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SoylentNews
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) by DeathMonkey on Friday March 11 2016, @10:08PM
I was thinking more like "tell the moderators to do a better job."
(Score: 2, Insightful) by anubi on Saturday March 12 2016, @05:22AM
Most of us do the best we can, DeathMonkey.
I take the responsibility of moderation very seriously, and do it to the best of my ability. Not as a weapon, but as a "thank you" for the other Soylentils who took the time to post something I got something out of.
I hold with the concept of anyone posting anything they want. No censor.
I know, we sometime get some crap posts, but at least its not as bad as trying to eat a catfish.
Because this is so general, one can get quite an education from reading what other people have to say on a given matter.
One can find very specialized forums on the net as well. One I liked in particular was "TheOilDrum", ( now in archive status ). I thought it was very well run as well. Other forums I frequent are specialized Ford Diesel Truck forums, as I just acquired one of these old beasts and I need to learn how to feed and care for it.
I have no changes I would like to make to these forums... I believe the people running this show know exactly what needs to be done and how to do it. There are a few of us that seem to be a bit juvenile and drop inappropriate posts here ( I have done it as well ) and the resulting moderation is by-and-large appropriate.
I saw a few users called out by name, however, the posts are usually worth the read. I believe everyone should have some flagpole to run his notion up and see if anyone salutes. My failure to salute is NOT an indicator the notion should not be run up the pole. But how is one to know his notion is bad if he never got the chance to run it up and see?
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]