412 lines
30 KiB
HTML
412 lines
30 KiB
HTML
{% extends "default.html" %}
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{% block title %}
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<title>{{SITE_TITLE}} Rules</title>
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{% endblock %}
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{% block content %}
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<pre>
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</pre>
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<div class="mx-4 mt-2 mb-6">
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<h1 class="text-muted text-uppercase">Rules</h5>
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<div id="sidebar" class="my-3">
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<div id="toc_container">
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<h1 id="Contents" class="toc_title"><a href="#Contents">Contents</a></h1>
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<ul class="toc_list">
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<li><a href="#Foundation">Foundation</a></li>
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<li><a href="#The_Rules">The Rules</a>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="#Courtesy">Courtesy</a>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="#Kindness">Be Kind</a></li>
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<li><a href="#Clarity">Make your point reasonably clear and plain. Try to assume other people are doing the same.</a></li>
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<li><a href="#Antagonism">Be no more antagonistic than is absolutely necessary for your argument.</a></li>
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<li><a href="#Charity">Be charitable.</a></li>
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</ul>
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</li>
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<li><a href="#Content">Content</a>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="#Effort">Avoid low-effort participation</a></li>
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<li><a href="#Weakman">Do not weakman in order to show how bad a group is</a></li>
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<li><a href="#Culture">Keep culture war in the culture war thread</a></li>
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<li><a href="#Leave">Leave the rest of the internet at the door</a></li>
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</ul>
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</li>
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<li><a href="#Engagement">Engagement</a>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="#Disagreement">When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.</a></li>
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<li><a href="#Evidence">Proactively provide evidence in proportion to how partisan and inflammatory your claim might be.</a></li>
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<li><a href="#Timeouts">Accept temporary bans as a time-out, and don't attempt to rejoin the conversation until it's lifted.</a></li>
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<li><a href="#Consensus">Don't attempt to build consensus or enforce ideological conformity.</a></li>
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<li><a href="#Inclusion">Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.</a></li>
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</ul>
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</li>
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<li><a href="#The_Wildcard_Rule">The Wildcard Rule</a>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="#Obnoxious">Don't be egregiously obnoxious</a></li>
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</ul>
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</li>
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<li><a href="#The_Metarule">The Metarule</a>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="#Sentiment">Moderation is very much driven by user sentiment. Feel free to report comments or message the mods with your thoughts.</a></li>
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</ul>
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</li>
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</ul>
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</li>
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</ul>
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</div>
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<div>
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<pre>
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</pre>
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<h1 id="Foundation"><a href="#Foundation">The Foundation</a></h1>
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<p>
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The purpose of this community is to be a working discussion ground for people who may hold dramatically
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different beliefs. It is to be a place for people to examine the beliefs of others as well as their own
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beliefs; it is to be a place where strange or abnormal opinions and ideas can be generated and discussed
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fairly, with consideration and insight instead of kneejerk responses.<br/><br/>
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All of the community's rules must be justified by this foundation.
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</p>
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<pre>
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</pre>
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<h2 id="The_Rules"><a href="The_Rules">The Rules</a></h2>
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<p>
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Here's a list of community rules. Each of them includes an explanation of why it's important.<br/><br/>
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Be aware that you are expected to follow all the rules, not just some of the rules. At the same time, these
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rules are very subjective. We often give people some flex, especially if they have a history of making good
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comments, but note that every mod evaluates comments a little differently. You should not be trying to find
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the edge of the rules, i.e. the Most Offensive Behavior That Won't Get You Banned; I guarantee that, through
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sheer statistical chance, you will find yourself banned in the process.<br/><br/>
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Finally, you don't get a pass to break the rules if the person you're responding to broke the rules first. Report
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their comment, then either set an example by responding with something that fits the desired community
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behavior, or don't respond.<br/><br/>
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Our goal is to <a href="https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/03/framing-for-light-instead-of-heat/">
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optimize for light, not heat</a>. This is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do
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their part.
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</p>
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<h3 id="Courtesy"><a href="#Courtesy">Courtesy</a></h3>
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<p>
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One of the most difficult parts about communities is that it is very easy for them to turn into a pit of
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toxicity. People who see toxic behavior in a community will follow that cue with their own toxic behavior,
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and this can quickly spiral out of control. This is bad for most communities, but would be an absolute
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death sentence for ours - it's impossible to discuss sensitive matters in an environment full of flaming
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and personal attacks. Therefore, this set of community rules are intended to address this preemptively.
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</p>
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<h4 id="Kindness"><a href="#Kindness">Be Kind</a></h4>
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<p>
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People tend to overestimate offense aimed at them, while underestimating offense aimed at others; relying
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on "treat people like they treat you" turns conversations into flame wars. We ask that people be kind,
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under all circumstances, even if you think the other person is being mean. Please remember that you can
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always drop out of a conversation, ideally (though not necessarily) with an explanation; if a user follows
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you and harasses you, report them.<br/><br/>
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To a lesser but non-zero extent, this also applies to third parties. You shouldn't just go and attack people
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that you think are bad, you should be kind to them, even if you think they're mean, even if you think
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they're bad.
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</p>
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<h4 id="Clarity"><a href="#Clarity">Make your point reasonably clear and plain. Try to assume other people are doing the same.</a></h4>
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<p>
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When dealing with sensitive topics, people often veer into sarcasm and mockery, or rely on insinuation.
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These do not carry on well to written text (even more so with people with a different outlook), and make
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your point harder to understand, which leads discussions to spiral off into confusion. Say what you mean,
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mean what you say, and when in doubt, err on the side of being too explicit. Thought experiments are fine,
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but mark them as such.<br/><br/>
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In addition, we ask that responders address what was literally said, on the assumption that this was at least
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part of the intention. Nothing is more frustrating than making a clear point and having your conversation
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partner assume you're talking in circles. We don't require that you stop after addressing what was literally
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said, but try, at least, to start there.
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</p>
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<h4 id="Antagonism"><a href="#Antagonism">Be no more antagonistic than is absolutely necessary for your argument.</a></h4>
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<p>
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Some of the things we discuss are controversial, and even stating a controversial belief can antagonize people.
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That's OK, you can't avoid that, but try to phrase it in the least antagonistic manner possible. If a
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reasonable reader would find something antagonistic, and it could have been phrased in a way that preserves
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the core meaning but dramatically reduces the antagonism, then it probably should have been phrased differently.
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<br/><br/>
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Sometimes this means that you'll feel very silly by adding a bunch of qualifiers (popular ones include "I think",
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"I believe", and "in my experience") and couching everything in unnecessarily elaborate language. That's OK!
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Remember, the goal is for people with differing opinions to discuss things; if padding a statement with words
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helps someone not take it personally, then that's what you should do!<br/><br/>
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<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/b6s8up/meta_i_am_on_this_council/ejn2ba3/?context=3">More information here</a>.
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</p>
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<h4 id="Charity"><a href="#Charity">Be charitable.</a></h4>
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<p>
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Assume the people you're talking to or about have thought through the issues you're discussing, and try to
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represent their views in a way they would recognize. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly. Beating down strawmen is
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fun, but it's not productive for you, and it's certainly not productive for anyone attempting to engage you in
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conversation; it just results in repeated back-and-forths where your debate partner has to say "no, that's not
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what I think".
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</p>
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<pre>
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</pre>
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<h3 id="Content"><a href="#Content">Content</a></h3>
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<p>
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There's a lot of common commenting practice that makes it easy for people to cause friction and inflammation
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without producing value for the community. You can see this behavior on most high-traffic discussion forums.<br/><br/>
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This is not intended to suppress anything that people might want to post, but it is intended to force people to
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invest effort if they want to post things that have traditionally been pain points.
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</p>
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<h4 id="Effort"><a href="#Effort">Avoid low-effort participation</a></h4>
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<p>
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Discussing things is hard. Discussing things in a useful way, in an environment with opposing views, is really
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hard. Doing all of this while responding to three-word shitposts is basically impossible.<br/><br/>
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Put some effort into your comment; if you wrote it in two seconds, it probably does not contribute much. If
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someone responds to you with a three-word shitpost, you are welcome to just not respond back. There's no sense
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in encouraging that.
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</p>
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<h4 id="Weakman"><a href="#Weakman">Do not weakman in order to show how bad a group is</a></h4>
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<p>
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There are literally millions of people on either side of every major conflict, and finding that one of them is
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doing something wrong or thoughtless proves nothing and adds nothing to the conversation. We want to engage with
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the best ideas on either side of any issue, not the worst.<br/><br/>
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Post about specific groups, not general groups, wherever possible. General groups include things like gun rights
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activists, pro-choice groups, and environmentalists. Specific groups include things like The NRA, Planned
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Parenthood, and the Sierra Club. Posting about general groups is often not falsifiable, and can lead to straw
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man arguments and non-representative samples.<br/><br/>
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Avoid posting solely about gaffes, misstatements, or general bad behavior from prominent people. Discussing policy
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implications is always fine, and concrete criminal or impeachable offenses are also fair game. For example,
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"Look at Congressman Jones being a jerk" is not OK; "congressman Jones is under suspicion of taking bribes" is
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fine, as is "congressman Jones's employment law is bad for these reasons . . ."<br/><br/>
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Sometimes we get good discussion about the consequences of gaffes, misstatements, or general bad behavior; for
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example, "here's Congressman Jones being a jerk, let's talk about the underlying reason why congressmen do this
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sort of thing regularly". In most cases, these should stand as valuable posts regardless of whether they refer
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to Congressman Jones or not.<br/><br/>
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Links to news stories should generally follow the above rules, although cannot be expected to adhere to them exactly.
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For instance, a news story which uses an anecdote to introduce a concept is OK (this is a very common framing
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discussion), a news story which is about tweets from non-prominent people reacting to some event isn't ok.
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</p>
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<h4 id="Culture"><a href="#Culture">Keep culture war in the culture war thread</a></h4>
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<p>
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"Culture war" is hard to define, but here's a list of things that currently fall in that category:
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<ul>
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<li>The politically-charged actions or beliefs of prominent current or recent politicians</li>
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<li>The actions or beliefs of political-party-affiliated voters</li>
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<li>Race</li>
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<li>Abortion</li>
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<li>Affirmative action</li>
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<li>Human biodiversity</li>
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<li>IQ differences across various groups of humans</li>
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<li>Sexual harrassment</li>
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<li>Censorship</li>
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<li>Trans issues</li>
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</ul>
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We keep these topics in a single unified sort-by-new thread for a few reasons.
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<ul>
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<li>
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Keeping them in a high-volume post discourages any individual topic from reaching a boiling point.
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We do occasionally get deep subthreads where two people debate back and forth for a hundred posts,
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but it's intentionally hard for other people to discover it, which prevents either side from being
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overwhelmed by responses.
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</li>
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<li>
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It forces people who are looking for culture war topics to at least skim past the rest of the general
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culture-war discussion. People have a tendency to look at only threads that they feel strongly about,
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which can quickly ratchet up the overall heat, both perceived and actual.
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</li>
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<li>
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It's what we did before, and it worked, which makes us <a href="https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Chesterton%27s_Fence">
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hesitant to change it</a>.
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</li>
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</ul>
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Remember that <a href="https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2003/03/03/building-communities-with-software/">
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the implementation of a community influences the community's growth</a>; we're aware that some of this
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is inconvenient, but that's intended.
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</p>
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<h4 id="Leave"><a href="#Leave">Leave the rest of the internet at the door</a></h4>
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<p>
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In keeping with the rules above regarding "low-effort" and "weak-man" comments, and our goal to produce more
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light than heat, we ask that you refrain from posting bare links to culture-war-related discussions held outside
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of this sub. If you are going to link to another platform we ask that you please put in the work
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to contextualize the post and explain why it is relevant to readers of this community.<br/><br/>
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Finally, in the interest of the health of this community, we ask that you do not post links to this community
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on other high-participation platforms. They are invitations
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for users unfamiliar with our norms to come here and (often angrily) make posts that break our rules. Exceptions
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may be made for communities specifically designed for compatible content, but these will be examined by the
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moderators on a case by case basis. If in doubt, please ask first by messaging the moderators.
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</p>
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<pre>
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</pre>
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<h3 id="Engagement"><a href="#Engagement">Engagement</a></h3>
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<p>
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Online discussion is hard to do properly. A lot of tonal information is lost through text, and in an asynchronous
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forum like this one, simply asking someone "what do you mean?" can take hours. In addition, because The Motte is a threaded
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medium, responding to multiple people asking the same question requires that you either copy-paste your answer, rewrite
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your answer, make a bunch of posts that simply link to your original answer, or ignore some of the replies; all of
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these solutions suck, for various reasons.<br/><br/>
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Finally, people are bad at disagreeing. It's always easier to say "yes, I agree" than "no, you're wrong, because . . .".
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We try to keep things open for the latter as much as possible; this isn't going to be always possible, but if it
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were easy, other people would have done it.<br/><br/>
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We ask that people keep these in mind and try to keep the discussion working as well as it can.
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</p>
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<h4 id="Disagreement"><a href="#Disagreement">When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.</a></h4>
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<p>
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To have a discussion on some point of disagreement it is necessary that both parties be willing to say what they
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believe and why, not merely that they disagree with the other party. Sarcasm and mockery make it very easy to
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express that you disagree with someone without explaining why, or what contrary claim you actually endorse, and
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you can't grow a discussion from those grounds.<br/><br/>
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In addition, online discussion forums often have a long turnaround time between replies; if it takes a day for you
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to explain what you meant, that's a day wasted, and a day you could have better used to make your point.
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</p>
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<h4 id="Evidence"><a href="#Evidence">Proactively provide evidence in proportion to how partisan and inflammatory your claim might be.</a></h4>
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<p>
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Also known as the "hot take" rule.<br/><br/>
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If you're saying something that's deeply out of the ordinary or difficult-to-defend, the next person is going
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to ask you to explain what you mean. You can head this off by explaining what you mean before hitting submit. The
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alternative is that the first half-dozen responses will all be "can you explain in more detail", which increases
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clutter and makes it much harder to follow the conversation.
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</p>
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<h4 id="Timeouts"><a href="#Timeouts">Accept temporary bans as a time-out, and don't attempt to rejoin the conversation until it's lifted.</a></h4>
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<p>
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In part, our temporary bans are intended for people to cool down, think about how they've been approaching
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discussion, and come back when they've mentally reset. Ban evasion is treated rather strictly, and the definition
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of "ban evasion" is broad - in general, it includes attempts to post things to the community even when the ban is
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not yet lifted. Specifically, this includes editing your comment in an attempt to continue the discussion, which
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may be grounds for your comment to be removed and for the ban to be increased.<br/><br/>
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Please don't do that. Come back when the ban is up and the conversation does not seem as immediate.<br/><br/>
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If you believe you have been banned in error, please send us modmail and explain the situation. There is an appeal
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process and we do sometimes overturn bans.
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</p>
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<h4 id="Consensus"><a href="#Consensus">Don't attempt to build consensus or enforce ideological conformity.</a></h4>
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<p>
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"As everyone knows . . ."<br/><br/>
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"I'm sure you all agree that . . ."<br/><br/>
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We visit this site specifically because we don't all agree, and regardless of how universal you believe
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knowledge is, I guarantee <a href="https://xkcd.com/1053/">someone doesn't know it yet</a>. Humans are bad at
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disagreeing with each other, and starting out from an assumption of agreement is a great way to quash disagreement.
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It's a nice rhetorical trick in some situations, but it's against what we're trying to accomplish here.
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</p>
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<h4 id="Inclusion"><a href="#Inclusion">Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.</a></h4>
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<p>
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If the goal of the community is to promote discussion, then we ask that people keep this in mind when posting.
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Avoid being dismissive of your political opponents, relying too much on injokes at someone else's expense, or
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anything that discourages people from participating in the discussion. This is one of the vaguest rules and one
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of the rules least likely to be enforced, since any real violation is likely to fall under another category.
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But please keep it in mind. Discussion is a group effort; be part of the group, and invite others into the group.
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</p>
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<pre>
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</pre>
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<h3 id="The_Wildcard_Rule"><a href="#The_Wildcard_Rule">The Wildcard Rule</a></h3>
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<p>
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So there's this Jewish weekly event called Shabbat.<br/><br/>
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Stay with me. I'm going somewhere with this.<br/><br/>
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Shabbat is a holy day that is intended as a day of rest. It dates back over two thousand years. If you're
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an Orthodox Jew, you treat it pretty seriously, including following a rule against doing "work". Work is defined in
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terms of 39 things, including stuff like "plowing earth" and "lighting a fire", but also including weirdly specific
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items like "separating two threads" and "erasing two or more letters". The rationale for some of this has been lost
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to time, but what is clear is that these are not meant to be taken exactly, but rather taken as categories.<br/><br/>
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And, inevitably, in the last two thousand years, we've invented some new things that humans like to do, like "playing
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video games" and "turning light bulbs on".<br/><br/>
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If we were rewriting the holy texts today, the people in charge would just make a decision on whether those count as
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"work" and we'd go from there. But of course we're not doing so, and we have to interpret the texts as they currently
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exist. And there's some branches of Judaism that think turning light bulbs on should be prohibited.<br/><br/>
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But there's also a subset in that group that thinks it should only be prohibited because of the letter of the law.
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It's not "doing a thing that causes a light bulb to turn on" that's disallowed, it's that flipping a switch that's
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connected to mains current which could in theory cause a spark which technically violates the prohibition against
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"lighting a fire".<br/><br/>
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Behold: the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KosherSwitch">Kosher Switch</a>. This little device has an external switch,
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but the external switch is not connected to anything electronic. Instead, it moves a small opaque object into the path
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of a light emitter and a photosensor. Every once in a while the KosherSwitch turns on a light on the outside casing
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to warn the user that it's about to check its light path, then turns on the internal light and checks the position
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of the switch. If it needs to switch on or off the circuit it's connected to, it then does so.<br/><br/>
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This may technically be allowed, because you aren't switching any electrical circuits on or off, you're just moving
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a little bit of plastic which, by a weird and totally unforeseeable coincidence that definitely does not violate any
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holy texts, eventually results in a light being turned on or off.<br/><br/>
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The following rule is intended for anyone who thinks the Kosher Switch is a reasonable solution to a problem.
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</p>
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<h4 id="Obnoxious"><a href="#Obnoxious">Don't be egregiously obnoxious</a></h4>
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<p>
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No matter how careful we are, someone's going to come up with a way to be annoying, in a way that technically
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follows the rules. If we were to write a rule saying "don't do this thing", they would bend the rule to be as
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broad as possible, then complain that we're not enforcing it properly.<br/><br/>
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The goal of this community is not, however, slavish adherence to rules. It's discussion. And if this means
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we need to use our human judgement to make calls, then that's exactly what we will do.<br/><br/>
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There are people who think that every rule should be absolutely objective, to the point where our job could be
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|
done by a robot. I will point out that no legal system in history has ever worked this way and that if you
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|
think we can do better than the entire human race working on it for five thousand years, then I invite you to
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|
submit a proposal on how it will work.
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|
</p>
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|
|
|
<pre>
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|
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|
</pre>
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|
<h3 id="The_Metarule"><a href="#The_Metarule">The Metarule</a></h3>
|
|
<p></p>
|
|
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|
<h4 id="Sentiment"><a href="#Sentiment">Moderation is very much driven by user sentiment. Feel free to report comments or message the mods with your thoughts.</a></h4>
|
|
<p>
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|
In the end, communities exist for people. They don't necessarily exist for all people, but without people,
|
|
they die.<br/><br/>
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|
|
|
You are encouraged to make suggestions and ask questions. You are also encouraged to report comments that you
|
|
think violate the above rules; there's a lot of comments on this site and we don't necessarily see them all,
|
|
so if you think a comment definitely breaks the rules, and we haven't said anything about it, we may just not
|
|
have seen it. If you're reporting for something that falls under the Wildcard, please explain why you think it
|
|
should be removed. It is not against the rules to disagree with you; please don't report comments simply for making
|
|
statements that you disagree with.<br/><br/>
|
|
|
|
Note that "driven by" does not mean "controlled by" or "dictated by". We override more than 90% of all reports,
|
|
and we will sometimes go against the will of the community. This is not a democracy and does not pretend to be
|
|
one. However, the stronger that will is, the better a justification we'll need to do so.
|
|
</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
</div>
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|
</div>
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|
{% endblock %}
|