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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: 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.