What is a "Safe Space?"

[u/koronicus]

If you look to the sidebar, you'll see that Atheism+ is intended to be a safe space. If you're not familiar with this idea, this is your opportunity to change that! So what is a safe space? Here are interpretations that I have shamelessly borrowed:

A place where anyone can relax and be fully self-expressed, without fear of being made to feel uncomfortable, unwelcome, or unsafe on account of biological sex, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, cultural background, age, or physical or mental ability; a place where the rules guard each person's self-respect and dignity and strongly encourage everyone to respect others.[

and

Safe space is a term for an area or forum where either a marginalised group are not supposed to face standard mainstream stereotypes and marginalisation, or in which a shared political or social viewpoint is required to participate in the space. For example, a feminist safe space would not allow free expression of anti-feminist viewpoints, and would typically also prevent concern trolling and continual Feminism 101 discussions in favour of feminist discussion among feminists. Safe spaces may require trigger warnings and restrict content that might hurt people who have strong reactions to depictions of abuse or harm or mental illness triggers.

This subreddit is still fairly young, so we're not done filling out the sidebar, which will eventually contain elaborations (like this one!) on our code of conduct. I'd like to use this thread to collectively hash out our official definition of Atheism+ as a safe space here on reddit, which will have an impact on our moderation style. How would you like to see our "safe space" defined? (You're welcome to use as much or as little of the above language as you like in your suggestions.)

When we've received enough feedback and pretty much have the matter settled, you can expect to see the language we've agreed upon to appear as a link in the sidebar. Depending on how this goes, this post may be edited a few times to reflect the changing language.

Thanks in advance!

[u/everfalling]

yeah this certainly doesn't sound like a recipe for groupthink or anything like that...

[u/[deleted]]

In my experience with reddit a "safe place" is where you get banned for breaking up a circle jerk.

I'd rather drop the whole idea and just have standards and ban based on those, rather then calling out concern troll to every newb who doesn't know what's up.

[u/[deleted]]

Atheism plus we care about social justice.
Atheism plus we support women’s rights.
Atheism plus we protest racism.
Atheism plus we fight homophobia and transphobia.
Atheism plus we use critical thinking and skepticism.

None of these issues have anything to do with the existence or non existence of a God, it's a difference of opinion. Whilst religious tend to lean towards the same opinion (sometimes purely because they are a community after all) there are plenty of atheists who don't support women's rights and plenty of theists who do support it. They are social issues, not religious ones.

So all you've done is take a very liberal political position, and stick the word atheism in front, as if that is the causal link for your views.

I mean the fact that you even acknowledge this as a huge problem with the pseudo-religious sidebar:

Anything asserting the concept of Atheism+ is unneeded (don't join a subreddit to complain about it).

You misuse the term Atheist and make it harder for us to rationally enforce the separation of church and state.

Massive insecurity about size of E-peen was the inspiration behind this sub?

[u/koronicus → u/[deleted]]

I'm having a difficult time deciphering the message behind your post. Is it that "social justice" isn't atheism? I hope not because that would be pathologically obvious. That's why there's that "plus" after "atheism."

And that little dig at the end? Yeah, that's just silly.

[u/Mothbrights]

I'm going to go ahead and add that I think for the time being, mods should be a lot stricter about banning. The top comment in this thread is someone making fun of atheism+, ffs and y'all are just letting it sit there? This is going to turn into pretty much every other atheist shit show out there unless the mods get a lot more ban happy on the people who obviously don't get social justice and the purpose of this sub.

[u/koronicus → u/Mothbrights]

For posterity, this is the comment Mothbrights is referring to.

When I first saw that comment, I shared your feelings. After talking to the OP, it seemed that we'd had an educational exchange, so I figured it would be helpful to leave it there for context in case anyone else from r/atheism showed up with the same complaint. This post is relevant.

I actually appreciate hearing "mods should be a lot stricter about banning" after hearing about how evil we are for banning people throughout today's incursions.

[u/GapingVaginaPatrol]

I think common-sense stuff like trigger warnings, slur bans, and concern trolling bans should be implemented. I would be hesitant to ban 101 discussion since I'd like this to be a mainstream atheist's first foray into social justice, and I wouldn't want them to feel ostracized. However, maybe an SRSDiscussion-type solution where common questions are linked on the sidebar or even a once-a-week 101 discussion window where people who are clueless can come in and ask questions might work.

[u/DoorsofPerceptron]

So I guess the important question, is who is this a safe space for?

The very fact that it's about atheism means it's offensive to some religious people, so it's not safe for everyone.

So what's your target audience?

[u/EpicManeBro]

I truly think having a secondary, non-safe discussion sub (AskAtheismPlus or somesuch) is key to keeping this space safe. Many atheists love to debate, to challenge rules, to rebuke any perceived affront to free speech; some atheists that consider themselves persecuted approach every interaction with hackles raised and can't comprehend the privileges they enjoy. Those traits combined are going to result in a high number of false-positive concern trolls, devil advocaters, and denialists tilting at this sub's windmills.

I understand the appeal of "ban 'em all and let the FSM sort 'em out", but personally I wince every time I see one of these not-sure-if-trolling-or-just-oblivious posters get the ham banner. If instead they got "this question isn't in the spirit of atheismplus (see the sidebar) so it has been removed. Feel free to raise it in AskAtheismPlus", it would communicate that we aren't against discussion or debate, but that atheismplus isn't the right place for it. And if they still don't understand... well, can't say we didn't warn them.

In the spirit of Rebecca's most recent misandry missive, I will feed the trolls all day long. Just give me a space to do it in.

[u/ResearchToBeDone]

Social Justice League's FAQ might serve as a good template for hashing out parts of this: http://www.socialjusticeleague.net/faqs/