There have been some rather active discussions about political leanings on the internet and the behaviors often exhibited by members of these political groups that rightfully should not be tone policed. However, I would also like for you to take a second and consider how individuals who happen to share these political leanings but do not exhibit the behavior you are calling out might feel accessing or interacting with content on Beehaw.

I think one way to verbalize this is: In the absence of evidence to the contrary, assume the other person is acting in good faith. Try to interpret their statements generously - perhaps English is their second language so they don’t see how a word they used may be offensive, or perhaps they are simply not eloquent about a particular topic and don’t know the correct vocabulary. Maybe they are young and have only been exposed to the viewpoints in their small, less diverse area, and need a little (gentle) education. And consider that even if the person you’re discussing with does not fit into those categories and will not be swayed, maybe someone else who is reading the post you’re making does, and maybe your words will resonate with them.

However, I think it’s also important to acknowledge the fact that it’s not the job of marginalized people to educate the dominant group, so it’s dependent on the entire community to be willing to both listen and educate (while not speaking over those of the marginalized group who are willing to make the effort to speak).

Something I feel I’m bad at is inclusive language. I want to be in the nice people group and generally when I comment something I try to help. But I was also “called in” because instead of acknowledging someone’s problem first I dived into helping… and they’ve tried virtually all of my helping attempts as well so they felt like I considered them stupid/minimize their problem. Funny enough I was in exactly the same situation before where I felt my problem was minimized, but I never put the two together.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that if I get on your nerves - just let me know. I want to be nice I just lack perspective sometimes.

Man, you’re right, and I’ve already been guilty of letting my emotions guide me in political discussions on here. Its difficult sometimes to remember that the people you’re arguing with often have their own personal, emotional reasons for their beliefs. You’ve made an excellent post.

I really appreciate you writing this. I also think it’s important for people to try and remember 2 things when talking to people on the internet that can greatly contribute to better communication.

The first being that not everyone is always great at explaining or saying what they are thinking or will explain themselves in a way that makes sense to them but comes across differently to others. If this happens ask for clarification, give someone a chance to further explain what they meant or are trying to say.

Second and probably more importantly these are just words on a screen and any tone that you think is coming across is being put there by your brain because that’s the way you’re reading it and probably not the way it was intended. I’m sure we’ve all gotten upset over a text someone sent because we read it a certain way only to find out after sending back an angry reply and then later talking to them the person sending it didn’t mean it in the way we took it and we were rude back for no reason.

i really love this and i’ve shared more than one of your posts with friends outside of the beehaw ecosystem.

these posts are critical in helping me restructure myself and my thinking.

thank you 💛

Not itemizing specific rulebreaking behavior I think can work with a cohesive instance culture. I think that is a good move.

Itemizing rules can lead to ruleslawyer minded people finding things to do which are against the spirit of the rules but not the letter.

The possible downside is of course, mods banning people on unfair and unequally applied whims, but given the nature of federation I think that would be a self correcting problem as users with a sense of fairness leave. Bans, if/when it comes to it, done with transparency can ensure the culture doesn’t develop a mods vs users feel.

I haven’t read this entire post yet (may have additional thoughts after I do), but I wanted to comment to say that it was really cool to see the evaporative cooling post linked here! I read it back around when it was published, and it was really influential on my thinking about online communities.

To anyone who may have skipped the link: you should scroll back up and check it out! It really is an excellent post.

I appreciate you for posting this - I just read your post and the post you linked. I mainly want to concur with what’s been expressed so far, but I also have some personal reflections to share from things I’ve experienced.

One really solid strategy I’ve noticed this community employ to keep the jerk-o-meter down is simply frequently having critical discussions about behavior and user culture. You and the other stewards of this community for holding space for these discussions goes very far; to begin with, it’s difficult to get even a small community to reach a consensus on moderation if conversations like this rarely, or never, take place. Having that consensus is crucial to building a cohesive culture, especially doing it in a way which is inclusive. I think a lot of people who try to build communities, including online, erroneously believe that a healthy community is one where there is no arguing, but really, without dialogues like these, it’s so much easier to disagree on, or forget, what the standard of acceptable behavior even is. We have to keep talking about complex problems in our community together and hashing out our differences constructively - controversy with civility, calling people in, recognizing positive behaviors - if we want to build an inclusive culture and have a sustainable, welcoming online community. Publicly discussing our behavioral standards and our community values (and, thus, arriving at a better collective understanding of what those are) definitely helps a lot.

I also want to agree with what @setsneedtofeed said:

Not itemizing specific rulebreaking behavior I think can work with a cohesive instance culture. I think that is a good move. […] Itemizing rules can lead to ruleslawyer minded people finding things to do which are against the spirit of the rules but not the letter. [link]

Here in particular, I think the mods have been really helpful. Keeping the list of rules limited and broad, but also emphasizing positive examples of behavior rather than simply focusing on the “do-not” rules, has shaped the instance culture in a mostly positive way. Like you said, it’s important that we be mindful in our discourse, “so as not to alienate people who are tolerant but do not share the same characteristics be it political leaning, gender, hobbies, or anything else” - this is even more important than remembering not to be a jerk. It goes a long way that users on Beehaw are strongly focused on being inclusive in an online setting to foster the kind of community we want, rather than only worrying about how to deal with the jerks. Overall, I’d like for people here to continue practicing perspective-taking, not only when it comes to how our words might be received from a marginalized perspective but also when it comes to the effects our language may have on people whom we have other differences with (opinions, political leanings, etc.) but who are generally nice.

This is turning into a bit of a confused ramble, but that’s all I really had to say.

Thank you so much for holding this space 💖

To quote the bumper sticker: Have the courage to be kind

Incredibly thoughtful and thought provoking post.

question for you, if you don’t mind. you mention users ‘calling in’:

“I think the community has already done a wonderful job self-moderating and calling people in, that is to say, encouraging nice behavior.”

what does that look like to you in a public discussion format like beehaw? i read the piece that you hyperlinked, and maybe this is just my ignorance showing, but i still don’t know how this looks when all of the discussion is primarily ‘one-to-many’ as opposed to ‘one-to-one’; for lack of better phrasing.

Ahhhh! It’s so refreshing to see someone reference calling in in the wild! I’m a big fan, and agree with everything you’ve said here. I like to think of myself as a nice person, and I can definitely attest to becoming more quiet - and eventually leaving - spaces which are unwelcoming or hostile.

For folks who are wondering about calling in beyond the resources linked here - Loretta Ross teaches online courses on this and they’re literally something like $5. I’ve both taken the classes and moderated for them, and I learn something new every time. It covers things like online spaces and when to use calling out vs. calling in effectively to create spaces that encourage genuine dialogue rather than stifling and silencing it.

Definitely appreciate the idea of avoiding echo chambers, and not going too hard on policing when someone is simply leaning on some political idea, without actually evoking toxic mentalities.

Something in politics I think people should understand is that some people indoctrinated into harmful ideas CAN sometimes change, but they need space to be able to at least ask questions in an open-minded forum about them.

However, of course, at the same time, there are people harmed by those political ideas. Say, a person is from the X Minority, and a contributor in their space either earnestly or dishonestly keeps asking what’s so bad about the “Ban-Rights-For-All-X-Political-Party”. Giving “question askers” a fully guaranteed space to be able to ask their questions sometimes ruins a community.

Drawing that line on what constitutes a hurtful comment can be hard, and I might argue it should even follow lines of indirection. eg, it’s very obvious that a comment “All X should be murdered” is hurtful to a community. I would actually say that someone expressing “I have interest in the ideas of Mr. Y, I think they’re a very intelligent person”, when Mr. Y is a person who believed that all X should be murdered, should actually be equally moderated. What’s critical to me is whether a community can make moderation actions clear - actually connecting how a statement draws harm, and not just falling back on universal statements like “We don’t talk politics”.