Ghost Leviathan posted:

One thing to keep in mind in particular is that the right has literally spent years developing arguments and dogwhistles that have the sound and appearance of respectability for use in debate and media spheres with liberals who give them endless benefit out of the doubt. This has ended up with the whole treasured debate sphere being overwhelmed by gish galloping crypto-nazis working the refs and using any opportunity to spread their beliefs to an audience regardless of whoever's declared the 'winner', hence why they throw massive tantrums at being deplatformed- because it's a tactic that works. Decorum is a weapon they use to get their enemies- progressives, leftists, and anyone not accepting tacit bigotry- labelled and silenced as irrational, unfair and manipulative, taking advantage of people who care about tone and not the content.

Colonel Cool posted:

There's so many places on the rest of the forums that are extremely supportive places trans people can go to feel comfortable. I don't think D&D needs to be that place

Main Paineframe posted:

Main Paineframe posted:

Feels like the whole "teaching" aspect of that has been on the decline ever since the Trumpification, though; at some point it seems like we collectively decided that everyone has to already agree with us on these issues and that there's no longer any room to convert those who don't know. "Here's why you're wrong" has been replaced by "gently caress off transphobe" or "moooooooooooooods".

Jaxyon posted:

Teachin people is fine. Asking questions is fine. None of the transphobes in that thread listened to anyone and made it clear they were not trying to learn.

And most of us picked up on it quick

empty whippet box posted:

I very very strongly disagree with this, there are not very many extremely supportive spaces for trans people at all, anywhere, on the internet or anywhere else. I do not know why you think there are, but you are incorrect. I think something awful can be a place that is better at having these discussions than almost anywhere else on the internet, if we decide we want to. Step one of that is being an extremely supportive place where trans people can go to feel comfortable.

empty whippet box posted:

This is a forum for serious debate and discussion.

Colonel Cool posted:

I was trying to be nice with my wording. When I say "extremely supportive" what I mean is "does not question any of my positions for any reason no matter how ludicrous they are". There were absolutely people in the trans sports thread taking positions that were completely detached from reality (in my opinion). And to be clear, I think it's valuable to have supportive spaces where people can feel free to express themselves without having to defend anything they're saying. I'm just saying, I don't think D&D should be one of those spaces.

SpiritOfLenin posted:

Most of the people regularly posting and following that thread are sick as poo poo of those topics cinci listed though. The thread is genuinely a lot better when there aren't multiple pages long derails about someone insisting NATO/the US is at fault or about how bad C-SPAM is, which was stuff that regularly happened early in the thread.




As a sidenote, the Ukraine-thread differs quite a lot from most threads on the forum in that it appears a significant amount of regulars posting in it are from Europe (maybe even a majority right now?), and a whole bunch of them are from nations bordering Russia. It definitely has a different vibe to it from other Ukraine-threads on the forums because of that, as pretty much every European poster has some sort of emotional attachment to the events. It will also automatically lead to most of these posters, especially ones from countries bordering Russia and who have been hosed with by Russia before, to not have any real desire to try to understand viewpoints like "this is the US's/Nato's fault". Like I'm a Finn, and whenever I see that argument prop up, it instantly makes me think less of the person making it. Its quite often attached into complete ignorance about the fact that nations in Europe might genuinely want to be a part of Nato for the genuine threat they feel like Russia represents. People living thousands of miles away poo poo posting about events that cause real, genuine worry is both annoying and infuriating, and I seriously doubt I'm the only european poster that sees it that way.

This also applies to some Americans posting stupidly loving bloodthirsty posts by the way, and I wish those kind of posts got tagged a bit more consistently.

Jaxyon posted:

The moderation team explicitly believes these are topics open for discussion(through action and words to confirm this) and that people must be assumed to be in good faith about them until they absolutely explicitly reveal themselves to be bigots by harassing posters.

Only the most unrepentant bigots are open about their bigotry so all bigots need to thrive here is a thin veneer of sophistry and at most you'll get a nice little 3 day vacation for not playing the game well enough. As opposed to the ejection out the airlock you'd get in most other well moderated forums.

Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:

recall the furious temper tantrums in both 2019 and 2021, from various parts of the right, about how dare anyone refer to America's ethnic purity maintenance facilities as 'concentration camps,' due to this description being too emotionally charged to have a Reasonable Discussion

Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:

it was discouraging that it took a few days of bullying to get the moderators to take down a "here's how -you- can donate money directly to fascist militias and get a cool prize from us for doing so" link

Sanguinia posted:

EDIT: Also the rule that you can't cite to people's statement cross-forum or in their rap sheet to help prove their statements are obvious bad faith is a stupid one. Nix it. Either that or ban helldumping across all forums because allowing threads which only exist to mock people on other forums (especially when there's so many examples of people baiting out helldump content) while also making it punishable on D&D to point out people's statements on other forums for an actual constructive purpose is nonsense.

Sarcastr0 posted:

'Denying that trans individuals have a right to exist' is a value 'no bigotry' is an invitation to work the refs against your posting enemies.

Rob Filter posted:

"To help encourage debate and discussion we do not generally moderate on the content of your argument, just how do you present it. There are a few exceptions to this rule, though, where we see there is no meaningful debate or discussion to had around issues, or where the debate is been weaponized politically by the far right to organize violence against marginalized members of the community. Those topics include: the validity of trans rights, Holocaust denial, scientific arguments for racism, and gender equality. If you are concerned that your post may violate these rules, contact a moderator first."

empty whippet box posted:

People who have been around the block arguing with transphobes - whether they be trans people or trans allies - have seen this behavior happen in every single discussion of trans people that comes up, everywhere on the internet and off the internet. It's seriously so tiresome. It happens the same way each and every time - someone barges in and makes some big unfounded claim that is extremely bigoted against trans people and argues for their exclusion on its basis, and then the discussion is about that, and people telling them to gently caress themselves, from there on out. I do not think the solution to this is to make telling them to gently caress themselves illegal. The solution is to have a set of rules that must be followed when discussing trans people because these same things happen every time if we don't and it isn't a productive discussion*. There are rules for every subforum that must be read and followed before you post. I do not see why there can't be ones specifically about trans people, which states that we as a community and a society are passed questions such as "are trans women women" or that we know that it simply isn't true that trans women do not automatically dominate sports upon transitioning, and that nobody transitions just to attempt to do this. These are undeniable truths which need no further explanation or discussion - or, maybe put it this way: do we have a d&d thread for explaining that 2+2 is 4, or that the sun will rise tomorrow? No, we don't. These are facts. To create a debate thread about them would be infantile and asinine. Coming into threads and making claims such as "trans women dominate womens' sports because they have an inherent adavantage" or asking "are trans women women?" is asinine on the same level, while also being bigoted and harmful. So why should we tolerate it? Go learn the basics somewhere else. This is a forum for serious debate and discussion.

OwlFancier posted:

That assumes that minds are changed by debate, which I do not think they are. The utility of debate is recreational and grandstanding to make your position appear dominant, I do not think that arguing with people actually changes their minds.

Colonel Cool posted:

It'd be a pretty silly argument to say that all trans women automatically dominate all sports after transitioning, and pretty easy to debunk. I think positing that some people transition in order to get a competitive advantage in sports is a loving stupid argument, and I'd be happy to argue against it. I'd also be happy to make an argument for why trans women are women. I think it's a fascinating question, but then I'm a philosophy major that's written college papers on the subject. It's a pretty challenging topic, and being able to make that argument in a convincing way is kind of useful when over half the world disagrees with it. Saying that it's true because it's true and banning anyone who isn't convinced isn't a great way to make general social progress on the subject.

None of these questions are anywhere close to the level of "does 2+2 equal 4?". But there is famously a thousand page trio of books on the subject of proving that 1+1 equals 2 that's supposedly pretty useful to a lot of things related to math and logic!

OwlFancier posted:

That assumes that minds are changed by debate, which I do not think they are. The utility of debate is recreational and grandstanding to make your position appear dominant, I do not think that arguing with people actually changes their minds.

Gumball Gumption posted:

I've had my mind changed by debates

quote:

The utility of debate is recreational and grandstanding to make your position appear dominant

SourKraut posted:

This is a few pages back, but I didn't want it to get lost, because I think it's a valid argument.

empty whippet box posted:

If you're happy to argue against it, then I think you should have a space to do that. The internet is full of spaces that are absolutely jam packed with people who want to make specious claims about trans people that are easily debunked. D&D does not need to be such a place.

Raere posted:

As a lurker by and large I think things are slowly but surely getting better. The trans athletes thread was a travesty, and I hope the mod team takes the failures there to heart moving forward as trans issues are not going away any time soon as a political flashpoint.
The D&D covid thread specifically is much better and has generally been almost too quiet because arguments aren't flaring up every day.

Main Paineframe posted:

One thing I haven't seen brought up yet, even by the mods, was the "working the refs" problem previous iterations of D&D had. How do people feel that's going right now?

As I recall, that was one of the stated rationales for moving to "moderate discussions, not positions": banned positions became a crutch people relied on as a thought-terminating cliche. If someone disagreed with an argument on an ideological level, then instead of engaging with that argument on its merits, they'd try to get that argument declared as a banned position - even if they had to make some pretty absurd leaps of logic to do so! Instead of debating and discussing the argument directly with the poster who posted it, they'd debate and discuss with the mods to try to convince them it should be a ban-on-sight position, exerting their debate chops in PMs (or in a public tantrum) by stretching the description of the banned position well beyond any reasonable limits.

To (anonymously) quote a post from one of the previous feedback threads:

I think when somebody posts something that's wrong, there's four main reasons they might do so:

1. they're wrong because they're misinformed
   
2. they're wrong because they're a dumbass
   
3. they're wrong on purpose because they're malicious or hateful
   
4. they're actually malicious or hateful, but they're pretending to be merely misinformed or a dumbass so that they can get the benefit of the doubt

The issue right now, I think, is the mods are running things under the assumption that most people with bad stances on these subjects fall under 1) or 2) until confirmed otherwise, while many posters are running under the assumption that most people with bad stances on these subjects fall under 3) or 4). But if you're going to assume that everyone who's wrong about an issue is necessarily a malicious troll or bigot who deserves to be banned, then there's no point in even having a discussion on that issue, and the whole subject should probably be put off-limits.

Colonel Cool posted:

So no, I don't think the entire population is made up of hardliners that can't be swayed with the right arguments. Some of them definitely exist, but I think they're in the minority.

BIG-DICK-BUTT-gently caress posted:

yeah same, this:

is a weird take

speng31b posted:

Basically what it boils down to is that D&D "serious posting" ethos combined with constant suspicion of bad faith posting makes for an especially toxic environment. And while I totally understand the history and valid reasons for suspicion of bad faith posting in specific cases, it's pretty demoralizing to come into a thread and see a viewpoint be shouted down as bad faith, against thread rules, boring, when it's sincerely not any of those things.

Stormgale posted:

Is debate the most effective way to change peoples minds? After all winning a debate dosen't mean you are right and can often simply be you are better at rhetoric?

Cicero posted:

When I was Mormon and more conservative, I had my mind changed by the discussion about gay marriage. The arguments about it, combined with the fact that there was this big public debate about it for a number of years which had me thinking seriously about my position, got me to do so. The more I thought about the homophobic views I had inherited from society at large and Mormonism in particular, the more I felt like, "...wait no, that's dumb."

Main Paineframe posted:

One thing I haven't seen brought up yet, even by the mods, was the "working the refs" problem previous iterations of D&D had. How do people feel that's going right now?

As I recall, that was one of the stated rationales for moving to "moderate discussions, not positions": banned positions became a crutch people relied on as a thought-terminating cliche. If someone disagreed with an argument on an ideological level, then instead of engaging with that argument on its merits, they'd try to get that argument declared as a banned position - even if they had to make some pretty absurd leaps of logic to do so! Instead of debating and discussing the argument directly with the poster who posted it, they'd debate and discuss with the mods to try to convince them it should be a ban-on-sight position, exerting their debate chops in PMs (or in a public tantrum) by stretching the description of the banned position well beyond any reasonable limits.

To (anonymously) quote a post from one of the previous feedback threads:

I think when somebody posts something that's wrong, there's four main reasons they might do so:

1. they're wrong because they're misinformed
   
2. they're wrong because they're a dumbass
   
3. they're wrong on purpose because they're malicious or hateful
   
4. they're actually malicious or hateful, but they're pretending to be merely misinformed or a dumbass so that they can get the benefit of the doubt

The issue right now, I think, is the mods are running things under the assumption that most people with bad stances on these subjects fall under 1) or 2) until confirmed otherwise, while many posters are running under the assumption that most people with bad stances on these subjects fall under 3) or 4). But if you're going to assume that everyone who's wrong about an issue is necessarily a malicious troll or bigot who deserves to be banned, then there's no point in even having a discussion on that issue, and the whole subject should probably be put off-limits.

---

I sympathize with Koos here, because there's still plenty of people out there who are genuinely incorrect on trans issues not because they're hateful, malicious bigots, but just because they don't know any better! Knowledge doesn't materialize fully-formed out of the ether. People don't just wake up one day with a complete understanding of what it's like to be trans. They have to be taught by someone! They have to be told why the preconceptions and misconceptions they were taught growing up were wrong, they have to be told why the concerns they've heard from bigots aren't true.

Should Something Awful be a place where they learn that kind of stuff? It's entirely possible that maybe it isn't. But it used to be! A lot of longtime posters here used to be liberals or even libertarians, with lovely positions on both economic and social issues. But through the efforts of politics teaching threads in D&D and LF, we were shown where we were wrong and dragged toward more progressive stances. We learned anti-racism, we learned queer issues, we learned socialism, and we learned how hosed the system already is. We certainly didn't learn that poo poo from our parents or our teachers, we had to find sources outside the traditional bigoted power structures to learn that stuff - and for a fair number of us, that outside place was a dying internet forum. Feels like the whole "teaching" aspect of that has been on the decline ever since the Trumpification, though; at some point it seems like we collectively decided that everyone has to already agree with us on these issues and that there's no longer any room to convert those who don't know. "Here's why you're wrong" has been replaced by "gently caress off transphobe" or "moooooooooooooods".

If there's anywhere on SA where it should still be acceptable to teach people why trans sports restrictions are silly, then D&D should obviously be the place for that. It's certainly not something the other forums' dedicated trans threads should have to put up with. It might very well be the case that it's no longer acceptable to have that kind of teaching here, though. At the very least, only a small minority of the community seems to be interested in allowing that kinda stuff anymore. The SA politics community, and what it expects and wants, has shifted over the years. The days of LF embassy threads to GBS are long, long ago.

Cicero posted:

When I was Mormon and more conservative, I had my mind changed by the discussion about gay marriage. The arguments about it, combined with the fact that there was this big public debate about it for a number of years which had me thinking seriously about my position, got me to do so. The more I thought about the homophobic views I had inherited from society at large and Mormonism in particular, the more I felt like, "...wait no, that's dumb."

cinci zoo sniper posted:

This has been an interesting discussion, and I’m curious to hear what kind of outcomes would people prefer for the hypothetical move away from the observed outcomes of the current moderation stance:

1) Values, e.g., “D&D mods believe that trans women are women, and do not wish to have this debated”

2) Principles, e.g., “conversations in D&D shall follow the spirit of the UHDR and the Istanbul Convention”

3) Behaviours, e.g.

4) Something else

5) Combination of multiple or the above

I understand that my 3 options do overlap - this is just the best eloquence I can muster on the spot, apologies.

cinci zoo sniper posted:

I think this is a salient argument, but this coin, in my opinion, does have the other side. There’s a lot of malicious posts (which I would define from D&D perspective as posting in any way that isn’t meant to constructively move the conversation forwards in the lowest number of posts possible), and plenty of high-visibility posters making malicious posts exclusively. Just look at US CE, it appears to have 2 dozen regulars while having maybe half a dozen contributors.

It does suck to be suspected merely because you are genuinely clueless about someone’s favourite posting cudgel, no disagreement here. However, I do disagree that D&D posters on the whole are being unreasonable or excessively paranoid in their suspicions, especially when it comes to topics like the trans athletics thread - in this extremely online discussion board it simply is implausible that in 2022 someone could still have a naive, pure heart “so how are these trans people women anyway” question, to paraphrase.

Ghost Leviathan posted:

One thing to keep in mind in particular is that the right has literally spent years developing arguments and dogwhistles that have the sound and appearance of respectability for use in debate and media spheres with liberals who give them endless benefit out of the doubt. This has ended up with the whole treasured debate sphere being overwhelmed by gish galloping crypto-nazis working the refs and using any opportunity to spread their beliefs to an audience regardless of whoever's declared the 'winner', hence why they throw massive tantrums at being deplatformed- because it's a tactic that works. Decorum is a weapon they use to get their enemies- progressives, leftists, and anyone not accepting tacit bigotry- labelled and silenced as irrational, unfair and manipulative, taking advantage of people who care about tone and not the content.

Sarcastr0 posted:

I'm all for a statement of values, as I said above. But having D&D include hunting for bigots in hiding seems a really bad idea.

speng31b posted:

Yeah I totally agree that the behavior under suspicion actually does happen, but depending on the specific case maybe or maybe not to the degree suspected by posters.

…

- Harsher penalties for posters proven to be actually acting in bad faith, ideally thread bans. My guess is that the really disruptive behavior is more restricted to a small but active set of posters than a mass conspiracy by posting enemies.

speng31b posted:

- Strictly enforce the no posting about posters and no backseat mod rules. Use the report button. Even when it's justified by past experience, it makes posting into a toxic shithole that doesn't have much to do with debate or discussion and makes the posting culture in the forum and each thread increasingly insular.