lying about someone.
I am in favor of more moderator accountability, but this is flat out hypocrisy.
You have made a bunch of (entirely fair) criticisms of this post, but you haven't addressed why you flat out lied about them. And then, hours later, you call someone out for lying about someone.
I am in favor of more moderator accountability, but this is flat out hypocrisy.
I'm not following you. Are you saying Sabelette lied about MrHands's post? Because MrHands literally responded by saying "that's not what I said but also having discussions with the left is pointless" which is kind of exactly Sabelette's point, so how is it a lie?
What a privileged and out of touch conclusion to come to, I’m not sure I can explain this to you if I tried. I’m glad that whatever discrimination that happens to you doesn’t follow you online. I wish I could say the same.
Lmao, have you read posts from the DP era, buddy? Do you know the users Deck Knight and kakky?
The insinuation that I'm privileged is so out of touch I'm actually shell shocked. Kids these days really don't know their own history. To say that to someone that literally broke ground for others to follow, that made the huge strides necessary for acceptance in the tournaments forum and without, who advocated for further gay and women representation in upper staff and ousted those that were holding us back. That rooted out actual predators on this site and in power.
Like, all I'm telling you is that this thread is for real world politics and to not use it as a space to drag others. Take a fucking step back.
I don't know what your strides and accomplishments have to do with your personal level of privilege and being able to disentangle offline politics from how you get treated online - which apparently you can do, unlike me - or what that has to do with you banning and misrepresenting women online for posting things you didn't like in a politics thread. Good for you that you did those things, but stow the condescension and insults, please, and maybe at some point we could get back to the original thing I wrote about instead of you ego posting about how you're a moderator and do good things, unlike me?
I'm not following you. Are you saying Sabelette lied about MrHands's post? Because MrHands literally responded by saying "that's not what I said but also having discussions with the left is pointless" which is kind of exactly Sabelette's point, so how is it a lie?
Sabelete said Mr Hands has admitted to trolling, not that she believes arguing with the left is pointless. however, I have since been informed that Ms MrHands has admitted to liking posts just to cause drama.
Sabelete said Mr Hands has admitted to trolling, not that she believes arguing with the left is pointless. however, I have since been informed that Ms MrHands has admitted to liking posts just to cause drama.
I don't know what your strides and accomplishments have to do with your personal level of privilege and being able to disentangle offline politics from how you get treated online - which apparently you can do, unlike me - or what that has to do with you banning and misrepresenting women online for posting things you didn't like in a politics thread. Good for you that you did those things, but stow the condescension and insults, please, and maybe at some point we could get back to the original thing I wrote about instead of you ego posting about how you're a moderator and do good things, unlike me?
I really don't know how we could be more clear that juoean is threadbanned for going off on off topic posts that concern unrelated smogon politics even after being repeatedly moderated and messaged? Was there anything else that isn't your personal dissatisfaction with myself or awyp?
The things that are done in this space are themselves political and if you want to be immune to critique for your direction of power and the power relations in this thread then step down from moderating and enjoy your retirement. The personal is political, too, and as several other people have pointed out, that includes who gets moderated and how and when and how intensely...
We could talk about the actual shape of this space, what is a "real world politics" and what isn't (because how people are treated in spaces like this absolutely is), and what moderation is applied for and how it's applied (like banning people without saying anything as well as editing or deleting their posts without even a notification, as you did to me and Divine Retribution earlier)
...That seems to be your ideal of what this thread is, and despite her distaste for it she did the exact thing that you ostensibly want this thread to be about, except she was also critical of the way moderation on this site is structured and the uneven and heavy-handed use of it in this thread and other threads (including the other politics thread and various other spaces).
We could also talk about how her being critical of the shape of the space is not the same as being critical of you, despite your penchant for taking offense at criticism that's directed anywhere near you...
I don't know any simpler or more direct way to state the problem people have than this: the moderation is unevenly applied, stifles good discussion any time there's a hint of passion or emotion behind it, lets people who are more aligned with mainstream western politics (neoliberal politics) have far more leeway, and has a fantasy ideal of what a "politics thread" should be that has no real-world applicability and somehow expects us to disentangle very real -isms people experience everywhere, including on this site and in this thread, from the theoretical politics you want to "allow" us to discuss.
juoean repeatedly pointed to actual real experiences that happened to real people while using this site and you're essentially dismissing them as not worth discussing. I find the use of the word "tribunal" especially interesting when she was talking about the processes and contexts - as far as I recall, there was no point that she was calling for your resignation or whatever else you mean to imply with that word choice, she was simply pointing out the actions of moderation in a system that facilitates moderation being applied in this way.
...orr again about the dismissal of lived experiences of people in this thread as not being "real-world politics" and acting like a political and interpersonal process isn't happening right now with your repeated condescension and threats against me...
...my TLDR is that her contributions were good, criticisms of structures on Smogon are fine, actually, including right here, and if you disagree with that then your thread is just a sports thread but for politics, where people argue about who's going to win and by what amount and far-off things that none of us have any tangible influence on. Critiquing what is actually done on this site is an opportunity for the site and the people on it to be better, and how we interact with others radiates outwards and impacts still more people. ...I hope we could actually make that part of the space.
...and we could talk about valid criticism of systemic issues that, yes, do apply to Smogon and shape this very discussion we are having right now, and how I would like this to be acknowledged as part of this discussion and not treated as off-limits...
I went and asked juoean for the context of those DMs and I think people should read because they don’t show her as being stubborn and unreceptive (or instigating) at all, it’s just another well-thought-out response by her with good reasoning but she gets no response, gets quietly banned and smeared in this thread just like lilyhollow...
I don't know what your strides and accomplishments have to do with your personal level of privilege and being able to disentangle offline politics from how you get treated online - which apparently you can do, unlike me - or what that has to do with you banning and misrepresenting women online for posting things you didn't like in a politics thread.
...or about you conflating your actions 20 years ago on this site with your level of privilege, for some reason, as if "I fought for marginalized people" somehow removes any privilege you may have, and about the experiences of those who are different from you, like myself, that experience this forum while being heavily and publicly categorized and scrutinized by my race, ethnicity, gender, and queerness to determine the validity of my emotions and my statements?
Pick a card, any card.
Edit: Also, why do you keep making this about personal dissatisfaction? As I said from the start, I have no issues with awyp, and I had no personal issues with you till you started condescending and insulting me.
Sabelete said Mr Hands has admitted to trolling, not that she believes arguing with the left is pointless. however, I have since been informed that Ms MrHands has admitted to liking posts just to cause drama.
Sablette said MrHands engages in bad-faith arguments. MrHands herself has said that she believes arguing with us is pointless and her posts are low-effort by design when doing so. Low-effort posting about a group of people you think arguing with is pointless can literally only be done in bad faith. There is no good faith way to do that, although if you can come up with one, let me know.
It's not a coincidence that every time MrHands engages with a leftist she completely misrepresents what they said and/or conflates it with the most extreme things anyone on the left has said in this thread (and still manages to misrepresent that) while accusing us of strawmanning. I would love an explanation from a moderator as to how it's acceptable for someone to say that engaging with anyone on the left is pointless, and that their posts are intentionally low-effort, as these things are just blatant admissions of bad-faith argumentation, but it's becoming increasingly clear from the above conversation that the rules of the thread are there to be enforced as seen fit, not consistently, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
Lmao, have you read posts from the DP era, buddy? Do you know the users Deck Knight and kakky?
The insinuation that I'm privileged is so out of touch I'm actually shell shocked. Kids these days really don't know their own history. To say that to someone that literally broke ground for others to follow, that made the huge strides necessary for acceptance in the tournaments forum and without, who advocated for further gay and women representation in upper staff and ousted those that were holding us back. That rooted out actual predators on this site and in power.
Like, all I'm telling you is that this thread is for real world politics and to not use it as a space to drag others. Take a fucking step back.
I really don't know how we could be more clear that juoean is threadbanned for going off on off topic posts that concern unrelated smogon politics even after being repeatedly moderated and messaged? Was there anything else that isn't your personal dissatisfaction with myself or awyp?
Hi, I've been around for a while too, though my Smogon account does not reflect that. I never integrated into Smogon's community because it was, and in many respects still is, a disgusting cespit filled with groyped up weirdos. I find it kind of funny and interesting to see how some of the older users here (on Smogon as a whole) behave, considering this site's past (and present tbh). As if strict adherence to neoliberal values somehow purifies you of wrongdoing. As if activism, both past and present, somehow protect you from enforcing structural blindspots that still affect many users to this day.
You literally have some dude (koffing guy) 10-20 pages back trying to "both-sides" genocide, pushing hasbara talking points. That user can stay because why? They're "civil"? What is civil about their position? I believe LilyHollow was infracted for much less. You're the moderator here, so could you please defend your decision to not infract that user and others who seem content on stirring discord? If you do not consistently enforce the rules that you yourself have set, who are you to expect everyone else to respect them? How is anyone supposed to take you seriously?
To me, it seems like when the leftists in this thread overstep boundaries, they are infracted. When someone like MrHands posts bait after you told the thread to chill out about Gaza, they are allowed to stay and shitpost to their heart's content. In fact, I'm fairly certain they've been trying to bait this outburst for a while now. They want the leftists gone. They just wanna talk "sports politics" from what I've seen? (Your bait is weak btw, MrHands. RaikouLover's is much better.) There's nothing wrong with that. Maybe there is a solution that makes everyone happy? I don't know.
Additionally, the way you're talking to a fellow community member right now, as a moderator, as someone who is supposed to represent this space and it's values, and is apparently proud of their past activism, paving the way for other marginalized users to participate in this space (thank you, by the way), frustrates me and validates what Sabelette is trying to say. She is literally one of the users you would have fought for. She is still struggling in this space because of her identity. I believe she has an interesting perspective to bring to the discussion, precisely because of how her identity intertwines with political discourse and political violence online and offline. And how that relates to our structures here at Smogon, is from my perspective, both politically relevant and interesting. There is a lot we could learn from that discourse. There is a lot we could learn from Sabelette and others like her. In fact, in your boasting, you literally made the same point as Sabelette, Divine Retribution, and Juoean yourself. I'm not sure how you can disagree. I don't believe we would restrict (political) posts from Jewish users about their lived experiences and how it relates to Smogon or any other online space, so why her?
I do not think you are a bad person, Oglemi, but I do believe your actions, lackthereof, and especially your recent conduct are embarassing and undermines your own past activism on this site. If the problem truly is simply that this is not the place to discuss these problems, then where is the place to discuss these problems? Where are these users supposed to go? What are they supposed to do?What is this place precisely for? I understand you're saying "IRL politics" but what happens when "IRL politics" and "online/Smogon politics" converge? What if there is no difference? I believe this is is the crux of the matter.
I understand my words may come off as harsh, but please know I'm posting this in good faith and respect for you as a community member. I would simply say nothing and continue to lurk otherwise. I hope you will engage in good faith as well. If not, then I'm sorry. I want to see this space continue to grow in a positive direction and I'm sure you do too. I feel things are simply getting out of hand due to the stress of our current geopolitical situation and of course the stress of moderating a political thread where any action or inaction you take is a losing one.
"It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation and only one bad one to lose it."
If the problem truly is simply that this is not the place to discuss these problems, then where is the place to discuss these problems? Where are these users supposed to go? What are they supposed to do?What is this place precisely for? I understand you're saying "IRL politics" but what happens when "IRL politics" and "online/Smogon politics" converge? What if there is no difference?
I'll start here because I agree that it seems to be the crux of the issue and covers some of Sab's talking points. I think there's a very clear line between "this thing that happened IRL" and "this thing that happened by nameable user on x platform." In what sense is the latter something political? Their actions may be race/xeno/jingo/etc charged, but it's not something anyone other than a staff member can solve. So what sense does it make to discuss it in an open forum? No one in a thread like this has all the facts, and user privacies are concerned (people don't need to be doxxed around here). You can find others with shared experiences sure, but then what? What does that activity have to do with politics? You can counter with "well that's literally the baseline for grassroots movements" but it's also dealing with something that affects the site, not about you or me irl.
I'm not saying I don't get it, I'm saying the "politics" thread is for the topic of politics. News headlines, trump gaffes, Palestine, etc. Not smogon drama. I think that's a pretty clear distinction.
Further, if you seriously have a problem with someone specifically, the answer has never been to make it a public issue, mods or otherwise. For the same reasons I listed above. DM that person directly, or an upper staff member. I don't know anyone, besides myself, that is willing to put decorum aside and "have it out" with users in public. And that's really not coincendtal. It is very unprofessional and it is very difficult to maintain composure in the face of public attacks and scrutiny. I do it out of candor, not out of any innate desire, when it's apparent the quiet approach isn't working.
I can go on but to answer the question of, so where can we talk about this? The answer is simply "not in this thread", but you can definitely find those like-minded individuals and develop your own grassroots community, become involved in the areas you see as problematic, and make change through presence.
It's not a coincidence that every time MrHands engages with a leftist she completely misrepresents what they said and/or conflates it with the most extreme things anyone on the left has said in this thread (and still manages to misrepresent that) while accusing us of strawmanning. I would love an explanation from a moderator as to how it's acceptable for someone to say that engaging with anyone on the left is pointless, and that their posts are intentionally low-effort, as these things are just blatant admissions of bad-faith argumentation, but it's becoming increasingly clear from the above conversation that the rules of the thread are there to be enforced as seen fit, not consistently, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
To address this broadly and to the point about Eroil, there's a fine line between "this person is ass/a troll/no good" and "this person's opinion is ass/etc". People are allowed an opinion, so while the "both sides" opinion is emphatically bad, that Eroil also got dumpstered on for 2 pages. From a moderator standpoint, sometimes that's enough. If they keep going, or are obviously becoming a problem, then they get moderated and eventually banned. Can you imagine if myself and awyp were as heavy handed as you desire? Having said that, the amount of people on "thin ice" is very high, but obviously that's going to be an invisible detail to everyone not us, so I get the frustration when it comes to perceived inconsistencies. It doesn't appear so to us, because we're tracking users ourselves, but not every "bad" post is going to be moderated, it's simply out of depth. A lot of the time we rely on "good" replies to solve the issue, which it oftentimes does.
or about you conflating your actions 20 years ago on this site with your level of privilege, for some reason, as if "I fought for marginalized people" somehow removes any privilege you may have, and about the experiences of those who are different from you, like myself, that experience this forum while being heavily and publicly categorized and scrutinized by my race, ethnicity, gender, and queerness to determine the validity of my emotions and my statements?
I'm just replying here because please read your prior post that mine was in response to and tell me how that was not supposed to be read as a sort of victim complex "you wouldn't understand" kind of statement. Obviously I understand that I currently wield the power in this dynamic, I'm not blind to that. But you can't play the "well it's easy for you to say" card against me, hence my response
What part? I may have missed something in their reply but that may be the downside to verbosity, their closing statement seemed agreeable to me so I didn't feel the need to go further.
To address this broadly and to the point about Eroil, there's a fine line between "this person is ass/a troll/no good" and "this person's opinion is ass/etc". People are allowed an opinion, so while the "both sides" opinion is emphatically bad, that Eroil also got dumpstered on for 2 pages. From a moderator standpoint, sometimes that's enough. If they keep going, or are obviously becoming a problem, then they get moderated and eventually banned. Can you imagine if myself and awyp were as heavy handed as you desire? Having said that, the amount of people on "thin ice" is very high, but obviously that's going to be an invisible detail to everyone not us, so I get the frustration when it comes to perceived inconsistencies. It doesn't appear so to us, because we're tracking users ourselves, but not every "bad" post is going to be moderated, it's simply out of depth. A lot of the time we rely on "good" replies to solve the issue, which it oftentimes does.
This doesn't address my point at all, though. It's not that MrHands has ass opinions (I'd love to discuss those ass opinions but every time I try she picks one line of my post to respond to and usually doesn't even represent that fairly), it's that she engages in bad faith and essentially admits as much. Is it acceptable for people to intentionally post low-effort responses to people they don't see as worthy of conversation? How do you reconcile that with having a rule against bad-faith posting?
I don't care about people having "ass opinions" posting here. I wish more people with "ass opinions" would post and actually discuss those opinions so we can discuss them and maybe, just maybe, sow some seeds of doubt about those opinions, but every time someone with a neolib or conservative viewpoint stops by they either drop a one-liner with no further discussion or just engage in the worst faith possible.
Sorry but no shit, these posts were all brought on by what we see as an extremely unfair and inconsistent instance of moderation. I don't even talk to most of the other people involved outside of this thread. This has been stuck in my craw for a while now, and jouean getting yeeted for (perceivedly) targetting moderators while other users get away scot-free with poisoning what few decent discussions take place in this thread is a boiling point. I don't speak for any of the other users involved in this discussion, while I do often agree with them, and with like one exception that didn't even involve you there has been no contact, let alone coordination, between us.
I'll start here because I agree that it seems to be the crux of the issue and covers some of Sab's talking points. I think there's a very clear line between "this thing that happened IRL" and "this thing that happened by nameable user on x platform." In what sense is the latter something political?
The discussion juoean was opening was not "Oglemi did a bad thing" or "X moderator on Y subforum did a bad thing." Those are political, but I won't delve into it because it's not relevant to the point. The point that juoean was addressing is how this site is structured, including things like the way the hierarchy is designed, the way infractions are designed, who is given power and why, when and why people are stripped of power (something you directly weaponized in a snide comment at me), and how the power is used. All of these are very, very directly political, and they are reflections of how politics operate in the world around you. Do you think the structures on this site arose in a vacuum, springing fully-formed from the mind of chaos or something? They're a reflection of the world around us, past and present, and they can be changed in a way that aligns with a better future.
Again, the point isn't a specific action, it's the structures that enable and encourage these actions, but even putting that aside, people can and do call out ignorance all the time and cause people to reevaluate. I've pointed out ableist/body shaming rhetoric in this thread by people multiple times and caused them to reevaluate, it doesn't have to be just about punishing people till they stop doing the bad thing.
So what sense does it make to discuss it in an open forum? No one in a thread like this has all the facts, and user privacies are concerned (people don't need to be doxxed around here).
No clue what doxxing refers to here, talking about something problematic someone did isn't doxxing, but again, it's not about specific people, it's about systems. What several people are complaining of now isn't "why is X user not banned?" It's "why are users espousing XYZ views allowed to troll, drop one-liners, and play with rhetoric without engaging while users with ABC views are constantly being deleted and threatened with bans?" The answer to that question in our minds, believe it or not, is not "Oglemi is an evil fascist," it's "the structures and norms of Smogon take heavy influence from the world at large and create heavy pressure toward normalizing neoliberal rhetoric with some (but not too much) social progressivism. The structures of the world at large normalize these positions as reasonable, emotionless/logical, and good while painting views outside of this as extreme, unreasonable, emotionally-charged (which we are taught makes them invalid), and often violent (which again, we are taught inherently makes them bad), and almost anybody in your position is going to default to upholding the norm."
You can find others with shared experiences sure, but then what? What does that activity have to do with politics? You can counter with "well that's literally the baseline for grassroots movements" but it's also dealing with something that affects the site, not about you or me irl.
What would be the problem with dealing with something that affects the site and organizing people to create change on it? The site has affected me in quite a number of ways that are extremely politically-charged, like that time I got demodded in October for expressing that Palestinians have the right to violently resist genocide. At the time I said it, this was treated as an incredibly extreme view and the way the site operated at that time had me get backdoored out of of my mod position in ways I don't care to go into here, which was directly an act of racism that would have never happened to a white person. In the year since, people have come around and this is no longer a severely controversial opinion to have. These things matter to people's health and well-being and whether they feel safe or welcome in spaces like this. The fact that the tides of opinion on this issue changed is a big part of the reason I didn't leave this site after that sequence of events and my treatment here (alongside a plethora of difficult life events outside here) led me to a suicide attempt.
You can counter with "well that's literally the baseline for grassroots movements" but it's also dealing with something that affects the site, not about you or me irl.
I'm not saying I don't get it, I'm saying the "politics" thread is for the topic of politics. News headlines, trump gaffes, Palestine, etc. Not smogon drama. I think that's a pretty clear distinction.
I copied a line from the last quote here too because I think I'm seeing where the miscommunication is. We're conflating Smogon-related stuff with drama because it's being viewed as being about individuals, not systems. The thing is, what's a clear distinction to you is not for people who are marginalized in multiple ways. Politics is not just the big national stuff or the big "ism" topics - we are playing out a political struggle right now in this conversation, you and I and anyone else involved. There is nothing about this that is drama to me, it's power relations playing out in a pretty direct way when two trans women with zero power on this site get silently banned and their posts deleted because their opinions are too far outside the acceptable status quo. In juoean's case, I know you think it's about being off-topic, but it isn't; her critique of what is happening is very much grounded in her far-left political stances that she has taken in this thread previously and are fully logically consistent, they're just a direct application of the big broad political beliefs she has on a microcosmic scale like this site. She's the only other person posting in this thread that I actually know beyond a surface level so I feel a bit more confident to speak to her intent/reasoning (still may be off on some things), and the idea of her seeking drama is patently absurd - she is critiquing a structure and could not give less of a shit about what the people in it personally think or what their individual morals are.
I understand that you're very thoroughly embedded in the system of politics happening on Smogon given how long you've been here, but surely you see how there's nothing new under the sun here and all of the politics that happen here reflect reality outside of this site, right? I brought up what happened to me in October as a pretty direct mirror (on a miniature scale) of what happens to those who say anything supportive of Palestine online or offline in other spaces, but it's not just that. Being a woman online fucking sucks, a trans woman even more so - chasers and weird men messaging you to ask "r u a girl???" exist in this space just as much as others. Being an Arab and Palestinian online sucks, because now I'm representing all of my people whenever I say anything and I'm hyperscrutinized on everything I say for potential antisemitism, I'm subject to racist comments and assumptions, and if people agree with me half the time it's just because of my identity and not because of what I'm saying. Being queer online sucks, because I get fetishized and god forbid I ever make a joke about something to do with my identity without cishet men being gross about it, and again I'm expected to represent all trans people and to be okay with invasive questions about my genitalia, HRT, and whatever else. These things play out on Smogon, too, and just reporting every person who does it is not a solution, and talking about it in spaces like this helps well-meaning but ignorant people learn and grow. Despite what a shitshow this thread is, I am sure at least one person out there has learned something new and useful from reading some of the excellent posts here by people like Martin or juoean or lilyhollow (who is still getting unfairly maligned and should also be allowed to post again, though I'm sure saying that will do me no favors). The pattern of behavior here of banning or threatening to ban people then flat out saying untrue things about them and misrepresenting them, even when evidence exists to the contrary, does not make me feel safe, it feels like a replication of the kind of violence and censorship I get in the offline world, and that's worth talking about and very directly political.
I'm just replying here because please read your prior post that mine was in response to and tell me how that was not supposed to be read as a sort of victim complex "you wouldn't understand" kind of statement. Obviously I understand that I currently wield the power in this dynamic, I'm not blind to that. But you can't play the "well it's easy for you to say" card against me, hence my response
There was no victim complex behind it at all. I simply said that I can't leave my personal stuff behind at the door as "not political" or "not relevant to how this space functions" - I mean, you can go back a few pages and see people discussing my identity as essentially a basis for whether or not my feelings and ideas are valid, and I wasn't the one to bring it up. I'm still extremely confused why your response was "back in my day I fought for the rights of women and gays" - I truly do not understand what that has to do with me saying "I cannot check my identities and life experience at the door" and quite honestly being confused that you apparently can. I have no clue what any of your identities are, but the fact that you do see them as separable from your politics does say something - I have never at any point in my life been able to conceptualize them as separate entities. 9/11 happened when I was 5 years old, and since then the personal has been political for me.
As mentioned, juoean's the only person here I actually know or interact with at all, and that's mostly because we both play RBY. We never coordinated a single thing in here, actually, because believe it or not this place doesn't live rent free in my head - the closest thing to coordination was me asking her about the DMs because I was curious how it actually went down. I've talked to lilyhollow about three times total, with only one of those conversations even happening after this thread was made, and everyone else in this thread just about never. I would prefer to not think about this thread at all so long as it continues existing under these specific rules and norms, and I would have continued avoiding this thread like the plague if not for the blatant fascist apologia that was happening and the continued removal of people who combatted such apologia.
Frankly, I don't think you can say I have a victim complex if you say such conspiratorial things.
What part? I may have missed something in their reply but that may be the downside to verbosity, their closing statement seemed agreeable to me so I didn't feel the need to go further.
Did you read the rest of what she said? I get that she can be hard to parse and I have 2.5 years of learning to parse her communication since we're both active in RBY, but it's really clear that she agreed that that specific instance maybe was not the time and place but continued to ask clarifying questions on why something that is explicitly political is not allowed in the politics space. The stance I've gleaned from your last post is that Smogon stuff either isn't really politics or isn't the kind of politics you want in this thread, but I'm continuing to not understand which of those it actually is, why that is, or how you think people are meant to separate the personal from the political and the macrocosmic from the microcosmic. She basically wrote multiple pages delineating her thinking and trying to understand how you draw your lines with such murky terms as "political," ended on a note of "I don't get your overall thinking but I can understand if this one instance was out of place," got no response, and got quietly kicked out of the thread when she brought something up that she very much thought was the correct time and place and very well articulated. From what I'm aware of, lilyhollow also got booted with no warning from what was, as I recall, basically a retroactive rule change, similarly with no warning nor even being informed that she was banned. This was not the case for boo, who I remember got put on ICBB after like the 15th time he attacked someone, who got warned multiple times publicly, and who I'd bet any amount of money got multiple DM conversations before getting banned (and if he did, good, you should be able to communicate why you are banning someone).
Anyway, returning to juoean, characterizing her as "expressing no interest" in using the thread other than talking about moderation or "white knighting" me (lol) then saying here that she "seemed agreeable" are directly contradictory statements, so which is it? Did she express to you that she has zero interest in participating, or did you just quickly scan over what she said, fail to parse it, assume she said "oops I fucked up I will never talk about Smogon in the politics thread again," then ban her when she talked about it again? Speaking of juoean not participating in the thread except to talk about moderation, which is the claim you made in response to me, what are these posts linked below? She's literally one of the best contributors to this thread by a mile, even if you just isolate it down to grand-scale real-world politics!
lmao i did not intend to start a discussion of int'l polls about us favorability, did not even know these existed. even polls taken within the us are highly questionable as has been discussed repeatedly in this thread and thats in a "rich country" with comparatively very high rates of internet and phone access, cant even imagine what methodology is being used here, but i rly dont have the interest to investigate the details of these poll(s) to be able to get into this.
[my comment was j from the pov of sporadic, not-representative and also somewhat out of date indirect knowledge from...
Biden pulled out solely because he was too old. That’s it. Attributing it to anything else is wishcasting at best.
You can keep your personal opinions on a president in whatever regard you want. But 10 years from now, the “Genocide Joe” moniker will be actively remembered as defining Biden by maybe 2% of Americans. This is a conflict on the other side of the world, that US troops are not involved in.
Are you trying to realistically forecast how Biden will be remembered by the population at large, or how you personally think he should be remembered? Those are two very different...
41,000 Palestinians dead, that we know of, 2.3 million displaced, over 75,000 tons of American bombs dropped on an almost completely unarmed population, more than was used in the H bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.
No, he’s going down in history as Genocide Joe, who only pulled out of the race when it became apparent he was going to lose.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but some presidents are indeed worse than others when it comes to foreign policy.
i want to add that while meaningless moralizing about hamas is not worth engaging with, defending in general the right of the oppressed to fight for liberation by any means necessary is worth something imo, not because palestinian resistance needs validation from white euro-amerika which it certainly does not; but because we face similar propoganda in local struggles when it comes to eg the massive state violence against 'blm' protesters within the so-called us (and especially in retaliation for the burning of the third precinct in minneapolis), and because of what we need to learn from...
No, I would rather see demilitarization in the area rather than escalation. Here's my solution: cut all military aid to Israel and sanction them heavily, provide humanitarian aid to Gaza, urge the removal of Netanyahu and his cabinet from power, and potentially station troops in Gaza to repel any further Israeli attacks.
these (minus the last which is j wildly fantastical, the us imperialist army is never going to engage in military interventions against one of its key allies that is carrying out amerikkka's own imperial interests) are really the only thing that 'random' people...
most politicians behavior doesnt have anything to do with their 'hearts and minds'. prior to this year none of "the squad" other than ilhan omar did a single thing to oppose the billions in annual military aid to the zionist entity.
rn politicians across the democratic party are facing more scrutiny over their support for palestinian genocide and that includes "the squad". the 30+ no votes on $26 billion aid to the zionist entity is a lot more than the either 0 or 1 vote on every prior military aid, but other aspects like the adoption of the IHRA definition, or propaganda statements eg on...
Problem is the Democratic Party is the only (barely) functional party in the United States. Thus, the ideological spectrum is broad. There are plenty of right-wing conservative Democrats on one side, progressive Democrats on the other side, and everything else in between. Not all the Democrats attended or embraced Netanyahu (there are a lot that fucking hate him) so it is not accurate to paint the entire party as such. There is also the dynamic of Arabic, Muslim, and/or Palestinian Americans often supporting the same party as Jewish Americans. Really just because in 2024 the...
i think this statistical extrapolation stuff is pretty silly but gusanos are absolutely not comparable to migration to arizona. cubans coming to the so called US during the revolution, sometimes literally escorted by the us military, was primarily wealthier cubans who were afraid of the economic changes of the revolution and what might happen to their $$$. obviously, people who supported the bay of pigs and detested the revolution were coming with particular political orientations that are much more likely to go Republican (even if both parties were strongly anti-castro but policies like...
Apparently there were reports of criminal activity and violence within the protests, at least according to both the US Park Police and US Capitol Police. I'm not sure about the level of truthfulness with these reports, considering protestors claiming the protests were "no threat to police", and I believe that the Democratic response to these protests compared to the BLM protests shows a clear double standard, but if the protests were truly violent then they should be condemned.
I initially balked at this, and an (admittedly brief) investigation leads me to conclude that you've worded this exceedingly poorly. Kropotkin's writings don't seem to dispute the idea that natural selection is the driving force behind evolution; rather, he posits that natural selection favors those organisms that cooperate with each other to endure nature, rather than those organisms that compete with each other for resources. He still rebuts Darwinism in the sense that he disputes the idea of ruthless competition as the driving force behind natural selection, but his ideas seem...
the post about "north korea does not cause as much harm as us imperialism" has nothing to do with western-humanist conceptions of "good and evil" that boo's response immediately assumes/adopts. rather, the point is that north korea materially does not have the power on a global scale to be able to even come close to the level of harm that US imperialism enacts.
similarly when i previously posted about US imperialism being responsible for tens of millions of murders in every decade since 1940 and it thus being responsible for the quantitatively greatest level of violence of any single...
I will vote for whoever the Democratic nominee is inthiselection. However, I will reconsider my party affiliation after November if they push out Biden. Why the hell am I participating in the party primaries if donors can just override my vote?
i find this post / group of posts very curious, yes obviously the donors often take priority over the voters that is how bourgeois electoral politics operates. ofc nothing is 100% of the time but in the main politicians make promises during campaigns and then break them after they get elected. (as you actually brought up...
oh either 8/10 or 9/10 then. again from a statistical point of view, u have to factor that the predictiveness can only be evaluated starting in 2010 when it got media attention, as the only reason it received media attention was its accuracy for the prior 6 elections. if you generate a thousand political models, and u only evaluate them on a binary...
RaikouLover
A fair point, but there has to be a better way to control the growth the FDA, since Congress has pretty much said, “do what you deem necessary.” Voters don’t have much control over the FDA, although if they did I guess it would become politically charged. The FDA needs more accountability with its spending though. I’m not an expert so I don’t really know the best solution.
There are products / companies that exist due to the fact they’re a healthy alternative to whatever is the big company like Hello Fresh and Whole Foods. They’re often more...
~ theres nothing democratic about the party conventions and the pre-selection of candidates or in this case one single candidate bc there was no one else in the primary other than that dean phillips guy for 2 minutes (who has no substantive political differences from biden)
politicians know that they depend on being in the Party's good graces for their own reelections in the future. of course sometimes the party fucks them over anyway eg if it doesnt like their politics sending and aggressively campaigning for a challenger to unseat their own incumbent such as the westchester county seat...
No, it would not be unofficial. The Constitution does not have to explicitly give the executive branch such power. The President now has absolute immunity from criminal prosecution. If the President has Citizen A or journalist B murdered, there is no legal recourse. They are cloaked in the veil of immunity by simply declaring such act "official."
The Supreme Court punted on deciding official vs. unofficial until after the election, because who wins will ultimately decide if specifics will need to be made.
but since other ppl reacted too if this really requires further explanation then i guess i should respond
the post i wrote was already long af, i was not and am not going to spend paragraphs on a detailed analysis of the history of student loan policies over the past four years. one thing worth mentioning that has not been in either post above is biden's decision to declare the end to the pandemic, which ofc primarily was done in order to allow landlords to raise rents and carry out evictions but also had the consequence of resuming student loan collection.
mr hands says she didnt even...
https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/the-politics-thread.3743029/page-16#post-10168496 - a prior time that you took personal offense to her criticism while she was very patient with you in explaining it's not a personal attack and how your actions can cause harm (literally all of her critiques were and still are useful, accurate, and helpful if you want to improve your moderation and this thread, but none of them have been implemented/taken into consideration)
~ maybe i missed smthg but i didnt see raikoulover trying to shame anyone for not voting or planning not to vote or suggest that voter shaming was something anyone should be doing. ofc voter shaming is a phenomenon that happens, but not every person who believes in voting for shitty dems is responsible for or supports that. "just as" none of us are responsible for violence committed by PSL bc we said genocide joe.
~ if you really want to take a "mathematical logic" approach, the 'its simple logic to always vote for the slightly less bad person' argument would only be applicable in a...
It's not a question of incapability, it's a matter of desire. There's no shortage of people who pretend to be outraged by the actions of fascists but either pass the buck or sabotage the fight for their own satisfaction. Activists and community leaders are disregarded in favour of video game streamers, podcasters, and glorified Abercrombie & Fitch floor staff. The right-wing murdered millions of people during COVID and literally no one was willing to call it a genocide unless they could adopt their preferred framing. Hell, we couldn't even call out the literal plot by conservative...
This is like, maybe a third of her non-deleted posts, btw, it's not like I'm just posting everything she's ever said here. It honestly seems like you just have such a chip on your shoulder about criticism that you've retroactively ascribed her like, 100 other posts in this thread as being critical of you when the reality is like 5 have been critical of moderation and exactly zero have been personal attacks on you, just like how you got really really incensed by my post that started this conversation topic and started personally attacking me and repeatedly insisting I have a personal issue with you and awyp when I don't even know who you are and haven't talked about awyp once except to respond to you randomly saying I have an issue with them.
Further, if you seriously have a problem with someone specifically, the answer has never been to make it a public issue, mods or otherwise. For the same reasons I listed above. DM that person directly, or an upper staff member. I don't know anyone, besides myself, that is willing to put decorum aside and "have it out" with users in public. And that's really not coincendtal. It is very unprofessional and it is very difficult to maintain composure in the face of public attacks and scrutiny. I do it out of candor, not out of any innate desire, when it's apparent the quiet approach isn't working.
But when the issue is with how this thread is being moderated, this dynamic heavily disadvantages regular users. As the despots of this thread, there's nothing stopping you two from simply ignoring or dismissing any complaints brought to you privately. If the complainant decides to escalate to a higher mod in response, those people are likely to take your side without thoroughly considering the issue. Discussing grievances in here at least makes it reasonably likely that those grievances will be seen before they are deleted, which can motivate a greater push for change. Case in point, we're having this conversation right now because you banned juoean from the thread for using it to express issues with moderation that, all things considered, I thought were pretty measured and even-handed.
That segues nicely into my next point: People are going to be more reluctant to bring issues to you in a private manner when the standards for ban-worthy conduct are so opaque and seemingly inconsistent. When some people are allowed to skate on thin ice for dozens of inflammatory posts while others are launched into the sun for comparatively minor violations of decorum (or even simply for the crime of complaining too much), users are going to lose faith in your ability to privately hash out moderation disagreements in a civil manner because the way that the thread is moderated seems to depend so much on your whims and who you find personally irritating. You might think of yourself as a reasonable person who is more than capable of receiving criticism through the appropriate channels, but users aren't going to take you up on that if your actions as moderator create a different impression.
