Moderation Questions and General Chat Thread

Agreed

Yes, truly awful it surely is to call someone a bloodthirsty fascist when he repeatedly calls for dissenters to be executed.

Thank you for that, but I don’t feel like I’ve been put in any sort of position for what it’s worth. I’m the newest mod and I’m still learning.

You definitely do not recall correctly.

LOL.

Luckbox gunna Luckbox.

Wanted to offer some perspective on this topic.

I'm guessing/assuming some of you have family from New York. If you told that family years back that 9/11 was a legit military target (the towers) as opposed to a civilian one (and an obvious act of terrorism), they would lose their collective minds. If you pulled that irl you'd catch a punch at minimum in some spots. And that would apply to someone having that view who is from New York, just as much as it would apply to someone who never set foot in New York. But it would be just that much more insulting if it was coming from someone who'd never so much as set foot in New York.

When you have people who've never lived in a Kibbutz come in and call them legit military targets, or when people say music festivals are in fair game zones, you're in this 9/11 analogy territory. You're talking as big an insult as you could have dropped on New Yorkers in that time (and just as ill informed). So consider that. Because there are people in here with real skin in the game. And we're doing a mediocre job of recognizing what this sort of disinformation is doing to them.

Not only legitimate, imagine people saying "it's good that people got killed in 9 11 , more should have died, USA is the great satan".

After that, there is no limit to what a new yorkers should be allowed to say imho. No limit including asking for torture of all family members of the poster among other things. Completly, morally, justified.

And that's jews in the last 2 millennia basically.

Repeatedly being victims of some of the worst acts of hatred toward an ethnicity in human history. Systematically targeted for many many centuries.

Then 10 7 happens. And anyone who isn't 100% behind them after that *NO MATTER WHAT* basically should not have a right to exist in our societies at all. That's the feeling. It's incredible we let them live.

It's beyond incredible we don't touch them. That's because we are the best that ever existed in humanity. We manage to avoid to destroy people who completly deserve to be destroyed, because of long term reasons. FINE. We can do that.

But discussing as if "sides were equal" jfc?

I'm going to try reading it again now that he's gone.

I haven't read it much for the last month or so, but what I said was true for his posting in all threads prior to that. It looks like a number of people agree with me.

I'd personally take one a side and perm Vic and Schlitz from the Israel thread.

I think both create an amount of violence (in there) that far exceeds the tolerance for useful and safe discussion. I have no thoughts on it beyond that thread.

I'll take the other side.

You can find scores of Americans (mostly not NYers) who said that about civilians in Afghanistan after 9/11 just as there are scores of Israelis who are happy to stack civilian Palestinian bodies. Being a victim doesn’t give you a moral get out of jail free card. This whole idea of “no limit” to what you’re morally justified to do after being victimized is exactly the mentality of Hamas. Being better than Hamas is recognizing that there are ALWAYS limits.

I can’t speak for all NYers but nearly every person I knew in NY at the time of 9/11 thought it was chickens coming home to roost btw (not that they or I thought it was justified) and none thought carpet bombing people in Afghanistan was going to help anything. It seemed to me at the time that people in NY, the ones who had actually been terrorized, were some of the most opposed to retaliation so I don’t buy that the scorched earth revenge mentality is something that should be tolerated either.

But not ONE of those people would abide by acting like it didn't happen, or that they were military targets. Let's at least agree on that much.

The chickens coming home to roost thing is a bit odd though if I'm honest. I have a lot of family there. I never heard that one.

I already said no one thought it was justified, which implies it wasn’t a legitimate military target.

I’m not surprised you hadn’t heard something like chickens coming home to roost. I don’t mean that as an insult, just that based on your posting, I think you exist in a very different political social world than I do. Not that I’m a communist or something that extreme. I hope your family at least understood that “they hate our freedom”, wasn’t actually the motive for the attack.

I think everyone here remembers how 9/11 was used to emotionally manipulate the public into supporting America's multi-decade spree of murder and torture across the globe.

being a victim gives you the complete moral justification to do absolutely anything to completely destroy your opponent with no recourse, in my model. unlimited violence as a victim is fully justified at any cost until you fully guarantee your enemy is completely destroyed (every single one of them is dead). that's my ethos.

you touch me, you are dead

as for Afghanistan (which has nothing to do with Iraq)nthe vote in the Senate to authorize military action was 98-0. this means every single democratically elected representative in the most important chamber of the most important country in the history of the world, decided it was moral, proper, reasonable, acceptable, to kill those monsters.

What did I get wrong?

Regardless of my history with Victor, I really did not want to see him banned. I am a little ambivalent about it, as he certainly did make a lot of threads unreadable, but he was a longtime personality around here and (imo) one of the crucial legs holding up this forum with his content. You people think you want him gone, but you are going to have a massive hole to fill without him.

What I am really unhappy to see is that we are back to the old "this is what the owners want" and "don't discuss moderation issues in the moderation thread" rhetoric that we were getting from Browser. Crossnerd herself was one of the people that was discussing Victor's posting after he was temp banned a couple of months ago and had her posts deleted because he wasn't here to defend himself, and now she is taking the same line. Just when you think there might be a semblance of change in moderation styles around here, we are seemingly back to square one.

Isn't Vic just on another short break? Did I miss other news? If this works anything like sports suspensions, nobody should be super shocked that these short breaks keep coming about once you're a frequent offender.

I'm sure we'll be right back at this with him in the near term.

Civilians complaining about things they don’t know about.

You weren’t in the military were you? By your logic, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Which people have real skin in the game?

Did Victor get banned??

Wow.

I don't think discussing who does or doesn't like a poster is a moderation issue. That's the only thing I was asking to stop. Legitimate concerns are obviously meant for this thread, and it wasn't my intention to make it seem otherwise so I apologize. You're right that I made similar posts previously but I think the difference is that when a moderator deletes my posts or asks me to stop, I listen to them and don't make a whole issue out of defying them publicly when building rapport over PM and calming the tone of the conversation is a healthier and better option. I want people to feel like they can come to me with concerns and thoughts and ideas. I'm the most junior mod so I don't think its fair to ask of me that I make sweeping reforms- that was never what I requested. I only wanted to try to help keep the I/P thread open, although that's revealed itself to be a larger task than I anticipated. Regardless, I try to operate in good faith, and I believe King Spew and gangstaman operate in good faith too, and I'd like to see us reach resolutions that are best for everyone.

Also, just ftr, I've been here like a week so give me a minute before you bin me 😊

imagine an iraqi war thread. you think it would be any different?

CN, I get the impression that you are really taking this mod position to heart, which is a good thing! I also get the impression that you are putting the success of this forum on your shoulders, as if it is your sole responsibility that this place works out. I think you will find that it is an impossible task to do on your own, and will only lead to aggravation. I think the other mods' attitudes of "say whatever you want about the moderation around here, because I don't care at all what you people think" is much healthier than trying to explain yourself constantly or trying to shut down criticism in this thread, which ironically would just create more dissent.

I think you are doing a great job so far. With that said, it is very easy to fall into the same trap as Browser, where there was a constant effort to try to stifle discussion about things that made him feel defensive. You'll notice that Ganstaman, Spew, and Rococo don't do that, and actually get far less posts criticizing their moderation as a result.