Permanently Deleted
I think downvotes can absolutely establish a pattern of behaviour that indicate the user is a transphobe. What I disagree with is the three strikes, especially since the way this site is built makes accidental votes very common. I think it should have been a case-by-case decision by the mods, informed by the voting pattern, rather than a hard and fast three-strikes rule.
TLDR: stop making policy by reference to a sport that no other country plays
My bad, I didn't know that. I'm not American, but not from any of those countries either so I had no idea
TLDR: stop making policy by reference to a sport that no other country plays
It's crazy how that applies in the real world too with the three strikes felony stuff. If baseball wasn't as popular in the US would we even have such a law?
Seeing every pro-trans post having like 25% downvotes but no comments explaining them sends a message, and I have no doubt the message was intentional.
In my view this is why downvotes should be gotten rid of altogether. Having downvotes as an available option, especially on support posts, seems like a bad idea.
I think you make a great point, but I also think an actual reply would be a much better way to express disapproval. If the downvote is available, most users would probably just go straight to that and be done with it. If it were disabled, however, it might encourage people to instead explain why they disapprove of something, which would give better feedback for the person who made the offending comment and help them learn.
Don't even need to go that far imo, just don't show how many downvotes a post/comment has. I don't know why they implemented that feature in the first place, a downvote should remove 1 point from the score, that's it, no need for a big "HEY HERE'S HOW MANY PEOPLE DIDN'T LIKE THIS POST" icon.
I only get one upvote per post, but I can comment as much as my heart desires
maybe it would be better to show it as a percentage like reddit does? It would be less visible then, and would feel better seeing 90% upvoted than 20 downvotes imo
On my phone the downvote button is often where my thumb is if I'm scrolling with my left hand. If I accidentally downvote something I usually don't notice. Also, downvotes don't necessarily mean you agree with a post/comment, you could just dislike the tone, or unoriginality, or low effort or whatever. Idk the whole thing seems kinda dumb and I don't know how much it will actually do to help any trans comrades
I literally accidentally downvoted your comment just now. Somehow this is mainly a problem on chapochat and not other Reddit spin-offs.
i see where you're coming from on this and upvoted, but also think it would be just to ban someone for actually being a transphobic asshole, which could be recognized through downvoting patterns. if there were actually users who were going into trans subs and just downvoting out of hatred, or there was a pattern that was established that showed that they are frequently going out of their way to discourage positive trans posts, then that shit should go. i think the admins did a poor job handling this, and i don't think 2 or even 3 downvoted posts establishes that pattern, but if it was recognizable like someone just downvoting post after post then yeah fuck that person, get rid of them. the fact that there was a public list of people who were labeled as transphobes for downvoting 2 posts reflects poorly on this community unfortunately, and hopefully the mods will do better when dealing with sensitive situations like this in the future.
i saw a post that was audited and people banned for simply disagreeing that there should be a giant voter purge based on a 3 strike rule.
furthermore, i frequently downvote mod/admin posts if i disagree with them banning or claiming someone is being sectarian when to me it seems like just ideological disagreement and discussion, and also downvote certain posters who seem to try to kiss up to mods, because fuck bootlickers. so i agree with the main idea of this post.
hey anyone remember when we got the reddit message
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It would be the funniest shit in the world that the old r/cth bogeyman is becoming the official policy of its spinoff, if I didn't think that this is just gonna discourage people from engaging with C.C at all
I just wish this was done more collaboratively rather than just announced before the purges began. If there's a problem in the community (and not just stupid shit from outside trolls) then we need to solve it together as a community.
I’ve seen the explanation a couple times that there was a vote approving this, and then actually went and looked at the poll, and a slim majority voted for Admins (and not mods) to be able to view voting history in some situations. There was no vote on the policy of automatically banning people for “reactionary downvoting patterns.”
I see. Yeah, it's kinda like a marriage. If I throw out my wife's broken thingy without her asking and get her a new one, she may be pleased, or may feel excluded from the process. Same here.
I’m fine with a one time purge based on downvotes just to clear the trash but yea I don’t think it would be a sustainable long term way to ban people and manage the community. I’m often on the site on my phone and it’s easy as shit to accidentally vote on something
!transenby_liberation@hexbear.net - click this link and look at the votes. EVERY post has 25% downvotes. EVERY post. you're complaining that people may misinterpret intent but why is intent what matters and not impact? what message is being sent to the person coming to ask questions about their gender? what message is being sent to the person celebrating starting HRT? trans people have left this site because of the hostile atmosphere and the votes only capture the surface of that.
there was just a stupidpol raid there, if you look at the second page, there's like 0 - 1 downvotes. no doubt transphobes should be banned, but an actual pattern needs to be established and two - three down votes doesn't establish enough of a pattern, at least to me. almost half of the bans last night were overturned because those people weren't transphobes. if people want to be that way they'd probably be at stupidpol. the vast majority of posters here are not bigoted assholes.
trans people are leaving the site - you're still worried about intent over impact. accounts are cheap. the actual humans being driven away, not so much.
i haven't seen any posts by people saying they're leaving because they're experiencing transphobia, and i just don't see this giant amount of transphobia that you claim to see here.
because most of them aren't posting about it. they're just leaving. so people notice and DM them to ask why - it's the same thing over and over, a hostile atmosphere. the downvotes capture the surface of the problem - support posts and love threads get downvotes.
the deeper problem is the level of push back every single thread about cissexism gets. someone points out that a game has shitty elements? thirty post subthread because "this has shitty elements" means "you're a shitty person for liking this" to a disturbing percentage of the user base.
and that's just my experience. I'm tired of having to fight a struggle session every time cissexism and transphobia comes up on this site. it makes it impossible to relax here. it's triggering and I too will eventually leave if it never lets up.
fuck that game and that company and anybody that defends that shit and good on you for being more patient than i would be. i still say those users make an extremely small minority of people here and i think most of those examples are just ignorant and unaware, not hateful, but those are decent examples of prejudice and i can see how that type of presence would create a hostile environment. i don't think having downvote cops is the solution to the problem, and think it should be addressed directly.
i still say those users make an extremely small minority of people
the downvote ratio on posts calling out transphobia pretty consistently show about 25% disapproval. people noticed that it was extremely consistent, which is how anyone got the idea to check voting patterns in the first place.
i think most of those examples are just ignorant and unaware, not hateful
which is the deeper issue. it is ignorance but it's ignorance in volume that's overwhelming to the trans userbase. chiding people to cut it out has been tried for months. people don't read the careful explanations. downvotes on transpositive content is just a more cut and dry criteria for cleaning it up.
also, I need to stress - that was my day yesterday. this goes back two months. I'm just not clicking through my post history to dig it all out. it's really not an extremely small minority of the userbase - it's a substantial minority. (no one is claiming that it approaches anything like a majority)
I really can't stress enough the amount of time I've sunk into education on this issue on this site already. it's a neverending sink of my time and energy.
25% downvotes points to a small but dedicated minority of users that are mad about trans people. see my other replies in this thread for a deeper analysis.
also, transphobes are antithetical to my existence as a trans person - why on earth would I tolerate any in leftist spaces? "they're not a majority" is really shit reasoning for not getting rid of reactionaries.
trans ppl can be transphobic, does no one remember the trans user that was being a jerk to ppl with neopronouns?
Also the posts weren't just trans memes, they were explicitly positive or informative posts like "i love my trans comrades" posted IN the trans comms, or announcments about spoilering transphobia and setting your pronouns.
Why would people downvote those for no reason :leslie-shining:
Also just make an alt, jfc mfers acting like they're going to go to the black book of communism because they got banned from a website that doesn't attempt to track ban evasion unless you're really being a dick. You could also make a post in UU if you think you got caught up in accident and want to be unbanned, they've already unbanned a few.
Supporting trans people is something I'm behind 100%.
I question the decision making process and mechanism that led to this though. This site sometimes makes efforts to be open and to have moderation based more on consensus than edict. That's why I find it so strange that this happened without any consultation with the community.
Cissexism part 2: electric boogaloo.
If you arent downvoting trans posts intentionally or being shitty in comments fear not, if somehow you do get banned message a mod and talk about it, it isn't some sort of heartless algorithm it's a person, so yea mistakes may happen but quick fix.
Going thru some discomfort to make a segment of the userbase ,who have been quantifiably driven from the site, more comfortable is a noble cause.
It's just asking cis to put forth a bit of emotional/mental labor to show their trans/nb comrades they see what is happening and that they care.
What is more important being able to accidentally downvote with reckless abandon or creating a supportive space?
Yea. Automatic bans for voting patterns is wack, no matter how well-intentioned. For everyone that gets wrongly banned and messages a mod and gets reinstated, someone else will just say "well fuck that" and never come back.
A vocal number of users and mods seem to want to turn this site into a trans discord server. Every fight seems recently seems to be trans-related, every other big post is trans-related.
And this is all being couched as very radical (lots of catgirls with ushankas and AKs), but is basically just a lib framework of antiracism promoted by Ibram Kendi and applied to trans, where cis people need to self-flaggelate and undergo "emotional labor" and excise their unconscious transphobia to become "a better person."
100%. It's easier to make a niche website with less than 10,000 users a "safe space" for trans then it is to make your neighborhood an actual safe space for trans. Yet the effort is played up as radical and communist, when it's actually just sad and liberal.
are...you saying trying to make a safe online space for trans people is sad and liberal?? or am i misinterpreting your comment?
Waging a campaign to purge users from a small niche website, enforcing some weird version of an anonymous progressive stack, and acting like it's revolutionary is sad and liberal, yes
me: i want the trans subs to not be 25% downvotes, so trans people feel safe to be here
you: thinking of other peoples feeling is reactionariy
Then what the fuck is your suggestion? Trans people are actively leaving the site because of the hostile environment? Do you want us to do more of the uhhhhh nothing that's causing them to leave? You can outright say it if you want.
Lol. I engage in good faith criticism and get downvotes before I can even add the previous comment. Fuck off
oh, do downvotes hurt your feelings? I wonder what that would be like, to post something positive and then have it heavily downvoted for no reason. Wonder what that would be like. :leslie-shining:
Yea. It sucks to just be downvoted brigade style. Which is why it shouldnt happen on trans-positive posts. Doesn't change my criticism of how the issue is being handled by mods.
removing downvotes because some people can't stop being reactionary is a weak suggestion. It's good to be able to downvote actual bad and shitty content. People were abusing it. We don't remove the tool because some people are abusing using the tool to stab others.
There’s any number of reasons why someone might downvote a post and I understand that you might see the downvotes and think it’s targeted.
I made a comment elsewhere explaining it. I'll repost here:
If the issue is that trans users are seeing the number of downvotes trans-positives posts receive and that makes them feel unwelcome, then just remove the icon that shows the number of downvotes a post received. Still allow downvotes, but make it like reddit where you only see the net voting. There’s any number of reasons why someone might downvote a post and I understand that trans users might see the downvotes and think it’s targetted because of trans reasons. This fixes the immediate issue at hand. Obviously there is some deeper community building that should go on on making the community welcoming, but that kind of thing isn’t something that can be solved with new rules and mods.
"Liberalism is when socialists do stuff online, and the more online stuff they do, the more liberal it is"
Not really just dont intentionally downvote trans stuff because its trans stuff and you will be fine, if its an accident msg a mod and get the account back or just make a new one. Sorry sweetie but 1 trans account is worth 3 cis ones so its a net gain.
Sorry sweetie but 1 trans account is worth 3 cis ones so its a net gain.
Why not just post to a trans only forum then?
That was a joke as I couldn't believe the reply wasn't one.
Show me the huge swath of accounts that were unjustly banned and didn't return, I know of a handful that did talk to someone and it got sorted out. I know of a significant amount of trans accounts that left the site because of the issues hence my initial comment poking fun at the cissexism that is preventing people from taking the easy action to not be shitty to comrades.
It isn't a site based algorithm banning anyone who downvotes 3 times there are people looking into the downvoting history and comments to establish a harmful pattern.
So again what's the problem?
The problem comes from what constitutes a pattern. Mods have already said that they can't looking up a users vote history, they just look at a post and record the upvoters/downvoters.
So if someone downvotes multiple shitty trans-related posts and then upvoters multiple good trans-related posts, they'd still get flagged as a transphobe, some mods are just looking at individual posts.
The mods are working together compiling the data and then examining the profiles of those in question as well as previous warnings. It isnt a haphazard or automated process, and it's based in lessening a quantifiable harm done to people and solidarity.
As someone who frequently experiences harassment based on being visibly trans I would appretiate a space free from stupididpol types to discuss leftist theory and ideas.
I've been involved in many in person organizations dedicated to the embetterment of life for trans people but it is more important to work on reconciling this in a movement that would have the means to improve everyone's lives.
This are spitball numbers but if 25 chapo accounts of trans people left this month due to the intentional downvoting and 5 innocent accounts got banned during the purge and 11 of those previous trans accounts return that's a net benefit not to mention the show of solidarity to the rest of the trans people here.
Finally as posted elsewhere trans people arent a political monolith plenty have internalized cisexism that manifests in wanting to make things easier for cis people as to not be a burden rather than criticizing the system that causes trans people to be constantly accommodating.
It's not neoliberal vapid actions to demand that people make an effort to be considerate.
if 25 chapo accounts of trans people left this month due to the intentional downvoting and 5 innocent accounts got banned during the purge and 11 of those previous trans accounts return that’s a net benefit
Yea I just don't see this as a good thing. There's got to be better ways to deal with the problem then an action that knowingly bans innocent accounts
Yea if you have an idea I'm sure it would be considered. It's a rock and a hard place
If the issue is that trans users are seeing the number of downvotes trans-positives posts receive and that makes them feel unwelcome, then just remove the icon that shows the number of downvotes a post received. Still allow downvotes, but make it like reddit where you only see the net voting. There's any number of reasons why someone might downvote a post and I understand that trans users might see the downvotes and think it's targetted because of trans reasons. This fixes the immediate issue at hand. Obviously there is some deeper community building that should go on on making the community welcoming, but that kind of thing isn't something that can be solved with new rules and mods.
Yea that's a good idea, from some I've talked to it is mass downvoting not long after the post is made so you make a trans positive post and check an hour later to see it's at 1 that feels shitty and confusing. You are right that more needs to be done for community building.
Your suggestions are things that iirc need back end programming which takes time, during which the concerted effort to intentionally downvote trans posts would continue resulting in sustained negativity for some trans users.
And it isnt some imagined slight by trans folks it has been verified there are bad actors intentionally pushing stupididpol.
Again to me this seems like placing the freeze peach of a small set of users upset about not being able to downvote with abandon above the wellbeing of trans people hence me calling it cissexism as it is centering the desires of cis people at the extend of trans people.
And it isnt some imagined slight by trans folks it has been verified there are bad actors intentionally pushing stupididpol.
Absolutely true. But mods need to focus on weeding out brigadiers. Not blanket banning users based on downvoting.
And there needs to be room for pushback when vocal trans users call any disagreement transphobic. That harms the community too.
For example, when there was the debate about requiring pronouns for all users, I was opposed to it. Not because I have reactionary opinions on pronoun usage, but because this is an anonymous forum and it felt weird to constantly reinforce the importance of IRL gender when digital accounts are inherently genderless - and nobody refers to each other in the third person anyway. It felt as strange as putting a label for your race next to your username.
Too some people, that probably came off as transphobic rather than what, from my standpoint, is something closer to the abolition of gender.
Yeah good faith is difficult to discern in an online space and with bad faith comes the terf dogwhistles that can look similar. The conflating of race and gender and abolition of gender are both such things. Idk I feel like I keep going back to the same place better to ask forgiveness for banning innocents than permission to weed out terf/stupididpol bad faith actors.
One big issue is that accepting that you will fuck over some innocent users with aggressive bans doesn't just drive away those that get caught up in it. It drives others away that know those people as good posters.
You can have a perfectly safe space for trans but it will only have 200 users and even then it'll only last for a few weeks before the community fractures over some issue.
Have you been on a trans-focused discord server? It's a shitshow.
I have and I'll assume you are stating that discord as a medium is drama prone rather than the misogynistic implication that trans focused servers are shitshows.
Again if they are committed to building solidarity they will have grace for the admins who mistakenly ban in pursuit of greater good, imo
Again, I've already stated that the immediate issue at hand can be solved with a change to the site UI. Banning innocent users isn't necessary, but its feeling like some mods and users want to do it anyway just to prove a point
Again as far as I know those are back end changes that take time and in the meantime LGBT users are leaving because of the inaction. It's a rock and a hard place but as privileged comrades the cis-het need to accept an inconvenience in order to lift up LGBT comrades.
It's what i mean by the emotional and mental effort. So rather than trans people feeling horrid at what is occurring a cis person needs to spend a bit of extra attention making sure they dont accidentally downvote or at worst message a mod on an easy to make new account, "hey i got banned but dont think I've downvoted trans stuff, what's up?" Bam it gets sorted, so I defer to this issue being one based in cisexism
Honestly I'm logging off for a while. This site used to be a decent place to fuck off during breaks at work and stuff. Users now constantly assume bad faith. Constant fights. It's getting more and more insular. It's been getting worse over the past several months.
I hope the devs can fix the UI, but it honestly seems like some mods and users want to maintain the problem so they can fester in the drama.
:fidel-salute-big:
