There’s probably a better community for asking this, but I haven’t been able to find that one either.
What I’m looking for is a place to discuss ideas that encourages good-faith conversation, staying on topic, and being decent to one another - while actively discouraging mean-spirited, facetious, or bad-faith responses that focus on criticizing the person asking the question rather than engaging with the substance of it. And by “discouraging,” I mean active moderation with very low tolerance for that kind of commentary.
I haven’t found any. Anything of that sort would need heavy handed and laborious moderation and would lend itself to quite a lot of bias from moderators. Your best bet is to do this sort of thing locally with a small group of friends (or internet friends).
Based on my experience trying to have deep and sometimes difficult conversations here, I’ve come to believe that if such a community did exist and gained even a bit of popularity, it would likely result in a large number of the currently active users here getting themselves banned from it. In the end, it might just be a small group of users left - the ones actually interested in playing fair. I don’t necessarily see that as a bad thing, though. You really don’t need that many people to have insightful discussions. Often, even one person is enough, as long as they’re approaching it in good faith.
Moderation would definitely be an issue, though. Dealing with the worst offenders is easy - it’s the gray areas that are challenging. The space wouldn’t just need to be heavily moderated; that same standard would also need to apply to the moderators themselves.
it would likely result in a large number of the currently active users here getting themselves banned from it
Absolutely. People here can’t even help themselves when it comes to going into a community literally called “Reddit” to shit on people for talking about Reddit. Or going into a community called “WitchesvsPatriarchy” to not all men any conversation about the patriarchy.
You can bet your ass that any community like one that you’re talking about would be flooded by smartass replies and jokes at first. And the moment moderators start banning people, they’ll be crying about their ‘free speech’.
I actually found pretty much what I was looking for. Not very active community and I don’t know how well it’s moderated but at least I can give it a chance next time such topic comes to mind.
Crazy what amount of pushback I’m getting for even daring to ask such thing. It clearly must be fascism and pedofilia I want to advocate for in there because why else would someone want to have serious conversations…
Please don’t be disheartened!
The people screaming at you are the ones who feel personally insulted, because they are terrified that you might not want to hear the stupidity that flows from their keyboard.
You can see them constructing, in real time, all kinds of strawmen about why it shouldn’t exist.
And to support you, many communities exist where moderators undertake the task of preventing uninformed and pointless discussion from taking over. There’s a couple of science and physics-based ones that I can recall from Reddit… where if you made any comment that he was slightly off topic, speculative, or not rooted in the ethic of scientific discovery… it was instantly removed.
Further to that, I can think of many communities where if you are not a professional in the field, a credentialed scientist, or able to demonstrate competency, you’re simply not allowed to be there. Not just not comment, one can’t even be there.
Stay strong. Your point has been more than proven by the babies squabbling here.
If you start such a community, I’ll subscribe. What topics would you want this community to address?
*crickets*
I think OP is fighting windmills here. They want to keep this discussion completely theoretical, probably so they don’t have to get off their high horse, make themselves vulnerable. I doubt they’ll ever come up with anything constructive 🤷
I don’t think crickets really means a lot when your commenting 1 hour after someone else…
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What exactly is your problem here? Do you not have even a drop of self-awareness to realize that you’re now acting exactly like the kind of person that made me want to find a community free of people like you in the first place? You’re being a textbook example of someone who just can’t stay on topic and insists on making it about the person asking the question rather than addressing the question itself.
My comment history is open for anyone to see what kinds of topics I like to explore. I’m not going to start listing them here, because that’s not relevant to my question.
This entire comment section is filled with people talking to the music in their head, not to you or the topic you’ve raised.
This is the fundamental issue at play, people have severe self worth and emotional issues, and they leap at any chance to show it to the world.
Don’t you dare advocate any place where they can’t shoot their mouth off endlessly without considering their words!! Don’t be elitist! The stupids have value toooo!!!1
From what I see in your comment, you’re basically asking for a place where moderation handles endless logical fallacy, surly childish remarks, uninformed buffoonery, obnoxious aggressive posturing… Apparently that’s too much for people to handle.
I would love what you are advocating for, but we need something like an intelligence or LSAT-style test to vet people. 95% of people have absolutely fuck all to say. 95% of people literally cannot think; they are trapped in some kind of quasi-thought process that is largely governed by emotional self-protection mechanisms.
Each type of topic needs a different style, tolerance and shape of moderation for this, so it’s more effective to look for this per topic instead of a general solution.
E.g. transgender discussion has different problems than russian aggression discussion, different problem actors using different strategies, and are solved by very different types of moderation.
Discussing which language should take precedence in schools, in countries with multiple official languages, needs a wildly different set of rules, moderation, tolerances and even moderator knowledge.
I’m not sure I get what you mean. I don’t see why one community couldn’t cover all these topics under the same set of moderation principles. I’m imagining something like a philosophers’ conference, where you can seriously discuss even seemingly ridiculous topics - like “why can’t we eat unwanted babies?” - and no one would be tempted to accuse the person of actually advocating for such a thing. We’re just playing with ideas.
You make it, and now it’s a somewhat safe place for people to form discussions that validate pedophilia. Several discussions now are adjacent to that topic, via adoption discussion, sneakernet dissemination, countries with lax laws, discussions around age of consent, definitions of nudity, what is considered public spaces for photography…
At some point it is no longer pure philosophical discussions in neutral faith, but a breeding ground for pure shit. How do you determine if that point is reached? How do you decide where the line goes? How do you adjust the rules to adjust for this?
The above is not hypothetical. It specifically has ruined a few online spaces. Other topics like the Trump cult has a different pattern.
Tildes. And maybe Hacker News.
There’s always
This looks promising. Funnily enough I’m even subscribed to it.
There were these subs on reddit. I’d actually love some of that here as well; but otoh what you describe is the (dream of the) fediverse anyhow, and so far it really is a much nicer place to be than reddit, so the need is small.
That said, you can look up what these subs were called on reddit, then search for communities of the same name here.
edit: I think OP is fighting windmills here. They want to keep this discussion completely theoretical, probably so they don’t have to get off their high horse. I see this a lot with so-called centrists who turn out to be fascists, but a quick glance at OP’s posting history does not confirm that. Still, I doubt they’ll ever come up with anything constructive concerning the point of this post 🤷
it really is a much nicer place to be than reddit
I can see how that would be the case for a certain type of person - perhaps even the majority - but interestingly, my personal experience has been almost the opposite. The people here tend to lean in the same political or ideological direction, and they’ve become extremely sensitive to any ideas that seem to go against their worldview. They’ve dealt with so many bad actors in the past that the moment someone starts making the kind of noises that trigger their alarms, it becomes almost impossible to engage with them meaningfully. You quickly end up having to defend yourself against preconceptions formed simply because you’re willing to touch on a sensitive topic.
I think the contrast within the userbase here is actually sharper than on Reddit. There’s a large number of incredibly decent, mature, and thoughtful people - likely due to the higher average age - but there’s also a surprisingly large group of extremely vicious activist types who will dogpile on you the moment you say anything even halfway critical of their cause, or not critical enough of what they oppose.
The people here tend to lean in the same political or ideological direction, and they’ve become extremely sensitive to any ideas that seem to go against their worldview.
And there it is. I wonder what really triggered your post?
Even taking all that you wrote into account I still think feddit deals with this better than reddit.
Which btw is also a problem in those subs you describe. No mod can afford to be that strict.
Anyhow, be the change you want to see. I’m sure you performed your searches by now and haven’t found anything suitable, so start your own and moderate it the way you see fit!
Or at least tell us which subs you miss.
And another thing that goes for reddit as well as feddit: downvotes by themselves don’t mean that you’re being dogpiled or silenced or whatever. Controversial takes always attract - well, controversy. Deal with it, discuss your way through it, after all that’s what you want, no? I still say the percentage of reasonable people here is far larger than on reddit.
And there it is. I wonder what really triggered your post?
This is exactly why I’d like to find - or create - the kind of community I described above. These kinds of accusations, even when implicit, don’t bring any value to a conversation. I’m looking for a place to discuss ideas - not people or tribes.
I see you are unwilling to answer that or any other question I posed. You want a completely theoretical discussion where people cannot point out to you that you aren’t flawless either.
FWIW I had a look at your posting history and I think you’re fighting windmills here.
You want a completely theoretical discussion where people cannot point out to you that you aren’t flawless either.
This is just yet another completely baseless ad hominem accusation which both isn’t true nor in any way related to the topic at hand. I don’t understand your insistence on making this about me. Like I said: I’m not interested in discussing people.
r/samharris, r/zombiesurvivaltactics and r/suomi are the subs I miss from reddit. I’m not aware of not having addressed any other questions you’ve posed to me.
