Meta talk. The recent anti-oppression thread and mod response
I think there's something we should discuss; moderating on scans_daily and noscans_daily.
Back on the sister community, I said yesterday that I'm going to lurkerdom to calm down because the community just feels too sour right now. But after making this post, someone sent me the following private message:
Hi,
I saw your comment on s_d and I wanted to respond to what you said but I don't want to do it publicly because I don't feel safe there anymore.
You said:
"[...] are there members who would want to say their opinion on this stuff but are too scared of accidentally committing some faux pas they simply weren't aware of, getting to be labeled as racist/sexist/whatever, having the community turn against them, and becoming an Acceptable Target overnight?"
I am. I am very worried, and I've been around (mostly lurking) scans_daily since early 2006.
I know at least one other person besides myself who feels the same way, and I wish there was a way to know if there are others as well.
Me and the person agreed that we wanted a community where the same rules apply to everyone and that's all. To quote the person: "I just want to have fair and equal treatment for ALL members. No taking sides. No biases whatsoever. No more encouraging bad behavior of ANY kind."
I suggested this person that if they don't feel safe posting on scans_daily, and if they're scared of possibly making an innocent mistake that turns them into a target, then I could copy/paste their comment for the mods on his/her behalf. This would keep the person anonymous and safe from attacks. The person gave me their permission, asking to make it sure that I keep them anonymous, so yeah; there it was.
I had given up with this entry and was leaving to do other things. But when I found out that there are people who want to speak out against mods or certain community members but dare not, I felt this is something the community has to discuss. We've tried to make the community into a safe and tolerant discussion place, but are we really accomplishing this if there are people who are scared of the comm athmosphere, and don't dare to post their opinions on things? People who have been on the community for years, people who are not bigots, and don't want to hurt others either intentionally or unintentionally; these people have seen what happens from innocent mistakes, and they get the message that it's better to keep their mouth shut. It's ironic and sad that in their attempts of making the community more safe for certain people, the mod team has turned the athmosphere very hostile and scary to others.
I felt just really sad reading foxhack's posts on the entry, for example; he/she (lol I've been on the community for years but I still don't know most people's gender) is a prominent, polite, and fun member of the community, would never intentionally hurt anyone, but he/she still was intimidated too much to make a post about some Mexican comics. And people were actually implying that if foxhack really is worried, it means he/she might have all these years hidden some evil nasty bigoted side, in which case they'd be willing to turn on him/her at the first tiny little provocation (okay, I've really gotta look up his/her gender now :p aargh).
And while I'm at it: I felt the "Red Lantern rage mode" thing was a funny, light-hearted, comics-community-appropriate joke, and it made me smile :)
Anyway, if multiple long-time members were so disappointed over how mods handled the anti-oppression thread that they threatened to leave, isn't that quite a big thing? Aren't the members equal here, and aren't all of our feelings/opinions equal?
In case you hopped into the movie in the middle of it, let's recap important stuff:
My opinion is that the one big mistake in this sequence of events was adding the rule that "calling out for discriminatory behaviour is not a personal insult". People have abused this rule and taken advantage of it; they have used it to legitimize attacks and insults towards other members while calling them out on privilege. Calling out people for oppressive behaviour could be handled much more maturely and without the whole insult part.
Another huge mistake that happened recently; neo_prodigy and aliasjack were given mod status. Both members have showed that they have trouble staying detached and keeping their head cool in debates. Aliasjack/Kingrockwell over here, and neo_prodigy for example here and here (what's worse, these discussions occurred _right_ before these people got promoted to mods).
Both of these folks are good people and they mean no harm, but a moderator has to stay above arguments and work as a referee. It's a terrible thing if a mod gets hot-headed and resorts to calling people "motherfuckers".
I didn't comment on the new mods when that stuff was announced. I figured it wouldn't be worth it, to raise a stink over it and question the decision. I just crossed my fingers and hoped that nothing would happen.
But then neo_prodigy made that anti-oppression post, comparing an unintentional verbal offense to a horrible, physical hate crime. The post was completely random and there had never before in s_d's life been similar entries. I just felt that neo_prodigy abused his/her mod status, and used it for preaching to members about non-comics-related issues.
Add to that the fact we've got the "calling out is not a personal attack" rule, and mods saying that they give "leeway" to offended minorities, and voila! End result is the stupid mess we saw.
There are some things that I really would like some clarification about.
One member got a lot of flak for questioning why s_d needed this completely random mod post. Finally they gained a satisfactory answer and said they were okay with mods' justifications. At this point a mod asked them to "allow the conversation to return to the issue at hand". (The person didn't make more posts after that.) I really don't get this; saying people are "derailing" the debate and that they should stop posting if they don't have a particular opinion. What were they derailing from, exactly? I'm left wondering what on earth would the mods have wanted the comment section to be about? Endless amounts of "OMG that's soooo horrible, how can people be so cruel" moaning about the video's contents? What was there to discuss about it other than that? It was a story of a hate crime, and of course everybody is against those and there's nothing to argue in that, so what kind of discussion was supposed to come out of it? The only thing I could see to discuss there was that the OP made a connection/comparison between s_d member's post and a frigging violent hate crime. And the other thing I could see was "what does this have to do with my daily dose of slash and comics?". So, what kind of discussion could there potentially have been on the entry if it wasn't "derailed" with these two issues? What discussion did we lose?
The mod team's opinion appears to be that if a person belonging into a minority happens to label some other member as a racist, sexist, homophobe, transphobe, and even if they do it with some flimsy justification, there is no way to argue back and defend yourself from the label. Also, if you accidentally and unintentionally say something that offends someone who belongs into a minority, the minority person is allowed to lash out with phrases like "fuck you" without any fear of consequences. At least skalja and neo_prodigy have expressed this opinion out loud. The idea behind this is that the community tries to defend oppressed groups, and that it's a bigger crime to provoke than be provoked. But members have pointed out several times that this kind of "if they got provoked, they're allowed to lash back" thinking contributes to absolutely nothing good. It just lets the circle of abuse continue. You're supposed to learn this stuff in the kindergarten; if the other guy is an asshole, that doesn't mean it's okay for you to be an asshole, too. It's especially bad when this leeway for insults and attacks is allowed in cases of ignorance and unintentional privilege; if the other guy doesn't even realize they did something wrong, it's not the least bit helpful to attack them viciously and throw them ad hominems. It makes you look terrible, and it very easily makes the other guy feel like "huh, well if that's your attitude, then who gives a sh*t about your opinion".
One thing that stuck out to me is that apparently mod team don't intervene on such horribly prejudiced remarks as "only white people can be racist" (not an exact quote, but the thought wasn't denied, either). Some people have occasionally said on this community sarcastically "but I'm just a privileged white male so my opinion doesn't count" (yes, even that one infamous post used a variation of it). These people have continuously been told that they're being paranoid, or silly, or whatever. What if they are just pointing out a fact? If they say that defensive disclaimer in their posts, people say they're being sillym and dismiss them because of that, and if they don't say it, people tell them they're privileged and their opinion _does_ actually weigh less in comparison.
People on the comm are indirectly being pushed into telling that they're from this or that minority, and their opinion doesn't really count unless if they identify themselves as a member of some minority group. But it's just not right, to judge people based on who they are born as, rather than what kind of things they say and how they think.
Also, if you're judging people's opinion by how much privilege they have: who has the least privilege, and whose personal feelings/offense count more in the scale than another person's? Is a black guy allowed to lash out against a disabled person, or should he only mouth off at lesbians? Or are lesbians higher in the foodchain than the black guy? If someone were a disabled Japanese lesbian, is her opinion always more important than just a Japanese person's or a lesbian's? What if some minority group member just happened to be an asshole and used this "leeway" rule to complain about non-legitimate things? What if he pretended to see oppression everywhere in order to get his way in conflict situations? All groups of people - majorities and minorities - have their share of assholes.
There are huge problems in the concept of making conversations a one-way street where someone's opinion is automatically more valid than another's just because of who they are. It also sounds suspiciously like "some animals are more equal than others".
In the anti-oppression thread, mods at some point gave up answering people's questions, so I'm going to bring them up again. There were some issues I'd want to see clarified.
1. Are all members allowed to make scanless anti-oppression posts, or only the mods?
Please clarify the rules on this issue.
Also, if we're getting now anti-oppression posts that have nothing to do with comics, why couldn't we also get PSAs about global warming, animal abuse, and stuff like that? They are important stuff, just like oppression issues.
2. Are we still a community where modding is to be discussed and modified accordingly, or is it one-way-street with mods telling how things are and members accepting this without talking back?
Do you want feedback from members or not, and do our opinions count? Sometimes you say you do want feedback, while other times you say that "this is not a democracy" and mod team's decisions aren't up for debate. Can we have a discussion about the way the community is moderated?
In the end, I want the community to have equal rules with no double standards. I want a scans_daily where calling out people on oppressive behaviour is allowed and encouraged, but nobody is allowed to insult/attack another person while calling them out. If they are unable to be calm enough when calling out the guy, they should contact a mod and ask them to deal with it. Attacks and insults shouldn't be right, no matter who gets attacked or insulted.
I'd also appreciate if mods didn't mislead members about the community's rules when the consequences of a misunderstanding can be so terrible. In this post a mod says:
You do not need to subscribe to all of our beliefs in order to play nicely in this comm. We don't expect all our members to agree in discussions of this nature. However, we do expect members to be respectful of one another and others' opinions on oppression.
Members have asked if it's possible to disagree in oppression-related posts so that it isn't considered derailing, and mods keep saying yes, it is actually possible. And when asked if mods will intervene in people calling others racist/sexist for no legitimate reason, there's more false reassurances.
The shitstorm that happened a few days ago shows there's a difference between how things work here in theory and in practice.
Currently, the "be respectful instead of rudely dismissive" thing only applies to some people while others get a free pass to say "fuck you". It's not right, and it's not right that mods issue mod posts that fool people into thinking that everyone's got equal rules here.
Also, this stuff could happen to anyone in the community. It could happen to you. Yes, YOU might end up a pariah in this community, just because of some words you posted tired, late at night and didn't think completely through. In this discussion, someone found the word "gimp" ableist (I didn't even know the word had any other meanings than the gimp mask). And in some threads, the word "lame" is allowed and in others it's not. And have you ever considered how very personal insult all the "My parents are dead" jokes on this community are to a person who's lost their parents? Or did you know that such trivial things as ice cream wrapping papers can be offensive, too?
My point is, people can get personally offended by the most random things, and you can never know what might really upset someone else. Maybe some day, you end up accidentally using a word that has an unfortunate alternate meaning, or you're not aware of some local sensitivities regarding some issue, and the whole s_d community attacks you with all the holy fury. Wouldn't you in such case prefer if the community and mods *didn't* encourage jumping the gun and assuming/interpreting malicious intents behind your actions, when you were just ignorant and didn't know the issue was a hot potato?
This is why the community would really need some good will and benefit of doubt on both sides of each given discussion; it usually helps in gaining an understanding and staying in friendly relations to people you disagree with. Mods should try to act as mediators rather than get involved and agitated in debates.
By the way, if this community really gives leeway for offended minorities and considers their opinion superior to other folks, then please post it in the rules page. It doesn't read there; that creates the false impression that everyone's opinion is equal, and that attacking another person is wrong in all situations.
(And again, the PAD prohibition isn't written in the rules either. It feels a bit unfair to enforce rules that aren't written in the rules page.)
Apologies for the rant, and apologies to everyone who's sick of prolonging this stuff. I just feel there are some serious issues with the moderating right now, and they need to be addressed. I think it's sad if s_d members are being intimidated to practice self-censorship in silent fear that they might accidentally offend someone and get the whole community attacking them, encouraged by the mods.
Anyway, my most important question to mods is: are we allowed to discuss about how this community is moderated? If the answer to that is "no", you can completely skip the lj-cut. If the answer is "yes", thank you for a chance to voice out our concerns.
Also, if the majority of the community is of the opinion that mods are doing things right and the community is better like this, I'll happily agree that I'm in the minority, accept the majority rules, and will stop my whining.
I'm trying to understand privilege/derailing issues so very hard, and I want all the minorities (and majorities) of s_d to feel welcome here. I think it's cool there's so much variety in the membership here. Also, I feel I had some interesting talks with people in that anti-oppression entry; thank you to those who had short conversations with me, you were polite and cool company to talk with :) I even learned more about the tone argument, and it wasn't all for naught.
...but I still just can't understand how it's so out-of-line to request that _nobody_ is allowed to launch into personal attacks, no matter the circumstances. (EDIT: a couple of additions)
Btw, if someone wants to comment on this stuff but feels too threatened to post their opinion publicly (as we've seen, there's a risk of losing your reputation or online friendships if you say the wrong thing): feel free to drop me private message on LJ or Dreamwidth. I'll relay your opinion to the mods, so you can say what's on your mind but remain anonymous.
Back on the sister community, I said yesterday that I'm going to lurkerdom to calm down because the community just feels too sour right now. But after making this post, someone sent me the following private message:
Hi,
I saw your comment on s_d and I wanted to respond to what you said but I don't want to do it publicly because I don't feel safe there anymore.
You said:
"[...] are there members who would want to say their opinion on this stuff but are too scared of accidentally committing some faux pas they simply weren't aware of, getting to be labeled as racist/sexist/whatever, having the community turn against them, and becoming an Acceptable Target overnight?"
I am. I am very worried, and I've been around (mostly lurking) scans_daily since early 2006.
I know at least one other person besides myself who feels the same way, and I wish there was a way to know if there are others as well.
Me and the person agreed that we wanted a community where the same rules apply to everyone and that's all. To quote the person: "I just want to have fair and equal treatment for ALL members. No taking sides. No biases whatsoever. No more encouraging bad behavior of ANY kind."
I suggested this person that if they don't feel safe posting on scans_daily, and if they're scared of possibly making an innocent mistake that turns them into a target, then I could copy/paste their comment for the mods on his/her behalf. This would keep the person anonymous and safe from attacks. The person gave me their permission, asking to make it sure that I keep them anonymous, so yeah; there it was.
I had given up with this entry and was leaving to do other things. But when I found out that there are people who want to speak out against mods or certain community members but dare not, I felt this is something the community has to discuss. We've tried to make the community into a safe and tolerant discussion place, but are we really accomplishing this if there are people who are scared of the comm athmosphere, and don't dare to post their opinions on things? People who have been on the community for years, people who are not bigots, and don't want to hurt others either intentionally or unintentionally; these people have seen what happens from innocent mistakes, and they get the message that it's better to keep their mouth shut. It's ironic and sad that in their attempts of making the community more safe for certain people, the mod team has turned the athmosphere very hostile and scary to others.
I felt just really sad reading foxhack's posts on the entry, for example; he/she (lol I've been on the community for years but I still don't know most people's gender) is a prominent, polite, and fun member of the community, would never intentionally hurt anyone, but he/she still was intimidated too much to make a post about some Mexican comics. And people were actually implying that if foxhack really is worried, it means he/she might have all these years hidden some evil nasty bigoted side, in which case they'd be willing to turn on him/her at the first tiny little provocation (okay, I've really gotta look up his/her gender now :p aargh).
And while I'm at it: I felt the "Red Lantern rage mode" thing was a funny, light-hearted, comics-community-appropriate joke, and it made me smile :)
Anyway, if multiple long-time members were so disappointed over how mods handled the anti-oppression thread that they threatened to leave, isn't that quite a big thing? Aren't the members equal here, and aren't all of our feelings/opinions equal?
In case you hopped into the movie in the middle of it, let's recap important stuff:
- S_D 1.0 existed in LJ, people posted slash and crack. Sometimes non-slash-fans joined and started pissed off debates (even though the community said right on its frontpage that it was slash-friendly and members had to at least be able to tolerate slash). But IMO, most of the time everything went smoothly.
- S_D 1.0 got killed by LJ, so we moved to S_D 2.0 on InsaneJournal (and spin-offed into noscans_daily on LJ). At this point in time there were a couple of months when I wasn't following the community regularly and I'm not familiar with everything that took place during this time. Anyway, during IJ times, posting guidelines got re-defined; we became more copyright-friendly with our scans, and we got an anti-this-and-that ethos that didn't exist before. We gained a rule that says:
Calling out other members or creators for discriminatory or oppressive behavior is encouraged for the good of the community. - I'm not sure when exactly the following rule was added, but it was somewhere during the times of S_D 2.0:
Please note that calling out other members for discriminatory behavior is NOT considered a personal attack here at Scans Daily. - Moved to Dreamwidth for S_D 3.0, because it seemed legally more safe than IJ.
- In early 2010, we got this mod post that reminded people of the "calling out" rules due to some recent noscans_daily debates.
- Finally, we had this discussion thread where a member said unintentionally something hurtful. It was dealt with, but it inspired a mod post that got around 800-900 replies of people going back and forth about who did wrong.
My opinion is that the one big mistake in this sequence of events was adding the rule that "calling out for discriminatory behaviour is not a personal insult". People have abused this rule and taken advantage of it; they have used it to legitimize attacks and insults towards other members while calling them out on privilege. Calling out people for oppressive behaviour could be handled much more maturely and without the whole insult part.
Another huge mistake that happened recently; neo_prodigy and aliasjack were given mod status. Both members have showed that they have trouble staying detached and keeping their head cool in debates. Aliasjack/Kingrockwell over here, and neo_prodigy for example here and here (what's worse, these discussions occurred _right_ before these people got promoted to mods).
Both of these folks are good people and they mean no harm, but a moderator has to stay above arguments and work as a referee. It's a terrible thing if a mod gets hot-headed and resorts to calling people "motherfuckers".
I didn't comment on the new mods when that stuff was announced. I figured it wouldn't be worth it, to raise a stink over it and question the decision. I just crossed my fingers and hoped that nothing would happen.
But then neo_prodigy made that anti-oppression post, comparing an unintentional verbal offense to a horrible, physical hate crime. The post was completely random and there had never before in s_d's life been similar entries. I just felt that neo_prodigy abused his/her mod status, and used it for preaching to members about non-comics-related issues.
Add to that the fact we've got the "calling out is not a personal attack" rule, and mods saying that they give "leeway" to offended minorities, and voila! End result is the stupid mess we saw.
There are some things that I really would like some clarification about.
One member got a lot of flak for questioning why s_d needed this completely random mod post. Finally they gained a satisfactory answer and said they were okay with mods' justifications. At this point a mod asked them to "allow the conversation to return to the issue at hand". (The person didn't make more posts after that.) I really don't get this; saying people are "derailing" the debate and that they should stop posting if they don't have a particular opinion. What were they derailing from, exactly? I'm left wondering what on earth would the mods have wanted the comment section to be about? Endless amounts of "OMG that's soooo horrible, how can people be so cruel" moaning about the video's contents? What was there to discuss about it other than that? It was a story of a hate crime, and of course everybody is against those and there's nothing to argue in that, so what kind of discussion was supposed to come out of it? The only thing I could see to discuss there was that the OP made a connection/comparison between s_d member's post and a frigging violent hate crime. And the other thing I could see was "what does this have to do with my daily dose of slash and comics?". So, what kind of discussion could there potentially have been on the entry if it wasn't "derailed" with these two issues? What discussion did we lose?
The mod team's opinion appears to be that if a person belonging into a minority happens to label some other member as a racist, sexist, homophobe, transphobe, and even if they do it with some flimsy justification, there is no way to argue back and defend yourself from the label. Also, if you accidentally and unintentionally say something that offends someone who belongs into a minority, the minority person is allowed to lash out with phrases like "fuck you" without any fear of consequences. At least skalja and neo_prodigy have expressed this opinion out loud. The idea behind this is that the community tries to defend oppressed groups, and that it's a bigger crime to provoke than be provoked. But members have pointed out several times that this kind of "if they got provoked, they're allowed to lash back" thinking contributes to absolutely nothing good. It just lets the circle of abuse continue. You're supposed to learn this stuff in the kindergarten; if the other guy is an asshole, that doesn't mean it's okay for you to be an asshole, too. It's especially bad when this leeway for insults and attacks is allowed in cases of ignorance and unintentional privilege; if the other guy doesn't even realize they did something wrong, it's not the least bit helpful to attack them viciously and throw them ad hominems. It makes you look terrible, and it very easily makes the other guy feel like "huh, well if that's your attitude, then who gives a sh*t about your opinion".
One thing that stuck out to me is that apparently mod team don't intervene on such horribly prejudiced remarks as "only white people can be racist" (not an exact quote, but the thought wasn't denied, either). Some people have occasionally said on this community sarcastically "but I'm just a privileged white male so my opinion doesn't count" (yes, even that one infamous post used a variation of it). These people have continuously been told that they're being paranoid, or silly, or whatever. What if they are just pointing out a fact? If they say that defensive disclaimer in their posts, people say they're being sillym and dismiss them because of that, and if they don't say it, people tell them they're privileged and their opinion _does_ actually weigh less in comparison.
People on the comm are indirectly being pushed into telling that they're from this or that minority, and their opinion doesn't really count unless if they identify themselves as a member of some minority group. But it's just not right, to judge people based on who they are born as, rather than what kind of things they say and how they think.
Also, if you're judging people's opinion by how much privilege they have: who has the least privilege, and whose personal feelings/offense count more in the scale than another person's? Is a black guy allowed to lash out against a disabled person, or should he only mouth off at lesbians? Or are lesbians higher in the foodchain than the black guy? If someone were a disabled Japanese lesbian, is her opinion always more important than just a Japanese person's or a lesbian's? What if some minority group member just happened to be an asshole and used this "leeway" rule to complain about non-legitimate things? What if he pretended to see oppression everywhere in order to get his way in conflict situations? All groups of people - majorities and minorities - have their share of assholes.
There are huge problems in the concept of making conversations a one-way street where someone's opinion is automatically more valid than another's just because of who they are. It also sounds suspiciously like "some animals are more equal than others".
In the anti-oppression thread, mods at some point gave up answering people's questions, so I'm going to bring them up again. There were some issues I'd want to see clarified.
1. Are all members allowed to make scanless anti-oppression posts, or only the mods?
Please clarify the rules on this issue.
Also, if we're getting now anti-oppression posts that have nothing to do with comics, why couldn't we also get PSAs about global warming, animal abuse, and stuff like that? They are important stuff, just like oppression issues.
2. Are we still a community where modding is to be discussed and modified accordingly, or is it one-way-street with mods telling how things are and members accepting this without talking back?
Do you want feedback from members or not, and do our opinions count? Sometimes you say you do want feedback, while other times you say that "this is not a democracy" and mod team's decisions aren't up for debate. Can we have a discussion about the way the community is moderated?
In the end, I want the community to have equal rules with no double standards. I want a scans_daily where calling out people on oppressive behaviour is allowed and encouraged, but nobody is allowed to insult/attack another person while calling them out. If they are unable to be calm enough when calling out the guy, they should contact a mod and ask them to deal with it. Attacks and insults shouldn't be right, no matter who gets attacked or insulted.
I'd also appreciate if mods didn't mislead members about the community's rules when the consequences of a misunderstanding can be so terrible. In this post a mod says:
You do not need to subscribe to all of our beliefs in order to play nicely in this comm. We don't expect all our members to agree in discussions of this nature. However, we do expect members to be respectful of one another and others' opinions on oppression.
Members have asked if it's possible to disagree in oppression-related posts so that it isn't considered derailing, and mods keep saying yes, it is actually possible. And when asked if mods will intervene in people calling others racist/sexist for no legitimate reason, there's more false reassurances.
The shitstorm that happened a few days ago shows there's a difference between how things work here in theory and in practice.
Currently, the "be respectful instead of rudely dismissive" thing only applies to some people while others get a free pass to say "fuck you". It's not right, and it's not right that mods issue mod posts that fool people into thinking that everyone's got equal rules here.
Also, this stuff could happen to anyone in the community. It could happen to you. Yes, YOU might end up a pariah in this community, just because of some words you posted tired, late at night and didn't think completely through. In this discussion, someone found the word "gimp" ableist (I didn't even know the word had any other meanings than the gimp mask). And in some threads, the word "lame" is allowed and in others it's not. And have you ever considered how very personal insult all the "My parents are dead" jokes on this community are to a person who's lost their parents? Or did you know that such trivial things as ice cream wrapping papers can be offensive, too?
My point is, people can get personally offended by the most random things, and you can never know what might really upset someone else. Maybe some day, you end up accidentally using a word that has an unfortunate alternate meaning, or you're not aware of some local sensitivities regarding some issue, and the whole s_d community attacks you with all the holy fury. Wouldn't you in such case prefer if the community and mods *didn't* encourage jumping the gun and assuming/interpreting malicious intents behind your actions, when you were just ignorant and didn't know the issue was a hot potato?
This is why the community would really need some good will and benefit of doubt on both sides of each given discussion; it usually helps in gaining an understanding and staying in friendly relations to people you disagree with. Mods should try to act as mediators rather than get involved and agitated in debates.
By the way, if this community really gives leeway for offended minorities and considers their opinion superior to other folks, then please post it in the rules page. It doesn't read there; that creates the false impression that everyone's opinion is equal, and that attacking another person is wrong in all situations.
(And again, the PAD prohibition isn't written in the rules either. It feels a bit unfair to enforce rules that aren't written in the rules page.)
Apologies for the rant, and apologies to everyone who's sick of prolonging this stuff. I just feel there are some serious issues with the moderating right now, and they need to be addressed. I think it's sad if s_d members are being intimidated to practice self-censorship in silent fear that they might accidentally offend someone and get the whole community attacking them, encouraged by the mods.
Anyway, my most important question to mods is: are we allowed to discuss about how this community is moderated? If the answer to that is "no", you can completely skip the lj-cut. If the answer is "yes", thank you for a chance to voice out our concerns.
Also, if the majority of the community is of the opinion that mods are doing things right and the community is better like this, I'll happily agree that I'm in the minority, accept the majority rules, and will stop my whining.
I'm trying to understand privilege/derailing issues so very hard, and I want all the minorities (and majorities) of s_d to feel welcome here. I think it's cool there's so much variety in the membership here. Also, I feel I had some interesting talks with people in that anti-oppression entry; thank you to those who had short conversations with me, you were polite and cool company to talk with :) I even learned more about the tone argument, and it wasn't all for naught.
...but I still just can't understand how it's so out-of-line to request that _nobody_ is allowed to launch into personal attacks, no matter the circumstances. (EDIT: a couple of additions)
Btw, if someone wants to comment on this stuff but feels too threatened to post their opinion publicly (as we've seen, there's a risk of losing your reputation or online friendships if you say the wrong thing): feel free to drop me private message on LJ or Dreamwidth. I'll relay your opinion to the mods, so you can say what's on your mind but remain anonymous.