Over zealous, and inconsistent modding on the politics cafe forum.

Havockk

Stheno wrote: »

What do you think of baning terms like slactovist/fascist etc?

Slactovist is a political slur whereas fascist is a genuine political ideology, how can that be banned? It's well defined.

Stheno

Havockk wrote: »

Slactovist is a political slur whereas fascist is a genuine political ideology, how can that be banned? It's well defined.

I meant slacktovist, it's a slur on activist

Fascist is hard to back up. tbh

Havockk

Stheno wrote: »

I meant slacktovist, it's a slur on activist

Fascist is hard to back up. tbh

Yes, I understand. I'm just saying (very poorly might I add) I can see the argument for banning the 'slacktovist' term but I think it would be a mistake to ban mention of fascism, particularly when we know what constitutes a fascist and can identify one. I strongly believe that this is more important than ever right now, when those extreme views are aired they need to be challenged.

Stheno

Havockk wrote: »

Yes, I understand. I'm just saying (very poorly might I add) I can see the argument for banning the 'slacktovist' term but I think it would be a mistake to ban mention of fascism, particularly when we know what constitutes a fascist and can identify one. I strongly believe that this is more important than ever right now, when those extreme views are aired they need to be challenged.

I don't to be honest, as the more right leaning posters would object.

Havockk

Stheno wrote: »

I don't to be honest, as the more right leaning posters would object.

I'm sorry to disagree so strongly, but I would urge you to take this to an admin review or some such, if that exists, and I apologise for what I say next, but could that not be argued as an act of appeasement?

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Havockk

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Well of course, I would agree that it's a term that can't be bandied around with zero thought but we live in uncertain times now and it would be foolish, in this posters opinion of course, to hamstring ourselves because as much as Republicans are obviously not fascist, the jury is certainly very much out on the current administration. I'm not even sure the current administration in the USA could be classified as Republican to be fair.

Stheno

Havockk wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Fascist appears to be a term that is bandied about with little proof to be honest.

As is bigots when it comes to Unionists, or looney left when it comes to more left leaning posters.

Permabear wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

I'd agree with this tbh

Havockk

Stheno wrote: »

Fascist appears to be a term that is bandied about with little proof to be honest.

Would that not be an argument for a closer eye on moderation of the term?

It's very well to say that currently it would be unfair to categories Trump/Bannon etc as fascists but I get chills when I hear terms like 'America First' (given the history of the term) not to mention other troubling rumblings, however it would be a mistake to not be able to call a spade as such if the unthinkable actually came to pass.

robindch

Stheno wrote: »

Fascist is hard to back up. tbh

I'm not so sure - there are plenty of worth attempts at characterizing it around the place - most of these include appeals to top-down authority, appeals to the "common man" while offering the opportunity to hero-worship some leader, appeals to local identity, calls to distrust foreign identity, appeals to discredited and usually hare-brained economic theories, tight control of the media, rampant propaganda, militarism, a distrust of education and educated people, agrarianism, simplistic solutions to complex problems, appeals to support the leader rather support the law, political preferment through loyalty rather than adherence to law, inability to tolerate alternate views, a tilt towards ritual or ideological purity together with a distinctly short fuse and a lack of humour, a strong tendency to zero-sum or negative-sum political, economic and other interactions, preference for social hierarchy over personal equality, powers of the state to exceed rights of the individual. And so on.

The term "authoritarian" is sometimes used to describe these tendencies, but the meaning is usually only understood academically - works such as Bob Altemeyer's excellent [url=members.shaw.ca/jeanaltemeyer/drbob/TheAuthoritarians.pdf
]The Authoritarians[/url] introduces much about the topic in a straightforward fashion.

Outside of academia, the term "fascist" comfortably encompasses somebody who holds the majority of these tendencies and while this term can upset people with these tendencies, or people who support these tendencies, or people who refuse to reject these tendencies, it doesn't seem useful to allow some to manifest noisy offence in the hope that the term will go away. And there are plenty of other places on the internet outside of boards where these kind of views are tolerated and encouraged.

In A+A, insults towards fellow posters aren't tolerated during any discussion. In non-serious discussions, slagging off people and organizations is tolerated - referring to the Iona Institute as "Ionanists", for example. However, in serious discussions, slagging off tends to be avoided and mods will step in to redress the balance. And where there's some term with a generally-accepted meaning (like creationist, nazi, christian, fascist, skeptics, sjw etc), then it's usually down to the individual poster to establish whether they want to use that term - possibly via a digression as to whether the term as it's used by one poster means what the majority of other posters understand it means.

Phoebas

Stheno wrote: »

I meant slacktovist, it's a slur on activist

It isn't really a slur. Its a term for an activist who doesn't really act.
It isn't complimentary, but hardly a slur.
tbh, banning terms like slactivist in Politics Café would be as effective as hanging a car air freshener beside an open slurry pit.

Havockk

Also, if the term Fascist is banned how can we educate people against it? I ran into a poster in the main politics forum this very evening who honestly didn't even know what it was and believed the Nazis were socialist.

Phoebas

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

I think that's just what people call him here, in his homeland. Normally along with his proper surname O'Bama.

I never thought there was ever any malice in it - which is why a rule on using proper names is a very blunt instrument.

Havockk

Havockk wrote: »

Would that not be an argument for a closer eye on moderation of the term?

It's very well to say that currently it would be unfair to categories Trump/Bannon etc as fascists but I get chills when I hear terms like 'America First' (given the history of the term) not to mention other troubling rumblings, however it would be a mistake to not be able to call a spade as such if the unthinkable actually came to pass.

I want to retract a portion of this post, specifically about Bannon, as I've been very uncomfortable since I posted it. I think it could be legitimately and easily be argued that Bannon is as close to being a fascist as we are likely to see. Specifically his thoughts on the Traditionalism movement.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Havockk

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

You could be correct in that, I'm just basing it off what Stheno wrote, and they mentioned it as a 'term'.

gallag

For Reals wrote: »

If you could see the amount of posters claiming we are too one way or the other you'd see there's no winning.
There's no infracting or carding somebody based on disagreeing. There are claims of bias, (sometimes in posts) and we try to avoid carding in threads we are posting heavily. Sometimes it's difficult. But avoiding posting at all in any thread would lose Mods.
Mods are simply posters who spend time trying to ensure the charter is followed and flags are looked into. That's it. If they do something you don't like, you can come here or go to DRP.
If you are being carded it is because you are doing something wrong, not because of your politics. Personally I don't see the joy in debating or discussing an issue if you simply ban anyone not thanking your post. The same reason, although anonymous, most of us stick to genuine views rather than just come on and troll or flip flop for the craic. You can't tell a Mod in a soccer forum he can't support a team or penalty call; why would he/she bother logging in?
IMO, it's nonsense to expect people to not standby genuine views they hold just to make posting feel easier to any non-Mod they might disagree with on an issue. I say 'feel' because being a Mod doesn't win you a debate, if anything it merely puts a target on your back. Thankfully we've our big fat salaries to...oh wait..

No, not to many posters critical of yous being "one way or the other" in fact many mods on this very thread have admitted left wing bias as it "reflects wider society" it's just nonsense to believe the political forums are a balance of left/right wing moderation, and as to bias not being possible as yous are just enforcing the charter, yous make the bloody charter, example the last immigration in Europe thread started with the argument that it was fine, the counter argument was made by many in the form of videos documenting the horrors being experienced in Europe, completely on topic and a valid way of debating, not a single mod was happy with this as they were ALL on the "it's fine" side of the argument so a simple charter change later and no news dumping (think how ridiculous that is, that you cannot post a factual video or link to support your argument) and the debate was stifled.

Wibbs

gallag wrote: »

No, not to many posters critical of yous being "one way or the other" in fact many mods on this very thread have admitted left wing bias as it "reflects wider society"

Well I certainly didn't. I did say wider Irish society is overwhelmingly centrist in nature with twitches to the left or right depending. Now if you're of an American persuasion, or increasingly influenced, centrist can look like socialism, but that's an imported distinction.

example the last immigration in Europe thread started with the argument that it was fine, the counter argument was made by many in the form of videos documenting the horrors being experienced in Europe, completely on topic and a valid way of debating, not a single mod was happy with this as they were ALL on the "it's fine" side of the argument so a simple charter change later and no news dumping (think how ridiculous that is, that you cannot post a factual video or link to support your argument) and the debate was stifled.

1) I can guarantee not "ALL" mods of the forum are in the "it's fine" camp. 2) News dumping? I'd be against that too when it's a case of copypasta of large tracts of text/videos from elsewhere without poster's personal input. You said it yourself: "post a factual video or link to support your argument". If it;s just the video or link(we'll leave factual for another day) minus an argument, it's usually worthless. It is or should be a discussion site, not a secondary outlet for Fox/The Guardian. Regardless if it's coming from a "left" or "right" position BTW. Though I will say this; I have noted the right leaning are more likely to "news dump", though increasingly both sides parrot the gospel of their respective causes(usually American). Now if there's a new change to the charter that states no links/videos from a certain political angle then fine, that would be BS, but I'd like to see it.

ancapailldorcha

Wibbs wrote: »

Well I certainly didn't.

I'd be surprised if more than one or two did.

Wibbs wrote: »

1) I can guarantee not "ALL" mods of the forum are in the "it's fine" camp. 2) News dumping? I'd be against that too when it's a case of copypasta of large tracts of text/videos from elsewhere without poster's personal input. You said it yourself: "post a factual video or link to support your argument". If it;s just the video or link(we'll leave factual for another day) minus an argument, it's usually worthless. It is or should be a discussion site, not a secondary outlet for Fox/The Guardian. Regardless if it's coming from a "left" or "right" position BTW. Though I will say this; I have noted the right leaning are more likely to "news dump", though increasingly both sides parrot the gospel of their respective causes(usually American). Now if there's a new change to the charter that states no links/videos from a certain political angle then fine, that would be BS, but I'd like to see it.

+1

Quin_Dub

gallag wrote: »

No, not to many posters critical of yous being "one way or the other" in fact many mods on this very thread have admitted left wing bias as it "reflects wider society" it's just nonsense to believe the political forums are a balance of left/right wing moderation, and as to bias not being possible as yous are just enforcing the charter, yous make the bloody charter, example the last immigration in Europe thread started with the argument that it was fine, the counter argument was made by many in the form of videos documenting the horrors being experienced in Europe, completely on topic and a valid way of debating, not a single mod was happy with this as they were ALL on the "it's fine" side of the argument so a simple charter change later and no news dumping (think how ridiculous that is, that you cannot post a factual video or link to support your argument) and the debate was stifled.

That is not how is works as I think you are very aware..

What we had was multiple posters dropping in Videos or entire cut/pastes of articles without a single word of their own commentary.

It has always been and will always be more than acceptable(encouraged in fact) to use links to support an argument.

So - It's perfectly fine to say "My opinion on this subject is XYZ and here is a link that supports that position"

It is not fine to post "Check this out" with a link to a video or to simply paste an entire article from another site.

Boards.ie is not a news aggregation site , it's a discussion site.

Lovely Bloke

Jaysis, that latest modding makes absolutely no apologies for moving the mod team even more to the left, does it?

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Alf Stewart.

Lovely Bloke wrote: »

Jaysis, that latest modding makes absolutely no apologies for moving the mod team even more to the left, does it?

How do you mean exactly?

I have just literally noticed that Little Chuchullain has been added to the cafe as a mod.

He's certainly not what I would describe as having left leanings. Not going by his stance on Irish water protesters etc.

gallag

gallag wrote: »

Considering all mods in politics are left wing, yes there is a left wing bias in politics, here is my prediction, next new mod in politics will be a left wing, anti trump, anti brexit, pro European and pro-immagration.

What do I win?

Gavinz

Status: Echo chamber reinforcement underway.

Alf Stewart.

Edit.

Kbannon also.

Now I have no probmems with either, congratulations lads and all that jazz, but I would hope no one is suggesting either are left leaning?

Little CuChulainn

Christ, at least give me a chance to do something before you criticise me for the way I do it. I'm not left wing at all unless you consider believing in basic human rights to be left wing. If you have honestly gone through my 6000+ posts and are happy I am left wing then fair enough. But of you are basing it solely on the fact I believe immigrants should be treated like people and Trump is a bad guy then that's a pretty poor assessment.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

robindch

Lovely Bloke wrote: »

Bias does not mean everyone is the same, but it is very obvious that from the top down, Boards.ie leans to the left.

Can anyone seriously dispute that?

I dispute it because a large number, and perhaps even the vast majority, of complaints of "left-wing bias" seem to come from by vociferous posters whose positions are so far off to the right, that even centrist and mildly right-wing positions seem "left wing" by comparison.

That's not a problem with boards but instead with posters who do not know where the center is.

Going Forward

Alf Stewart. wrote: »

I have just literally noticed that Little Chuchullain has been added to the cafe as a mod.

He's certainly not what I would describe as having left leanings. Not going by his stance on Irish water protesters etc.

Just noticed that too.

Interesting times ahead.