Hey all,
Moderation philosophy posts started out as an exercise by myself to put down some of my thoughts on running communities that I’d learned over the years. As they continued I started to more heavily involve the other admins in the writing and brainstorming. This most recent post involved a lot of moderator voices as well, which is super exciting! This is a community, and we want the voices at all levels to represent the community and how it’s run.
This is probably the first of several posts on moderation philosophy, how we make decisions, and an exercise to bring additional transparency to how we operate.
I prefer the term “tolerant space”.
The “paradox of intolerance” approach fits alongside the “safe space” terminology in that it assumes some natural order to things that needs to be understood and navigated.
Recontextualizing “tolerance” (the general idea) as “Tolerance” (the specific social contract) clarifies the situation: We are under no obligations to tolerate the intolerant because they have broken the reciprocal social contract of Tolerance.
A tolerant space is one where Tolerance is upheld and expected.
Well said, I do like the phrase tolerance here for the reasons you’ve outlined. I also agree that by looking at “safe spaces” it’s really putting the onus on the people who are offended as opposed to the offenders.
If you roll up to a space known for its tolerance and you can’t get a long? You are probably the problem