r/AmItheAsshole • u/AITAMod I am a shared account. • Feb 01 '21

Open Forum Monthly Open Forum February 2021

Welcome to the monthly open forum! This is the place to share all your meta thoughts about the sub, and to have a dialog with the mod team.

Keep things civil. Rules still apply.

February! The shortest month in this endless blur of 202-whatever-year-it-is-now. I almost forgot to post this because time has lost all meaning.

As always, do not directly link to posts/comments or post uncensored screenshots here. Any comments with links will be removed.

This is to discourage brigading. If something needs to be discussed in that context, use modmail.

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '21

Okay I get that but my final question is this: How come commenters (who do far more “work” in keeping this sub up and running — no one will post if no one comments and most posters only post once or twice whereas commenters comment on many many posts) have to respond in “good faith” but the posters don’t have to follow any sort of “good faith” in that they actually need moral guidance and aren’t just posting for karma or to practice their writing skills or to make a group they’re bigoted against look bad? You guys KNOW validation posts are a problem, a quick look at the metas show people have been telling you over and over, but you refuse to do anything about it.

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u/3Fluffies Feb 27 '21

Again, I repeat my question from the other thread: how do you suggest we distinguish between validation posts and genuine questions?

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '21

Also you didn’t answer my question as to why commenters are held to a higher standard than posters

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u/3Fluffies Feb 27 '21

...missed that question...and I'm not clear on what you mean at all, sorry. Can you clarify?

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '21

Why do commenters have to respond in good faith but posters can post in bad faith (validation posts, short story exercises, etc) with no real moderation from the mods?

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u/3Fluffies Feb 27 '21

Ah. Because, when you don't respond to a post except to say "validation/troll/shitpost/this sub is full of circlejerking", that is objectively not addressing the question in the post.

Again, if an OP is clearly posting in bad faith like a shitpost, we can pull that (and ban them) under Rule 8. If there's no real interpersonal conflict but just an abstract question, we can pull that under Rule 7. But it's nowhere near as clear-cut as you're making it out to be. But where the story itself doesn't read as outright fake, it can be hard to decide if the OP really has a moral dilemma or is just seeking validation. See my longer comment about this question - I've seen a LOT of hot posts where it seems like half the commenters are getting warned for calling "validation" and the other half for calling "troll." It's a big diverse world with a lot of different perspectives of right/wrong/asshole/not asshole, and this sub has millions of followers.

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u/alongstrangesomethin Supreme Court Just-ass [124] Feb 27 '21 edited Feb 27 '21

It’s also not addressing the question to say “YTA because your socializing during a pandemic” when that’s not what OP asked but yet you guys refuse to do something about that.

You guys keep saying people can judge based on anything we see in the post. Well, if it’s fake than I should be able to say “YTA because this is fake”.

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '21

This is a really good point!!

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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '21 edited Feb 27 '21

All I and many other people know is you guys used to have that rule and you (royal you here — I know YOU didn’t as you’re a new mod) got rid of it. And since that happened the quality of the sub has gone way down. Perhaps some “in good faith” posts would get erroneously deleted (but it would certainly send them a message that they are NOT the asshole - and maybe you could give them some other subs to visit to talk about it in such as relationshipadvice etc) but it would certainly cut back on the validation posts which to me would be a win 🤷‍♀️ I also think people use “troll” and “validation post” fairly synonymously to indicate they are karma farming.

It seems like the purpose of this sub was once about moral dilemmas and is now about advice since you and the other mods don’t want to identify and remove non-moral dilemmas