sanguinity (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sanguinity) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
50books_poc2011-06-28 02:41 pm
sanguinity) wrote in 50books_poc2011-06-28 02:41 pm
Entry tags:
Policy Discussion: Insults, etc.
I'm elevating this to a new post, because the mod team is small and we want a wider range of input than what we can bring to bear ourselves.
The topic under discussion is whether or not insults, mocking, jeering, and/or personal attacks are acceptable on the comm, in what context, and directed toward whom.
First: that's probably not a complete list. One of the things I'm noticing in the comments and pms is that people have different characterizations of what is in dispute here.
Second and related: not everything in the list above may be comparable to everything else in that list. We might choose to give a pass to some of the above and yet reject others.
Third: I'm expecting that there might be some context dependency in these decisions. My gut sense is that insulting an author is not the same thing as insulting another comm member. Being white and being POC is not symmetric. Being the original poster and being a non-OP commenter in an exchange may also change the context. There may be other factors.
So let me lay out some of the issues that the mod team has been discussing.
Because of the way the tone argument gets used, we have been reluctant to implement a blanket "no insulting, no jeering" rule. There are times when it is more important that something gets said than how it gets said; there are times when the clearest and most straightforward way to communicate an idea is to mock the original statement. Additionally, any given demand for politeness or patience made by this community is happening in the context of numerous asymmetric demands for politeness and patience; as mods, we strongly dislike the prospect of increasing those burdens as the price of participating in the comm.
We are trying to negotiate two conflicting chilling influences: one of them is the chilling effect of someone knowing that they might encounter insulting or jeering comments if they post; the other is the chilling effect of a "don't say it any meaner than this" rule. The latter can make people walk away from a comm just as the former can. (I personally have walked away from a comm because it wasn't worth it to me to deal with the emotional stress of trying to negotiate such a rule; I have heard more than a few similar stories from others.) What particularly worries us as mods is that who walks away because of either environment is often asymmetric along axes of privilege.
(Obviously, I would prefer a policy that doesn't have people walking away, if we can swing it.)
I additionally have concerns about how this plays into our sense of who the community is "for". There are at least three distinct ways that members use this forum. Some are using it for personal improvement, trying to correct biases or lacunae in their own personal education, environment, or knowledge. Others are using it as a tool to focus attention on authors of color, who face systemic biases in the publishing, reviewing, reading, and fan communities. Others are using this community as a social refuge, as a place where conversations about books are not forever reverting back to white authors and white norms. (Obviously, these uses are not exclusive to each other: there are many people who use this comm in two or more of the above ways.)
I am not at all sure that the comm serves the last group well. In the process of setting policy on this, I would like to avoid making this community serve those people less well. Unfortunately, it is not clear to me what would or would not do that.
So, the questions we have for you:
What constitutes a personal insult?
Are they never acceptable, sometimes acceptable? Are some more acceptable than others?
Does it make a difference if the insult is directed at an author or at another community member? Where another community member is concerned, does it make a difference as to whose post it appears in the comments to (your own, or someone else's)?
Do we want one blanket policy of acceptability for the entire comm? Should OPs moderate their own comments as they see fit? Some combination of the two?
Are we correct to be worried about an asymmetric effect on white and POC/chromatic members of the comm? And if so, what kinds of policies do you specifically see being a problem? What would be acceptable?
What are we missing?
If you wish to reply privately, you are welcome to PM me or send me an email (this username at gmail).
ETA (6/29): I've turned anonymous commenting off -- there's at least one person who is harrassing people. If you have something to say and need privacy to say it, you've got my pm and email.
ETA2 (6/30): My draft position on some of the interactions under discussion, specifically some of the earlier posts about N.K. Jemisin's books. Re everything else, I'm still reading, still digesting. I haven't begun replying to pms yet, but I'm reading those, too.
ETA3 (7/5): FYI, we're still working on the policy post; we hope to (but cannot promise!) to have it posted by Friday.
ETA4 (7/9): progress updates here.
ETA5 (7/13): Policy post is now up. Comments here are locked.
The topic under discussion is whether or not insults, mocking, jeering, and/or personal attacks are acceptable on the comm, in what context, and directed toward whom.
First: that's probably not a complete list. One of the things I'm noticing in the comments and pms is that people have different characterizations of what is in dispute here.
Second and related: not everything in the list above may be comparable to everything else in that list. We might choose to give a pass to some of the above and yet reject others.
Third: I'm expecting that there might be some context dependency in these decisions. My gut sense is that insulting an author is not the same thing as insulting another comm member. Being white and being POC is not symmetric. Being the original poster and being a non-OP commenter in an exchange may also change the context. There may be other factors.
So let me lay out some of the issues that the mod team has been discussing.
Because of the way the tone argument gets used, we have been reluctant to implement a blanket "no insulting, no jeering" rule. There are times when it is more important that something gets said than how it gets said; there are times when the clearest and most straightforward way to communicate an idea is to mock the original statement. Additionally, any given demand for politeness or patience made by this community is happening in the context of numerous asymmetric demands for politeness and patience; as mods, we strongly dislike the prospect of increasing those burdens as the price of participating in the comm.
We are trying to negotiate two conflicting chilling influences: one of them is the chilling effect of someone knowing that they might encounter insulting or jeering comments if they post; the other is the chilling effect of a "don't say it any meaner than this" rule. The latter can make people walk away from a comm just as the former can. (I personally have walked away from a comm because it wasn't worth it to me to deal with the emotional stress of trying to negotiate such a rule; I have heard more than a few similar stories from others.) What particularly worries us as mods is that who walks away because of either environment is often asymmetric along axes of privilege.
(Obviously, I would prefer a policy that doesn't have people walking away, if we can swing it.)
I additionally have concerns about how this plays into our sense of who the community is "for". There are at least three distinct ways that members use this forum. Some are using it for personal improvement, trying to correct biases or lacunae in their own personal education, environment, or knowledge. Others are using it as a tool to focus attention on authors of color, who face systemic biases in the publishing, reviewing, reading, and fan communities. Others are using this community as a social refuge, as a place where conversations about books are not forever reverting back to white authors and white norms. (Obviously, these uses are not exclusive to each other: there are many people who use this comm in two or more of the above ways.)
I am not at all sure that the comm serves the last group well. In the process of setting policy on this, I would like to avoid making this community serve those people less well. Unfortunately, it is not clear to me what would or would not do that.
So, the questions we have for you:
What constitutes a personal insult?
Are they never acceptable, sometimes acceptable? Are some more acceptable than others?
Does it make a difference if the insult is directed at an author or at another community member? Where another community member is concerned, does it make a difference as to whose post it appears in the comments to (your own, or someone else's)?
Do we want one blanket policy of acceptability for the entire comm? Should OPs moderate their own comments as they see fit? Some combination of the two?
Are we correct to be worried about an asymmetric effect on white and POC/chromatic members of the comm? And if so, what kinds of policies do you specifically see being a problem? What would be acceptable?
What are we missing?
If you wish to reply privately, you are welcome to PM me or send me an email (this username at gmail).
ETA (6/29): I've turned anonymous commenting off -- there's at least one person who is harrassing people. If you have something to say and need privacy to say it, you've got my pm and email.
ETA2 (6/30): My draft position on some of the interactions under discussion, specifically some of the earlier posts about N.K. Jemisin's books. Re everything else, I'm still reading, still digesting. I haven't begun replying to pms yet, but I'm reading those, too.
ETA3 (7/5): FYI, we're still working on the policy post; we hope to (but cannot promise!) to have it posted by Friday.
ETA4 (7/9): progress updates here.
ETA5 (7/13): Policy post is now up. Comments here are locked.
no subject
ETA: Corrected typos.
snr
Re: snr
Re: snr
Re: snr
Re: snr
What I'm unclear on is whether you're suggesting this policy as something that would be appropriate for this comm to adopt, or just offering it as a data point that that's what snr does since someone else brought up the idea of looking at what other comms do.
If the latter -- not my comm, not my business.
But if the former, it seems to me that "those who join know what we're willing to put with" may work great for snr, but it is not a good mode for this comm, because that's kinda what we had before, and apparently we *didn't* know - or at least, we didn't agree on what we knew.
Since that became problematic enough for the mods to think we need something more spelled out, I think it's likely that we are all enacting our different and sometimes incompatible ideas of what those basic tenets are.
At which point I think we either need to make it part of the rules that the basic tenets can be debated (and maybe create a specific space for that, with mod prerogative to move threads there and freeze them in their original location if they feel it's starting to quack like a duck, so everyone who is sick of it can avoid.)
Or else we need to spell out the version of the basic tenets that this comm holds by once (in a sticky post? On the userinfo page?) and then let people vote with their feet if they can't accept them.
Re: snr
Re: snr
Re: snr
no subject
I left debunkingwhite because a white man, who was on a mod's flist, made an ad hominem attack on me and the mod, who had him flisted, decided to reprimand me for responding to the ad hominem attack, rather than reprimand his flist-mate. (For the record: apparently my anti-racism is "stupid" and it's ok for privileged white men to say so at debunkingwhite.)
sex_and_race has no such policy (and functions according to its purpose ime).
no subject
The debunkingwhite incident sounds really horrible, and a serious abuse of the moderator's power.
For snr, I've clearly misunderstood the "It is not a place where we will attack each other," statement, for which I apologize. It was not my intent to co-opt or misrepresent their policy.
no subject
Or a normative and predictable human (re)action. ::wryface::
The way snr works is complex, and dependent on the mods, and not something I'm ever going to discuss in public. In general terms I think
"This is really simplified [...] but basically, here's my take:
What I think's fair game to criticize: one's actions and arguments.
What I think's not fair game: a person's identity/personhood (e.g. sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, physical/mental abilities)."
A standard for me to aim for.... ;-)
no subject
I agree with the comment, with the addition (which I don't know if nimgnoyk would agree with or not) that I can't think of any ad hominems that don't attack someone's identity/personhood -- I think that's the whole point of ad hominem attacks -- regardless of whether the attack includes sexist, racist, ableist, or other kyriarchical language.
no subject
no subject
But you're right, I've been kind of sloppy with ad hominem vs. personal insults -- not all ad hominems are personal insults, and vice versa, though I think the language I called out on the Fury review were both. It's personal insults I have the specific problem with, but I find them extra-obnoxious when they are also ad hominems.
My definitions:
Personal insult: You're a bad/worthless thing!
Ad hominem: You are/have done/have said/have been in the same room as/etc. something that hasn't been proven or is unrelated to the argument, and therefore your argument/work is invalid!
Both: You are a bad/worthless thing that hasn't been proven or is unrelated to the argument, and therefore your argument/work is invalid!
I think personal insults need to be moderated (though I understand that people inferring personal insults from calling out problematic behavior were not, in fact, insulted; and if there's a long history of proven behavior, I'm ok with things like "Scott Adams is a troll" or "Heinlein has Issues").
I think ad hominem attacks are a helpful sign of an incompetent writer, and unless they include personal insults, they don't need to be moderated per se.
How it relates to my comments:
Author is a stupid fuck, and this proves her book is evil and poorly written.
Author has no talent at anything whatsoever, (http://50books-poc.livejournal.com/373872.html?thread=1313904#t1313904) and this proves her book is evil and poorly written. (I disagree with stakebait on the breadth or that insult, but I don't think she's wrong wrong, I just disagree. I don't think I would have considered it a problem if I interpreted it as stakebait did. I might consider it objectively wrong -- even hacks have a talent, if only for hacking, and it's kind of fascinating what goes into that! -- but not as problematic.)
no subject
no subject
As for
I'd like to hear more, however, from members and ex-members of those comms, if they're willing to share. What makes their policies work or not work? Are they applicable to us?
no subject
I walked from debunking because mods were just AWOL on really craptacular shit white folks were saying in the comments. It became a cookie giving circle jerk between white members of the comm, and anytime a PoC would speak up calling them out, well, it went from shades of ignoring to shouting down.
I never left SNR, but I did stop actively posting and commenting because there were too many wannabe-allies who meant well but didn't have their act together. No one did anything half as horrible as debunking_white on a good day, but the vibe was different from when I joined (back in 07 IIRC).
But again, grain of salt, since I'm not an active commenter here either (today's comment storm notwithstaneing :)
no subject
I left racism_101 for reasons not unrelated, though I don't remember them exactly. It was a long time ago. I was really not suggesting importing the whole mod policy! (Er, I am not PoC; I don't mean to imply that parallel.)
The thing that I find unacceptable (triggering, actually, but I don't believe people need to care about that, and I agree it's one of the ways I'm failing at life) is saying someone is personally worthless, whether using standard oppressive terms or not, for writing or commenting things one disagrees with.
If not allowing this kind of personal attack is a standard that is unfairly burdensome to PoC vs whites -- and honestly, I am open to the idea that it is; I just haven't seen anyone address this direct point, because of the broader range of insults that are in scope* -- then I do not think the community should adopt it. I can't stay in the community in that case, but that doesn't mean the comm should defer to me or others who may have a problem with it. The community does not have to serve all people, and I don't have to be together enough to handle all communities.
* I think that there are a lot of insulting, mean things one can say that aren't personal attacks. I never intended to suggest they should be out of bounds.
no subject
Speaking as a mod, the comm as a whole has not cared enough about triggers in the past. I'd like us to care more uniformly, and be more proactive about warning for them.
To be clear, what you want people to do with respect to your triggers is entirely up to you to decide -- I am in no way suggesting otherwise -- but I'm guessing that the "zie is worthless" trigger is prevalent enough that the comm should be taking note of it.
moderating strategies
the strategy there is to have the mod step in and leave a note saying "please take out the namecalling"/"no tone-policing" or whatever and freeze the thread, letting the participants know they can pm the mod if they have further objections.
i think this is one good way to prevent a can of worms from spilling over, since the longer these threads go, the more confusing and defensive they get.
Re: moderating strategies