Yes you CAN be an asshole!

[lliira]

I just have to rant.

Two people reading this know exactly what's *ahem* triggering this rant. (They're not the ones being assholes, btw.) This post was inspired by a few different people I liked doing stuff in one day, and by my recognizing that I'd sometimes behaved like that in the past. There is overlap here.

If you're called out for being -ist, maybe you really did say something -ist! Even if you're a good person. Even if the person calling you out is being an asshole about it. It is entirely possible for two people on opposing sides to both be assholes. See: Rupert Murdoch's tweets condemning Scientology. Now, I don't think either side is evil. I think that in this case, nearly everyone involved has good intentions. The main problem, as I see it, is that both sides are imputing bad intentions to the other side.

You will never get anywhere doing that, if your goal is actually to get along. If your goal is to vent -- okay. But ranting in a place where there are a lot of people who either don't know what's going on or do know but have a different opinion than you makes me think you don't just want to vent. It makes me think you want something else. Not something bad, mind you; it's not inherently bad to want to convince other people that you're right and your opponents are wrong, or to look for allies, or to get support. However, is it worth the price? This thing has the potential to cause two communities to implode now.

Of course, the fact that the post that made this thing so much worse imputed bad motives to people doesn't help either. Hey, Fred: it's more complicated than that.

There's a conversation to be had about trigger warnings. I think we were doing a pretty good job at having it. But I think it needs to be disentangled from all these hurt feelings and heated emotions and self-righteous indignation. It particularly needs to be had in an atmosphere in which we do not impute bad motivations to people simply because they disagree with us. People on both sides are doing that. And they're catching a lot of other people in the middle. Being in the middle of this particular wankstorm is no fun at all.

Comments

[blueinkedfrost]

Ah. I've been sort-of following that, as a lurker. (I love the Left Behind Slacktivist posts.) Your point about "content notes" being much less judgmental about things-that-are-not-real-world-evil than "warnings" is good, and I like your insight that people on both sides are imputing negative motivations to the other, because in some ways this is also about the Slacktiverse current moderation style rather than merely warnings. As far as I can tell. As a lurker in every way.

What rubbed me the wrong way was Hapax' criticism of facetious trigger warnings in the Slactiverse comments. Even facetious content notes/trigger warnings are giving some indication of the content coming up, and if you can't tolerate jokes - well, some jokes can be hurtful, but Hapax' focus on being against "mockery" of warnings feels humourless and discouraging of different opinions. I guess you've already seen the specific facetious trigger warnings list that cropped up in Slacktiverse conversation?

"Trigger warnings: Enthusiastic approval of whuppin' your kids until they bleed, things TBAT will consider one step below going after mommies with a knife, fee-fees recklessly hurt, silly trigger warnings mocked, reckless and dangerous use of indefinite articles, and jaywalking."

I see the humour in that. And the implication to be prepared for content of certain types.

[lliira]

I actually don't look at the Typepad Slacktiverse much.

Right now, looking in mostly from the outside, I feel like both sides are being ridiculous. Maybe that's inevitable. Fred Clark's blog drew together a lot of different people whose only commonality was that they read Fred Clark's blog. Trying to make a community around those people was probably doomed to fail from the outset. Right now I have a picture in my head of two groups of people building forts on either side of the room and occasionally throwing poo at each other, so everyone who walks into the room has to be ready to duck.

[blueinkedfrost]

*nods* From the outside, I think part of the problem with the Slacktiverse is that people might have assumed the moderating team have and/or use more power than they do; that people believe it's now wrong and will cause a ban if they vocally disagree with one of them. But it's also a moderating team's job to disabuse these impressions, as well as impressions of an in-crowd and an out-crowd. And their current mod policy of two permanent warnings and a ban is something that seems like a website where I would worry too much about getting things wrong.

[lliira]

What just happened at the Slacktiverse was jaw-droppingly bad, imo. They ROT13d and warned a person who is, as far as I've seen, always civil and insightful, for criticizing a moderator in a civil and insightful way. That is exactly the kind of atmosphere that makes your site one that's complained about all over the rest of the internet, because they sure can't complain on the site itself.

And it's so frustrating to watch, because I like the moderators there as people. Just... not as moderators. I know I could never be a moderator of anything other than my own small private spaces because I'd probably end up acting like they do.