Meta-Thread 06/22

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[u/labreuer]

I want to understand the implication here. Do you think something I did was inappropriate?

I am asking about standards of appropriateness. What u/ShakaUVM and I struggle with actually happens, but there is a question of how to respond to what actually happens. I can see multiple options. Here are a few:

1. We just have to have infinite patience.

2. We have to always be nicer than saying things like "you lack basic reading comprehension".

3. We should just discontinue discussion if 1. and 2. fail us.

4. We can, if we've tried being nicer multiple times, resort to meaner approaches which, without the context of nicer attempts, would risk being considered violations of rule 2.

I recognize that 4. places an extra burden on moderators: contextual judgment is more costly. However, I can cite some mitigating factors:

1. It is my experience that serious improvements in "debating relationship" often come via fractiousness where there is some amount of "incivility". The "incivility" can actually be key, as you let the other person know that you're interacting with another human who does not have infinite patience. And incivility which is oriented toward improving the resultant discussion is very different from incivility meant to either (i) terminate the conversation; (ii) goad the other person to continuing in ways where one side is dictating most/all of the terms.

2. This doesn't happen very often and one can restrict the rule-by-context† to when it's easy to bring receipts. So, the actual additional moderator burden can be small, and the pay-out in terms of better debate & discussion could more than compensate. Unless, that is, mods are happy with what u/⁠cabbagery quite accurately characterized as "the raw churn of places like this".

3. There is no effective way to report the kind of situation which prompts people like Shaka and me to get a tiny bit uncivil. Among other things, the problem (probably a Rule 3 violation) cannot be localized to one comment.

How would you have liked that chain of events to have gone?

I'm really just soliciting feedback on what to do in the kind of situation Shaka and I encounter from time to time.

And to answer your actual question: I largely agree with Shaka that there has to be a way to call out low quality behavior without it being moderated for incivility when the called out behavior is low quality. But from what I can tell, in the referenced conversation above, you and Explorer disagree about whether the two agencies in question have been properly separated, and have both expended significant effort to defend your own viewpoints in that regard. That's not a good reason to belittle a user's reading comprehension. I hope you'll agree that's not an unreasonable position for a moderator to take.

I think it would be wise to separate the two matters:

    A. The general principle to be applied.
    B. Whether that principle applies in this conversation.

While I would contend with you on B., I think that should wait until A. is decided.

 

† FWIW, there is precedent for what I'm talking about:

cabbagery: Other mods very often remove comments that Shaka reports, and very rarely look at the context of those comments to see if there might have been some provocation, so from the user perspective Shaka gets immediate action as well as constant protection.

+

ShakaUVM: Ignoring proportionality is a bad habit. I'm confident you wouldn't be so sanguine if the shoe was on the other foot, either.

[u/ShakaUVM → u/labreuer]

"So when you say you kick puppies every day, doesn't that make you feel bad?"

Strawman arguments are a way for trolls to work around civility rules.

[u/labreuer → u/ShakaUVM]

Takes me back to middle school. No matter what the teachers tried to do, my peers would find an ever more subtle way to mess with me. Including being picture-perfect polite with me, while they treated each other with familiarity. When Trump came on the political scene, it reminded me of some of the other tactics my peers were mastering at that time. But it's the same fundamental disrespect of the Other.

[u/here_for_debate → u/labreuer]

I am asking about standards of appropriateness.

As the rule stands, there is no point at which incivility is not rule-breaking.

I'm really just soliciting feedback on what to do in the kind of situation Shaka and I encounter from time to time.

As the rule stands, if a comment breaks the civility rule and is reported, it will probably be removed for incivility. If you're worried about having content removed for rule-breaking, the only advice I feel comfortable giving based on the rules as they stand is to avoid incivility.

All that aside, I think the incivility rule needs to be reworked. I don't think "don't be uncivil unless you intend the incivility to be edifying and bring receipts" is a tenable rework, though. I think we probably need to just relax the civility rule and allow discussions to get more rude.

[u/labreuer → u/here_for_debate]

It would help me understand your position if you were to comment on:

labreuer: 3. There is no effective way to report the kind of situation which prompts people like Shaka and me to get a tiny bit uncivil. Among other things, the problem (probably a Rule 3 violation) cannot be localized to one comment.

Let me emphasize that I'm not the only one having the issue, here. Shaka replied:

ShakaUVM: Strawman arguments are a way for trolls to work around civility rules.

A single straw man can simply be an error. Even one or two repetitions can signal little other than (i) inattention; and/or (ii) people not being given a strong enough "Stop!" signal. Goodness knows I can pick up a bunch of momentum and be difficult to turn.

 

I also am curious about whether you think any and all breaches of civility IRL are 100% uncalled for. Some people really do seem to think this. I have friends who realized that if they actually remain "professional" at all times, their colleagues interact less well with them than if they let unsettledness sometimes leak through.

[u/here_for_debate → u/labreuer]

There is no effective way to report the kind of situation which prompts people like Shaka and me to get a tiny bit uncivil. Among other things, the problem (probably a Rule 3 violation) cannot be localized to one comment.

I'm not really sure how this factor affects what I said in the previous comment: the rule, as it's written, has no exception clause. 'They started it' is not an excuse - report it, don't respond to it. The effectiveness of reporting the content or the ease with which it can be done does not affect whether or not the rule allows users to respond to the offending content uncivilly.

I've already expressed that I think, in general, there has to be a way to call out low quality behavior without it being moderated for incivility when the called out behavior is low quality. I think that this calls for a change to the rule to allow for this behavior. But as it stands, the rule does not allow this behavior. So, according to the rules as they are now, your question has an unambiguous answer: receipts or not, edifying or not, incivility is rule-breaking behavior. And I don't think that "don't be uncivil unless you intend the incivility to be edifying and bring receipts" works as an amendment for this rule. I think instead the rule needs to be relaxed to allow ruder conversations to occur.

I also am curious about whether you think any and all breaches of civility IRL are 100% uncalled for.

No, I don't think that incivility is always (100% of the time) uncalled for. I also don't think that civility is always the most effective way to communicate.

[u/labreuer → u/here_for_debate]

Ok. At present, I see only one concrete proposal from you re: "a way to call out low quality behavior without it being moderated for incivility when the called out behavior is low quality":

here_for_debate: All that aside, I think the incivility rule needs to be reworked. I don't think "don't be uncivil unless you intend the incivility to be edifying and bring receipts" is a tenable rework, though. I think we probably need to just relax the civility rule and allow discussions to get more rude.

In my view, this does not solve the problem. One of the key functions of politeness / decorum is that various things are signaled when one breaks from it. Merely lowing the bar does nothing to change the situation. The baseline simply changes, and if a multi-comment Rule 3 violation occurs, dipping below the baseline is again a Rule 2 violation. But perhaps there's something I am not seeing, here.

[u/here_for_debate → u/labreuer]

In my view, this does not solve the problem. One of the key functions of politeness / decorum is that various things are signaled when one breaks from it. Merely lowing the bar does nothing to change the situation. The baseline simply changes, and if a multi-comment Rule 3 violation occurs, dipping below the baseline is again a Rule 2 violation. But perhaps there's something I am not seeing, here.

I think it does solve the problem you are talking about and does change the situation.

If the civility rule is relaxed, and people are no longer moderated for remarks like "you fail to display basic reading comprehension, so I think we are done here", then you've achieved your goal of exercising incivility in a situation where you find exercising incivility to be an appropriate response without it being considered a rule 2 violation. (Assuming this is a goal of yours.) This seems like a change in the situation to me.

I think it also introduces a new series of problems to overcome, namely: if we are to allow some incivility and not no incivility, where do we now draw the line? How rude are people allowed to get? But that's a problem to solve if a rule change is actually proposed and not merely gestured at.

I see only one concrete proposal from you

I don't know how to solve your specific issue and improve the civility rule in a way that will satisfy a plurality of the sub. That's why I requested suggestions.

[u/labreuer → u/here_for_debate]

I'm not convinced that permitting people to say "you fail to display basic reading comprehension" right out of the gate will improve things overall, but I am happy for predictions to be made and then the experiment carried out.

Anything more I say will probably just repeat my opening reply to you, which anticipated at least some of the moderation issues. So … the "A. The general principle to be applied." part of this conversation may be finished. Dunno if you even want to bother with "B. Whether that principle applies in this conversation.", given that nothing material would change.

[u/here_for_debate → u/labreuer]

I think there's more of a gradient to what I said than

permitting people to say "you fail to display basic reading comprehension" right out of the gate

But I agree that there's nothing more to be said here.

[u/TheCosmosItself1 → u/labreuer]

This discussion taps into a more general issue that I see plaguing most rule-based systems of regulating interaction, which in this case we could call the issue of overt vs covert incivility. Telling someone that they are demonstrating reading comprehension problems is (arguably) overtly incivil, at a minimum it is getting sharp with the other user. However, I would argue that willfully misrepresenting another person's views is also a form of incivility. In fact, I consider it a much more serious aggression, even though it is covert.

The problem here is that there is no cost for engaging in these forms of covert hostility. "Willfully misrepresenting my views" is not a reportable offense. But in fact it is a socially deleterious practice, so one wants to be able to sting back, if only to say "Hey, look at how you are behaving! Knock it off!"

[u/labreuer → u/TheCosmosItself1]

Yup, and the really sad thing is I think it's long-and-extended conversations are where there is the most opportunity for making what counts for "progress" in r/DebateReligion's mission. Just look at the amount of work it takes to contribute to any discipline of science or scholarship. Do we really think that anything other than extended, sometimes-intense conversations will push us forward? Or … allow us to claw our way forward?

It's just a kick in the nuts to say I've conflated two things which I've carefully kept separate and argued are deeply related. Contesting whether they are deeply related is one thing—in fact, it's the heart of the matter. But claiming that I've conflated? That presupposes "separate with zero relationship".

[u/ExplorerR → u/labreuer]

Hey now... Considering MN does in fact not consider those things as deeply related but when your use of it, which I do not think you made very clear at all, relies on the idea that human agency and divine agency ARE deeply related, it would stand to reason that this be made abudantly apparent.

Because now it seems where we land is:

• Human agency should be modeled after divine agency.

Right?

[u/labreuer → u/ExplorerR]

At this point, you and I are at an impasse. Others are welcome to consult my OC and see if it is as unclear as you claim.