Recently user alaksaball has identified themselves as a member of the Party of Communists USA. The user also promoted the event "RageAgainstTheWarMachine" as well as PCUSA's official twitter account on this website. When questioned by other users about engaging in the promotion and platforming of fascists and reactionaries, alaskaball responded with hostility and name-calling. As anticipated, the event "RageAgainstTheWarMachine" was attended by prominent neo-Nazis and featured speakers who espoused homophobic and transphobic views, and used homophobic slurs and anti-trans rhetoric as official speakers at the event. Furthermore, user alaskaball has promoted the official Twitter of PCUSA, which has frequently platformed Jackson Hinkle who is on camera at the aforementioned event using homophobic slurs. User Alaskaball's personal feelings towards LGBTQ people are irrelevant, as the user continues to platform an organization and events that are in direct contradiction of the standards of this website, and is therefore unfit to moderate communities.

    • Commander_Data [she/her]
      ·
      2 years ago

      What I am hearing is that there is already a bias either towards the party or this user in general. Full disclosure, I am part of the mod chat and sent a message about my post to the mod chat, but I will push for any discussion to happen here. As of yet, there hasn't been a reply.

      As far as it being an overreaction, I obviously disagree. The outcome of the event today could have been easily predicted, and in fact was predicted by many users, including yourself. Today's events were likely to significantly harm a large portion of this site's users, which can't be helped. What is inexcusable is the event was promoted by this user, and then, to further the harm, anyone who questioned the promotion of the event was met with hostility and name-calling. That this behavior came from a moderator is unacceptable and risks the trust of the users of this site.

        • mkultrawide [any]
          ·
          2 years ago

          As someone who paritcipates mostly in the news thread, I don't get the feeling that most of the users in the news thread support what actually happened at this rally as much as they support the idea of an anti-war movement and were just happy to see something without looking into it much. Feel free to check my comments, I was vocal about not being in support of this specific rally.

          I didn't have any specific issues with AB when I interacted with them regarding my criticism of that rally, but I can't speak for others. A lot of people resort immediately to name calling here and things escalate quickly (I am also guilty of this). I did have problems with that other user, though.

            • mkultrawide [any]
              ·
              2 years ago

              Some of this reminds me of the struggle sessions over Force the Vote, which is affects my view of stuff like this, and basically anything that involves the Jimmy Dore contingency of the left. They pull in a lot of people who are sick of the Democrats and angry about it. I remember getting into serious mudslinging with good people over FTV (not to make that struggle session sound more important than it ultimately was) because I believed that it was a useless exercise. There just isn't really any organized left in the US (and honestly much of the West), and it leads to people looking for anything to participate/believe in, and in a lot of groups trying a bunch of different shit and making mistakes along the way.

              It might be because I am older than the average userbase here, as well. To me, I see someone saying "if you don't agree with me you are ultraleft" and it's just a normal day in an online leftist space to me. That's not a defense of doing it--I try not to namecall people anymore despite my sometimes quick temper--just an explanation of my own feelings.

        • AssortedBiscuits [they/them]
          ·
          2 years ago

          bc it’s a pinned discussion with people with mostly the same opinions including about the event, so it’s a bigger than just that and probably needs broader discussion

          I don't think this is true at all. For one, shipwreck didn't support the rally at all, mostly treating the success of the rally as an indictment on the impotence of the US left. I haven't seen anything from SeventyTwoTrillion supporting the rally either. Shipwreck is a frequent poster there and SeventyTwoTrillion is the OP of the news megathread, so that's already two main posters.

            • AssortedBiscuits [they/them]
              ·
              2 years ago

              72T literally posts articles from antiwar.com the grayzone and the valdai group so I’m pretty confident that they privately support it lmao, I’d be interested to here their stance on it though

              SeventyTwoTrillion posts from multiple news outlets, mostly filtering out Western MSM like the BBC. I wouldn't see that as him supporting the ideology of those news sources. Like, he posts the most from RT, which is easily worse than the three ideologically wise. That's just the nature of the beast.

              Good on Shipwreck, but basically every poster that was pro rally was from the news thread sphere, so one user not while good on them is less significant

              The main culprits were World_Wario_II, who just got banned, ednice, and alaskaball, the subject of the OP. I don't think the mods/admins here like people naming names, so we'll have to agree to disagree. Suffice to say, we both have our own lists of names.

              Also W Wario II and ednice were the two most agro posters in the whole thing and they were and are regular contributors, and neither 72T or Alaskaball ever bother to ban W Wario any time they make a new alt when if they’re reading the thread every day for a year they should know what poster the ban evasion user is and consciously choose to not get rid of them

              You mean Z_Poster365/Spectre_of_Z_poster/World_Wario_II? My understanding is that mods don't ban alts as long as the alts don't go around parading that they're alts of the banned account. I don't know how they're going to handle some dude who keeps on creating alts because they keep on getting banned.

        • Upanotherday [he/him]
          ·
          2 years ago

          The news thread is without a doubt the worst part of the site. They should get a com and get the fuck off the main page.

          :dumpster-fire: