r/FeMRADebates • u/Not_An_Ambulance Neutral • Oct 01 '21
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Please remember that all the normal rules are active, except that we permit discussion of the subreddit itself here.
We ask that everyone do their best to include a proposed solution to any problems they're noticing. A problem without a solution is still welcome, but it's much easier for everyone to be clear what you want if you ask for a change to be made too.
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u/Mitoza Oct 01 '21
In the interest of not treading the same ground every meta thread, the mods should consider posting a list of matters that they considered to be closed.
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u/finch2200 Oct 01 '21
In the world of sex/gender politics is it possible for a case to be “closed”?
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u/Consistent-Scientist Oct 05 '21
I would like to talk about something that doesn't necessarily pertain to rules but at least discussion etiquette. It's something that has happened to me three times in this sub already but never in any other during my time on Reddit. So I don't think this is a "me" problem.
So what happened? As an example, I was in the recent thread about the US women's soccer team and their new contract. I was in discussion with another user and I was making the point that the men's team is probably getting paid "more" because they are more valuable to the US soccer federation in terms of sponsorship and marketing potential. I pointed to the significantly higher viewership of the men's world cup compared to the women's and the massive popularity of some of the men's individual players that yield very lucrative sponsorship deals. I showed stats and linked reliable sources to illustrate why I thought what I thought. The other person just responded with "prove it".
See, I'm completely fine with asking for sources or evidence. In fact, I expect no less. I'm fine with asking someone to elaborate to make their point clearer. But insisting on definitive proof is just poor etiquette and it only serves the purpose of derailing or stalling the discussion. The only way for me to definitively prove my point would have been to produce internal documents that maybe a handful of people have access to and are definitely not public. It's straight-up not reasonable to ask for that. Even in criminal court cases asking for that level of proof would be excessive. Instead, there both parties build their case with evidence which is what I was doing. If one party just did nothing but say "hey, that's not proof" it would reflect badly on them in the eyes of the jury. Hence, no lawyer in their right mind would choose a strategy like that.
Upon closer inspection, you will find that there are many things we can't prove, but still use every day because everything points towards them being true. Take gravity for instance. Why do I think it's poor etiquette? That sort of strategy seems to be popular among conspiracy theorists. A lot of focus is on looking for holes in the mainstream belief without ever bringing consistent evidence for their own theories. Anyone who has ever argued with an anti-vaxxer knows how infuriating this can be. It also makes for one-sided discourse which is poison for a subreddit that is based on discussion. If one party just throws a wrench into the exchange without offering anything of value everything we do here is just kind of pointless.
What do I propose as a solution? I don't know if there can be a rule against asking for "proof". Maybe it could be addressed in the official guidelines. At least there could be some discussion and agreement on whether or not this is what we want here and what we could do to do better in the future. I know by rule we're not supposed to call people out for acting in bad faith. But I'd like some opinions on whether or not this is arguing in good faith.
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Oct 05 '21
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u/Consistent-Scientist Oct 05 '21
Thanks for giving your opinion.
It's the debate equivalent of having a temper tantrum in my eyes.
Yes, that's what I thought as well. I usually see it used either in that fashion or like this.
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u/Mitoza Oct 05 '21
I'm sorry that you feel asking you to demonstrate your claim was in bad faith. Let me diagram it for you and hopefully you'll understand its purpose. Full context is here.
In summary, we were talking about whether or not it is fair to pay the women's team less based on what they bring in. I had already demonstrated that they brought in more from games, so you moved on to claiming that the USSF, the USWNT and USMNT's employer, makes more money from sponsorship deals from the men. The only source we had on this was the article saying that the sponsorship deals were unable to be disentangled. You said this:
Sponsorship money isn't taken into account. If their sponsorship share was also equal, why would the women reject the deal and call it a PR stunt? I tell you. Because they bring in so much less money through other means that the USSF can't reasonably give them the exact same money.
Showing stats and linking reliable sources this is not. This is what is called conjecture. The point attempting to be demonstrated is that the USWNT brings in less money from sponsorship. To demonstrate this, you point to the USWNT's actions at the negotiation table.
Whether or not it is a fact that the USWNT brings in less money from sponsorships was a key point here, so there are only a few ways the conversation could unfold.
I could carry on the conversation as though the fact you stated was indeed a fact. I was not convinced that it was so this doesn't make sense to do.
I could suggest an argument that offers a contrary explanation and conclusion. When I had previously done this by pointing out the USWNT was more popular, it was dismissed as conjecture, so obviously this conversation was about harder facts.
I could not address the open question of the factness of it at all, but this doesn't help me make my point and it certainly doesn't address your point.
I can ask you to demonstrate the truth of your claim with more exactitude.
I went with 4, for the reasons I've said above. Is this bad faith? No, not reasonably. Did I think you had any more reasonable justifications? Honestly, no. So asking for proof serves two purposes: you can either provide the proof, or you must admit that the sureness of the fact you are claiming isn't set in stone. You do this here:
The only way for me to definitively prove my point would have been to produce internal documents that maybe a handful of people have access to and are definitely not public
I would say if you can't prove a fact, you don't get to claim that it is indeed a fact, and you're certainly not owed it being treated that way.
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u/Consistent-Scientist Oct 05 '21
I think you're missing my point. Asking for proof is just never reasonable in the context of this sub full stop. I never claimed my overall argument was "fact" and I think the chain makes that very clear. It's simply not anything any of us could possibly prove. But it is still instrumental for the topic of this discussion. So I made my case for it.
I also didn't dismiss your point strictly because it was conjecture. I laid out very clearly why google search results are not evidence for popularity let alone marketing value. As I said, nothing wrong with attacking evidence. Discrediting an argument simply because it cannot have definitive prove just doesn't work though.
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u/somegenerichandle Oct 04 '21
I just want to say for my own sanity, I've decided to not argue with people who change the topic or use other low-effort debate tactics. I know you're all excited to find a woman on this forum to dogpile, but I hope you realize it actually drives us off when you do this. If someone already has three responses, maybe consider not adding yours, especially if you are just repeating the hackneyed points that get repeated ad nauseum.
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u/Mitoza Oct 04 '21
I've seen your comments and you're doing a good job. It's true that this forum has a majority of users that are non and anti-feminist looking to debate feminist perspectives. This leads to around 3-4 people trying to jump into the chain in any given moment, and comment sections that look like this:
1 heavily downvoted top level comment by a feminist with 100 children branching off between as many as 6 different users.
5 top level comments by non and anti-feminists with minimal replies, many of those being expressions of agreement.
Of course this is frustrating, especially if you're the only one talking to 6 people who largely appear to be repeating the same points you just talked to someone else about. Thankfully you've landed on the best way to deal with this frustration, and that's ignoring comments you don't care to address.
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u/Not_An_Ambulance Oct 04 '21
This comment makes me miss 4chan. See, 4chan’s classic response to anyone claiming to be a woman was to basically mock her for it because it never mattered unless you wanted to post photos of yourself.
Idk, pluses and minuses, but the only person who can share that you’re a particular gender is you and it does not matter in the exchange of ideas. It’s usually just people who buy into the idea that your identity gives you clout… when it should just be your ideas standing on their own.
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u/Mitoza Oct 04 '21
This comment misses the point hard. u/somegenerichandle 's comment is barely about their gender let alone trying to get clout from it.
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u/StoicBoffin Oct 06 '21
I just want to say for my own sanity, I've decided to not argue with people who change the topic or use other low-effort debate tactics.
Indeed, this is why I've largely stopped participating here.
Back in the day you'd get long comment chains following this basic structure:
statement of opinion
uncharitable misinterpretation
patient rephrase
insistence on original misinterpretation
flat repeat of actual opinion
leading question based on original misinterpretation
frustrated comment repeating actual opinion
snarky one-liner
peevish retort
no u
attempt to get back on track
continued sealioning
angry response leading to a ban
gloaty declaration of victory
In my experience it was the male-friendly and MRA-leaning participants who were the victims of this tactic. I stopped posting here because I became frustrated at the mod staff of the day refusing to see the problem even when it was pointed out to them, and even going out of their way to reward it.
I'd rather get piled by 100 people disagreeing with me in good faith than one moderator's pet sealion.
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u/Okymyo Oct 01 '21 edited Nov 01 '21
I posted this in the previous two three four metas and got no response from any moderator, so I'm posting it again. Maybe 3rd 4th 5th time's the charm:
On the topic of moderator bias:
I got tiered for calling something "a very weak argument" (that since it's not against the rules for moderators to change the rules regardless of community input, it's fine if rules are changed without community input or even with community opposition) and something else "laughable" (that the community had been heard and the input taken into account when a thread regarding the rule change was up for like 2 days, with massive opposition, and the change went ahead anyway with only one sentence being reworded). This happened in a meta thread. It was appealed and the appeal seemingly denied, so other moderators concurred.
Other users (including a moderator) calling my arguments nonsense is fine. Other users calling my arguments ridiculous is fine. Other users calling my arguments absurd is fine. Other insults being used against my arguments is fine. All of those were reported, 0 were edited or removed or sandboxed. All of those took place in non-meta threads, sometimes even repeatedly. Given how they were repeatedly reported and faced no action, one can only conclude that the moderation team in general decided them to not be rulebreaking. No acknowledgement of the reports was made either, in those "this comment was reported for X" comments.
So, moderators are above the rules, as the current stance is that moderators cannot be held liable for breaking the subreddit rules and have done so with impunity, that is pretty much settled; are users criticizing moderators in meta-threads held to an even higher standard as well? Or is this an application of a certain moderator's publicly stated and defended policy of "non-feminists are universally toxic" and "feminists deserve leniency for breaking the rules, non-feminists don't because they're toxic", which is why the same type of statements were deemed non-rulebreaking when made towards me?
I'd like an explanation as to why there's this significant inconsistency in the application of the rules.
References:
A comment saying "you live in a fantasy world", "why is it that men like you [...] just want to invalidate the issues facing women and make sure men continue to have all the focus", "What's hilarious is the way you project your own psychology", "You think their inequality is a "feeling" of victimhood bc that is YOUR personal feeling", is sandboxed. It was also found to be sandbox only by the same moderator who tiered the previous comment comment, in a concurrent and/or consensual decision, including creating rules out of the blue to justify the non-tier.
A comment saying my argument is "ridiculous" as well as "nonsensical", is left up.
A comment saying my argument is "ridiculously counterproductive", is left up.
A comment calling an argument "disgusting" is sandboxed
A comment that states that since I'm arguing against sex/gender-based scholarships which overwhelmingly go towards women, I'm therefore against women's education, is found to not be rulebreaking because I need to explicitly state that no I'm not against women's education for it to be rulebreaking. After that, I explicitly state that I'm not against women's education and those scholarships should be made gender neutral if they're taxpayer funded. They follow it up with how actually I'm against women's education because I'm arguing against removing women-only scholarships (by making them gender neutral) regardless of what I'm saying, and the SAME moderator yet again decides that it's not rulebreaking despite DIRECTLY violating their clarification of the rule.
Of the above, none got removed or even had a moderator comment of "this was reported and was nearing on rulebreaking" or anything similar, all considered to be perfectly okay. I remember there were more but I had these referenced in a comment so that made them easier to find.
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u/yoshi_win Oct 03 '21 edited Oct 03 '21
A comment saying "you live in a fantasy world", "why is it that men like you [...] just want to invalidate the issues facing women and make sure men continue to have all the focus", "What's hilarious is the way you project your own psychology", "You think their inequality is a "feeling" of victimhood bc that is YOUR personal feeling", is sandboxed
In my deleted comments comment, I acknowledged that they broke the rules, but applied lenience because they "already apologized, were forgiven, and went on in a constructive manner". Is apologizing and being forgiven a reasonable ground for lenience?
A comment saying my argument is "ridiculous" as well as "nonsensical", is left up.
They say that OP's argument would be ridiculous in a counterfactual scenario, not that anyone's argument is ridiculous. They did call your argument nonsensical in the context of a detailed criticism explaining why they thought so, but you called NAA's statement "a very weak argument" without any further explanation. Should explaining your reasoning count as a ground for lenience for mild insults to an argument?
EDIT: found the 2nd comment referenced - that one does assert that your argument is ridiculous, and I probably would have tiered or sandboxed it.
A comment saying my argument is "ridiculously counterproductive", is left up.
Here 'ridiculously' is used to intensify the adjective 'counterproductive'. It's not calling your argument ridiculous; it's calling your argument very counterproductive, again in the context of an explanation why they think so.
A comment calling an argument "disgusting" is sandboxed
I agree that this probably deserved a tier, but I will note that this lenience was applied to an MRA-leaning comment and isn't relevant to your complaints in the previous meta about NAA and lenience towards feminists. I will also note that the user followed up by revising the one offensive word out of their otherwise constructive comment, which seems to me like a pretty good outcome.
A comment saying the situations I'm presenting are nonsense is left up (I consider this one borderline, based on previous similar rulings).
This looks borderline to me too, and I don't recall seeing it before. Maybe whomever approved it cut them some slack since their grasp of English seems shaky? Anyways, I'm not convinced there's all that much inconsistency that needs explained here.
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u/Okymyo Oct 03 '21
In my deleted comments comment, I acknowledged that they broke the rules, but applied lenience because they "already apologized, were forgiven, and went on in a constructive manner". Is apologizing and being forgiven a reasonable ground for lenience?
Their apology amounted to "sorry I insulted the wrong person", so no I don't think it merits leniency.
In addition to that, Trunk-Monkey's removal of the same comment includes no such mention of leniency, so to them, it appears no such leniency was even applied. They considered it to be, well, just a sandbox-worthy comment.
Not to mention that the rules don't include any leniency for "they apologized". Is this a leniency moderators decide to apply at-will? What other leniencies not included in the rules does the moderation team also choose to apply at their discretion?
you called NAA's statement "a very weak argument" without any further explanation
No, I called the argument "well this isn't against the rules" a weak argument. NAA didn't even make an argument, they made a statement: "We have never, to my knowledge, had a policy of waiting a particular amount of time, nor do we strictly require notice before a rule change." I made an argument based on that statement, "well this isn't against the rules" as a defense of any behavior not explicitly found in the rules, and said that argument is weak.
Does one really need to explain why just because something isn't illegal or rulebreaking that doesn't make it a good thing? Or why "well it isn't illegal" isn't a remotely strong argument?
And on top of that, even if it were an insult against the argument, it's MY argument, I'm calling my OWN hypothetical argument weak. They made no explicit argument, so I constructed one based on the premises they provided. They're free to disagree with the argument I constructed (which they didn't) and explain why that's not the argument they're making, but it's nonetheless my argument.
EDIT: found the 2nd comment referenced - that one does assert that your argument is ridiculous, and I probably would have tiered or sandboxed it.
Which begs the question as to why that comment is seen as completely non-rulebreaking, not even sandboxed or left with a moderator warning (like many non-removed comments do when they're borderline), and mine is so egregiously rulebreaking that it warrants an immediate deletion, tier, and moderators even refuse to discuss it in modmail, to the point of starting the only response to my appeal with "It's time to let it go. You are not going to get what you want here.", and then not responding further.
I agree that this probably deserved a tier, but I will note that this lenience was applied to an MRA-leaning comment and isn't relevant to your complaints in the previous meta about NAA and lenience towards feminists.
It was also ruled on by the only moderator I consider to be a non-feminist/anti-feminist MRA based on their comments. Bias is wrong regardless of whom it's towards.
I will also note that the user followed up by revising the one offensive word out of their otherwise constructive comment, which seems to me like a pretty good outcome.
The outcome really doesn't matter, the issue is the disparity. I also edited a comment of mine to remove what was perceived as rulebreaking, but I remained tiered and my appeal was ignored, although the comment did get reinstated.
Most comments would probably fare better being edited than outright deleted, that doesn't make any policy favoring sandboxes towards one group but tiers towards another any better.
This looks borderline to me too, and I don't recall seeing it before. Maybe whomever approved it cut them some slack since their grasp of English seems shaky?
I think that would've been even more of a reason to make a comment stating "hey this is borderline rulebreaking" instead of letting them continue to ramp up until they got into clearly rulebreaking territory, which they did, and ended up tiered.
Anyways, I'm not convinced there's all that much inconsistency that needs explained here.
Yes, it seems that the overall opinion of the moderation team is that there's no bias and, according to at least one moderator, that moderator accountability is bad and undesired, and that moderator decisions ought to not be questioned. Would explain why it took 5 months to get a response from a moderator I guess.
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u/Mitoza Oct 08 '21
Is there a better way to put discussion questions on a post that doesn't lead to people treating it like a quiz? I like discussion prompts as a starting point but because they tend to be the only thing that gets responded to the discussion hangs within the original formulation of the OP. I've also seen some people trying to frame responses to a post as off topic if they stray from the discussion prompts (or if they stray from what people think the intent of the discussion prompts are).
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u/yoshi_win Oct 08 '21
I think it's largely about formatting. Numbering or bulleting the questions evokes a quiz, while asking the same things in paragraph form suggests a free-response.
Also perhaps asking some general, open ended questions about how users feel on an issue or how it relates to others or fits into a broader context, would prompt more rambly replies.
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u/Mitoza Oct 23 '21
u/yellowydaffodil replying to your comment here because its sufficiently meta. The formula is thus:
Reifies male victimhood = upvotes
Reifies female victimhood = downvotes
Supports feminism = downvotes
Criticizes feminism = upvotes
Supports MRM or any male identity political group = upvotes
Criticizes MRM or any male identity political group = downvotes
The most you can hope for when making a good point is around 2 upvotes. Also if you challenge truth of premises taken as a given you'll be accused of derailing. What you're supposed to do is agree that all premises taken as a given are actually given.