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Journal by aristarchus

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!!

 

Reply to: Re:A Bad Fit

    (Score: 2) by FakeBeldin on Wednesday February 21 2018, @03:58PM

    by FakeBeldin (3360) on Wednesday February 21 2018, @03:58PM (#641200)

    "You don't censor, so I'm leaving." is now, and will always be, about censorship.

    Maybe, I dunno.
    On the other hand "The atmosphere here stinks, I'm leaving" is not about censorship.

    Aristarchus is pointing out that the current atmosphere on SN is not helping SN. And he is right about that. Source: (1) anecdotal evidence, it is true for me (showing existence); (2) SN has been struggling to pay its bills (showing that on the whole, more supporting folks here would help).

    The thing is (and I experienced it yet again while writing this message and deleted the rest as a result and started writing this instead):
    At one point, you realise you're arguing on the internet. Not learning something, not teaching someone, not getting into a reasoned discussion where either of those two things happen. Just arguing - a pointless exchange of viewpoints that slowly will digress into shouting, namecalling, etc. On the internet.

    As it turns out (cf. XKCD), I've got better things to do with my time.

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