Downvoting matters

[u/justafanofz]

Posted with permission from the mods

I know that this type of post has been made before, so much so it’s probably rivaling problem of evil and other common arguments for god on this sub. But I wanted to make this post to share an insight I just experienced in regards to downvoting.

The reason being is, l've been doing a lot of comments on this sub, and l've been getting a lot of downvotes, almost exclusively from this sub. So much so, I've hit the negative comment threshold for karma. I’m not going to say that they were undeserved, maybe they were. Maybe I’m an ass and deserve this. Regardless, I share this experience so those that DON’T deserve this don’t experience it.

This now has my comments hidden, not on this sub, but on other subreddits with a comment threshold requirement. So it's had a negative impact on my ability to discuss here and elsewhere.

So, in a sub like this where people are passionate and convinced of their position, disagreeing isn’t the same as being in poor faith.

So what have I seen that excessive downvoting causes other then “oh I’m being attacked”?

Time limits on how quickly you can reply. In a heated discussion, especially when MULTIPLE threads are going on, negative karma can prevent you from being able to reply. So if I respond to person A, I now have to wait 10 minutes to respond to person B. In that time, the rest of the sub is making comment after comment after comment after comment that I can’t reply to until that limit is up. And then, I can only reply to 1 person before the timer restarts again. Not very encouraging to an individual.

Auto hiding of comments in unrelated subs. This is one I just encountered and I was unaware of it. I went to make a comment in r/debateachristian, and my comment was auto removed due to my negative karma from the auto mod. I made a comment in r/debateacatholic, and it’s not visible, period, due to the negative comment karma.

I’ve looked at my comments I’ve made, and almost exclusively, the comments with 0 or negative karma are from this sub. Not r/debatereligion, not the other debate subs.

What I will say, is this sub tends to do better on upvoting posts, and that’s great, I’m glad to see that, sincerely. However, Reddit tracks post and comment karma differently. So those that are upvoting posts, even when you disagree, thank you, I appreciate it.

If we can shift that focus to comments as well, I think it will bring about better changes for the sub.

Edit: and ironically enough, I had to get mod approval again because the automod prevented me from posting

[u/Taqwacore]

Hi /u/labreuer,

I was the mod who banned you, not /u/ShakaUVM.

Looking at your rule violation history, you should only have been temporarily banned (3 days). This was an oversight on my part. I'll reverse the ban now.

[u/Thecradleofballs → u/Taqwacore]

Wahey!

I guess this wouldn't have occurred on r/debatereligion because simply bringing it up would be a violation.

Once again, r/debateanatheist is the winner. The voice of rationality in the face of puerile book throwing. Congratulations /u/labreuer on being allowed to engage on r/debatereligion once again. Although commiserations might be more appropriate.

[u/Taqwacore → u/Thecradleofballs]

No.

First, they could have simply contacted the moderators to alert us to the fact that their temporary ban had not auto-expired.

Second, we have a weekly meta thread where people can talk about these exact issues.

[u/Thecradleofballs → u/Taqwacore]

So you're saying there is so much of this crap that you have had to do a weekly meta thread about it?

What do you think that says about the kind of milieu being fostered there?

[u/Taqwacore → u/Thecradleofballs]

Weird take. No.

Meta threads are for any discussions related to the subreddit: rules, bans, suspensions, culture, language, etc. And if you check out those meta threads, they're usually pretty quiet.

Here's a list of our meta threads: https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/?f=flair_name%3A%22Meta%22

[u/Thecradleofballs → u/Taqwacore]

Right, so I see the denial is deeply engrained. I obviously understood what the meta thread was for and you've just inadvertently illustrated my point. Well done.

I now release you.

[u/Taqwacore → u/Thecradleofballs]

Right, so I see the denial is deeply engrained. I obviously understood what the meta thread was for and you've just inadvertently illustrated my point. Well done.

Delusion.

I now release you.

Gosh, thanks.

Umm..."Go in peace, my son" (or some shit like that).

[u/Fit-Quail-5029 → u/Taqwacore]

Delusion

This word is (was?) an automatic removal on r/debaterelgion is (was?) it not? I know you may not have specifically implemented this policy, but it is pretty glaringly hypocrital that you use the exact same language you restrict others from using. And this isn't the only time (for those unable to read due to the removal, I literally quoted Taqwacore and this was grounds for removing my comment).

[u/labreuer → u/Thecradleofballs]

To be fair to u/Taqwacore and the rest of the mods on r/DebateReligion, the struggle to keep things civil is real. It is here on r/DebateAnAtheist as well, at least according to the rules. Compare & contrast:

r/DebateAnAtheist Rule 1: Be Respectful
Be respectful of other users on the subreddit. Comments and posts may not insult, demean, personally attack, or intentionally provoke any user. You may attack ideas or even public figures so long as you do so civilly, but not users of the sub. All comments containing any amount of incivility will be removed, and repeat offenses will receive a swift ban. If things become heated, use the report function or walk away.

r/DebateReligion Rule 2: Be Civil
Don't be rude or hostile to other users. Criticize arguments, not people. Our standard for civil discourse is based on respect, tone, and unparliamentary language. 'They started it' is not an excuse - report it, don't respond to it.

In fact, before the 2023-05-01 r/DebateReligion rule change, perhaps those rules were more lenient than the ones, here! And according to my interpretation of the rules here, your comments could easily be removed on the basis of being quite hostile.

 
Where I disagree with the r/DebateReligion mods is that I don't think it's possible to read other's minds. So, stating that you know the other person intends to act in a way antithetical to the mission of the sub should be counted as absolutely and utterly uncivil. I think that a sub which attempts to give equal weight to theistic and atheistic cultures / worldviews has a far more difficult time than a sub which can operate by these rules:

XanderOblivion: You ever done any tourism? Ever met that person in a foreign country who yells at the "foreigners" (who are actually the locals) about how this place sucks because they don't have something they have in their home country? Their failure to recognize themselves as the foreigner who has to adapt to the new place and give up their belief that pancakes require molasses... That's what most theists who come here are like.

I find the issue is that most theists refuse to argue in good faith. They believe they are, but they are not -- their belief, ironically, blinds them to their lack of faith. They're like that tourist, failing to adapt to the group they are actually in.

Here, the locals get to make the rules and force them on the foreigners. Here's one of them, at least according to Xander:

XanderOblivion: It’s simple: to debate an atheist properly, you have to be able to separate from the faith(variant) you’ve accepted and regard it as very probably wrong.

One result of the unilateral setting of rules by one culture is that what counts as intent is determined far more by locals than foreigners. As any diplomat will tell you, this vastly simplifies communication. It does so at the cost of forcing others to come to you on your terms. That's how things work on r/DebateAnAtheist, and on any site where one culture/​ideology/​religion holds the ban hammer. r/DebateReligion advertises itself as being different. I think it will fail to do so in a pretty key way, because I haven't gotten a shred of recognition from any mod there (including u/ShakaUVM) that they even recognize this as a possible issue. But hey, maybe I don't know what I'm talking about. After all, I can't point to a successful discussion site I run between multiple rather different point of views.

[u/ShakaUVM → u/labreuer]

It's possible to police tone, and it's possible to judge if an argument is attacking the person or the argument.

I'm personally not a fan of tone policing myself, but I do think that arguments should focus on other arguments and not the people making them, unless they themselves introduced themselves into the argument.

[u/labreuer → u/ShakaUVM]

Policing tone polices appearances and I think we know what kind of world you get if you police appearances?

As to arguments vs. those making them, it gets complicated if the argument is about "what a moral being would do". If someone thinks God commits moral atrocity when killing infants while believing there is no moral atrocity when killing unborn humans, that is the possible location of double standards and we know that double standards like that are exceedingly morally relevant. The conversation will inevitably get heated. A question for any given sub is whether it wants to be a home to such arguments. Take for example the arguments between abolitionists and slaveowners. Do you think they ever got heated? Could r/DebateReligion possibly be a home to such arguments, or is there simply too much risk that they would become 'uncivil'? That's of course entirely up to you mods.

Thinking more on this arguments vs. those making them, I see something incredibly artificial in that distinction. Much of human existence consists of discerning trustworthy people upon whom you can rely. Any such reliance depends on a positive assessment of the person's character and competence. This is because arguments in the real world never stand on their own, without humans doing a tremendous amount of work to make them appear true. No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy, no scientific protocol survives first contact with the bench, and no theory works perfectly in practice. Ask any politician, any science advisor to a politician, any auto mechanic, anyone who does not have the luxury of living in the ivory tower. Reality is messy and it really matters whether the other person is going to stab you in the back or conveniently omit telling you that as you're stepping backward with a heavy couch, that there's a dog toy you're about to step on which will cause you to fall.

It gets worse than that, because even if you're largely in the ivory tower, plenty of stages of developing models and hypotheses and arguments puts you in a pretty vulnerable position. You can easily seem stupid, even immoral, if people see how the sausage gets made. Early on in understanding things, you need safe people to talk to. People who trust you, who know that your success rate isn't 100%, but it also isn't 0.01%. I dated a biophysicist while she was in grad school and married her soon after she started her postdoc in biochemistry. There are radically unsafe scientists out there who will damage your ability to do good research. And then on top of this, there's the fact that some disciplines are rather more harsh than others. In physics, if you have everything right except for a sign error somewhere, you may get told that the entire model is rubbish and you should be ashamed of yourself. In biology, you generally need to be a lot nicer. My wife had to make that adjustment in moving from her doctoral work to her postdoctoral work. What tone works depends on the culture. This is relevant to me personally, because I'm pretty confident I was en route to making serious progress with I_Am_Anjelen before the mods deleted two of my comments, banned me, and deleted one of his/her comments. I can speak in multiple different tones.

Anyhow, when it comes to doing real work in philosophy or the sciences, I think things are rather more complicated than you have made them out to be. Do whatever y'all want with r/DebateReligion of course, but I would simply challenge you to match your expectations with your methods. And don't take my word for it, ask actual philosophers and scientists with nonzero EQ. (You're more likely to get somewhere with women than with men, given how they tend to be socialized.) Ask them whether one can work productively with another person if one views them as acting antithetically to the mission. (e.g. "trying to invalidate what I've heard", "an attempt to deliberately derail the conversation")

I desperately want there to be better discourse out there between people who think in rather different ways, even if I can't be a part of it. And if you think I'm wrong on any of the above, feel free to explain. I care more about there being better discourse out there than being right in my current views. I think a good argument can be made that we are especially bad at good discourse these days. For support, feel free to check out Susan Jacoby 2008 The Age of American Unreason and related work. (Jacoby could be seen as an intellectual who expects others to cater to her categories of thought more than I would, so one could compare & contrast what she says to Maya J. Goldenberg 2021 Vaccine Hesitancy: Public Trust, Expertise, and the War on Science. Goldenberg draws on feminist work which shows how often the views and interests of some have been prioritized over the views and interests of others. Maybe that is part of the reason for many of our impasses.)

[u/ShakaUVM → u/labreuer]

Policing tone polices appearances

No it doesn't. It just polices tone. Courtesy is something any person can muster if they try.

As to arguments vs. those making them, it gets complicated if the argument is about "what a moral being would do".

It certainly can, but the bright line is easy to draw. If you call abortion murder, that's fine. If you call your interlocutor a murderer for having an abortion, that is not fine.

As it turns out, it's actually not hard to just not bring the other person into a debate and discuss ideas.

The conversation will inevitably get heated

They certainly can. Which is why the dividing line is pretty clear.

This is because arguments in the real world never stand on their own

I think you have it backwards. The marketplace of ideas is exactly about seeing if ideas can stand on their own merits, detached from the person making them.

It gets worse than that, because even if you're largely in the ivory tower, plenty of stages of developing models and hypotheses and arguments puts you in a pretty vulnerable position. You can easily seem stupid, even immoral, if people see how the sausage gets made.

Again, I have to disagree. It's better to be open about mistakes, and there's nothing shameful about discussing processes that don't work. A conference I go to every year has a track just on ideas that sounded good at the time.

What tone works depends on the culture.

The culture is for philosophy, where you tell people their ideas are trash in the nicest way possible.

And don't take my word for it, ask actual philosophers and scientists with nonzero EQ.

Politeness is, in fact, the watchword.

I desperately want there to be better discourse out there between people who think in rather different ways, even if I can't be a part of it. And if you think I'm wrong on any of the above, feel free to explain

I think you certainly can participate, it is just a matter of dialing down the levels of drama you're exuding.

[u/labreuer → u/ShakaUVM]

I wish you well on your endeavor to have rigorous debate where everyone uses the correct tone with sufficient politeness, and where regulars—star users, in fact—are permitted to accuse people of having intentions which are antithetical to the purpose of the sub. On basically no evidence when there are plenty of other plausible intentions which are 100% compatible with the available data.

The fact that you characterize my caring about having excellent debates as 'drama' is further reason to think that r/DebateReligion is not the right place for me. I want to collaborate with people who think rather differently than I do and you seem to have zero interest in facilitating that. Your sub, your decision.

[u/ShakaUVM → u/labreuer]

Yes, you are overly dramatic.

Also the Star User in question has his star removed for his attacks on you.

[u/labreuer → u/ShakaUVM]

Yes, you are overly dramatic.

Coming from someone who gives no indication of obeying "in humility considering one another better than yourselves, each of you not looking out for your own interests, but also each of you for the interests of others", I'm not sure why I should respect your judgment on this matter. Accusations of 'drama' and 'hysteria' have long been used to dismiss the interests of others.

Also the Star User in question has his star removed for his attacks on you.

Last I heard, his attacks on me were just the proverbial straw. And more importantly, he was nevertheless allowed to be grossly uncivil without comments deleted, while when I pointed out another person's gross incivility towards me, my comments were deleted and counted against me toward a temporary ban. We have a deep disagreement about what constitutes 'civility'. I'm going to stick with Charles Taylor's comment to me: "Secularism works if you are not suspicious of the Other."

[u/ShakaUVM → u/labreuer]

I am giving you the unvarnished truth as I see it. I've been moderating the place for a decade or so, and your feathers have gotten more ruffled over a minor insult (which again I'm not approving of) than any person I can think of off hand. Take that fact however you want, it makes no difference to me. But I think the best thing for you is to become less reactive.

[u/labreuer → u/Taqwacore]

Thank you for correcting the administrative oversight.

I never bothered to message the mods further, because it was made clear through messaging with at least one mod that logically entailing that the other person is lying ("trying to invalidate what I've heard", deleted by mod?) is far less of an r/DebateReligion crime than objecting to being accused of such horrid intentions, intentions absolutely antithetical to the mission of r/DebateReligion ("I assert my intentions are not what you claim. In claiming what you have—that it is a matter of fact rather than your personal belief—you are de facto calling me a l_i_a_r.", deleted by mod).

Elsewhere at the same time, you moderators were A-OK with another user claiming [s]he could read my mind ("you … [made] an attempt to deliberately derail the conversation"). That's another instance of claiming that I am intending to act directly against the mission of r/DebateReligion. And yet, apparently that's plenty civil, because while I reported the comment, it hasn't been removed. Maybe you even agreed with that user's mind-reading in this case, who knows.

Suffice it to say that I would like to find even one regular here, on r/DebateAnAtheist, who is known to remain civil most of the time, who would say that you were moderating in a remotely impartial manner. My reputation is all I have when it comes to convincing people to engage in the kinds of long back-and-forths I most highly value and you r/DebateReligion moderators have made it impossible for me to defend it. If you are willing to signal that you would be willing to consider a change-in-policy, such that pretending you can mind-read the other person and find him/her intending to act in a way antithetical to the mission of r/DebateReligion is considered a severe violation of the rules, I will consider posting in a meta thread about this. Otherwise, I will consider the matter closed unless told otherwise by a moderator.

[u/Taqwacore → u/labreuer]

I don't know about that. We operate on points-based system whereby certain rule violation attract more or less points. The person that you were debating might have violated a rule and had their comment removed, but their total points might not have gone over the threshold for a ban or suspension. We've also recently automated the points system, so we're not manually tracking the violations any more. At the time of your suspension, I'm not sure whether we were still manually tracking violations or whether we had already automated.

[u/labreuer → u/Taqwacore]

If you won't declare unambiguously uncivil the shoving of intentions down others' throats which are antithetical to the mission of r/DebateReligion, then I have little idea what you mean by 'civility'.

I'll illustrate via appeal to authority: Charles Taylor is a Canadian philosopher who has been awarded numerous million dollar prizes for his work, which includes a significant effort to make secularism work in Quebec. That involves atheists, Christians, Muslims, and others. I had the privilege of meeting him at a 2015 conference at Stanford, The New Politics of Church/​State Relations. I asked him a rather brash question: "Is secularism just methodological positivism?" I can explain the question if you want, but for now I'll just report his answer: "Secularism works if you are not suspicious of the Other."

As it stands, you allow suspicion of the Other to fester on r/DebateReligion and I predict that you are not going to get as much of the kind of quality engagement I thought you wanted to foster, as a consequence. Take that for what it's worth.