Ok I haven't done more than skim this thread because I'm very indisposed at the moment, and potentially likely to not have internet access for some weeks after today.
-Cong isn't gonna become "ban all the right wingers". Not suggesting anyone thinks that I'm just throwing it out there.
No one is asking for that. But I think it is within common reason to demand that we
draw a line at crimes against humanity. Or is that really so much to ask for? No one from the whiny triggered left or whatever you think this angry anti-right brigade is, are going to defend gulags or North Korea's human rights record either. Just because one side more aggressively endorses it doesn't make it okay. This is a question of common decency not politics.
-I'm not gonna start rigorously fact checking every post and start policing for content. If you want me to, you'll have to pay me. I'm a mathematician, not a politics or history buff. Yes, this means people can post things which aren't true any the only way to combat that is to post things that are with sources. Yes, that has its own problems with exposing people reading the thread to bad information. But in this particular climate there isn't much of a better solution.
You don't need to take a full-time job at snopes.com, to recognise a bait-filled shitpost about celebrating Columbus day touting some tinfoil hat shit about smallpox blankets. Neither do you need a PhD in History to discount genocide denialism and whitewashing slavery, especially when other posters are provided highly cited material testifying to the indisputability of certain things (not that they should have to). It's right there in my post and many other posts, explicitly refuting a ludicrous lie, so it's a little disingenuous to claim lack of sufficient expert knowledge. Leave alone factual knowledge, you are a mathematician so at the very least one could hope you are rational? As a rational person when you see certain people stubbornly refusing to engage with evidence (credible or otherwise) and restating their flawed premise, committing trolly logical fallacies, or just generally engaging in clearly toxic behaviour why do you let that slide? Do you need money to exercise basic sense and decency?
If you are not here to precisely identify and remove people who will post hurtful, exclusionary, shit, people who stubbornly turn every thread into a putrid mass of hate and chaos.... then what exactly is your job as a moderator may I ask? How are the cong leaders any different than glorified spam cleaners?
The tragedy is that you
know that such kinds of posts, hurt people. You
know denying things which have near unanimous expert consensus like climate change, genocide etc serve no positive purpose and only drag down the level of any debate. But no time and again you will let that slide because you want to be neutral, except you really aren't being neutral. Once you give a platform at bile like this maybe you don't endorse it, but you are still very much condoning it.
Take responsibility for that. Please don't act like you are doing us any favours by letting people post toxic rubbish repeatedly, and certainly don't demand money for it. If you are saying someone would literally have to pay you to care about this stuff please then that insulting as fuck. If you feel like you cannot handle the responsibility that comes with your mod powers, consider stepping down.
-Stop calling for mod action publicly. Please report your concerns to the mod team privately and we will discuss things with you. Preferably not me until I can be sure I have a house to return to.
No. You guys refuse to be held accountable privately. You deflect, deny, and don't take complaints seriously. I know because I have tried to take matters up with Cong mods over various past run-ins I've had and never received anything other than casual indifference and lip service. I remember the one time Gato justifying a deletion in PM with an arrogant declarative explanations like "it was a bad post," without any sincere reasoning. I especially fondly remember the time von infracted me after I wrote a scathing call out to Deck Knight after he choked the life out of the climate thread by repeatedly posting well trodden hoaxes and myths denying climate change. Strangely enough, Deck Knight was given no infraction or warning whatsoever to the best of my knowledge. Perhaps because denying man made climate change is clearly not as harmful as calling Deck Knight a fucking idiot. Now if you guys are too much of a pussy to stand by a
scientific fucking fact like man made climate change you all should take those STEM degrees you are so proud of and just set them to fire. (I also fondly remember getting literally fucking ragebanned after calling out his bullshit double-standard moderation stance as Deck Knight happily continued to post trash.... but let's leave it at that).
This isn't about order. It appears you guys just can't handle people publicly expressing their dissatisfaction at your worryingly inadequate moderation. And I'm not making some ridiculous accusation. Thread after thread in this subforum have flamed out right in front of our eyes, trolled to oblivion, turned into a playground for edgy alt-right whitebois. Please explain how the fuck does abhorrent behaviour like denialism and apologia not cross a line, but someone calling you out for letting that go about unhindered suddenly gets subjected to a far more stringent standard of censure?
-On that note, hopefully someone else can unentagle this thread lol.
Soul Fly I realize I was being insensitive earlier, I own up to that. My point by talking about celebration was that this is a very low impact holiday, something that simutaneously shouldn't be a big deal to change (which would help the people frustrated by the holiday's name) but also shouldn't be seen as an active attack by exisiting as much as a point of the status quo most people aren't actively thinking about. The government in particular is really awful at fixing this kind of problem.
I understand that and bear you no ill. The problem however is how you let your own personal indifference govern your perception of such a celebration as "the status quo
most people aren't actively thinking about." That's because for
most people (i.e the majority) it does not glorify someone who contributed to trauma and violence in their community. This in no way shape or form justify your not giving enough of a shit about it. There are growing collective voices of people: native, coloured, black, non-binary etc who are very clear about the fact that they are NOT OKAY with such figures being celebrated in any capacity or being used as bait by edgy jokers on the internet to pervert important conversations like #MeToo. I am only but a single example of such a voice, but vague, lazy declarative posts like this make us afraid that there is a deafness among the moderators. Unexamined indifference is often the site of privilege and cognitive biases.
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I will bet all the money in my pocket against all the money in yours that if the OP read "Should we celebrate Hitler" and asked us to reconsider Hitler's reputation you wouldn't have let a thread like that fester and rot up the subforum for as half as long as you have let this one. Neither would you have refused to take prompt action because you are "not a politics or history buff", or left callous messages like "hopefully someone else can unentagle this thread lol." You certainly wouldn't have asked money to delete posts which clearly deny the holoucast. There is nothing to "unentangle". This thread right from the OP is a giant fuck you to a lot of traumatised communities, many facing literal extinction while trolls gleefully continue to shitpost about smallpox blankets and pedantic technicalities at the expense of their dignity. Your refusal to take it seriously and shut down toxicity from the get-go is a huge fucking problem.
I don't know what the government can or cannot do. But it pretty clear that you can certainly stand to do more.... even if it is just the bare minimum. You owning up to anything means jack shit otherwise.
Please grow a backbone, an awareness of privilege, and a more empathetic form of decency; in that particular order.
Enjoy your holiday.