You may have noticed a distinct lack of return2ozma. This is due to their admitting, in a public comment, that their engagement here is in bad faith:
I’m sure there will be questions, let me see if I can address the most obvious ones:
- Can I still post negative stuff about Biden?
Absolutely! We have zero interest in running an echo chamber. However, if ALL you’re posting is negative, you may want to re-think your priorities. You get out of the world what you put into it and all that.
- Why now?
Presumption of innocence. It may be my own fault, but I do try to think the best of people, and even though they were posting negative articles, they weren’t necessarily WRONG. Biden’s poll numbers, particularly in minority demographics ARE in the shitter. They are starting to get better, but he still has a hell of a hill to climb.
- Why a 30 day temp ban and not a permanent ban?
The articles return2ozma shared weren’t bad, faked, or from some wing-nut bias site like “beforeitsnews.com”, they were legitimate articles from established and respected news agencies, pointing out the valid problems Biden faces.
The problem was ONLY posting the negatives, over and over and then openly admitting that dishonest enagement is their purpose.
Had they all been bullshit articles? It would not have taken anywhere near this much time to lay the ban and it would have been permanent.
30 days seems enough time for them to re-think their strategery and come back to engage honestly.
Good move, they were a clown and pointing out that they were arguing entirely in bad faith is correct. They did it under the guise of being far-leftist, but as a far-leftist myself, I have a hard time believing it was for anything other than pissing people off. Hopefully they can go practice being happy instead of doom-posting on niche Internet forums.
I have a hard time believing it was for anything other than pissing people off.
this is why I blocked them. Also, kinda felt I didn’t want to be seeing his crap. Biden is an awful candidate but R20 ain’t helping matters.
Dude thank God
I won’t pretend to know what the fully correct decision on stuff like this is; it’s definitely complex bordering on impossible (among other reasons because I actually think it’s good to have vocal easily-identifiable bad-faith accounts, because they tee up great conversations even if the original intent behind the post wasn’t good and people are annoyed by it).
But that being said it seems crazy that some of these accounts are still allowed to post here freely, given what was in my view some pretty ironclad indication that they’re not posting in good faith.
pointing out the valid problems Biden faces
So this touches on one of my key least favorite things about return2ozma – I’d actually go well beyond what you saw in that one comment from him, and say that at this point, he’s clearly not just pointing out valid problems. Posting negative polls is one thing, mostly completely fine. Everyone’s got their viewpoint and allowed to post whatever view they want. But he’ll also post specific assertions about Biden that objectively aren’t true (marijuana policy being a good example), and then continue posting them after it’s shown to him that they’re not true – all the while swearing that he’s trying to help, just bringing up all this negative information because he really wants the Democrats to win, and so is giving constructive criticism so they can change course.
IDK man. That to me is very clear indication that he’s lying about what he’s trying to do, and being deliberately dishonest with what he posts. I think the posts I’m referring to were in some meme sub, not here, so maybe what you’re saying about the content he posts specifically in [email protected] coming technically from reputable sources is a valid counter argument. IDK. Maybe. But to me, avowing “I am trying to help Biden” while posting objectively false criticism of him, and not really pretending it’s any other way than that, is actually worse by quite a lot than avowing “I am here to post negative information about Biden.” (not that that latter one is good…)
Like I say I’m not trying to weigh in on what the right answer is (either with ozma or the other similar accounts), because I don’t really see a good right answer. Just tossing in my observations as a person who doesn’t have to take the responsibility of trying to figure out how to handle it.
(@[email protected] - I feel a little unfair about posting this in a forum where you aren’t allowed in to defend yourself; if you want to create a thread anywhere else with any response you want to make, I’ll link to it from here so you can give your side of anything where you feel I’ve been inaccurate / unfair.)
My take is the dude just filled the board with unrelenting misery. I’m happy for the occasional reminder that Biden could be doing better. I think he’s flat wrong on certain policies. But oddly enough I still get that point of view without R2O, while enjoying my time here a lot more.
There’s that, too, yes.
God, the unrelenting misery is killing me in this platform. I think the thing I’m most sick and tired of more than anything else is the constant stream of The Usual Suspects butting in with “But what about Gaza?!” on Every. Single. Post.
Post an article about Biden proposing a ceasefire agreement in the war? Complain about Biden giving support to Israel!
Post an article about Biden celebrating pride month? Complain about Biden funding Israel!
Article about Biden forgiving another batch of student loans? “BUt Biden supports israel!”
Article about Trump getting convicted of felonies? “But Biden! Gaza! Israel!”
Article about a small town library fighting LGBTQ+ book bans? “GAZA! ISRAEL! BIDEN! BAD”
Article about a goddamn random topic completely unrelated to Biden, Trump, Israel, politics, or the US at all? “GENOCIIIIIIIIIIDE!”
It’s at the point where I’ve cut back on Lemmy usage entirely because every comment thread I click on is like navigating a fucking minefield of misery. Nothing good can ever happen, no policy changes can ever be celebrated, no events can be remarked upon, without someone butting in with a reminder that Genocide Mother-Fucking Joe is personally shoveling coal into the palestinian child incinerator. No post can ever leave you with any emotion other than the thin veil of doomerism settling upon your shoulders, a pall of depression casting itself over the tragedy of the world, and a sense that modern society is an Aristocrats joke that has long since crossed the line from “horrifying” to “funny,” then back to “horrifying,” then back to “funny,” before settling itself so firmly in “horrifying” that the audience is casting nervous glances and hoping that someone else is the first to call the police.
Man, the first thing I did when I joined Lemmy was to develop a policy of blocking anyone that didn’t think I would enjoy seeing or interacting with. They didn’t have to do anything wrong per se, but if I thought they argued in bad faith or jumped to ad hominem attacks or whatever, I’d block them.
I was worried at first. Some of them were prolific, and I didn’t want this place to feel empty. But I’ve found that I’m spending less time arguing with people who only want to piss me off gives me more time to interact with more thoughtful folks. The responses in turn encourage them to post more. So by blocking people I don’t like and encouraging people I do, I think that helps to make the community better as a whole, not even just for me.
Life is too short. I come here to interact with people I enjoy. We don’t have to agree, it just has to not be someone who inspires the thought, “not this motherfucker again.” Try it. It makes Lemmy so much better.
Good luck, my friend.
Well said. For each article, they’d consistently select the source with the most inflammatory headline and perspective and post it in several places at once, ensuring a clearly negative perception of Biden for casual browsers.
There’s no shortage of criticism of Biden on Lemmy. We should all want the most factual articles posted to support well-informed discussions of his actions.
He admitted to me, after I accused him, that he searches a news aggregator for “Biden” daily and posts the negative stuff he sees. I believe he said it was to hold dems accountable or something. That exchange was maybe a month or two back and might have been either here or on [email protected]
If I do a search for puppy mills every day and only post the negative things, is that bad faith?
Let’s go with that example. If you posted multiple times per day about puppy mills on a community about animals, that would be a bit much. I post multiple posts about Trump per day but its generally reflective of overall media coverage. I just go to my preferred sources and browse their home pages for news that seems interesting. I don’t seek out anything in particular.
If you’re posting to Aww? Absolutely.
Ok, so if Biden is a puppy mill, is Trump the kill shelter?
And then this guy is PETA, working at kill shelters while posting negative stuff about puppy mills?
If your goal is to fuel a distorted view about the competing candidates then that is bad faith.
I’d love to one day, see just ONE of you people offer up a good argument that’s relevant to the topic.
I think I agree more with the spam angle than the “only bad news” angle. As others have said it’s fine to have a viewpoint and mainly share articles in line with that viewpoint. However doing it many times per day, every day, when the number of posts here is limited anyway, does impact the community.
In any case, the main thing is to be consistent and ideally make whatever the rule is very clear. And I would say this should be turned into an explicit rule or explanation under an existing rule.
Personally I just read what I want to, and if it seems bad faith, downvote and move on.
A rate limit would make far more sense than whatever this is.
I was thinking of saying the same thing. I’m not sure the mod tools support it though.
Set up a script that tallies user submissions, and remove new ones that exceed the limit.
I’m not familiar with the mod tools but I find it hard to imagine you couldn’t write a short little script that does that.
i agree, jordanlund is opening themselves up for extra scrutiny with this.
spam and displaying signs of getting off on angering users (trolling) is absolutely a valid and nonpartisan reason for a ban. but as soon as the mods start citing actual politics (outside of clear examples of misinfo, which is not in play here) it gets dicey and accusations of bias pile up fast, which is exactly what we are seeing play out right in these comments.
I blocked him quite a while ago.
Poll after poll after poll were filling up my feed at one point.
Fuck that shit. You sir, may fuck off.
But he didn’t fuck off. You did.
Blocking bad faith people only cedes ground to them.
Oh please. You are here to consume content, as a leisure activity. There’s no obligation to hold your nose for some standard of witness or something.
It’s a discussion forum. The ENTIRE POINT is to discuss things.
Completely agree, my point is you are under no obligation to stay, to read things on a certain topic, to read things from a certain author
Not an obligation, but a responsibility.
Absolutely not.
None of this matters, don’t put Lemmy on a pedestal.
It matters. Forums are battlegrounds of ideas.
Victim blaming.
Leave all that ground stuff to the admins or mods.
On the internet, with infinite amounts of everything, it’s okay to pick one’s battles.
What? No, there’s not infinite everything, what a self centered viewpoint.
If I block every Trump supporter I see, then I no longer see Trump supporters, then I get a false idea of how little support Trump has.
Meanwhile Trump supporters keep spreading their bullshit unchecked.
This is a community, not a television. You’re not just a consumer, you’re helping to shape the discussions. You can’t just hide away every time you see someone say something you don’t like.
Oh idealism.
I used to be like you.
I hope you succeed, friend.
Good luck.
Extremely helpful comment, thanks for your contribution.
It’s not idealism, it’s having a fucking spine. If you can’t handle reality, get therapy. Otherwise, roll up your sleeves and get to work.
lol ok!
I can handle reality just fine. And the internet (gasp!) is not reality.
Don’t get so flustered. It’s not good for the blood pressure.
K
honestly, if nobody interacted with R2O, do you really think he’d continue spamming?
The ground we’re talking about is our time and thoughts.
I’m normally not somebody that’ll block a person. but… I made an exception for R2O.
Oh I block people out of my life all the time. Fuck that noise.
honestly, if nobody interacted with R2O, do you really think he’d continue spamming?
Your question is unanswerable because it relies on a false assumption.
That’s interesting. Care to explain?
I propose a hypothetical- that we all ignore a guy. The only assumption that I’m making is whatever his purpose is, it requires engagement.
If nobody engages, that account at least, goes away. Either R2O is here to troll, or to push a narrative or is in some other way a bad actor. All of that requires engagement.
I propose a hypothetical- that we all ignore a guy.
My point is that your hypothetical is bullshit because it literally never happens. It’s the same reason boycotts are bullshit: the amount of cooperation and participation they require is fundamentally contrary to human nature.
Because of that, there’s no point in indulging in the rest of your thought experiment.
Boycotts are not bullshit.
Cite one that’s actually worked.
Edit: to be clear, I’m not saying a person shouldn’t engage in a boycott on moral grounds (in contrast to my stance on the use of the block button, as explained in another comment – this is an aspect where those two actions differ). What I’m saying is that we shouldn’t have any illusions about boycotts’ actual effectiveness or delude ourselves into thinking that boycotting is somehow a replacement for proper government regulation, because it’s not.
please don’t take this as me trolling. But…
Because of that, there’s no point in indulging in the rest of your thought experiment.
Well then. You’re free to indulge in the block button. Cuz that’s exactly what it’s there for.
Further, it doesn’t take a lot of people blocking him to remove the value in posting. there’s a diminished return the less engagement he gets. Unless he’s just a bot spamming shit everywhere, somebody is behind that account and is wasting time and energy on it. They’re going to find something else, somewhere else, or some other way, to spread their crap when they stop getting sufficient engagement.
I blocked him simply because I found myself recognizing his name and scrolling past. at that point, it’s just simpler to actually block a person.
Well then. You’re free to indulge in the block button. Cuz that’s exactly what it’s there for.
No, fuck that. This is a platform for discussion – rebutting arguments instead of sticking your fingers in your ears is the entire point of being here. Why are you trying to discourage that?
Frankly, I consider the block button harmful: if a user is a problem, then they are a problem for everyone and mod intervention, as we’re discussing here, is the correct solution. The block button never is.
Normally I’m not one to even entertain the thought of commenting on a political thread, but I feel it would be disingenuous to click the button without any feedback in this case. This decision leaves me with a large enough lack of confidence in the future moderation of this community(especially given we’re in an election year) such that I can’t in good faith leave it on my feed and I will be blocking this comm after this comment.
While I agree that Ozma deserved a ban for spam, the justification used for this is frankly appalling. Misrepresentation of bias as bad-faith, especially with the admission that largely good sources were used is unacceptable.
I’m ok with this, it was borderline spam with how many articles they managed to find and post all on the same theme.
Look, I have zero illusions to how popular of a decision this is in this comm, and this isn’t my instance so who the fuck cares what I think.
but
I have a very hard time seeing this as anything other than a disagreement over personal political tastes, rather than anything to do with a violation of some unwritten rule. Your comm already has rules regarding article quality, misinformation, and off-topic posts and comments that could be used as a justification here if it applied. If there was a problem with the volume of posts for which he was responsible (i think this is the legitimate concern here), then you could either call it spamming or there could easily be a rule added limiting the number of posts per day that applies globally and isn’t reliant on subjective judgement.
I’ve been very vocal about my own political opinions, and have myself been accused of bad-faith trolling and of being a covert agent of some type or other. Speaking for myself, I think there’s a pretty obvious bias (maybe preference is a more fair term) when it comes to the coverage and rhetoric about the upcoming election in the US specifically. There’s legitimacy to the observation that inconvenient bad press about Biden is ignored/rationalized/dismissed on a ‘lesser evil’ and ‘at all costs’ political rationale that I (and I think ozma) tend to react negatively to. Breaking through the iron curtain of electoral politics to people who genuinely share political values (not all of them, mind you) sometimes involves repeated reminders and presentation of counter-partisan coverage. I personally appreciate ozma’s contributions because often these posts and articles encourage real discussions about the limitations of this particular politician, and people like @[email protected] frequently jump in and provide nuanced dissection and context to what would otherwise be an easily dismissed issue.
This is not my instance so It’s not up to my judgment what the right or wrong thing to do is here, but .world being an instance that has already de-federated with most others with louder left-leaning politics, the overton window has already been considerably narrowed. By removing the loudest dissenters (who are ‘not wrong, just assholes’), you run the risk of warping reality for those who don’t care enough to confront coverage they might find uncomfortable and might prefer a more quiet space to affirm their politics instead of being challenged. You’re cultivating an echo chamber simply by cutting out the noise you find disagreeable. The goal of agitation is to get exactly those people to engage more so that we can move the overton window further left and accomplish more at the electoral level in the future. It isn’t ‘bad faith’ to be motivated by that goal, it just might be unfair to people who are comfortable with where that window currently is and would rather not be challenged by it moving further left.
- Is okay: Having a viewpoint, whatever the viewpoint
- Isn’t okay: Pushing a particular chosen viewpoint regardless of how well it aligns with the information you’re drawing from, being upfront about that being your strategy, and then following through to a beyond-parody level of annoying everyone and repeating yourself day in and day out
IDK why everyone’s so eager to read a pretty detailed explanation of why the issue isn’t his viewpoint, and then follow up right away with extensive hand wringing over the idea of censoring his viewpoint.
Because it’s pretty clearly about his viewpoint, since the cited comment in the post is ‘this is my viewpoint, and that viewpoint is why i’m posting these things’
If it’s about the volume of posts call it spamming and address it with a rule about post limits. Calling it bad-faith is necessarily about the reason he’s making the posts, not how many of them there are or the quality of the articles.
I have a new idea: Anyone who wants to hide behind “I am posting this as a far left person, to help the left, because I care super much about the left and if you don’t like my viewpoint you are clearly a shitlib censoring my helpful left viewpoint of shitting relentlessly on Biden,” has to post at least a 1:1 ratio of posts in favor of ranked choice voting, or local helpful leftist candidates, or directing people to a Palestine protest, or some left helpful viewpoint that isn’t “let’s have Trump come to power because Biden isn’t everything I hoped and dreamed for, as for-sure genuine leftist.”
If the shills are gonna accuse people of policing viewpoint let’s police some fuckin viewpoints, to make sure they make some sense
(Note: I am clearly joking about this. Mostly.)
I’m noticing you do this a lot:
“We should require proof of support of some leftist goals from people who want to criticize biden - i’m only kidding (kinda)” “This instance looks a lot like a troll farm - i’m not accusing just saying it’s suspicious”
Sounds to me like you wouldn’t be opposed to a political alignment test as a requirement to participating in political discussions (i’m clearly joking about this. mostly)
I talk from time to time about wanting to set up a forum where if you say something, you have to back it up, as a way to mitigate the impact of low-effort trolling “of COURSE we all agree Biden ruined the climate” from 5-10 different accounts as a technique to distort the discourse. I think it’s toxic if it is politically slanted so that someone with mod power is deciding what is the “right” political viewpoint, obviously; on that much we will agree. But I do think that the discourse is being radically distorted by the existence of organized shilling efforts, and I think about what would be a good solution to it (which seems like a pretty difficult problem), in ways which I am sure would be wildly unpopular with a certain segment of the userbase.
You can characterize that as me thirsting to silence dissenting political views, if you want. I won’t stop you.
I don’t think you’re trying to silence political views at all, but I do think you’re trying to dismiss them as fringe, dishonest, or intentional subterfuge.
Castigating people you disagree with as ‘shills’ or ‘bad faith actors’ is, in my opinion, the lowest quality of political commentary. It excuses you from engaging with what that person saying, simply because you doubt their honesty, as if somehow that invalidates what they’re saying. I think it’s lazy and I wish mods would enforce their own rules against it.
I also find it frustrating that you continuously accuse people like myself and ozma of acting according to some agenda, but then appear in every political thread giving impassioned arguments about how we need to look past Biden’s flaws no matter how real they are, as if that is not itself a political agenda. Do I think you’re arguing that in bad faith? No, but then again i’m not in support of banning people who are simply too loud about their perspective.
Castigating people you disagree with as ‘shills’ or ‘bad faith actors’ is, in my opinion, the lowest quality of political commentary. It excuses you from engaging with what that person saying
Can you point to anyone who’s said anything that I responded to without engaging on its own merits?
Everyone has a rosy view of themselves I am sure, but in my mind, I’ve spent an almost pathological amount of time here talking to ozma about the merits of what he’s saying, on the face of them, and likewise for you, likewise for a lot of the other people. Then also in addition to that, if they display shill-like behavior I tend to call it out instead of just avoiding the potentially-unfair accusation. But I don’t think I have ever really led out of the gate with anything along the lines of “you’re a shill so that means I don’t have to respond to what you just said”.
Can you point to an example of someone who said something and I just dismissed what they were saying instead of breaking down why (in my view) it wasn’t right, at least as a first step even if later I proceeded to what I thought of their motivations or changing the subject or etc?
IDK why everyone’s so eager to read a pretty detailed explanation of why the issue isn’t his viewpoint, and then follow up right away with extensive hand wringing over the idea of censoring his viewpoint.
Simple. They’re not buying the explanation.
Dude admitted to being a propagandist. You have no argument here.
He admitted he disliked Biden. That does not make him a propagandist.
He admitted he only chooses to post negative things about Biden. Don’t move goalposts for someone else… it’s VERY bad look.
When people only post negative things about Trump what is the reason?
Find me someone that does nothing but post negative shit about Trump all day here and I’ll concede this discussion.
It’s actually not a disagreement. :) I actually agree with a lot of the substance of the articles. Biden needs to address his support in minority communities for example.
The problem comes from posting negative news purely to be negative, over and over and over.
It becomes less constructive and more about harping on Biden, a la Fox/Newsmax/Oann.
I think it’s safe to say you do disagree about what constitutes ‘fair’ coverage of Biden
I think it’s safe to say you don’t understand them when they tell you it was because it was agenda-based spam.
If it’s spam then set a limit on the number of posts and move on. If it’s because he has an agenda then I guess everyone here should be banned, too, including jordanlund, since ‘there’s too much anti-biden coverage here’ is an agenda-based determination itself.
.
“Biden doesn’t have enough slips to merit the number of negative posts”
edit: You did the same thing here. You keep twisting the argument being presented into something facially ridiculous rather than engaging with what other users are actually saying.
He’s specifically supporting his argument that some accounts criticizing biden are bad-faith actors, by providing an example of what he doesn’t consider to be bad faith (the difference being generalized support with some loud criticisms). I don’t think I misrepresented him at all, and mozz and I discussed it at length, if you care to read it
.
You honestly think mods have the time to count how many posts each person makes?
RTO has been spamming this community and others with anti-Biden rhetoric for a long time. People have been complaining a LOT in the comments. To the point where it was damn near biased that they kept protecting the clown.
There’s enough anti-Biden stuff around posted in this, and other communities that it’s not necessary for ONE person to pepper a community with that shit all day.
Let’s not resort to bad faith comparisons when the explanation was sound. Even if you disagree with it.
Mods hardly do anything manually, i’m arguing for a automated limit that’s community-wide. So no, I don’t think mods have time to count the posts of their thousands of users, but I think scripting that rule into an automod would be almost trivial.
Let’s not resort to bad faith comparisons when the explanation was sound. Even if you disagree with it.
It’s not bad-faith, my point is that having an agenda doesn’t make behavior bad-faith. I don’t even think it’s unreasonable to ask for fewer posts from ozma, just call it what it is and enforce it for everyone, instead of making it about the specific perspective he’s pushing.
[if ALL you’re posting is negative, you may want to re-think your priorities. ]
It’s okay to do that about a specific politician if that is your true opinion. However, it does seem like this person was arguing in bad faith by admitting he is aware things are not as bad as his posts seem.
by admitting he is aware things are not as bad as his posts seem.
Let’s do a little mental exercise. What does this next line imply?
Both good and bad news about Trump is out there. I prefer to share the bad news
The only ones arguing in bad are the ones completely twisting what he said to find an implication that does not exist and accuse him of it.
The irony of someone constantly being banned from here for misinformation, here to defend an admitted propagandist.
Weren’t you just accusing this community of supporting Israel in another post somewhere? Ahh yes, here it is:
You should know /politics and /news ban anyone critical of israel and Lemmy.world is ran by Zionists.
Wasn’t that you?
As I recall, you said you weren’t posting here anymore.
Amazing you managed to not respond to a single argument and went for ad hominems and proving my point.
Nothing here is ad hominem if it’s true. You HAVE been banned for misinformation, you ARE defending OP
There is no argument to respond to as you’ve not made one.
I am unsure why you are appealing to authority in a post questioning said authority.
If you have nothing but ad-hominems I have nothing to respond to anymore.
Point out the ad hominem for me please.
To a certain kind of person, saying they’re wrong is a personal attack.
Oh Linkerbaan, are you really calling out people for not responding to your argument? You, of all people?
Your primary mo is to go in every thread and screech “Zionist” before anyone dares question your posts or comments and you want to talk about ad hominem? Cute.
Let’s do a little mental exercise. What does this next line imply?
Both good and bad news about Trump is out there. I prefer to share the bad news
It implies you are arguing in bad faith. Doesn’t matter whether you are talking about Joe Biden of Convicted Felon and Sex Offender Treason Trump.
Unsurprising to see the usual suspects agitating on this issue in the comments section.
I honestly don’t know how I feel about this, other than that a temp ban is better than a perma-ban. Ozma is annoying as shit, but that’s not a strong admittance of bad faith, even if it’s obvious by his posting to anyone with functioning eyes. At the same time, he does nothing but continuously post this dreck, and a community necessarily must trim bad-faith actors to maintain itself. Otherwise you end up with a shithole like 4chan.
I don’t know. I’m glad it’s not my call.
It’s tough you know? I can’t tell you how many times I looked at reports and gave them the benefit of doubt, then hit this one and was like “Ok, yup, it’s time.”
Looking at the coments here there’s lots on both sides, folks who are like “yeah, I blocked him ages ago!” to “how dare you!”
FWIW, I’ve been in touch with them in PMs, there’s no hard feelings on either side, we’ll see how it shakes out when they’re back.
Mostly right there with you. It’s disturbing to see mods just publicly admitting their process is capricious and wack expecting to be congratulated and lauded for openness.
I never thought I’d be posting AMAB next to a lib.
To me this is not clearly explained in the rules. While I didn’t like the content in question, this seems overly heavy-handed for the situation.
I think it’s the right move, but I agree that it should be spelled out in the rules.
That’s what you call “bad faith engagement”?
Really?
The shitlib push to get everybody to snort your toxic and dangerous fallacious positivity in unison is starting to get really, really overt.
So…. Someone saying their entire purpose is to share only the negative about Biden wasn’t overt enough?
Seems overt bias is fine with you if it favors your agenda.
I’m willing to bet they just don’t think having a bias is bannable
If I have an issue with the kinds of things someone else is posting, and they haven’t actually broken a rule, I either downvote it, argue with them about it, post my own content that represents my own perspective, or all three. I don’t cheer for that user to be banned simply because I don’t like their bias or agenda
Yeah, I cheer because they’re admittedly here in bad faith to spread bullshit. And they are now muted as a result of it.
If what they were spreading was bullshit, the posts themselves would have been removed for breaking misinformation rules.
If what they were spreading was biden’s own shit so that you had to smell it instead of ignoring it, I think he was doing you a service and you should be thanking him.
I’m not sorry that one of your own was silence for a while. The peace and quiet is going to be memorable to say the least.
The dude admitted to posting in bad faith. So… you really have no argument here at all.
And let’s not pretend that you wouldn’t be the exact same way if you found out a well-known anti-propagandist was banned for a month.
share only the negative about Biden
Pretending that there can be anything positive about liberalism (or it’s myriad servants - like Biden) is outright lying, liberal.
I’d say we’ve been handling you liberals with kid gloves up until now.
That is some quality rage-bait lmao. It’s like a caricature of someone endlessly pumping themselves with Fox News, filled with a “you won because we let you” arrogance.
pumping themselves with Fox News
You don’t even know what liberalism is, do you, liberal?
Do tell… before today, has it actually ever occured to you that liberalism happens to be it’s very own ideology?
Did you know that (so-called) “conservatism” isn’t, because, in reality, “conservatism” is just liberalism with extra hysterics?
No? Yes?
Liberalism is it’s own ideology. Conservatism isn’t because it’s just leberalism with extra hysterics.
Like… The conservatives cry more? They’re more emotional? I’m not sure what you’re trying to say.
And I never said that I was a liberal. I just think you sound like a twat.
I’m not sure what you’re trying to say.
In other words… you need to have your own ideology explained to you, because you have never actually given your ideology a second thought.
You never even chose it.
And I never said that I was a liberal.
And? How does that affect the fact that you’re a liberal, liberal?
Confidently saying something like that clearly illustrates the problem with leftism, lefty. You people have no concept of how nuance works or even what it means.
Confidently saying something like that clearly illustrates the problem with liberalism, liberal. You people have no use for nuance except as something to hide behind.
Dude, your entire post/comment history reads like a cautionary tale on how not to come off as the “ackshually” meme guy.
Side note- calling liberals “liberal” isn’t the insult you think it is.
And lastly… nuance isn’t a thing to hide behind. It’s just… a thing. You see, the world and everthing in it- exists within a grey area called “reality.” This is ironically where a lot of ignorant people stage their ideology of “everthing is either black-and-white/everyone is either with us, or against us” from.
calling liberals “liberal” isn’t the insult you think it is.
You mean… just like the terms fascist, white supremacist and colonialist weren’t insults once? They sure are now, aren’t they?
And lastly… nuance isn’t a thing to hide behind.
Then stop hiding behind it, liberal. Defend your ideology… if you can.
Okay, since you’ve basically admitted to using the term “liberal” as an insult, I’ve nothing to say to you. Because circumventing the “no personal attacks” rule by calling people “liberals” as a derogatory is about as bad faith as it gets.
You’re the conversational equivalent of a Trump supporter.
Yeah, I’m sorta startled that admitting to wanting to highlight negative truths over cheering for someone is considered bad faith. Bad faith is misrepresenting an issue, not selectively posting reputable sources. This is one mod decision that I think is wrong and bad.
It’s going to get worse and worse as November comes around. The liberal hysterics is pretty similar to 2016 - be prepared for more of the same.
Removed by mod
Do you think this ban is fairly nonpartisan?
Would you also ban a user that only posts negative Trump stories and admits to that?
I agree r2o was getting to be a bit much, and the temp ban seems appropriate, but I’d want to see a policy like this applied fairly and evenly.
If someone pumped the gas and was posting dozens and dozens of pro or anti Trump stuff? Yeah, I think I’d do the same.
We did have quite a few pro-Trump posts as he was winning primaries, which made logical sense. I’m also planning on megathreads in July and August for both conventions.
You should make spamming too many articles within a certain X time a rule then. I think it needs to be more objective. This is getting into partisan territory.
We did end up doing that in World News when one user dominated the front page by posting 19 articles at once(!)
I don’t think Ozma quite hit that level, and it wasn’t really the volume that was the issue, it was the desire to be continually, relentlessly, negative.
I didn’t notice, but that’s because I noticed the trend in thier posts awhile ago & decided to block them.
I checked my block list and already had this covered. I don’t need that kind of shit in my life. But good on you for making it a better place for everyone. I 100% support banning folks just to make a board less miserable to visit. Both sides is good. Agenda is bad.
Playing devil’s advocate here… I exclusively post news from sources on the left to the center. Doesn’t that mean I more or less have an agenda?
I think the issue is more so the specificity and the precision in their posts always being about one person.
See, I’m not interested in Devil’s advocacy. The board was overwhelmed by negativity that just made me want to not come here at all. When I blocked them, this became a better place to hang out immediately.
I don’t care about the justification (either of the moderation or how I enjoy the board). All the rules and everything is just an attempt to codify how to keep the place enjoyable and useful. If someone makes the place less enjoyable or useful, get rid of them. I don’t have room in my life to engage with people or content that just makes me want to be elsewhere.
It’s super easy for me to agree when I already had the dude blocked, of course. If there was a voice I liked hearing from, I’m sure I’d feel this is all very dictatorial. But I don’t. I think that person is insufferable and people coming to the board for the first time are more likely to stay without their posts being here. And that’s plenty of justification for me.
Edit: snipped a paragraph that was just rambling and redundant.
God damn this was way longer and more effort than I wanted to put into this. Guaranteed autocorrect has fucked up a bunch of things I’ll need to edit if I even catch them.
Anyway, tldr: fuck that guy and glad riddance. That was an autocorrect failure but I like it so I’m leaving it.
shit, at least you admit you don’t care because you don’t like them.
Everyone else is trying to pretend different
Other people are allowed their reasons. They don’t have to secretly feel the same way I do. I speak for exactly one person - me.
I already had this person blocked because I felt they contributed negatively to the experience of being here. That’s a subjective call, but if the mod happens to agree, I want him to know he has my full support in his efforts to make this a nice place to visit for anyone who doesn’t like being around insufferable assholes. Those are my kind of people. I don’t personally need any rules cited or clarified, but mine isn’t the only perspective.
It’s really just the bad faith part that matters the most. Pushing your opinion is fine if you’re honest with what your position is
Except from the post it looks like he was banned because he was honest about his opinion (e.g. ‘I don’t like biden, i prefer articles that support that opinion’)
What do you suppose ozma’s actual opinion was, then?
You don’t understand propaganda do you?
When centrists can’t answer a question, they get condescending.
Was ozma not?
I think they were perfectly honest about their feelings
