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Well, it has been a good run. Some people had some principles, and stuck to them. But the end result is catastrophe. We have made, what? 6000 members? We should be orders of magnitude above that by now. Something is wrong. There is trouble right here in River City! (Music Man, for those too young to get the reference)
Just now, in the submission by butthurt, which I have been watching since it was in the queue, we have people defending the KKK. You know, this is silly. It is ridiculous. This is a farce! Why? Everyone knows the KKK is dead. Those claiming to be KKK are either federal agents or seriously mentally ill persons. That is the only reason that I can say the violence against the KKK was wrong. Although I do not think the violence marred the protest: KKK protests are self-marring. If it was me, no head stomping, just head shots, at an appropriate photo studio, with posting to the internet, a la Anonymous, so we do know who these crazy mentally unbalanced people, and can recognize them in our scopes at a later date. Reap the whirlwind, racists!
But you see, my concern is not with these despicable racists, it is with the false equivalency that SoylentNews seems to be granting them. And not only them, but the gamergater-can't-meet-women crowd, and the Sad Puppies-my-fascist-Futurist_fiction-gets-no-traction people. These people are not to be taken seriously, by anyone! Now I am not saying we should ban them, but just letting them in causes problems for the site as a whole. Yeah, Mighty Buzzard, I hear you, but just listen for a bit.
We are getting an online rep. And it is not a good one. Yes, Ethanol_fueled can be entertaining, but the fact that he posts his racist screeds, even when they are modded down (and they are not always!), hurt SoylentNews. Runaway1956 has similar issues. Not as much of an ass as Eth, but not a contributer of material that is likely to encourage the kind of debate on issues that will make SolylentNews the place to be on the Internets. We are failing to be the replacement for the other site, and this is why. Bad money drives out good, and bad posters drive out good ones. I, for one, welcome [no, scratch that] grow tired of constantly responding to fascist, racist, dominionist, libertarian, and other crap here. I may stop entirely, soon. So, you volunteers, give some thought to what we want to be. A lid on the crazy may not be such a bad idea.
Oh, and by the way, that is the other thing that kind of tipped me off! When we have a certifiable homeless crazy person (MDC), that regularly posts more coherent and interesting things than do these racist trolls, I fear for the existence of SoylentNews. Well. I have said enough. It is up to the site whether I and those like me continue to contribute. The irony is, butthurt did this to me! Ha!!
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday March 08 2016, @09:53PM
Really? If that were true, we would have deleted this journal entry. And your comment along with it. Instead witness the huge amounts of nothing that happen when you make blatantly and provably false accusations against a staff member. That, my full of shit friend, is what you call liberty.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by sudo rm -rf on Wednesday March 09 2016, @05:38PM
Re: sylnt.us
You shouldn't boil eggs to lengthen their shelf (read: fridge) life except when you are going to pickle or salt them afterwards. Cooking will destroy salmonella and other nasty stuff, but it will also destroy the membrane that keeps bacteria out.
Mod me offtopic, but it had to be said.
Ontopic: Has it ever occured that journal entries/comments have been deleted (legal requirement etc.)? And if so, was it made transparent to the community as to why?
Maybe it was discussed, but I missed it.
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday March 09 2016, @06:01PM
re: eggs
They were at their expiration date. I figured to get another week out of them by boiling them.
Ontopic: Not that I'm aware of. It's possible, though highly unlikely, that it happened in the first few months before I came on staff though. Hell, we even leave spam and torrent links up if they make it into the system, though the former is annoying as hell to everyone and the latter could end up with us shut down. The closest we've come is the text of one comment has been redacted (the comment itself still exists) because it was used to dox someone. Needless to say it would have defeated the point of redacting it to ask for community input, though we probably should have after the fact. That's our bad.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday March 09 2016, @06:03PM
Blerg, forgot to close the <i> tag after "one". Numfar, do the dance of shame.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday March 11 2016, @09:52PM
You should just abuse your power to edit the comment and add the </i> tag. Then delete this comment, and the parent comment.
Feel the power of censorship!
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday March 12 2016, @12:14AM
Nah, I should abuse it to add half-formed <i> tags to everyone else's posts.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Wednesday February 21 2018, @04:12PM
Sure, because the unique and only way to create an echo chamber is censorship. If there is no censorship, then by definition it cannot be an echo chamber.
</sarcasm>
To reply to your question: yes, weally weally.
Even when people explicitly tell you that the tone and contents of their comments puts them off and is, in effect, creating an echo chamber, then you know better. *sigh*
The funny thing is: you're no better than a censor. Your actions on this site are driving people away, and you excuse it because you're not forbidding them. But in effect, your comments *are* affecting people, and they *are* causing people to lose interest in the site. Basically, you're just applying censorship in a way that does not fall afoul of your ideals. But after people have repeatedly called you out on it, you should be aware that you are, in effect, censoring this site. By your actions, you are causing people to apply self-censorship.
And as someone who loves liberty, that should shock you.