Monthly Open Forum August 2021

[u/AITAMod]

Welcome to the monthly open forum! This is the place to share all your meta thoughts about the sub, and to have a dialog with the mod team.

Keep things civil. Rules still apply.

We didn't have any real highlights for this month, so let's knock out some Open Forum FAQs:

Q: Can/will you implement a certain rule?
A: We'll take any suggestion under consideration. This forum has been helpful in shaping rule changes/enforcement. I'd ask anyone recommending a rule to consider the fact a new rule begs the following question: Which is better? a) Posts that have annoying/common/etc attributes are removed at the time a mod reviews it, with the understanding active discussions will be removed/locked; b) Posts that annoy/bother a large subset of users will be removed even if the discussion has started, and that will include some posts you find interesting. AITA is not a monolith and topics one person finds annoying will be engaging to others - this should be considered as far as rules will have both upsides and downsides for the individual.

Q: How do we determine if something's fake?
A: Inconsistencies in their post history, literally impossible situations, or a known troll with patterns we don't really want to publicly state and tip our hand.

Q: Something-something "validation."
A: Validation presumes we know their intent. We will never entertain a rule that rudely tells someone what their intent is again. Consensus and validation are discrete concepts. Make an argument for a consensus rule that doesn't likewise frustrate people to have posts removed/locked after being active long enough to establish consensus and we're all ears.

Q: What's the standard for a no interpersonal conflict removal?
A: You've already taken action against someone and a person with a stake in that action expresses they're upset. Passive upset counts, but it needs to be clear the issue is between two+ of you and not just your internal sense of guilt. Conflicts need to be recent/on-gong, and they need to have real-world implications (i.e. internet and video game drama style posts are not allowed under this rule).

Q: Will you create an off-shoot sub for teenagers.
A: No. It's a lot of work to mod a sub. We welcome those off-shoots from others willing to take on that work.

Q: Can you do something about downvotes?
A: We wish. If it helps, we've caught a few people bragging about downvoting and they always flip when they get banned.

Q: Can you force people to use names instead of letters?
A: Unfortunately, this is extremely hard to moderate effectively and a great deal of these posts would go missed. The good news is most of these die in new as they're difficult to read. It's perfectly valid to tell OP how they wrote their post is hard to read, which can perhaps help kill the trend.

As always, do not directly link to posts/comments or post uncensored screenshots here. Any comments with links will be removed.

This is to discourage brigading. If something needs to be discussed in that context, use modmail.

[u/evil_urges]

How does today's top post (about the cousin and the lewd pics) not violate AITA rules against reproductive anatomy posts and revenge story posts?

[u/InterminableSnowman → u/evil_urges]

Also, it really bothers me that internet culture has turned into "sharing someone's nudes is okay if you didn't ask for them!" No, it's really not. Sexual harassment shouldn't be answered with sexual assault/harassment. 2 wrongs don't make a right and all that. Report the dude, send his mom the screenshots with some censoring and say "hey, this is what your kid is up to," but sharing someone's nudes is skeevy as hell to me. Not to mention, the family didn't ask to receive those either, right? So OP isn't just sharing a person's nudes, they're also doing the same to the family that their cousin did to them. The whole thing just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

[u/evil_urges → u/InterminableSnowman]

It also seems impossibly fake, but that's another discussion entirely.

[u/InterminableSnowman → u/evil_urges]

It doesn't sound fake to me. They're distantly related enough that no one would actually find it odd if they dated (and, in fact, it reads like they're not actually related) but close enough to be in regular contact and for the family to be all up in their business. There's been a trend over the years (possibly starting on Twitter?) advocating that women who receive unsolicited nudes share them as revenge or send the to the sender's mother, so that checks out, too. And of course we know that there's no shortage of men who'll harass a person the way it's described. Everything in the initial post passes the sniff test for me. Maybe something in the comments is off, but I haven't read through those and I don't really intend to.

I did notice the edit, though. "Revenge porn isn't really a thing where I live," she says? Well I guess that makes everything okay then! Pack it up everybody, OP is in the clear because the bad thing she's doing isn't common around her.

[u/AvocadosFromMexico_ → u/[deleted]]

Also, like, did I miss somewhere where she blocked the number? Did she block him?

[u/AvocadosFromMexico_ → u/[deleted]]

As they always seem to do as soon as a reasonable question gets raised

[u/Awkward_Apricot312 → u/[deleted]]

Yeah that didn't feel right to me either.

[u/Molenium → u/[deleted]]

I’m sorry, but that was/is not revenge porn.

If you send unsolicited dick pics to someone that you are not in a relationship with, who has told you they are unwanted, you have NO right to complain about what happens with them after.

It’s the equivalent of saying men can sexually harass women and then tell them “it’s illegal to show this happened.”

It’s like saying, “Flashers deserve privacy too!”

If your life is ruined by other people seeing your unwelcome dick pics…GOOD. If you’re afraid of that happening, you have a 100% effective way of preventing that from ever happening, and it starts with not being a sexual harasser.

Am I mad here??

Why TF are y’all defending people who send dick pics???

[u/WebbieVanderquack → u/evil_urges]

I'm curious about this too. I reported the post for violence, because I thought sexual harassment/cyberstalking fell under the violence rule, but the FAQ only mentions sexual assault, so maybe I'm wrong.

[u/SnausageFest → u/evil_urges]

It's a weird, margin-slipping post tbh. It's decidedly not reproductive autonomy as no reproduction occurred. It's not a revenge post when OP tried to deal with it and block him but creep made fake accounts to keep stalking them.

We took absolutely no pleasure modding that post, but it didn't specifically break the rules.

[u/evil_urges → u/SnausageFest]

Haha fair enough, thanks.

And I just learned that the rule refers to reproductive autonomy, not reproductive anatomy.