EPTUS Politics Feedback Thread - Page 341
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KwarK
United States43319 Posts
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GreenHorizons
United States23505 Posts
It was a pretty successful compromise, all things considered. | ||
tofucake
Hyrule19174 Posts
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GreenHorizons
United States23505 Posts
On October 11 2025 11:47 tofucake wrote: No, it wasn't. It was just distributing the problem over a larger area US politics went from a thread to a blog, so it shrank it really. | ||
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ChristianS
United States3261 Posts
Tofu I’m sure you don’t care one way or another, but if it makes you feel any better I’ll try to contribute some in Starcraft-related ways too. I have a blog or two about Brood War I’ve been meaning to write | ||
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tofucake
Hyrule19174 Posts
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Razyda
895 Posts
On October 11 2025 10:58 tofucake wrote: For the love of fuck That is something I am totally onboard with. I would like to also remind everyone in what timeline we are in: US president says that "smart people dont like me" Then he post sombrero meme His opposition apparently doesnt know anything about internet and gets enraged Surprisingly to no one that results in more sombrero memes Then VP is blackmailing opposition saying that sombrero memes will stop if they vote as required. Honestly closing the USpol thread would be crime against comedy. Can everyone please calm down, thank the people who moderate the thread for allowing it to exist, and appreciate the effort they put in? Edit: Changed him to me to be more accurate. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States23505 Posts
On October 11 2025 12:04 tofucake wrote: It went from being a thread to being a thread and a blog to being a blog (briefly) to being a new thread and a blog to being just the thread again So when it was just the blog, it was the smallest. We could return to that. | ||
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xM(Z
Romania5296 Posts
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Magic Powers
Austria4478 Posts
Edit: I think the fact that people don't report other users' comments and instead mostly report bots is because they have no incentive to report users if most of these reports go ignored due to user privilege. Removing the privilege may increase the reports on users breaking rules and thus aid moderation. | ||
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Dan HH
Romania9141 Posts
On October 11 2025 16:53 Magic Powers wrote: In my opinion the whole problem of US pol being too toxic and instilling burnout/hate in those moderating it can be solved/strongly diminished by kicking the rule to the curb which says veterans have privileges and by instead dishing out bans and warnings evenly across all users who break rules. No more exceptions, no more privileges. Done. This fixes nothing. The toxicity of the thread (which I agree wtih Neb is being overstated) doesn't come from rule-breaking. It comes from various debatelord strategies such as gaslighting, inconsistency, immunity to hypocrisy, devolving every losing discussion into semantic nonsense, running away when presented with good arguments to one's point only to come back and make the exact same point unchanged a dozen more times in the future, etc There are no easy rules to apply against any of that, but there are rules against an otherwise civil person telling someone engaging in that kind of behavior to fuck off. Making Kwark go away or muffling him would be a big loss to the politics threads. He is one of the most skilled writers here, he can make long entertaining posts about nuts and bolts, he can make a bad faith troll in the Ukraine war thread lose their mind and implode after 10 other people had replied to them with no effect. He's part of what makes me come back and read those threads, not because I agree with him the most (far from it), but because his mind works in a way that I find interesting. Now I'm sorry to say this MP, but you going away was a boon to the pol thread rather than a loss. I have nothing personal against you, you usually come from a good place and I tend to want you to win whatever argument you're in but you pretty much never do. You get in a ton of arguments, you're not good at it, and you find the weirdest hills to die on. The reason there's pages upon pages of MP vs oBlade arguments isn't because he finds your points the most interesting, but because he finds your points the weakest. There's several people like him, that when presented with 5-10 arguments or a list of things, will only pick the 1-2 easiest to attack and completely ignore everything else. Your replies are almost always among those easiest to attack. I also don't think it's a coincidence that the people most justified (imo) to ask for Kwark's head, Jankisa and Neb, aren't doing it, but everyone that frequently engages in bad faith tactics and is called out by him wants him gone. | ||
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Magic Powers
Austria4478 Posts
On October 11 2025 18:42 Dan HH wrote: This fixes nothing. The toxicity of the thread (which I agree wtih Neb is being overstated) doesn't come from rule-breaking. It comes from various debatelord strategies such as gaslighting, inconsistency, immunity to hypocrisy, devolving every losing discussion into semantic nonsense, running away when presented with good arguments to one's point only to come back and make the exact same point unchanged a dozen more times in the future, etc There are no easy rules to apply against any of that, but there are rules against an otherwise civil person telling someone engaging in that kind of behavior to fuck off. Making Kwark go away or muffling him would be a big loss to the politics threads. He is one of the most skilled writers here, he can make long entertaining posts about nuts and bolts, he can make a bad faith troll in the Ukraine war thread lose their mind and implode after 10 other people had replied to them with no effect. He's part of what makes me come back and read those threads, not because I agree with him the most (far from it), but because his mind works in a way that I find interesting. Now I'm sorry to say this MP, but you going away was a boon to the pol thread rather than a loss. I have nothing personal against you, you usually come from a good place and I tend to want you to win whatever argument you're in but you pretty much never do. You get in a ton of arguments, you're not good at it, and you find the weirdest hills to die on. The reason there's pages upon pages of MP vs oBlade arguments isn't because he finds your points the most interesting, but because he finds your points the weakest. There's several people like him, that when presented with 5-10 arguments or a list of things, will only pick the 1-2 easiest to attack and completely ignore everything else. Your replies are almost always among those easiest to attack. I also don't think it's a coincidence that the people most justified (imo) to ask for Kwark's head, Jankisa and Neb, aren't doing it, but everyone that frequently engages in bad faith tactics and is called out by him wants him gone. I'm sorry to say this, but this comment reads like pure bullshit. Unadulterated massively biased bullshit. + Show Spoiler + Is this the kind of response you're talking about that is helpful to US pol discourse? Am I helping? | ||
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Gorsameth
Netherlands21977 Posts
On October 11 2025 11:15 tofucake wrote: For what little it is worth, thank you for the work you do.Of course I'm burnt out. There 5300 pages of hate and then another 340 pages of metahate. But if I stop moderating the thread the site gets worse and makes everything else I've done here worth less. Even if you, understandably, would just prefer to nuke us all from orbit. | ||
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KwarK
United States43319 Posts
On October 11 2025 18:50 Magic Powers wrote: I'm sorry to say this, but this comment reads like pure bullshit. Unadulterated massively biased bullshit. + Show Spoiler + Is this the kind of response you're talking about that is helpful to US pol discourse? Am I helping? Honestly, yes. That's better than your normal posting, for exactly the reasons he outlined. I'd much rather you just say that you disagree than you attempt to argue why it is wrong and then include 1+1=3 by accident and then have pages of you insisting that 1+1 actually does equal 3. Debatelords ruin debates. There needs to be a mechanism to end the discussion without losing by attrition and telling someone that they're full of shit and their arguments are shit actually works. A third party isn't going to go "ad hominem, two points from Hufflepuff", if the other person was making a bad argument and everyone else could see it then you found the right answer. Take the classic example of someone sealioning. + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/56/%22The_Terrible_Sea_Lion%22._Wondermark_comic_strip_No._1062_by_David_Malki_%2819_September_2014%29.png) I would never action someone for responding with "fuck off sealion". "Fuck off sealion" is a complete, articulate, and fully formed counterargument that concisely and clearly expresses everything that needs to be expressed. It's just a case of using it at the right times. | ||
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Magic Powers
Austria4478 Posts
On October 11 2025 20:01 KwarK wrote: Honestly, yes. That's better than your normal posting, for exactly the reasons he outlined. I'd much rather you just say that you disagree than you attempt to argue why it is wrong and then include 1+1=3 by accident and then have pages of you insisting that 1+1 actually does equal 3. Debatelords ruin debates. There needs to be a mechanism to end the discussion without losing by attrition and telling someone that they're full of shit and their arguments are shit actually works. A third party isn't going to go "ad hominem, two points from Hufflepuff", if the other person was making a bad argument and everyone else could see it then you found the right answer. Take the classic example of someone sealioning. + Show Spoiler + I would never action someone for responding with "fuck off sealion". "Fuck off sealion" is a complete, articulate, and fully formed counterargument that concisely and clearly expresses everything that needs to be expressed. It's just a case of using it at the right times. Sure, I can agree that debatelording isn't particularly productive either. However, I've not yet seen an instance where an insult has led to anything good. So we're at some kind of impasse. The way I look at it, neither insulting someone nor debating (including debatelording) works. By that I mean "winning" doesn't exist with those two methods. Both methods fail if "winning" is the goal. What debating and hurling insults have in common is that they draw over the battle lines, they don't dissolve the lines and they don't create clarity. Asking questions on the other hand is one of the ways of approaching a meaningful resolution. Because by asking questions you can get people to reveal their hand in full. Whether that revelation leads to a realization (on their part or on yours) is up to chance. So it's not guaranteed, but there is a real chance. Regarding forum rules: debating (including debatelording) can't be moderated, because there's no rule book big enough to cover every instance. So it's an accepted form of communication. Insults can be moderated without a big rule book. If you want to improve discourse, I would recommend using other forms of communication, such as asking sincere questions - and that includes asking people whose argumentation you despise. I've used this method many times, and I've noticed that I do get answers sometimes, and those answers can lead to decent discussions. | ||
Liquid`Drone
Norway28719 Posts
On October 11 2025 06:40 KwarK wrote: I'm not sure who I am occasionally banning. Not as a moderator, as a poster. | ||
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justanothertownie
16320 Posts
On October 11 2025 18:42 Dan HH wrote: This fixes nothing. The toxicity of the thread (which I agree wtih Neb is being overstated) doesn't come from rule-breaking. It comes from various debatelord strategies such as gaslighting, inconsistency, immunity to hypocrisy, devolving every losing discussion into semantic nonsense, running away when presented with good arguments to one's point only to come back and make the exact same point unchanged a dozen more times in the future, etc There are no easy rules to apply against any of that, but there are rules against an otherwise civil person telling someone engaging in that kind of behavior to fuck off. Making Kwark go away or muffling him would be a big loss to the politics threads. He is one of the most skilled writers here, he can make long entertaining posts about nuts and bolts, he can make a bad faith troll in the Ukraine war thread lose their mind and implode after 10 other people had replied to them with no effect. He's part of what makes me come back and read those threads, not because I agree with him the most (far from it), but because his mind works in a way that I find interesting. Now I'm sorry to say this MP, but you going away was a boon to the pol thread rather than a loss. I have nothing personal against you, you usually come from a good place and I tend to want you to win whatever argument you're in but you pretty much never do. You get in a ton of arguments, you're not good at it, and you find the weirdest hills to die on. The reason there's pages upon pages of MP vs oBlade arguments isn't because he finds your points the most interesting, but because he finds your points the weakest. There's several people like him, that when presented with 5-10 arguments or a list of things, will only pick the 1-2 easiest to attack and completely ignore everything else. Your replies are almost always among those easiest to attack. I also don't think it's a coincidence that the people most justified (imo) to ask for Kwark's head, Jankisa and Neb, aren't doing it, but everyone that frequently engages in bad faith tactics and is called out by him wants him gone. To add a long-term lurker perspective, this post is 100 % on the money. I could not agree more. | ||
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KwarK
United States43319 Posts
On October 11 2025 03:12 LegalLord wrote: I just don't remember which grudges I've ended by banning people. And while I maintain the right to offer my opinion on moderation, something that everyone else with an opinion also seems to do, I don't know what larger-scale moderation decisions are being referred to here.occasionally hands out bans in the politics threads as part of settling a grudge, and very clearly involves himself in at least some of the larger-scale moderation decision-making behind the scenes. | ||
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Fleetfeet
Canada2607 Posts
On October 11 2025 16:53 Magic Powers wrote: In my opinion the whole problem of US pol being too toxic and instilling burnout/hate in those moderating it can be solved/strongly diminished by kicking the rule to the curb which says veterans have privileges and by instead dishing out bans and warnings evenly across all users who break rules. No more exceptions, no more privileges. Done. Edit: I think the fact that people don't report other users' comments and instead mostly report bots is because they have no incentive to report users if most of these reports go ignored due to user privilege. Removing the privilege may increase the reports on users breaking rules and thus aid moderation. Tofu gave three clear answers in response to LegalLord's questions. Assuming Tofu is a person you respect and are considering the wishes and volunteer energy of, why are you asking for something they all but stated they were not willing to do? Like, one of the mods just expressed frustration at their volunteer position and burnout, and your 'solution' is for them to moderate MORE and do MORE work? Think it through, lad. Checking every reported post to see if it does or does not follow the rules is MORE work, especially if there are MORE reported posts. It being a solution or less work for the mods is fantasy - you just want to believe that because it suits your goals. | ||
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Magic Powers
Austria4478 Posts
On October 12 2025 02:29 Fleetfeet wrote: Tofu gave three clear answers in response to LegalLord's questions. Assuming Tofu is a person you respect and are considering the wishes and volunteer energy of, why are you asking for something they all but stated they were not willing to do? Like, one of the mods just expressed frustration at their volunteer position and burnout, and your 'solution' is for them to moderate MORE and do MORE work? Think it through, lad. Checking every reported post to see if it does or does not follow the rules is MORE work, especially if there are MORE reported posts. It being a solution or less work for the mods is fantasy - you just want to believe that because it suits your goals. I completely disagree. + Show Spoiler + Btw I was writing out a whole response, but then I reminded myself that KwarK thinks the above posting style is more productive. | ||
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