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So, I had been busy doing work pleasing to The Overmind, using my mod points to rescue posts that had been down-modded because the moderator had obviously disagreed with the content of the post instead of it being legitimately a troll or off-topic post. I'd tried being non-partisan and rescued posts that I both agreed and disagreed with (the "interesting" mod was useful for the ones I thought were a bit idiotic). I did notice that most of the posts I was modding, whether I agreed with them or not, seemed to be the sort of thing that would annoy the "woke" crowd*. Things seemed to be going well, I was using less and less mod points on this task every time I logged in.

Then I noticed, after going through the comments to Ari's wonderfully learned explanation as to why everyone who disagrees with him is Hitler a couple of times, that rather then going away the down-modding had become very targeted. Instead of going after the dumb shit, the posts that seriously challenged woke orthodoxy were getting piled on, making my up-modding ineffective. This was not just some snowflakes being triggered. Even if emergent rather than the result of some sort of conspiracy, this was much more conscious. As a result I've now started being a little more offensive in my use of mod points, which is not a good development as it reduces the overall value of the forum as a tool of communication and discussion (much like protectionism does to trade, actual war to countries etc.). I've tried to limit my own down-modding to posts that are outright abusive, or against users who have voiced support for the practice of down-modding simply due to disagreement with the content (instead of using the disagree mod) but I won't claim that I haven't done some modding that really has, if I'm being honest with myself, amounted to censorship.

I'm not the first to complain about the moderation on SN, and a common retort is that you just have to browser at -1. Although I often do this, obviously, sometimes I don't have the time and just scan through on the default visibility and I don't want what I see to be some deliberately censored version of the conversation. Also I don't want the topics here twisted, through biased down-modding, into some sort of propaganda targeted at more casual forum readers.

So how do we reduce the playing of these sorts of games? The editors do not have the time, I would think, to police disingenuous down-modding. Otherwise I would suggest treating off-topic and troll mods the same as spam, mods. Do we need a mod-war truce perhaps? I don't have the answers.

* Here I use the term "woke" not as a synonym to "liberal" but as something that exists in opposition to liberalism (liberalism being the corrupt product of western civilization). This is characterised by an obsession with identity groups and a rejection of the individual as the proper level of analysis when advocating public policy or discussing social mores.

PS bonus points to the person who, after I had down-modded harassing posts targeted at them, then went and encouraged AC harassment of other users. You can bet I won't be doing that again!
PPS thankfully the occurrence of partisan down-modding does seemed to have reduced following the transfer of power to the new administration in the US.

I really need a new phone! I was hoping to wait until the Phinephone or Librem 5 were viable options but unfortunately neither currently are: the Librem 5 is a 6 month wait according to the web site, and MMS is not working in any Pinephone distro, which is a necessity for me, so looking at alternatives. Two options are:
1. Grab a Pixel 3a before they all disappear and install GrapheneOS
2. Cipher S2
Unfortunately I don't have a lot of information about either outside of random web searches and word of mouth. In the old days (on some other site) there would be lots of discussion about Android ROMS and so forth and I would have had a bit more knowledge about the pros and cons of these things, but not so much now days. So any other phone recommendations or information on these from the SN brains trust?

Received an email recently from some place called ClearUnited telling me about the new phone they are trying to kickstarter. I think this has something to do with ClearOS - I put myself on their mailing list a while ago when I was building a home firewall appliance and they send me the occasional e-mail that I usually don't have a lot of interest in. I really do need a new phone though, I'm holding out for the release of the Pine phone or the Librem 15, so this one peaked my interested. The web site (https://www.clearunited.com/pages/phone) does seem to say all the correct things even though it looks like it was cooked up by a not particularly talented marketoid. The whole thing feels a bit shady however, and the link the ClearOS isn't entirely, um... clear, but I think it may be legitimate. Has anyone else come across this ClearPhone thingy? What do you think about it? Are their any other projects like this that I should be keeping an eye on (other than those already mentioned)?