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Forum moderation and white supremacists/neo nazi/etc

The fact that conversations about the legitimacy or illegitimacy of certain political ideologies are taking place in forums dedicated to discussing anime is something that should be rectified regardless of the feelings or stances of the participants or of the particular ideologies in question.

Cosign. All of the politically correct nazis should have their accounts deleted. Any fears of loss in traffic or engagement are misplaced given that their domination of talkback threads is an obvious disincentive for anyone else to post.

The most vocal members of ANN's forums spend their time trawling the front page and forums for articles and threads that are disseminating "leftist propaganda" so that they can complain about it in winding, OT dialogues. These threads inevitably devolve into repetitive, barely on topic discussions because anyone who engages with these people is engaging in a discussion about the validity of a political ideology that never declares itself as such so as to stay nominally within the scope of the thread. The subject of the article is never the point, only the extent to which the article affirms or strays from the political ideology of the reader, and so no amount of discussion about the article's content will ever conclude the discussion.

The fact that conversations about the legitimacy or illegitimacy of certain political ideologies are taking place in forums dedicated to discussing anime is something that should be rectified, regardless of the feelings or stances of the participants.

鏡 wrote:

The fact that conversations about the legitimacy or illegitimacy of certain political ideologies are taking place in forums dedicated to discussing anime is something that should be rectified regardless of the feelings or stances of the participants or of the particular ideologies in question.

We have an "off topic" rule already, so when politics are off topic and start to dominate a thread, they can already be reported. And if they AREN'T off topic, then why should they be banned, especially as long as we make the other changes needed to make the forum more pleasant?

You started posting in this thread with fairly strong support for "ban the white nationalists", but now have carefully started to shift your argument to "ban all politics except in very narrow cases."

Banning hate is one thing. Saying people aren't allowed to discuss the existence of LGBT in Japan because that's forced western political progressivism, but they can go on and on about how great traditional gender roles are and that's fine isn't banning hate, nor is it even banning politics.

鏡 wrote:

Cosign. All of the politically correct nazis should have their accounts deleted. Any fears of loss in traffic or engagement are misplaced given that their domination of talkback threads is an obvious disincentive for anyone else to post.

Are you politically correct if you expect other people to have fundamental respect for your existence, including respecting their comfortability in discussions, rather than devalue them or suggest their perspective is delusional? Are you politically correct if other users are making suggestions about your race, gender or gender identity, sexuality, class, age, or disability that are harmful or fundamentally bigoted viewpoints and that angers you or they're causing you personal distress because of it? If that's the case, you'd only be left with disrespectful users who'd never be confronted on how they're subtly harming others, the atmosphere would become even more poisoned, and the notorious reputation of the site would be cemented. As I said previously, posting here should be a privilege and fundamental disrespect for other people like that shouldn't be tolerated.

What even is 'leftist propaganda'? Is it the same things outlined in my first response?
Views that are respectful of the value of others or attempt to shine light on a harmful perspective even if lengthy shouldn't be bannable offenses, that's absurd. There's a pattern of a refusal to take responsibility for the implications of some harmful, inconsiderate worldviews and instead painting personal perspectives that are entirely respectful, which are the main reason you'd read the comments in a forum, as 'politicized' and promoting your own as 'apolitical' in order to dismiss them. The amount people have already humored this from folks like you on this website is absurd. Destructive conditioning is inherently bad faith and puts users in a negative situation. It should not be tolerated.

Views that are inherently respectful shouldn't be penalized for this. If your political ideology is expressing any form of harm or violence against someone's existence you're not operating in good faith and honestly good riddance.

^You did, though.

People are making some valuable points here, but can we try to avoid the old "you said / I said" type posts. If my previous post encouraged this, then I apologise.

The only way forward then is to crack down on hate speech and those who skirt the rules to present toxic views in a way that, currently, does not technically violate the rules. The alternative is the current environment, where like one ANN freelancer mentioned on twitter she had literally self censored and avoided bringing up certain things because the forum pushback was so toxic.

Okay, then I'll reframe my points a bit. Banning all politics will stifle discussion. The forums have become toxic not because the subject of politics is brought up at all, but because certain posters use dogwhistles and thinly veiled hate to harass the staff and other posters and fill the forums with disrespectful viewpoints. Most of the worst threads where this has occurred, though, were in response to some sort of editorial or article that referenced at least briefly something political.

Thus, cracking down on off topic posts won't stop it, and banning politics discussion even in response to articles that directly reference politics will make it impossible for forum users to fully engage with the content here in a respectful manner. In addition, as a previous argument I had with 鏡has made clear, not everyone agrees even on what is or isn't politics.

Mad_Scientist wrote:

The only way forward then is to crack down on hate speech and those who skirt the rules to present toxic views in a way that, currently, does not technically violate the rules. The alternative is the current environment, where like one ANN freelancer mentioned on twitter she had literally self censored and avoided bringing up certain things because the forum pushback was so toxic.

Kim is full staff, not just a freelancer, and I know she's not alone from conversations I've had with other ANN writers as well. The writers are literally avoiding bringing up topics they consider pertinent and important to the discussion, because they know the forum reaction will zero in on the one detail they disagree with.

Mad_Scientist wrote:

Okay, then I'll reframe my points a bit. Banning all politics will stifle discussion. The forums have become toxic not because the subject of politics is brought up at all, but because certain posters use dogwhistles and thinly veiled hate to harass the staff and other posters and fill the forums with disrespectful viewpoints. Most of the worst threads where this has occurred, though, were in response to some sort of editorial or article that referenced at least briefly something political. Thus, cracking down on off topic posts won't stop it, and banning politics discussion even in response to articles that directly reference politics will make it impossible for forum users to fully engage with the content here in a respectful manner. In addition, as a previous argument I had with 鏡has made clear, not everyone agrees even on what is or isn't politics.

To be honest, the fact that this problem has gotten to the point that it has seems like good evidence to me that ANN is either incapable of recognizing when someone is pushing a reactionary political agenda in the guise of a discussion about anime or is unwilling to punish it when it occurs. If either is true, then by including discussion of political ideas as OT, the forums can at least be pared down to conversations relevant to anime, if lacking in political depth. I'd rather have trite comments about art design than 20 pages of argumentation about whether there is enough evidence in a show to call it heteronormative (which, let me be perfectly clear, is actually a discussion about what heteronormativity is, and is thus genuinely OT).

There is happy medium between "you cannot discuss the political implications and themes of a work" and letting the bad faith arguers run amok. Either extreme would be more or less giving in to them.