Spring 2022 D&D Feedback.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Spring 2022 D&D Feedback.

Rob Filter: Jan 19, 2009

The trans athlete thread was a debacle, and a few structural mistakes exacerbated the problem.

1. Their was no OP to set forth clear rules + educate posters about basic trans ideas that have been widely censored from education systems. If this was in place, it would have filtered out alot of the lower intensity transphobia-from-ignorance that good faith but ignorant posters were making, while more clearly making it obvious when the violent transphobes were intentionally harassing the people they hated.

As an example, ignorant people were repeatedly using the transphobic phrase "biological males", instead of just saying trans women. A proper OP would have helped these posters NOT be transphobic. A proper OP would also have helped catch the violent abuser transphobes earlier by removing their benefit of the doubt, reducing the amount of time they got to spend derailing the thread and abusing posters.

2. Their was no trans IK for a thread about an argument that's prime purpose in modern politics is to justify transphobia.

Transphobia is hard to detect, and transphobes are constantly inventing new transphobic language and rhetorical tools to do transphobia. High intensity transphobes are going to be the first people to learn about new transphobia (they are developing it), trans people are going to be the second (they and their friends are going to be targeted by it first), and cis people are going to be last - your always going to learn about these tools second hand, or worse when you accidentally deploy them and a trans person calls you out. That's the nature of all forms of bigotry.

You need trans mod representation in flashpoint threads to catch transphobia that will invisibly slide by you. You need it so that trans people don't have to spend huge amounts of effort explaining why transphobia is transphobia to you so that trolls and bad faith posters can get removed. The power dynamic in that thread was hosed up, and was why so many people were angry.

As an example:

Miss Broccoli posted:

I want to ask why you feel the need to continue to refer to transgender women as biological men. Particularly after being (indirectly) called on it. In addition to this you seem to ignore all the evidence pointed your way about how in a huge, majority even, number of sports trans people don't have meaningfully unfair advantages that are impossible for their cis counterparts to achieve.

Do you have an ulterior motive here? It seems that you just don't like trans women in particular. It seems that you choose not to engage with any evidence to the contrary and want to hyperfocus down in on anything that will give you a foothold for why trans women in particular should not be allowed. Why are you doing this.

Are transgender women women, just like cisgender women are, brake for moose?

Miss Broccoli asks someone who has been using transphobic language if they agree that transgender woman are women. The idea that transgender women aren't "really" women is the core premise of transphobia, its root, and its eminently reasonable to ask someone who is engaging in low intensity transphobia to confirm that they aren't a dyed in the wool transphobe, stealthily stepping around their transphobia.

mycophobia posted:

well, they're not cis women

Mycophobia drops in with this derailing poo poo post, insinuating that trans women aren't women. This is transphobic, and its bad faith transphobia. A trans moderator could have quickly 6 hour'd + thread banned them for this post, easy. Instead, they will get away with more trolling.

mycophobia posted:

the best i can imagine what people mean when they say "trans women are women" is that trans women should be treated the same as cis women. but maybe you mean something else, so I asked

mycophobia posted:

because im an idiot who cant keep his mouth shut my positions are that trans people should be treated the same as cis people, anyone should have mostly unfettered access to transitional care regardless of their reasoning for wanting to transition (not to imply that any particular reason would be necessarily invalid) and that my instinctual answer to the thread question at hand is Yes.

the line of questioning i went into last night was just to clear things up because in internet trans discourse people like to throw around catchphrases without really thinking critically about what they actually mean which leads to the subject being the most polarized and nuance-resistant topic of discussion in the history of ever. in retrospect it was pretty off topic and i regret getting into it

Mycophobia, here in the first quote, as someone who later admits to knowing what the phrase means (second quote in bold), is engaging in bad faith. They know exactly what the phrase "trans women are women" means; its an extremely succinct summary of trans liberation.
What Mycophobia is actually annoyed at is miss broccoli's request for a poster to confirm that they deny transphobia's core premise that trans women aren't women. However, instead of responding to this in a good faith way, e.g:

a reasonable good faith version of Mycophobia's post posted:

I think it could be confusing to ask this poster, in this instance, "are trans women women". Any high intensity transphobe will quite happily lie in response to this question, and ignorant people won't understand the phrase without context.

It would be better to ask instead: "Are trans women women?" The core root of transphobia is the idea that trans women aren't women, and you've been using transphobic language. Are you arguing from the premise that trans women -aren't- women in the same way that cis women are?"

Instead, Mycophobia concern trolled, cosplaying as a transphobic Socrates. Again, this would be obvious to a trans IK, while its clearly been invisible to alot of the cis mods. The thread was structurally setup for failure.

Rob Filter fucked around with this message at 07:43 on Apr 24, 2022

# ¿ Apr 24, 2022 06:58

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 00:26

Rob Filter: Jan 19, 2009

Cicero posted:

I think realistically there are certain issues where you can't allow all positions, like bigotry/discrimination or genocide denial. It just doesn't work, some positions are too vile for reasonable people to not basically flip out. If someone comes in here and is like "oh yeah the Holocaust was GREAT, kill all the Jews!" I just don't think you can expect people to civilly engage such a person.

The important thing here would just be to try and be transparent as possible about which positions on which issues are off limits. And then maybe have an occasional meta/feedback thread for people to discuss adjusting the boundaries one way or another.

It's worth noting that the argument "the holocaust didn't happen" isn't just someone arguing that the holocaust didn't happen. It's accomplishing alot more things:

1. Its a wink wink nudge nudge to other nazi's that they can organize around you.
2. It's implicitly calling jewish people deliberate liars.
3. It's a coded rhetorical tool to harass and abuse jewish people while fitting into the rules of debate decorum.

Most people arguing that the holocaust didn't happen don't actually believe that as they are nazi's and want another holocaust, its just a useful thing to argue as its a more decorum friendly version of arguing "jewish people are lying to you".

Like, someone can come in and earnestly argue that clouds are sentient and their friends. This might be blatantly false, but saying "okay your allowed to argue this, and then when your requested for evidence you have to give evidence or else THEN your probated for bad faith" causes no harm. VS:

Internaut! posted:

Like Jimmy the Greek pointing out that African-Americans were bred for centuries to be big and strong, and this is why the NFL is full of African-Americans descended from slaves, while there's been like 3 Africans ever in the league not descended from African-American slaves? I'm not sure what social blowback people would face for this, but why should they? Unpalatable truths remain truths after all.

Here, someone argues that slaver white eugenicists successfully bred black american slaves to have super strength. That argument is a white supremacist talking point, its a tool to organize around other racists, its a tool to harass black people without breaching decorum. Under current D&D rules, this post is acceptable. Current D&D rules enable bigotry and need to change.

Also on a more individual level, this post needs a probation pointing at it saying "note, logging the fact that you are a huge racist for future admins."

Rob Filter fucked around with this message at 09:00 on Apr 24, 2022

# ¿ Apr 24, 2022 07:21

Rob Filter: Jan 19, 2009

I'd like to head an argument I've seen before off at the gate as early as possible. Which is "we can't ban everyone for all transphobia because some people make genuine minor mistakes and just need education to not do those mistakes again. I mean, everyone makes mistakes?"

Technically, anyone who does a transphobia is a transphobe. So, the person who thought correct terminology was to post "biological males" instead of "trans women" was been transphobic, and was, academically, a transphobe. But nobody is calling for them to be permabanned for that transphobia.

When were talking about transphobes, here, were specifically talking about people who are egregiously engaging in transphobia. The colloquial meaning, not the academic one.

# ¿ Apr 24, 2022 09:53

Rob Filter: Jan 19, 2009

OwlFancier posted:

Although if you keep doing that while offering some heartfelt justification as to why you think it is necessary to keep doing that, that should still get you the boot, out of the thread or out of the forum. I don't greatly care why someone does what they do if them doing it is causing problems for better posters. People can be wrong in good faith, but it should not be incumbent on everyone else to put up with the burden of them being wrong, especially not on subjects like this.

100% agree.

# ¿ Apr 24, 2022 10:03

Rob Filter: Jan 19, 2009

UCS Hellmaker posted:

edit: look that fucker is a goddamn troll and hes doing the just asking question poo poo still.

Which poster are you talking about here?

# ¿ Apr 24, 2022 13:38

Rob Filter: Jan 19, 2009

UCS Hellmaker posted:

not SPR but yes context is important, I meant the transphobe that wants dnd to be ok to debate if its ok for a trans person to exist

Like, specifically, what is their username? I can't tell who your talking about.

edit: to be clear I'm confused because colonel cool is a trans woman, and the context makes it seem like your talking about her. But your using the wrong pronouns, so I have no idea if your talking about someone else / accidentally misgendering her / intentionally misgendering her.

Rob Filter fucked around with this message at 14:01 on Apr 24, 2022

# ¿ Apr 24, 2022 13:43

Rob Filter: Jan 19, 2009

Upgrade posted:

To make it even easier, this is how you could type it up:

"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 that debate is offensive to marginalized members of our 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."

I agree with this post generally, but I'd quibble about the wording on the bolded part.

"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."

The problem isn't that marginalized members of the community are offended by these arguments. The problem is that these arguments are been used to harass and organize violence against marginalized members of the community. The offence is secondary to the root problem.

# ¿ Apr 24, 2022 14:30

Rob Filter: Jan 19, 2009

Tezer posted:

There are a number of posters (Rob Filter, Bel Shazar, Upgrade, UCS Hellmaker, StratGoatCom, Sanguinia, Jaxyon, OwlFancier, Sharkie, Anticheese, empty whippet box, RBA Starblade, ram dass in hell, Despera, Liquid Communism, Miss Broccoli) in this thread stating that bigots and racists are not being properly moderated, leading to a need for new rules.

Can we get some examples of posts that would be punished under these new rules that did not receive punishment already? Like, specific posts, not just general vibes. It would help clarify for me what isn't be handled by the current set of rules.

Internaut! posted:

Males in general are significantly stronger and faster than females, there is no debate about this in any serious circle. This does not even address transgender athletics much less make a statement about them.

Like Jimmy the Greek pointing out that African-Americans were bred for centuries to be big and strong, and this is why the NFL is full of African-Americans descended from slaves, while there's been like 3 Africans ever in the league not descended from African-American slaves? I'm not sure what social blowback people would face for this, but why should they? Unpalatable truths remain truths after all.

As you can see from my posts I've been exceedingly careful to separate sex from gender except where impossible, such as discussing Olympic biathlon which is split by gender. That's on the IOC.

This post right here. The poster was eventually probed, but this extremely racist post was not considered in isolation worthy of a probe.

# ¿ Apr 24, 2022 15:03

Rob Filter: Jan 19, 2009

Tezer posted:

I agree, that post sucks rear end.

They were thread banned and received a three day probation for general posting practices (which would include that post). There's an argument to be made that three days wasn't enough, but that's different than saying that the posting wasn't punished, and that a new rule needs to be made to 'catch' that bad post.

What posts are currently being made, being reported, and not receiving punishment that should instead receive punishment.

I have two points.

Firstly, the severity of the moderation response matters. People who post racism get month long probes / bans in other forums, people who post racism in d&d get away with 3 days. Racism is nonsense, and its impossible for someone to justify racism in good faith, so the rule "only post in good faith" will always have a second order effect of probating racists eventually. But this rule catches them with notes that say "broke d&d good faith rules" rather than notes that say "was a huge loving racist", and they catch them with 6'ers rather than month probes + bans / permabans. Breaking different rules has a different severity, so having a proper rule against racism and transphobia is still valuable even if its not catching anybody new.

Secondly, its alot easier to catch people arguing against trans rights than to catch the transphobia they are deploying as part of their arguments. Consider Permabanned poster Aginor's opening post. Try catching every instance of direct misgendering and insinuated misgendering he made:

Aginor posted:

Hot take. Trans athletes should not be allowed to take part in gender specific sports. Lia Thomas, for example, is only just transitioning. She is built like a male swimmer. She needs time to go through her transition and then once that's done she should be allowed to compete as much as she wants. But, does anyone possibly see the disparity? Transitioning women cant compete in men's sports, whereas transitioning men compete in women's sport and they overtake and it becomes more important than women's leagues. Takes away from what women are achieving.

Here is my attempt. I've bolded direct misgendering, and italicised insinuated misgendering.

Aginor posted:

Hot take. Trans athletes should not be allowed to take part in gender specific sports. Lia Thomas, for example, is only just transitioning. She is built like a male swimmer. She needs time to go through her transition and then once that's done she should be allowed to compete as much as she wants. But, does anyone possibly see the disparity? Transitioning women cant compete in men's sports, whereas transitioning men compete in women's sport and they overtake and it becomes more important than women's leagues. Takes away from what women are achieving.

Maybe you caught some or all of the transphobia. Koos didn't, or else he would have probed Aginor for it. The "Deny trans women rights" is not an argument that passed Koos by. If debating the validity of trans rights was outside D&D's scope, Koos's moderation would have immediately shut that abusive rear end in a top hat down. However, it was an argument that is acceptable according to current rules, so he let this transphobic post through.

The end result of banning weaponized bigoted talking points will be the moderators catching bigoted horrible people like this earlier, and them not temporarily slipping through the net until they are caught by the good faith rules banning racism / transphobia through implication.

# ¿ Apr 24, 2022 16:11

Rob Filter: Jan 19, 2009

Koos Group posted:

There is still real scholarly debate about the intentionality of the famine, so this actually ends up being an example of how it would be tricky to enforce rules on positions such as genocide denialism.

It should be super easy to ban holocaust denial and scientific racism.

# ¿ Apr 24, 2022 16:57

Rob Filter: Jan 19, 2009

mycophobia posted:

i have a legitimate philosophical interest in the concept of gender and wasnt just concern trolling or jaqing off or whatever catchphrase you want to use and i dont think it would be right to punish me for that. it wasnt right to try and draw out a discussion along those lines in a thread that ostensibly is about something different and much more specific where i dont really have more of a developed opinion than "generally speaking yeah." once again, mea culpa.

Having googled the definition of concern troll, it appears I have been applying that phrase incorrectly. Regardless, the lovely low effort Socratic dialog you were engaging in is the world's first infamous trolling technique. You were absolutely trolling miss broccoli, and the best interpretation of your actions I can see is that you were only accidentally been transphobic the whole time. The combination of your bad posting and your ignorance about trans issues lead to you doing a transphobic troll.

I don't want you permabanned. I do want you to stop been transphobic. Here is a link to a trans thread with a bunch of useful books in the OP. Do some reading on your own time before you come in and post about trans issues again. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3906197

FWIW, the way you dismissed the political slogan "trans women are women" as a catchphrase was pretty low key transphobic. It's a political slogan that summarizes trans liberation succinctly. Your comparing people arguing for their rights to children talking about Pok�mon. Stop it.

# ¿ Apr 25, 2022 04:22

Rob Filter: Jan 19, 2009

Tezer posted:

'Catchphrase' and 'slogan' refer to pretty similar things. I think a more precise word would be 'shibboleth'.

Fair. The problem is not the exact wording, but more the open dismissiveness to language trans activists are using.

# ¿ Apr 25, 2022 04:36

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 00:26

Rob Filter: Jan 19, 2009

some plague rats posted:

Yelling at people over poo poo like this seems unhelpful to the point of being actively counterproductive? Expecting everyone to correctly recite the slogan or whatever you want to call it and declaring them low-key sus fam if they don't is the most annoying kind of posting-as-activism out there

Honestly your right, without the rest of the transphobia calling it a slogan or a catchphrase or whatever would have been fine, so its actively useless for me to specifically call this out. I retract that. The rest of the post stands.

# ¿ Apr 25, 2022 04:52

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