TheRtRevKaiser

Hey Beeple and visitors to Beehaw: I think we need to have a discussion about !technology@beehaw.org, community culture, and moderation. First, some of the reasons that I think we need to have this conversation.

1. Technology got big fast and has stayed Beehaw's most active community.
2. Technology gets more reports (about double in the last month by a rough hand count) than the next highest community that I moderate (Politics, and this is during election season in a month that involved a disastrous debate, an assassination attempt on a candidate, and a major party's presumptive nominee dropping out of the race)
3. For a long time, I and other mods have felt that Technology at times isn’t living up to the Beehaw ethos. More often than I like I see comments in this community where users are being abusive or insulting toward one another, often without any provocation other than the perception that the other user’s opinion is wrong.

Because of these reasons, we have decided that we may need to be a little more hands-on with our moderation of Technology. Here’s what that might mean:

1. Mods will be more actively removing comments that are unkind or abusive, that involve personal attacks, or that just have really bad vibes.
   a. We will always try to be fair, but you may not always agree with our moderation decisions. Please try to respect those decisions anyway. We will generally try to moderate in a way that is a) proportional, and b) gradual.
   b. We are more likely to respond to particularly bad behavior from off-instance users with pre-emptive bans. This is not because off-instance users are worse, or less valuable, but simply that we aren't able to vet users from other instances and don't interact with them with the same frequency, and other instances may have less strict sign-up policies than Beehaw, making it more difficult to play whack-a-mole.
2. We will need you to report early and often. The drawbacks of getting reports for something that doesn't require our intervention are outweighed by the benefits of us being able to get to a situation before it spirals out of control. By all means, if you’re not sure if something has risen to the level of violating our rule, say so in the report reason, but I'd personally rather get reports early than late, when a thread has spiraled into an all out flamewar.
   a. That said, please don't report people for being wrong, unless they are doing so in a way that is actually dangerous to others. It would be better for you to kindly disagree with them in a nice comment.
   b. Please, feel free to try and de-escalate arguments and remind one another of the humanity of the people behind the usernames. Remember to Be(e) Nice even when disagreeing with one another. Yes, even Windows users.
3. We will try to be more proactive in stepping in when arguments are happening and trying to remind folks to Be(e) Nice.
   a. This isn't always possible. Mods are all volunteers with jobs and lives, and things often get out of hand before we are aware of the problem due to the size of the community and mod team.
   b. This isn't always helpful, but we try to make these kinds of gentle reminders our first resort when we get to things early enough. It’s also usually useful in gauging whether someone is a good fit for Beehaw. If someone responds with abuse to a gentle nudge about their behavior, it’s generally a good indication that they either aren’t aware of or don’t care about the type of community we are trying to maintain.

I know our philosophy posts can be long and sometimes a little meandering (personally that's why I love them) but do take the time to read them if you haven't. If you can't/won't or just need a reminder, though, I'll try to distill the parts that I think are most salient to this particular post:

1. Be(e) nice. By nice, we don't mean merely being polite, or in the surface-level "oh bless your heart" kind of way; we mean be kind.
2. Remember the human. The users that you interact with on Beehaw (and most likely other parts of the internet) are people, and people should be treated kindly and in good-faith whenever possible.
3. Assume good faith. Whenever possible, and until demonstrated otherwise, assume that users don't have a secret, evil agenda. If you think they might be saying or implying something you think is bad, ask them to clarify (kindly) and give them a chance to explain. Most likely, they've communicated themselves poorly, or you've misunderstood. After all of that, it's possible that you may disagree with them still, but we can disagree about Technology and still give one another the respect due to other humans.

Hey folks. I just want to check in with the community about a post that was recently removed. My intention is absolutely not to create drama or stir anything up, but I'd like to make sure you all understand my reasoning for removing the post. Also, I'm aware that I'm not as good at articulating these kinds of things as some of our folks, so don't expect a classic Beehaw philosophy post here.

The post in questions was a link to a twitter thread providing evidence of the IRL identity of "comic" "artist" stonetoss, who is unquestionably a huge piece of shit and a neo-nazi, or at least something so indistinguishable from one that the difference is meaningless.

The post provoked some discussion in the Mod chat and several of us, myself included, were on the fence about it. I understand that there are arguments both for and against naming and calling out people like stonetoss. I find arguments in both directions somewhat convincing, but ultimately the thing that a number of us expressed was that the act of calling someone like this out and potentially exposing them to harassment or real-world consequences for their views might be morally defensible, it didn't feel like Beehaw was the right place for it. We really want Beehaw to be a place that is constructive and kind, and that this type of doxxing/callout didn't seem to fit our vision what what we want Beehaw to be. At the same time, we're all very conscious that it would be easy for this kind of thinking to lead to tone policing and respectability politics, and that is also something we want to be careful to avoid. All this to say that I made what I think was the best decision in the moment for the overall health of !politics as a community, as I saw it.

On a personal note, I find that our Politics community is one of the communities that is most prone to falling into some of the traps that Beehaw was created to avoid. That's very understandable - politics are something that cause real and immediate harm and stress in a lot of folks' lives; they're complicated, contentious, and often make us feel powerless. I'd like to remind folks as we move into the general election season in the US, though, to remember the founding principles of Beehaw when discussing these topics, no matter how stressful they may be: remember the human, assume good faith in others, and above all, be(e) nice.

Thanks,

TheRtRevKaiser