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Zachack posted:Make them write 500 word essays if they want to continue.
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Jan 7, 2021 20:07
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Doctor Nutt posted:Let's be 100% clear on one thing though: shared language (mainstream media) is not at all the same thing as jacobin and breitbart occasionally using the same disingenuous framing in their opinion articles, and it's a perfectly valid expectation that goons be good enough about media literacy to check poo poo out from a variety of sources before running breathlessly into USPOL to drop a hot take from a rose twitter account playing telephone. A media analysis thread would be a great addition to D&D I think, if there isn't one already, but I think it would just run the risk of becoming a slapfight between the "actually you can trust CNN because Mark Zucker is a rich person in good standing" and the "actually you can't trust CNN because Mark Zucker is a rich person in good standing" camps very quickly and very chaotically with accusations of repeating right-wing talking points being thrown around like crazy.
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Jan 7, 2021 20:09
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Doctor Nutt posted:Let's be 100% clear on one thing though: shared language (mainstream media) is not at all the same thing as jacobin and breitbart occasionally using the same disingenuous framing in their opinion articles, and it's a perfectly valid expectation that goons be good enough about media literacy to check poo poo out from a variety of sources before running breathlessly into USPOL to drop a hot take from a rose twitter account playing telephone. So Jacobin's not a good source now? What is the definition of a good source? And posting one that you personally do not approve of...that's worth a probation? That's why heavy handed moderation based on blasting people out of the thread for subjective reasons the Mod holds as what qualifies as good debate is a recipe for futility. Epicurius posted:I think that's fine so long as its in relation to an actual health care topic that's come up, vs just something being thrown in there? I don't think what I'm talking about is a matter of tone so much as a matter that stuff so often gets relitigated that's not a current event and it gets in the way of productive discussion. Current events are just a result of the structural conditions created by past events. I've been yelled at as having bad faith for noting that incoming Ag Secretary Vilsack's only job out of government was working for Big Ag, for example, because that doesn't matter, for some reason when he is in charge of regulating it.
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Jan 7, 2021 20:10
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Shageletic posted:How about if I posted about how much the healthcare and insurance industries control the Dems, and how like people like Richard Neil have acted as their catspaw, and talk about the history and general trend of similar bills that have been attempted before. I think AN issue with USpol is deciding that the people who are unaware of information you have are a significant portion of the thread. This post is a variation on the "the other people in the thread are naive libs" type of post about the thread hive mind that doesn't really foster good discussion. Shageletic posted:So Jacobin's not a good source now? What is the definition of a good source? And posting one that you personally do not approve of...that's worth a probation That's an interesting take on the quote you're replying to. Jaxyon fucked around with this message at 20:14 on Jan 7, 2021 |
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Jan 7, 2021 20:11
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Shageletic posted:So Jacobin's not a good source now? What is the definition of a good source? And posting one that you personally do not approve of...that's worth a probation? My dude I said none of that poo poo you implied, I only used Jacobin as an example of a left biased news outlet that has on occasion published bad takes that border on horseshoe theory. Mainstream news publishes bad takes routinely as well. My point was that if you see Jacobin and Breitbart agreeing on something it should be a clue to examine the issue from some other angles before accepting it as gospel.
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Jan 7, 2021 20:16
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A few thoughts below, in no particular order. FIRST, A lot of the points I wanted to make in this post have already been made by posters such as Discendo Vox, Revelation 2-13, and Hieronymous Alloy. Actually it would be more time efficient to name the posters with bad takes (looking at you, people who are posting about TR the same day armed MAGA hats invaded the Capitol Building to try and stop Joe Biden from becoming president) then posters with takes I agree with at this point. SECOND, I have been a vocal proponent of slow-mode for USPOL and the events of January 6th only reinforced that opinion. If we are to split up discussion, adding a TVIV thread for current events might be the way to go. Clearly it is important that US politics posters have a fast-paced TVIV mode for things like what happened on Jan 6; USPOL currently serves that role. However, 95% of the time USPOL serves as the home for longer-term general discussions that last for days or weeks. This is possible only because USPOL usually moves just slowly enough for posters to be able to go back 3 pages and catch up with the current discussion. Slow-mode, while inconvenient for posting sometimes, makes the thread more readable. While I disagree that USPOL normally moves too fast to be moddable (but I'm not a mod so what do I know), slow mode might just be enough to satisfy fos's concern in the OP. Put in place a rule about editing your posts to quote replies to it and we're set. On the other hand, TVIV mode makes the thread unmanageable and kills any long-running discussion. Just to give a sense of scale, I went back and used page counts to estimate posting on Jan 4, 5, and 6. On Jan 4, a typical day news-wise, approximately 600 posts were made. On Jan 5, GA election day, approximately 1300 posts were made. On Jan 6, when MAGA hats with guns assaulted Congress to try and stop Joe Biden from becoming president, approximately 5100 posts were made. Any long-running discussion that was taking place on Monday, or even Tuesday is dead. There's no way anyone could be expected to go back over a hundred pages and pick up whatever was going on. And, though I disagree that normal USPOL is too fast to be moddable, there is no way anyone can sort through over a thousand posts per day. That is, has been, and will continue to be the case every time some major event happens under the current system. Adding a TVIV thread isn't too far off from the status quo. We already have event threads for things we see coming, e.g. the GA thread, November election night thread, the debate threads. If we go in this direction, I have two suggestions. First, we need to more aggressively enforce moving TVIV discussions to the TVIV threads. GA election night spilled over into both USPOL and Polliwonks and it didn't have to. Second, create a standing TVIV hub thread whose sole purpose is to link to individual TVIV threads. Each time we get a new TVIV thread, make a new post in the hub thread with a link to it. We can bookmark the hub thread and if we see a new post there we know there's a new TVIV thread. fool of sound posted:Posts like this, and there have been quite a few of them, keep suggesting to me that a what most people want out of a USPOL thread is a place to share and discuss ongoing news. Are there people who really earnestly enjoy the stuff that happens on slow news days, or do most people just skip over that anyway? THIRD, Why is Polliwonks a successful thread, and what can we learn from that? Polliwonks has avoided being a hellscape by coincidence of being an empirical thread. The purpose is to analyze the state of US politics through the lens of data. Arguments are therefore expected to have a basis in data, and this naturally keeps discussion productive. In my previous post here I brought up a cycle where good discussion can descend to bad discussion because of hot takes. By and large, this descent is avoided in Polliwonks because if someone brings in a hot take it is immediately challenged. For example, if you want to argue that Hispanic voters like Trump more than Biden, or argue from that premise, you better bring the polling data to back that up. Polliwonks's success has nothing to do with the ideology of the thread, and people who characterize it as a libs-only Democrat-lovezone clearly don't read it and demonstrably don't post in it. It is also incorrect to suggest its success has anything to do with the ideological agreement of thread posters. Two of the most prominent posters in that thread are Pick and Majorian. Those two are not aligned on ideological grounds. The thread thrives because there is a structure that allows for bad takes to be challenged and dismissed without devolving into a slap fight. USPOL has no such structure outside of modding. Without going into how to make USPOL better (in part because this is a point of active discussion itt and the thread is moving faster than I can edit), I think any solution for USPOL will need to involve building ways to stop hot, inflammatory takes, from either happening or from letting them make the thread bad. FOURTH, ideological sorting. I will admit to days when I am so exhausted with the rigid "if you disagree with me you are a capitalist pig / shitlib / fascist enabler" attitude of certain posters that I'd be willing to give them their own thread just to make it stop. However, I am strongly opposed to ideological sorting. Not only does it seem anathema to the spirit of D&D, we've already been ideologically sorting since well before the general election and it hasn't helped. First it was the General Election (GE) thread, and now it's the Marxism thread (pinned up until very recently) which was explicitly made to be a continuation of the GE thread. Beyond that, you have CSPAM's SuccZone which essentially serves the same purpose the GE thread did; in fact many of the USPOL and GE posters are also SuccZone posters. Point being, ideological sorting is not effective. All it has done is allowed a certain group of posters to wind each other up until it spills over to USPOL.
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Jan 7, 2021 20:16
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Jaxyon posted:I think AN issue with USpol is deciding that the people who are unaware of information you have are a significant portion of the thread. I've been guilty of venting about a lack of historicity when it comes to the Bush admin for example, yes, but most of my posts are arguing against other posts that do evince a lack of political history. I'm not interested in talking about a "hive mind" whose talk of I find uninteresting, but arguing against rewriting history. And I can get passionate about it too! e: my point is that USPol should be a place for people to argue such points. And not be probated for it.
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Jan 7, 2021 20:17
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Shageletic posted:I've been guilty of venting about a lack of historicity when it comes to the Bush admin for example, yes, but most of my posts are arguing against other posts that do evince a lack of political history. I'm not interested in talking about a "hive mind" whose talk of I find uninteresting, but arguing against rewriting history. If you think that some other posters might be naive, address those posts. Describing it as a problem with "uspol" is where you're in the weeds and getting into hive mind territory. It's a self-aggrandizing stance that posters take where they are the lightbringer nobly educating the naive masses. And naive is how you described the thread. I don't think USPOL ever stopped being the place to argue those points. Have you been probated for describing history before?
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Jan 7, 2021 20:27
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Jaxyon posted:If you think that some other posters might be naive, address those posts. Describing it as a problem with "uspol" is where you're in the weeds and getting into hive mind territory. It's a self-aggrandizing stance that posters take where they are the lightbringer nobly educating the naive masses. And naive is how you described the thread. This is a thread to discuss USPol as a whole. Its not necessarily how I post in the thread.
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Jan 7, 2021 20:27
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Shageletic posted:This is a thread to discuss USPol as a whole. Its not necessarily how I post in the thread. Yes I get that. Not sure how it changes what I said.
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Jan 7, 2021 20:35
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separation by ideology won't work, because the ideologies expressed in uspol are largely terms of fiction used to perpetuate ritual combat. if you put two d&d goon in their own thread they will separate into clearly defined ideological factions separation by topic won't work, because goons cannot stay on topic without heavy mod guardrails which is a lot of work no, we must separate by risk. make the uspol-6hr thread, the uspol-24hr thread, and the the uspol-1wk thread, all equally moderated for tone and content
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Jan 7, 2021 20:47
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Give up on ramping and make a mod roll a d20 every time punishment must be meted out. A confirmed critical failure is an instant ban and you become an IK for a week on a critical hit!
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Jan 7, 2021 20:50
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World Famous W posted:Give up on ramping and make a mod roll a d20 every time punishment must be meted out. A confirmed critical failure is an instant ban and you become an IK for a week on a critical hit! Gotta admit, I'm curious how it would play out.
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Jan 7, 2021 20:51
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Blue Footed Booby posted:Gotta admit, I'm curious how it would play out. Gonna have to start up a thread on the fascist implications of "dice jails"
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Jan 7, 2021 21:01
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Look, those dice are clearly biased
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Jan 7, 2021 21:09
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Look, those dice are clearly biased off to roll gaol with you
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Jan 7, 2021 21:10
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Look, those dice are clearly biased A video showing the dice roll is required every time, with the date and time written on a piece of paper 
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Jan 7, 2021 21:10
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Tech request to add dice rollers to threads as a mod/OP button
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Jan 7, 2021 21:11
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Mr. Fall Down Terror posted:no, we must separate by risk. make the uspol-6hr thread, the uspol-24hr thread, and the the uspol-1wk thread, all equally moderated for tone and content
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Jan 7, 2021 21:12
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Jaxyon posted:Yes I get that. Not sure how it changes what I said. You had a problem with me describing a problem in USPol? I wouldn't ordinarily say it in a thread, but if this is a thread to talk about USPol as a whole...
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Jan 7, 2021 21:12
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Shageletic posted:You had a problem with me describing a problem in USPol? I wouldn't ordinarily say it in a thread, but if this is a thread to talk about USPol as a whole... I'm trying to say your description of USpol falls into one of the problems I see with USpol...namely describing it in terms of "what the thread believes" versus posting behavior. It's easy, lazy, and self-serving to describe the whole thread as naive low info people in need of education.
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Jan 7, 2021 21:17
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I'm only belatedly seeing this thread, but annihilating USPOL and everything associated with it is long overdue. There are larger cultural problems with this board that cannot be easily fixed but which can be mitigated through a board-wide slow mode and aggressively enforced bas for tweets, cheerleading and other white noise posts. I also think mods need to be given a freer hand in eliminating the most toxic and aggressive personalities here. Regarding USPOL specifically, my personal recommendation for a short-term fix would be to require US-specific threads to be targeted at some specific issue (e.g. criminal justice, immigration, which president sucks the most) or some ongoing news item and for the thread to be locked when they drift from that point. It's not a perfect fix and it has its drawbacks but its the easiest way to divvy up the mega catch-all thread. QuoProQuid fucked around with this message at 21:21 on Jan 7, 2021 |
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Jan 7, 2021 21:18
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I think the fact that within 5 pages this thread became a microcosm of the same ideological debates that make USPol bad sometimes and led to several people catching probations shows that you aren't ever going to avoid them, and instead we either accept them (and accept a level of hostility and necessary harsh moderation) or do a partition.
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Jan 7, 2021 21:18
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I don't know how the obvious conclusion to splitting uspol into threads by ideology isn't that the sub threads split into their own ideological camps anyway. It isn't like uspol is split over some clear policy topic.
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Jan 7, 2021 21:20
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Jaxyon posted:I'm trying to say your description of USpol falls into one of the problems I see with USpol...namely describing it in terms of "what the thread believes" versus posting behavior. This whole thread is full of people describing their thoughts on what's wrong with USPol, I dunno why my post was singled out. You yourself are posting about the thread being full of nonsensical and bad faith arguments. You yourself are describing problems with USPol! If this is a behavior that annoys you in the thread itself, then mention that. Not use my post here as evidence of it.
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Jan 7, 2021 21:21
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James Garfield posted:I don't know how the obvious conclusion to splitting uspol into threads by ideology isn't that the sub threads split into their own ideological camps anyway. It isn't like uspol is split over some clear policy topic. You don't split the threads by topic, you split the threads by worldview, which is the status quo we had up until the GE thread was closed, and theres a consensus here that during that period USPol was much more readable. The bigger point is what everyone wants is to have more people be punished for awful, galaxy brained takes, but theres absolutely no consensus on what is and isn't a galaxy brained take. And without that, all you're left with is moderating about decorum (no posting about posters! no posting attacks! read your tweets!) instead of content.
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Jan 7, 2021 21:23
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Shageletic posted:This whole thread is full of people describing their thoughts on what's wrong with USPol, I dunno why my post was singled out. You yourself are posting about the thread being full of nonsensical and bad faith arguments. You yourself are describing problems with USPol! I did. Check my post history in this thread. Several people replied that it was a definitely problem and an admin agreed. Then I saw you do it and felt it was useful to point at it in action. This isn't a slap-fight, this is me trying to stay consistent on what I think is a problem. I'm done posting at you about it.
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Jan 7, 2021 21:25
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Can I have a former Republican thread and be the IK and sole poster please.
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Jan 7, 2021 21:26
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Lib and let die posted:Again, not the thread for a long form discussion, but I would very much suggest you encourage you to read some of the writings of Noam Chomsky, a vocal supporter of Biden in the 2020 General Election to the media criticisms made in bad faith that are a large component of Trumpism - Chomsky even uses the exact same wording ("Mainstream Media") as the alt-right does - is it on Chomsky to pause and reflect and restructure his criticisms to not mirror right-wing talking points, or is it upon the reader to pause and reflect that maybe valid criticisms are being warped into right-wing talking points for the very purpose of disempowering those criticisms? The immediate answer to your question is that it depends on where the criticisms originate, how they are warped over time, by whom and why. One of the examples I gave was "Biden has dementia". This may have started out as legitimate criticism, i.e. that Biden sometimes has trouble collecting his thoughts when under pressure (an impression that is exacerbated by his speech impediment), that then got warped into right-wing smears. Then it got embraced and adopted by rose twitter types who to this day continue to denigrate him with it because he defeated their candidate and is the Enemy. And I think that in a debate and discussion forum, it should not be too much to ask people to reflect on and recognize the origins of similar criticisms/smears they might fling around and possibly question their validity. Regarding Chomsky, I do read his writings semi-regularly, although I can't say that I stay up to date. Regardless, neither the term "Mainstream Media" nor his misgivings towards it are anything new. But as far as I'm aware, Chomsky has never accused modern-day mainstream American outlets of straight up fabricating outright lies, which is what the alt-right accuses them of doing (and themselves actually do). In other words, it's a question of degree (i.e. bias or motivated reasoning, vs. disinformation), as well as the motivations of the party doing the criticizing.
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Jan 7, 2021 21:26
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TheDisreputableDog posted:Can I have a former Republican thread and be the IK and sole poster please. Absolutely, but if you post anyone else you're banned. Change we can all believe in.
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Jan 7, 2021 21:28
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Thorn Wishes Talon posted:The immediate answer to your question is that it depends on where the criticisms originate, how they are warped over time, by whom and why. One of the examples I gave was "Biden has dementia". This may have started out as legitimate criticism, i.e. that Biden sometimes has trouble collecting his thoughts when under pressure (an impression that is exacerbated by his speech impediment), that then got warped into right-wing smears. Then it got embraced and adopted by rose twitter types who to this day continue to denigrate him with it because he defeated their candidate and is the Enemy. And I think that in a debate and discussion forum, it should not be too much to ask people to reflect on and recognize the origins of similar criticisms/smears they might fling around and possibly question their validity. Without getting into the weeds of this specific argument, if something has an obvious origin in right-wing media, then it should be a simple task to provide a conclusive origin point for an attack - if, say, the allegation is that Ben Shapiro was the very first person to claim that Biden is suffering from dementia we should be able to easily trace the propagation of that meme from Shapiro's show into left-twitter discourse; of course if even a single nominal leftist expressed concern with Biden's mental state before the alleged origin then the entire basis of "this came from the right, therefore should be dismissed" falls apart, which is why it is both a shaky, and bad faith position to argue from.
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Jan 7, 2021 21:32
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Lib and let die posted:Without getting into the weeds of this specific argument, if something has an obvious origin in right-wing media, then it should be a simple task to provide a conclusive origin point for an attack - if, say, the allegation is that Ben Shapiro was the very first person to claim that Biden is suffering from dementia we should be able to easily trace the propagation of that meme from Shapiro's show into left-twitter discourse; of course if even a single nominal leftist expressed concern with Biden's mental state before the alleged origin then the entire basis of "this came from the right, therefore should be dismissed" falls apart, which is why it is both a shaky, and bad faith position to argue from. The point is that there should be a certain level of credulity with which we treat all sources with, and that credulity should rise in proportion to the extent those sources are, in some cases, actual mouth pieces for fascists, or deliberate disinformation campaigns. The "Biden has dementia" argument is a good example of this because it was something specifically spread by the GOP and quite a few posters here happily repeated it, verbatim, because it fit their preconceived biases. Context matters, and at a certain point when the context is clearly "you are repeating actual propaganda from fascists" we should be able to, de facto, ignore what you're saying. Now, I don't think this stuff should be decided by the mods really (or someone punished for saying Biden has dementia), but at the same time if you are trotting out conspiracy theory style stuff then yea, you're gonna get pushback, and that pushback is going to include "what you're saying sounds a lot like what Donald Trump is saying". And the shoe is on the other foot, too. If someone is happily spreading Sorkin-level decorum takes, you should be able to tell that person they're being dumb. In other words, it's the dril "gotta hand it to them" tweet. At no point do you have to hand it to fascists by happily repeating the things they're saying. Owlspiracy fucked around with this message at 21:42 on Jan 7, 2021 |
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Jan 7, 2021 21:36
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Aruan posted:The point is that there should be a certain level of credulity with which we treat all sources with, and that credulity should rise in proportion to the extent those sources are, in some cases, actual mouth pieces for fascists, or deliberate disinformation campaigns. The "Biden has dementia" argument is a good example of this because it was something specifically spread by the GOP and quite a few posters here happily repeated it, verbatim, because it fit their preconceived biases. Context matters, and at a certain point when the context is clearly "you are repeating actual propaganda from fascists" we should be able to, de facto, ignore what you're saying. Now, I don't think this stuff should be decided by the mods really, but at the same time if you are trotting out conspiracy theory style stuff then yea, you're gonna get pushback, and that pushback can be the same. And the shoe is on the other foot, too. If someone is happily spreading Sorkin-level decorum takes, you should be able to tell that person they're being dumb. And if you can show that an argument is made in bad faith because its origin was a right-wing incubator, then congratulations: you've shown a bad faith arguement. If all you can show is that "the leftists are saying joe biden has brainworms, and the nazis are saying joe biden has brain worms, they must be arguing from the very same ideological basis," then you are making a bad faith argument in an attempt to shut down criticism. The problem comes, again, from right-wing propaganda weaving objective truths into the fabric of their propaganda for which there not room for discussion of in a thread about how the USPol thread is moderated. I'd be happy to continue diving into the idea of truth-based propaganda in a media analysis thread, if there is one though!
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Jan 7, 2021 21:43
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TheDisreputableDog posted:Can I have a former Republican thread and be the IK and sole poster please.
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Jan 7, 2021 21:44
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Having a USPol:US and a USPol:THEM seems like a terrible idea for a bunch of reasons not the least of which is that US will immediately divide in to a new US and THEM as soon as the other THEM is out of the picture. It's THEM all the way down. My split suggestion was USPol:Fast(with shitposting) and USPol:Slow(with banhammer) and you self-select your posting style and don't complain that one thread isn't the other
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Jan 7, 2021 21:45
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The Bloop posted:Having a USPol:US and a USPol:THEM seems like a terrible idea for a bunch of reasons not the least of which is that US will immediately divide in to a new US and THEM as soon as the other THEM is out of the picture. It's THEM all the way down.
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Jan 7, 2021 21:46
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An argument should be judged on its own validity not on the person who makes it. But just because some right wing idiot said it doesn't automatically make it false even if that person is known to be dishonest. The argument is wrong because the facts prove it to be so. If you want to talk about reliable sources for facts, that's a whole other topic. Aruan posted:I think the fact that within 5 pages this thread became a microcosm of the same ideological debates that make USPol bad sometimes and led to several people catching probations shows that you aren't ever going to avoid them, and instead we either accept them (and accept a level of hostility and necessary harsh moderation) or do a partition. I agree.
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Jan 7, 2021 21:47
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Lib and let die posted:And if you can show that an argument is made in bad faith because its origin was a right-wing incubator, then congratulations: you've shown a bad faith arguement. Right wing media weren't weaving objective truths into poo poo, they were selectively clipping Biden to make it look like he forgot who was President or who he was talking to and it was all bullshit from square one.
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Jan 7, 2021 21:48
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Lib and let die posted:And if you can show that an argument is made in bad faith because its origin was a right-wing incubator, then congratulations: you've shown a bad faith arguement. There's actually some good instances I've seen in USPol of people buying into outright lies and BS framings from right wing propaganda, because propaganda works. You're not immune to right wing propaganda by being a leftist, nor are you immune from marketing by being aware of marketing. Repeating information 24/7 from multiple sources will definitely catch some people who are ideologically opposed to the people who fabricated it. But it's not a specifically USPol thread problem. Rather more of a politics problem.
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Jan 7, 2021 21:49
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Holy poo poo can we go one full page without slapfights over Democratic political figures.
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Jan 7, 2021 21:50
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