I feel like the pushback was about the way it was announced, tbh. If they'd just left the thread up and let people yell themselves hoarse in there, it would have died out quickly. But as soon as the mods go into "haha, die mad, loser" mode, and are locking and deleting everything left and right, it makes people feel hurt and upset. Even the original post was preemptively making fun of anyone who might dare disagree with it.
I understand that the mod team is constantly battling against wreckers and also may be personally sick of dealing with bad faith actors, debate bros, tone policing, etc etc... but it shouldn't be surprising that leftists are going to get upset anytime the site stops feeling like a "collective". And I think there are ways to have that discussion that are less adversarial.
I tend to agree, but I also want to be fair by recognizing that she does have a lot of support. She became an admin in first place basically by popular demand, and there are lots of people on the site who like the way she does things. So while it's not the way I would do things, I do want to acknowledge that the collective sentiment may be different. She also has good cred, afaik, as an organizer and semi-public figure in this tiny little corner of the leftist world. We can't underestimate how important that is when it comes to giving people confidence that this site isn't a CIA op or a bait site or whatever. No one thinks tc is a plant or a wrecker, and that does count for a lot.
I love TC69, but I do think the responsibilities as a good poster and a good mod are different. (She does both very well). I want to refrain from critiquing her as much as I can, because her duties are probably hard af.
But I do think there'd be a lot less pushback on stuff if mod/admin decisions weren't accompanied by "lol get fucked" type shitposting. (Except for banning bigots & transphobes, they can get fucked). Part of moderation is trying to prevent fallout like we've seen here, and I think the hostility towards other opinions on an aesthetic judgement certainly exacerbated it.
Up until this point, I've agreed with all of the mod/admin decisions, and I think they're doing a stellar job in general.
We can’t underestimate how important that it when it comes to giving people confidence that this site isn’t a CIA op or a bait site or whatever. No one thinks tc is a plant or a wrecker, and that does count for a lot
This is a great counterpoint to a lot of what I've said. I agree on its importance, but I think avoiding shitposting when creating stickied threads on mod decisions is a good idea.
I think one thing that would help would be to make it more clear that the whole admin team is meeting and talking beforehand. That is not always clear. I definitely tend to have this image of each mod and admin acting completely independently, and maybe just jumping in to voice support for the others here or there.
If the post were signed DashEight, TC, WSF, Alfred, Cuttlefish....
Then people might feel better about it and tc might face fewer accusations of being harsh or egocentric or whatever. Especially if we combine that with periodic reminders that, hey, if you want to help make the site better, you can contribute positively to the community, contribute to the codebase, and maybe become a mod at some point. "I know there are lots of opinions, but the 20 admins and mods got together and made a decision that we hope will be good for the site" has a totally different feel from each admin telling people "I'm not discussing this, die mad." or just replying "lmao" to comments.
cool, thanks. It seems obvious now when you say it that you all talk, but I'll admit that I really didn't realize that. In terms of us being a leftist space, it really helps to know that site decisions, bans, etc, are often collective decisions.
Back when I used to mod a subreddit, we made a shared mod account that was just for posting announcements, to not make it seem like things were just individual mods acting- something posted on that account was understood to be posted by the team. Something like that might be a good idea
During the set up we wanted to make it easy for those who were part of the subreddit to find us. Now we feel that everyone who wanted to find us has had the chance. Also over time we are becoming more and more abstracted from that subreddit. We aren't trying to build a subreddit replacement anymore we are trying to build a broad left website. A subreddit replacement of shitposting leftist is a smaller part of that. A simple subreddit replacement won't grow because no one is looking for that anymore, it's hurting our growth as left subs that want to join are turned off by the name.
I 100% agree with this, but for fucks sake please find a better name that people might take seriously or not write off because it’s weird to an outsider. Remember this isn’t like a subreddit. People have to proactively choose to come here.
Did the mod/dev team expect as much push back as there seems to be?
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I feel like the pushback was about the way it was announced, tbh. If they'd just left the thread up and let people yell themselves hoarse in there, it would have died out quickly. But as soon as the mods go into "haha, die mad, loser" mode, and are locking and deleting everything left and right, it makes people feel hurt and upset. Even the original post was preemptively making fun of anyone who might dare disagree with it.
I understand that the mod team is constantly battling against wreckers and also may be personally sick of dealing with bad faith actors, debate bros, tone policing, etc etc... but it shouldn't be surprising that leftists are going to get upset anytime the site stops feeling like a "collective". And I think there are ways to have that discussion that are less adversarial.
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i agree EXCEPT when she's purging transphobes. no tolerance for bigots
:this:
I tend to agree, but I also want to be fair by recognizing that she does have a lot of support. She became an admin in first place basically by popular demand, and there are lots of people on the site who like the way she does things. So while it's not the way I would do things, I do want to acknowledge that the collective sentiment may be different. She also has good cred, afaik, as an organizer and semi-public figure in this tiny little corner of the leftist world. We can't underestimate how important that is when it comes to giving people confidence that this site isn't a CIA op or a bait site or whatever. No one thinks tc is a plant or a wrecker, and that does count for a lot.
I love TC69, but I do think the responsibilities as a good poster and a good mod are different. (She does both very well). I want to refrain from critiquing her as much as I can, because her duties are probably hard af.
But I do think there'd be a lot less pushback on stuff if mod/admin decisions weren't accompanied by "lol get fucked" type shitposting. (Except for banning bigots & transphobes, they can get fucked). Part of moderation is trying to prevent fallout like we've seen here, and I think the hostility towards other opinions on an aesthetic judgement certainly exacerbated it.
Up until this point, I've agreed with all of the mod/admin decisions, and I think they're doing a stellar job in general.
This is a great counterpoint to a lot of what I've said. I agree on its importance, but I think avoiding shitposting when creating stickied threads on mod decisions is a good idea.
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I think one thing that would help would be to make it more clear that the whole admin team is meeting and talking beforehand. That is not always clear. I definitely tend to have this image of each mod and admin acting completely independently, and maybe just jumping in to voice support for the others here or there.
If the post were signed DashEight, TC, WSF, Alfred, Cuttlefish....
Then people might feel better about it and tc might face fewer accusations of being harsh or egocentric or whatever. Especially if we combine that with periodic reminders that, hey, if you want to help make the site better, you can contribute positively to the community, contribute to the codebase, and maybe become a mod at some point. "I know there are lots of opinions, but the 20 admins and mods got together and made a decision that we hope will be good for the site" has a totally different feel from each admin telling people "I'm not discussing this, die mad." or just replying "lmao" to comments.
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cool, thanks. It seems obvious now when you say it that you all talk, but I'll admit that I really didn't realize that. In terms of us being a leftist space, it really helps to know that site decisions, bans, etc, are often collective decisions.
Back when I used to mod a subreddit, we made a shared mod account that was just for posting announcements, to not make it seem like things were just individual mods acting- something posted on that account was understood to be posted by the team. Something like that might be a good idea
seeing as you know who posted it, do you even have any influence over what they do?
Nah, my pushback isn’t even the way it’s announced. An aggressive stance had to be taken for something controversial. Maybe the tone didn’t help tho.
I think the name choice is incredibly stupid, even more cringe than chapo, and won’t be taken seriously. Just fuckin lame and weird
If it's already been rejected in favour of Chapo.chat, why change it? Wasn't this settled while setting up the site?
During the set up we wanted to make it easy for those who were part of the subreddit to find us. Now we feel that everyone who wanted to find us has had the chance. Also over time we are becoming more and more abstracted from that subreddit. We aren't trying to build a subreddit replacement anymore we are trying to build a broad left website. A subreddit replacement of shitposting leftist is a smaller part of that. A simple subreddit replacement won't grow because no one is looking for that anymore, it's hurting our growth as left subs that want to join are turned off by the name.
I 100% agree with this, but for fucks sake please find a better name that people might take seriously or not write off because it’s weird to an outsider. Remember this isn’t like a subreddit. People have to proactively choose to come here.