What's ok in our community?

There has been a lot of discussion about what we should or should not allow in our community. This is not a thread to tell you about a decision, this is a thread to ask your opinion about what is acceptable, and collate this in one place.

We want this to be a friendly and welcoming community to all who are friendly and welcoming. This means a necessary amount of tolerance for those with other points of view. It also means that by definition we can't have people here that are intolerant of others.

Anyone who has been here for a while knows I am loathe to create a list of what is and isn’t allowed, because I feel that most of it is obvious, and the stuff that isn’t obvious is not simple enough to create a list. But I’ll list some things that I feel aren’t necessary to list, because others think it is necessary. This is not a complete list.

In our friendly community, we obviously don’t allow:

  • Things that are illegal for us to host
  • Doxing
  • Hate speech or other attacks on others
  • Spamming
  • Trolling

Now the question is: what’s ok in our community, and how should we respond? I’m gonna number them for ease of following.

  1. Is it ok to attack public figures? e.g. is it ok to say “Christopher Luxon is an idiot”? “David Seymour is a fascist prick”? “Gareth Morgan should fuck off and die”?
  2. Does it count as doxing if the information is public? How public?
  3. Are derogatory terms or hateful comments for people known for hate ok? Or do these attitudes contribute to an unfriendly atmosphere? i.e. is it ok to say “Kyle chapman is a fucking nazi”?
  4. If what appeared as a genuine discussion turned out to be sealioning or similar, what kind of mod action should happen? Ban the user, leave the posts? Temporary or permanent ban? Ban the user and remove the posts?
  5. Similar to 4, are we ok that anything in the obviously list above is removed on sight? Should a trolling post be locked, or completely removed?
  6. Is there anything not mentioned yet that you feel should not be allowed, should be encouraged, or that would help turn this community into the kind of place you want to visit?
  7. And finally, there have been a lot of voices on this point. Although I’ve made it clear this isn’t what I want, I feel it’s not for me to force on people: Do you think we need an explicit list of rules that state the above?

Over the last week I have heard a lot of concern over the approach that I have been taking to date: We're all adults here (mostly), and we are a small enough group that we can talk though disagreements as long as people approach them in good faith. In my view this is working, the only negative attitudes I have seen are from people not liking this approach.

However, I have heard from many people with more experience at building communities, and they have raised a lot of concern about this approach. Therefore I am willing to hear what the community is looking for in a Lemmy instance, and willing to change the approach if that's what people want.

I'm listening, so give me your feedback.

Ilovethebomb,

The other question that needs to be asked, in my view, is does this comment actually contribute to the discussion at hand? Attacking a politician and criticism their policies is one thing, merely insulting their appearance doesn't add anything.

ycnz,

It's a question of what audience you're after. Do you want:

  • People who are unhappy with how Reddit's owners are treating third party developers

or

  • People who feel r/newzealand and the regional subs have over-moderated content, and want more room for expressing "alternative" views
Dave,
@Dave@lemmy.nz avatar

I'm in the first group and I expect most people here are. Quite honestly I never noticed an over-moderation on reddit, but I'd think that's the point, you wouldn't see it unless it was your content being removed.

For the second point, I'd like a community where someone could say "Maybe Luxon has a point", and be able to discuss in good faith about that. But if "alternative" views are "Maybe Hitler had a point", then that's not a community I want to be a part of.

ycnz,

I don't know of anyone getting banned for saying Luxon/Bridges/Collins/Muller/Key had a point. I know of many, many accounts who claimed they were victims of persecution by mods, who turned out to be outright racists/misogynists/transphobes/homophobes/anti-vaxers/anti-maskers. For some reason they frequently like to collect the set of shite opinions..

Dave,
@Dave@lemmy.nz avatar

You're right, I don't think you'd get banned for saying "Luxon has a point", but I also don't think you could feel safe saying that on reddit.

ycnz,

I've certainly commented about Bridges etc.. having a point in the past, and at worst, gotten a few downvotes. There really isn't equivalence between far left and far right positions.

BalpeenHammer,

The problem is that terms like trolling or spam are very loosely defined. Is it spam if somebody tells you to vote for some party or another? Is it trolling? How about if somebody praises KFC or tells people about a deal on some pizza?

I don't know if there is a solution but I guess this is why there is community moderation with upvotes or downvotes.

In an ideal world there would be more than two options. Ideally there would be a spam button or a troll button etc.

bevan,

Although a list of what not to do is inevitable, why not have the opening and overriding rule be positive, encouraging the behavior we want rather than listed all the stuff we don't.

E.g. "be awesome to each other" rather than "don't be a dick"

Dave,
@Dave@lemmy.nz avatar

I like this idea but "don't be a dick" has a local feel to it. Any suggestions for a positive rule that has an NZ feel?

Ozymati,
@Ozymati@lemmy.nz avatar

Be a good egg?

Dave,
@Dave@lemmy.nz avatar

I kinda like it, but I think the problem is that it just doesn't convey that it's a rule in the same way that "Don't be a dick" does.

Ozymati,
@Ozymati@lemmy.nz avatar

I mean, I'm fine with don't be a dick even if it is vaguely sexist.

z2k_,
@z2k_@lemmy.nz avatar

I also like the “Don’t be a dick” rule. It’s short, simple, and easy to keep in mind when posting and commenting.

I’ve already had a few cases where I’ve re-written comments so they come off nicer than I would’ve when commenting on Reddit.

RaoulDuke,
@RaoulDuke@lemmy.nz avatar

This is one of the benefits of keeping it short - the message doesn't get diluted.

If we need a code of conduct, I think a good option would be to link "don't be a dick" to it, rather than publish it all in the sidebar.

Dave,
@Dave@lemmy.nz avatar

I think this is a good approach. Keep the sidebar rule, link it to a more fleshed out code of conduct.

DominiqueMarriott,

I kinda like the don’t be a dick rule. Feels very New Zealand.

winsomecowboy,

A 'Time out' sub called, 'A bag of dicks' containing a roll call of temporarily detained members?

might as well have fun with it. :)

gibs,

I 100% believe in "don't be a dick" as a guiding principle for this community. Unfortunately what counts as "dickishness" is vague and very subjective, so I think having strong guidelines to help us make this a chill and dickishness-free place will help a lot in achieving that goal.

SamC,

I think David P has said most of what I would have already said.

I think if you want a truly inclusive community, you need to ban not only racism/sexism/homophobia/transphobia (etc.) but advocacy for those things. i.e. what is banned goes beyond hate speech directed at marginalised groups, and includes debate over whether people spouting that kind of hate speech "have some ideas that could be considered" (or whatever).

To put it another way, there shouldn't be any debate over whether certain groups (e.g. transgender people) have a right to exist, or whether certain groups (e.g. particular ethnicities) should be treated as human beings. People posting online know they can't get away with saying hateful stuff directly, so instead they call for "debate" under the heading of "free speech".

Without banning that kind of thing, people from those marginalised groups may not feel welcome here. Even if there is some kind of debate about it, and most people here are telling them they're wrong, even just the fact that it's being debated makes it unlikely people from those groups would want to hang around.

I know policing this kind of thing gets very murky at times as to what should/shouldn't be allowed, and there is a balance with genuine free speech, but I think it is worth thinking about.

Thorned_Rose,

I think it also helps to understand that the people asking for "free speech" and "debate" are sometimes folk that have been raised or constantly exposed to certain beliefs that inform their current beliefs and when they ask for "debate" what they're subconsciously asking for is to understand a difference in belief systems.

I am not saying certain beliefs are valid, just that beliefs are beliefs and we are all products of our upbringing and society that we live in. Some people believe awful things, not because they're awful people, but it's just that they've never encountered a different way of thinking or looking at things.

Anyway, my point is that it's not always helpful to instantly dismiss people as aholes just because they debate something. Sometimes that's people just trying to make sense of things they don't currently understand. I like to take it as an opportunity to help people see a different perspective to what they've grown up with.

The alternative is to instaban people where they'll go find a likeminded echochamber and they never have opportunity to have their beliefs challenged, never have opportunity to put themselves in someone else's shoes and learn a different way to think. That's how people become radicalised and dangerous.

(Not talking about people debating in bad faith and sealioning of course.)

SamC,

Yeah, I think there's a difference between deciding what is/isn't allowed, and what should be done when someone posts something that's not allowed. The less black & white something is, the more lenience someone should probably get.

If someone says "maybe we should debate whether the Nazis were right to create concentration camps", that's pretty black and white to me, and there's no point even trying to reason with them.

If someone says "maybe we should talk about some of the issues raised by the parliamentary protesters", that could even be OK, depending on context.

RaoulDuke,
@RaoulDuke@lemmy.nz avatar

These are good points. Having a good mod(s) is going to be a big part of it, because even the most straightforward rules are still open to interpretation.

For example, you will get dipshits arguing that inclusive bathroom policies are a threat to women and/or children. They believe (or say they believe) that they're advocating for the protection of marginalised and at-risk groups. It comes down to the mod to interpret that as bigotry.

RaoulDuke,
@RaoulDuke@lemmy.nz avatar

I think it would be great if we could just stick to the "don't be a dick" rule and let that be that. Any explicit set of rules is going to allow things and/or forbid things it shouldn't. And you're likely to find some bad actors who want to exploit whatever loopholes exist.

But I suppose people have different ideas about what being a dick means, and that's why we need this discussion.

To answer each of your points:

  1. Yes, I think it's OK to attack public figures, though I don't think celebrating or advocating for violence against anyone should be allowed. “Gareth Morgan should fuck off and die” is right on the line for me. It's not always easy to define who is and isn't a public figure though. Attacking anyone for their race, gender, sexuality, etc. would be forbidden as hate speech.
  2. It's really hard to draw the line with doxxing. I know what feels like a violation, but I don't know how I'd define it. Though anything that has been intentionally published or shared by the person or their organisation should generally be fine. Beyond that, it feels like "I know it when I see it" would be better than any stated rules.
  3. I think anyone who promotes hate has made themselves a public figure, and should be subject to the same rules as them. By the way, I doubt Kyle Chapman would actually think being called a fucking Nazi was an insult. That's his ideology, and he's proud of it. It's like trying to offend Hitler by calling him a Nazi.
  4. Attempts at sealioning, etc. really need to be dealt with on a case by case basis. Things like the age of the account, how much disruptive and non-disruptive activity they've engaged in, and how bad the sealioning was all come into it. Removal of content, warnings, and temporary and permanent bans should all be on the table though.
  5. I would lean towards removing anything on the "obviously" list. If it's genuine trolling, leaving it up doesn't seem to add any value. Again, there will be grey areas.
  6. Something that I would like to see encouraged is to conduct arguments in "good faith". This is obviously hard to define, though it's often easy enough to identify a bad faith argument. To be clear, I'm not against "Devil's Advocate" arguments, but arguments should not devolve into ad hominem attacks and name calling. We can disagree and debate in a constructive, non-toxic way. I feel like anyone who persists in using logical fallacies to support their argument - after it's been pointed out - is not arguing in good faith. For examples of the fallacies I'm talking about, see this infographic or the Wikipedia page. Also - information that is demonstrably false (e.g. "vaccines cause autism") should be removed.
  7. I'd really prefer we didn't have a list of explicit rules for the reasons I gave earlier. If we got enough input from the community (say on this thread), it could be linked to for people who feel like they need to see some rules.

These are just my thoughts. What does everyone else think?

cloventt,

Ooo yay, subreddit drama, it’s like I never even left!

Generally I think:

  • public figures are fair game for criticism or comment
  • “public figure” to me means anyone who has been the subject of widespread media reporting by accredited outlets, or anyone who has put themselves on a platform
  • hate speech is unacceptable in any form; racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, etc
  • deliberate misinformation and disinformation should not be allowed
  • in addition to sealioning, dog whistles should also not be allowed

Here's a list of example comments and whether I think it should be allowed. Big difference between allowing something to be said and approving of it though, before the pitchforks come out.

  1. “Christopher Luxon is an idiot”
    • personal sentiment about a public figure = mean but OK
  2. “David Seymour is a fascist prick”
    • personal sentiment about a public figure = mean but OK
  3. “Marama Davidson is a racist”
    • personal sentiment about a public figure = controversial but OK
  4. “Chippy looks like he hasn't finished high school”
    • personal sentiment about a public figure = mean but OK
  5. “Grant Robertson is f***ing useless at economics”
    • personal sentiment about a public figure = mean but OK
  6. “Kyle Chapman is a f***ing nazi”
    • true statement + personal sentiment about a public figure = OK
  7. “Jacinda Ardern is tearing NZ apart”
    • personal sentiment about a public figure = OK
  8. “Gareth Morgan should f*** off and die”
    • wishing death on someone = Not OK
  9. “Jacinda Ardern is a horse-faced b****”
    • derogatory sexist remark = Not OK
  10. “the jab was a bioweapon that contained nanobots”
    • factually incorrect disinformation = Not OK
  11. “lgbt people are child-molesting groomers”
    • homophobic hate speech = Not OK
  12. “it is impossible to change your sex”
    • transphobic hate speech = Not OK
  13. “a woman is an adult human female”
    • transphobic dog whistle = Not OK
  14. “Māori are over-represented in crime statistics”
    • factually true statement, not necessarily racist depending on context = OK
  15. “Maoris are all gang members and dole bludgers”
    • racism = Not OK

The only way to deal with this type of content is to remove it, and tell the poster why it was removed. Repeated breaches would indicate the person is acting in bad faith and should be removed from the community altogether with a ban.

I honestly do think you need a list of rules. "Don't be a dick" covers a lot of how we want conversations to be carried out, but there need to be some hard lines in the sand for what things are allowed to be said. For example, slurs can be a type of hate speech, but not always. A recent right-wing dog whistle trend has been to claim "Karen" is sexist anti-white hate speech (to disrupt conversations about privileged white people, and no, it isn't hate speech).

I have my ear to the ground a bit more than most on these things, so I am pretty sensitive to them, but communities can fall apart pretty rapidly when they're allowed. I think a list is helpful to community members to let them know what is acceptable or not, and make it clear what type of conversation the community is accepting of.

rimu,
@rimu@lemmy.nz avatar

Agreed.

This doesn't need to be hard - there are plenty of boilerplate "code of conduct" documents for online communities which can be copied or used as a starting point. e.g. https://mycrowd.ca/about

cloventt,

That is a really good CoC. Thank you for linking it.

Ozymati,
@Ozymati@lemmy.nz avatar

I like that CoC a lot. It's very clear.

RaoulDuke,
@RaoulDuke@lemmy.nz avatar

I agree with pretty much everything you've said here, and where you've drawn the line with the hypothetical comments.

I worry that any detailed code of conduct will start the armchair lawyers going. As rules get more and more specific, what is and isn't mentioned becomes increasingly important, which necessitates even more complex rules. I'm not opposed to a code of conduct as such, and it may well be the best option. But I would prefer it stays vague where it can.

In the end, a lot will come down to the moderators, regardless of how the rules are written.

Thorned_Rose,

I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but I partly disagree with the term "Karen". Yes, it is misused a LOT now (originally a term to call out racist over-complaining women) however it is still sexist. Karen is not gender neutral (it's always coded female) and racist white men are just as awful as racist white women. The TL;DR I always come back to is that we shouldn't be leveraging one 'ism against another. Or in this case we shouldn't leverage sexism against racism.

Disclaimer: I'm a strong believer in intersectional feminism, I'm mixed ethnicity, queer and have spent a number of years studying how language affects perception and beliefs (e.g. Marked Language, Male As Default, etc.).

I can explain this in way more detail and write paragraphs out on this (again, studied this for years now) if you really want more information on why we shouldn't be doing this.

cloventt,

No need to explain, I’m familiar with what you’re talking about, and thanks for bringing it up. I don’t think it should be outright banned like other harsher slurs, but yeah it isn’t polite discourse and is absolutely rooted in sexism and patriarchy. If you see someone using it, and you think they shouldn’t, then by all means call them out and educate them. I wouldn’t go as far as to ban them and remove their comments though.

My point was really that there’s a spectrum of what people find offensive, and drawing an appropriate line can be pretty nuanced. But I think you do need draw those lines somewhere so people know what is appropriate behaviour.

BodyOfW4t3r,

Couldn't have written it better myself.

I'll say while I think comments about public figures should be allowed, and I might have some unkind words for certain figures in in-person conversation, I'd rather people talk about the impacts of policy or statements rather than assign people monikers.

Like I might agree that such and such politician is a wanker, but I'd rather see comments like "that policy will have X negative effect" or "what he said is out of touch because Y"; even if I would agree with "they're a huge dickhead".

Dave,
@Dave@lemmy.nz avatar

In regards to dog whistles, if you (or anyone) sees it can you be sure to report it? If you're not part of the group being targeted, it can be hard to know that's what is happening.

RandomMutant,

I think intent is also important.

“Māori are over-represented in crime statistics” is a true statement. But “Proportionally Māori are more prone to crime”, while almost saying the same thing is a dog whistle as it doesn’t acknowledge the generational injustice that has led to such an outcome (over-representation).

cloventt,

You’re 100% correct; intent, context, track record all have to play a role when making moderation decisions. It’s a fiddly game.

gibs,

Thanks for this response, couldn't agree more. Unfortunately while "don't be a dick" should be easy enough to do, I do believe having strong and clear guidelines will save everyone from a lot of stress and headaches in the future.

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