I'm talking about when people throw in political talking points into magic discussions. (Eg "that's really crazy.... just like the whole gender thing is crazy, women calling themselves men, everything's out of control!" Sort of like how you see liberals go "that's stupid - not as stupid as Trump though!!" - I haven't seen that one on WF, but it's common on social media)
I'm genuinely confused because here you are saying you haven't seen this on WF...
So I'm solely talking about stronger moderation of keeping discussion on-topic / apolitical on apolitical threads. Generally if something is 3/4 on topic with a political aside, it will be left alone, it's only stopped if it's purely a political rant. At least that's how I see it. I notice more RW things - I'm sure there's LW things I miss because of my own bias but I'm happy for that to be moderated too. No one "needs" to get their little side-issue shoehorned into an unrelated topic, whether left or right, especially when they can go to the Politics sections if they want to talk about that.
... but here you're implying that it does happen?
Unless earlier you were saying "that's really crazy.... just like the whole gender thing is crazy, women calling themselves men, everything's out of control!"
is being said on WF, just that "that's stupid - not as stupid as Trump though!!" is not?
Can you clarify? Because, I have
specifically denounced off topic posting, even if "if something is 3/4 on topic with a political aside".
You can see me very directly address this here:
What is new in Magic and the Occult?
In that posts it's more about something that is mostly off topic, but the author makes
some attempt to bring it on topic.
I probably won't make it so that all posts to a thread must be 100% on topic and not a single phrase can be off topic, as sometimes it can be entertaining and useful to have minor asides.
If you like, you can make a suggestion in the suggestions section about this, as I am willing to hear some community perspective. And we can delve deeper into specifics and defining this problem more comprehensively.
For eg, if someone said "collecting dew for this ritual is really annoying JUST LIKE GAY PEOPLE" I'm very inclined to see that as unnecessary/disruptive/off topic. But if it was already a somewhat political discussion and someone said something like "the whole world is becoming way too sensitive now, and I think it's because of leftist movements like LGBTQ" or whatnot then I might see that as a valid political criticism/opinion.
But we shouldn't use this thread to discuss that, so I'll be happy to discuss it further, especially examples of where this happens on WF, on a separate thread focusing on this meta discussion.
Just remember though, even if we somehow come to some agreement on that rule interpretation, WF is still moderated by volunteers, who will not read every thread, and who may have some small internal biases which is completely natural. So it will really rely on people using the report function.
"Bitter" is one of those emotionally loaded words like "freedom fighter vs terrorist". "When you do it, you're bitter/resentful/nursing a grudge. When I do it, I'm simply forming an assessment based on past experience." It doesn't mean very much, it's just a way of saying you think the other person's opinion is for personal point-scoring rather than sincerely held. I dunno why you'd think it's not sincere; I've been consistent in my expressed views. FWIW I've only ever reported one post to the mods and they cautioned the poster for the thing I reported it for, so I don't really have a reason to be bitter.
It can be, but it isn't in this case. I am not comparing your "bitterness" to someone else's "assessment based on past experience". I am simply talking about how (based on my previous understanding of what you meant) you seemed to be talking more about the issue than it was happening on WF, therefore leading me to have a somewhat reasonable assumption that you were bitter that something didn't go your way (talking about that one or two times you called someone transphobic). I'm sure, then, you can understand why I thought you weren't being sincere given what I understood your sentiment to be from your previous post, which you just clarified, ofc.
The only thing that truly freaked me out was the homophobic pile-on of one (very annoying, but not because he was gay) poster. It was pretty much all very off-topic (how could it be on-topic?) and would have been prevented by enforcement of the existing rules. It would have been better to just ban the guy than continue to harass him for kicks. That was really the thing that made me go "okay I can't send people there without warning them to watch their backs if they're queer". (I have absolutely seen queer people treated fine here btw, but that event made it clear that homophobic harassment is at least sometimes tolerated)
Sincerely, can you PM me this interaction if you can find it? I can't remember this.
And honestly, if you have to warn some of your friends not to make things too political, or get too offended if someone does a "microaggression" or something like that is it so bad? I'm sure some of the RW people also have to warn their friends "not to post crazy conspiracies" or "not to use racial slurs" here on WF.
If I see someone say "your post is dumb and no one should listen to you cause you're gay" I am for sure going to be warning that person.
Believe me when I say I strive to be balanced and centrist. I am almost always on the side of the underdog and/or playing devils advocate, so you won't see me picking on a group who is already having a rough time (except trolls maybe). In the modern western political atmosphere, I may be seen as somewhat right leaning, just because of how pro-left we are now, but I assure you there are many cultures, countries, and people who would see me as an absolute leftist.
Nah, that's identitarian. I disagree with other feminists about the best way to respond to sexism - that doesn't mean they're all self-hating, they're just, you know, wrong in my opinion. Jews disagree about the best way to respond to anti-semitism; there were queer people with legitimate arguments against legalising same-sex marriage. I thought they were wrong, but they weren't self-hating, they were doing what they believed to be the best thing for gay people. It's simplistic to say everyone within a minority group has to agree or they're self-hating.
Well I suppose this makes sense, but again, then who's to say who's wrong and who's right. People have wildly varying opinions on how to respond to various perceived offences and/or (lack of) freedoms. That's why I have concise, non-partisan, common sense rules.
The last thing I'll say is just that, I know what I'm talking about when it comes to decline of non-social media websites and content marketing etc etc. I fully acknowledge that I don't know what I'm talking when it comes to maintaining/moderating a forum. I do know that when you're purely a backseat driver, there are solutions that look "simple" to you, but actually have unseen trade-offs. So like, I think I'm right here - that you're unnecessarily excluding a sizeable chunk of left-leaning contributors - but I don't put as much weight in my thoughts as I do in stuff I actually have experience in.
I have no evidence that you know what you are talking about when it comes to websites or content marketing or anything like that, and it isn't required because it is of little consequence to me if you are a web content expert. I am not currently seeking professional advice on that front, mostly because imo, I also know what I am doing in that regard.
As mentioned above, I am completely open to you, as a respected member of this forum, making a suggestion thread for us to discuss the scope of the "off topic" rule, and bring to attention any perceived prevalence of slights against minorities that would conceivably go against the "off topic" rule.
But also as mentioned in the previous post, I have no intention of censoring appropriate humour, valid criticisms, unpopular opinions etc, and no intention of making WF a supremely safe space. I'm not a fan of J. B. Peterson, but I agree with the sentiment that in order to be able to share thoughts, ideas, and opinions, you have to risk offending people.
At the same time, I agree with you that if someone wants to discuss purely occultism, and they don't make their political/gender/whatever identity public, and don't engage in the politics and lounge sections, then they should be able to engage in the occult sections, purely about the occult, without being subject to unnecessary slights and insults against them.
I hope that makes sense and seems fair.
