SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
It has been a little while now that this fledgling community has been around and it remains one of my favorite stories about communities. A splinter of a much larger community took it upon themselves to challenge the rest and make a move to a new home. Shedding the shackles that were being placed on them was a bold move, but one that has been fantastic.
The community here is great, but here is my question. Overall, we are amazingly tolerant of others, of the choices they make, and of their beliefs. I would then be curious, if we are such a tolerant group, how do we address intolerance in our ranks? I recently came across what I can only say filled me with pity and sadness. I find it saddening that in this day and age, and especially in this group, there are still such hate-filled people.
But this poses a question: how does a group that is tolerant deal with intolerance within it's ranks? Does our acceptance of others extend to accepting someone that has thoughts and beliefs which are far from the norm within this community, or is there a limit placed on how far from our own values a member of the community may be?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 13 2014, @07:32PM
Isn't Ethanol Fueled the one who posted that every site needs a troll (he may used the term "asshole"?), and followed it up with some racist remarks? I thought so.
His offensive posts can't be a surprise, and the journal entry that is the topic of this thread won't be the last. I say "put it to a vote". If we vote him off the island he can just go set up his own blog somewhere and post all the racist crap he wants. Surely he's smart enough to do that if some of us non-non-immigrant Amercains can figure it out. If we don't vote him off the island then we as a community will have decided that his right to spew hate outweighs our right to establish an online community that doesn't want to endure racist remarks.
If Ethanol Fueled really wrote that post as "therapy" (which he claims) then perhaps we are not the right cure for what ails him.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Aighearach on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:02PM
"Voting people off" like a "Reality TV" show is a really bad and silly idea, because unpopular people would get voted out along with the offensive and hateful. In fact, the haters would use it to bully people.
Instead you need a clear policy, and some editor or otherwise appointed person make the call. And if they choose poorly, either direction, then people will leave. No way around that though.
(Score: 3, Informative) by NCommander on Sunday April 13 2014, @08:23PM
My stance on this is here: http://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=1261&thresh old=-1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&cid=30886 [soylentnews.org]
When I finally finish the manifesto/constituion for the site, it will clearly lay out these things.
Still always moving
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Reziac on Monday April 14 2014, @03:07AM
Thank you. I also do not believe in silencing (ie. banning) disagreeable opinions. Even if they're disagreeable people too. Tolerance (which I would say is an aspect of free speech) is not just for stuff you like or people you agree with.
And as I vaguely recall (having not used it) don't we have the ability to hide posts made by 'foes' ?? So it's not like people can't 'disappear' from their personal eyespace what they disagree with or annoys them. It's not like someone holds a gun to your head and forces you to read their posts.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by NCommander on Monday April 14 2014, @04:37AM
You can mark someone foe, then have foes get a pseudo-moderation to get the score to drop by X points. So if you browse at 0, you can set Foe to -6, so it will always be at -1. Its a bit clumsy though ...
Still always moving
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Reziac on Monday April 14 2014, @05:28AM
Ah, so that's how it works. Well, silencing someone ought to be clumsy, so no worries :)
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 4, Informative) by M. Baranczak on Sunday April 13 2014, @09:22PM
Banning assholes is a waste of time. As are long boring discussions about the inherent contradictions of freedom and tolerance. The moderation system that we inherited from That Other Site does a pretty good job of filtering out the assholes. So just mod them down and get on with your life.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Kell on Sunday April 13 2014, @10:55PM
I concur. As is the case with bullies (and trolling is a type of bullying, imho) the best thing to do is ignore them. Trolls identify a forum and seek to cause drama - exactly the sort of thing that this whole article is about. The very best thing we can do as a community is to Keep Calm and Moderate (we should write that down somewhere). Tolerance is fine, but spouting hateful language should come with consequences; those consequences are the resulting moderation. If people choose not to view your posts as a result of their moderation then you aren't booted, you are merely ignored.
I would like to see less discussion about drama and more effective moderation by a userbase that has already proven itself interested in participation in their community. If you have good comments on effective moderation strategies we might employ, or variants on the existing moderation system, I'd love to hear about them.
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday April 13 2014, @10:53PM
To be fair, I thought Ethanol was purposely trolling on a thread about trolling [soylentnews.org], more as a demonstration of trolling than anything else.
I attributed no real ill-intent to the post, assuming he was just playing the troll. Although replying to Ethanol is risking a rage rant in the best of times, I didn't think it warranted a reply at the time.
Reading his Journal, I'm tempted to believe him when he says:
However, Ethanol isn't the only example that could be found here on Soylent.
Almost every post has a few people that try to turn every issue into a anti-Conservative rant. This is a remarkably juvenile view point that says more about the poster than conservatives. I often attribute such sentiments to youthful inexperience: "If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain." (A quote [quoteinvestigator.com] that has been around since at least 1875 in various forms and languages).
People should offer citations to back up their claims, and refrain from too much name calling. It seldom helps.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Kell on Monday April 14 2014, @12:07AM
OT - I feel that a more accurate way of phrasing it would be "If you're not conservative by 35, you have no money". Conservatism as a political force (rather than as a cultural force) is tied to money, in my experience. Big business, brokerages, assets trading, resource extraction and so on all support and prosper from conservative politics. Rather obviously, those who have the money wish to keep it. Those who don't have money (typically including the young) would like some of that money either directly, or through improved opportunities to get and keep it for themselves. Hence, large support for Liberal politics amongst the poor.
It seems like IT tech sites are a perfect place for young poor people and wealthy entrepreneurs to collide. I suspect we see more anti-conservative screeds because wealthy people tend to have less to complain about...
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Monday April 14 2014, @04:44PM
We don't "vote people off." If "everybody" hates his view, he'll get downmodded and we won't see it anyway.
Freedom of speech is for everybody.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday April 14 2014, @05:16PM
"If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him." [wikipedia.org]
Or as the Discordians would say, "Why are you listening to me? Think for your own damn self!" If all we have are PC viewpoints, we stagnate. We need to bring up dissenting viewpoints to qualify why we disagree.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"