Policy Discussion: Insults, etc.

[sanguinity]

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.

Comments

[buria-q.livejournal.com]

that's not a comparable dynamic to author vs. reader.

in general, i'd say insults along the lines of "the author is an asshat/jerk/loser" are not helpful critiques, but i did feel uncomfortable that people seemed to be focusing more on the one or two lines that were like that in the previous post versus the entire rest of the poster's critique of the gender/race politics of the book they reviewed, which jumped out at me more as offensive. sometimes it's refreshing to not be expected to go with the flow and clap along to fucked up things.

[buria-q.livejournal.com]

which is not to say that i'm characterizing critiques of that post as "no negative reviews". but i guess this comm is different from other spaces that i would consider "safe spaces" precisely bc there's space in places like snr to vent one's spleen as a woc.

[calcitrix.livejournal.com]

I was only commenting on this particular discussion...though I agree on that recent post, the discussion about language used toward the author overshadowed the other issues. But that makes another good reason to keep the ctitique to the book material--so that they don't digress the way that one did.

[sanguinity]

Alternatively, it's a reason to have this discussion, so that people aren't spending energy on "But can you do that?"

[trinker.livejournal.com]

...maybe I'm misunderstanding you?

As a woman of color who's excluded from snr, (and I am *okay* with that exclusion)...I don't see how the existence of snr as a discussion space for some poc should affect issues of discussion styles here in 50books.

[buria-q.livejournal.com]

sorry, i wasn't intending to say that snr is perfect (i have problems with it being closed, personally), or recommending it as a format for 50bookspoc. i mentioned snr mainly bc someone above had said snr has a no-flaming rule, and i was saying that it doesn't, based on userinfo.

and i added on that i'm uncomfortable some of the tone policing that accompanied the pon review, and the fact that this whole 200-comment thread is mostly putting one person on blast.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

*nod* Thanks for the clarification.

I've seen a different comm erupt in a nearly congruent "theoretically about general policy, actually about discomfort with one particular regular commenter who uses more bombastic language than others are comfortable with".

I found myself in the (not Voltaire, Beatrice Hall!) position of "I may not agree with your stance, but I will defend..." in both cases.


I get the feeling that there is some discomfort for some people with negative reviews of PoC works, and I think this is unfortunate...but I see that winterfox zirself has conceded the ableist slur and pledged against it.

At this point, I don't see the need for a policy, as it doesn't seem to be a truly pervasive issue in the comm. Instead, I think we have that fallacy going on of "thou shalt not appreciate a work unless it is fail-free!" along with "I will deny failure in a work I appreciate!" Yuck.

I wonder if "lol zingy comment" is part of the problem? Would "zingy comment" alone be perceived as less dismissive/quelling?

[seekingferret.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth, I've called out various authors on this community for anti-semitic or misogynistic slurs and tropes with minimal pushback. Several of my reviews ended with "I would not recommend you read this book." I honestly have never experienced any culture of "thou shalt not appreciate a work unless it is fail-free!" or "I will deny failure in a work I appreciate!" here.

[pauraque]

I also feel like I've posted a few fairly scathing reviews that called out (what I perceived as) fail, and never got a sense that it was a problem. But my communication style tends to be low-key, so what I think is "scathing" may seem measured to someone else. I never felt like I *couldn't* be more vitriolic, it's just not my way of posting.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

I'm glad to read that. I think those two sentiments I wrote are more indicative of ...greater fandom? And anxiety about revealed kyriarchy.

[sanguinity]

Could you clarify what you mean by "lol zingy"? And what problem you're wondering if it may be a part of?

[trinker.livejournal.com]

In some of the cited problematic quotes (in older review comments), winterfox explicitly says "lol [and then makes a zingy/possibly dismissive/etc remark]". I suspect that actually writing "lol [comment] lol" looks like sneering mockery. (i.e. "I am laughing at you, I think you are contemptible.")

I don't know about other comm members' reactions, but I read that as juvenile, immature, non-constructive and otherwise indicative of lack of communality. (tl;dr - people who write "lol [statement] lol" look like trolls to me, and I have to work to not believe that kneejerk assessment)

[sanguinity]

Thanks.

[alankria.livejournal.com]

I very much agree with this.

[lizw.livejournal.com]

I also agree (strongly) with this, and with the_surfacer below. I would like WOC to feel able to make the kind of post here that winterfox did. I also think it would be inappropriate for me as a white woman to make the same post about an author of color, because by doing so I could unintentionally make the comm feel less safe for other WOC - so I think the comm's policy on this should be asymmetric.

[eefster.livejournal.com]

This is how I feel as well (as another white woman).

I read a comment to this post earlier about how sometimes things need to be said, no matter how they're said, and I think that's very true. I also think that, society and kyriarchy and privilege being what they are, that it's totally appropriate for some posters to be able to make those comments and others not.

More, in point-ish form: Not all insults are ad hominems. Not all insults automatically detract from a critique of a work. I am very uncomfortable when the reaction to the use of non-derailing insults overshadows the actual reaction to the substance of the review.

[lizw.livejournal.com]

I also think that, society and kyriarchy and privilege being what they are, that it's totally appropriate for some posters to be able to make those comments and others not.

Yes - and a useful side-effect for me has turned out to be that I learn more from anti-racist comms that set very clear expectations for white participants. Especially when I first started reading those comms, I think those clearly-stated expectations helped me learn not to derail conversations by rehashing 101-level arguments. In turn, because the conversations were less likely to get diverted onto "safer" (for me as a middle-class white person) meta-arguments, I think it forced me to "shut up and listen" more than I might otherwise have done.

[firecat]

White person here. I agree with lizw.