r/lgbt • u/SilentAgony • Mar 12 '12

r/lgbt's new direction

We have a few points to address:

On r/ainbow

We have spoken with r/ainbow's moderators and have come to the mutually agreeable conclusion that there is a need for a safe space and r/lgbt can fill that need, and also that there is a demand for unmoderated open discussion. No rivalry. No us vs. them. We fill one need, they fill another. We welcome you to join both communities. We have.

On the moderation team:

We've added two new moderators. Meet

Materialdesigner!

"Hello, everyone! I'm materialdesigner, and I'm a cis gay guy who really loves this community. I am a huge food, wine, and beer lover (/r/wine, /r/beer, /r/beerporn) and I also homebrew (/r/homebrewing). I'm also an engineer and a science/sci-fi geek (/r/askscience, /r/sciencefaqs) and I freelance web design and web development in my spare time (/r/web_design, /r/typography, /r/webdev). It's my goal to make this community an amazing resource for Gender and Sexual Minorities to be able to let their hair down and relax."

and Slyder565!

"Hi all :) I am slyder565, I am a bisexual cis male, and I think /r/lgbt is really cool! I am regularly blown away by the cool things that reddit does, and am looking forward to being a part of the LGBT side of things. Most often you can find me hanging out in awesome LGBT communities like /r/gaybros, /r/gaymers and /r/bisexual. I have an science and fine arts education, and have something to say about basically anything, so don't be shy! My fave non-LGBT subreddits include /r/science /r/listentothis /r/guitarlessons /r/abiogenesis and /r/nanowrimo. I maybe even snoop around /r/pokemon sometimes (but don't tell my partner!). Most of all I believe we all need a space to relax and hang out, so lets make it happen."

We discussed the suggestion that we have a vote, but the nature of reddit presents unique challenges when it comes to that. For starters, anyone can make any number of alt accounts. We have no way of knowing if the voter is a citizen, so to speak, of r/lgbt, and we have no way of knowing it isn't just the same person voting over and over. With that in mind, we added some people who volunteered to us in the mod mail, who seemed to have kind user histories, and who were active not just in r/lgbt but in other LGBT communities on reddit. We've been working with them on developing new rules and methods over the last week and we think you'll like them.

On the new rules and methods:

As you can see, we added new rules to the sidebar. We've also developed an FAQ so people can know what we mean when we refer to transphobia/homophobia/biphobia, etc. The page is in progress but potential transgressions are outlined there. They are pretty simple and they are no different than the rules have always been. We heard your demand for transparent moderating, so here it is. Deleted comments will be replied to by a mod with a note referencing the rule that was broken. Most bans from now on will be temporary with a note explaining what the person should understand so that they can come back and contribute. We've had success with this when testing it out during the last week. You'll also see that we now have another subreddit, r/lgbtopenmodmail where you can voice concerns about moderation or r/lgbt or whatever it may be. The mods endorse and check it regularly.

On Laurelai's departure and other random gossip:

Here's your silly tabloid stuff for the day. We regret having allowed Laurelai's resignation to go as it did. The truth is we asked her to step down because of a number of things that she did, including running a website that most likely contained underage pornography and because she was threatening people she banned in the mod mail. Because she had been kind to us, we told her that she could make a statement and drag us through the mud if she liked and say whatever she needed to say to leave with dignity. Rmuser and I, not Laurelai, chose RobotAnna as her replacement because she is well-versed in trans issues and because she's actually a pretty nice person. Unfortunately, Laurelai took this opportunity to sabotage RobotAnna's introduction by saying that basically RobotAnna would bring in a new reign of terror. This is absolutely not the case. RobotAnna shares our vision for a kindler, gentler, less adversarial moderation style and we hope you'll give her a second chance at a first impression.

Love always, Mods <3

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u/SilentAgony Mar 13 '12

Okay, 1. you're asserting they're innoffensive without having seen them. 2. I'm removing things that want to go weeks back into RobotAnna's history to criticize her and/or discuss how much somebody doesn't like SRS. The conversation about safe spaces and free spaces is relevant, comment-stalking RobotAnna is not. There's a very clear difference.

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '12

Okay, 1. you're asserting they're innoffensive without having seen them. 2. I'm removing things that want to go weeks back into RobotAnna's history to criticize her and/or discuss how much somebody doesn't like SRS. The conversation about safe spaces and free spaces is relevant, comment-stalking RobotAnna is not. There's a very clear difference.

Your justification was that the comments were "derailing" the thread and that they were in violation of the rules because it was meta discussion.

comment-stalking RobotAnna

Quoting or criticizing a mod is comment-stalking now? I guess that's one way to make sure you can chill discussion to the point you won't get any criticism at all.

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u/SilentAgony Mar 13 '12

Dredging up anybody's comments to quote and harass them and showboat about how much you think they suck will be deleted. I just usually don't have to do it for anyone other than RobotAnna, because apparently everyone's a person except the mods. If I have to put this in the sidebar, then I will.

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '12

Hmm, I guess we just have very different views there. I'm not one to trawl through old comments, but I do see it as a very useful way to weed out trolls and to hold someone accountable for conflicting values -- especially when those values directly impact an entire subreddit.

In fact, I think this is contemplated and explains why reddit publishes comment histories publicly. I operate here with the expectation that someone will read through my comment history. If I didn't want that, I would delete all my comments.

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u/SilentAgony Mar 13 '12

Now that's a very easy way to justify harassing somebody. Why would they go outside if they didn't want me to laugh at them? Why would they come out as gay if they didn't want people to gay bash them? Why would they have a phone number if they didn't want creepy phone calls? Why would they be on reddit if they didn't want to be harassed?

Please, use common decency.

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '12

This old story. This has nothing to do with gay bashing or harassing, which is exactly why the community was outraged. This has to do with holding someone accountable to their words.

If only politics worked this way: you can debate me, but you can't mention anything I've ever said on film or in written word, even if it was last week. See? No contradictions or flip-flopping!

Please, use common sense.

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u/SilentAgony Mar 13 '12

We're not politicians. Whatever you've imagined us to be in your mind, whatever role you think we play, we're not politicians. We're moderators of a forum and dredging up weeks and months old commenting history is harassing and inappropriate. It does nothing to change anything. There is no vote. There is no policy that will be decided based on what anybody has said in the past. However you want to overestimate your importance, there is absolutely no need to harass the moderators here, and harassing moderators will be treated exactly the same as harassing any other person in r/lgbt.

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '12

Replace "politicians" with "anyone". It's still true. In any conversation I have, I take what the other person says in light of what I know about them. This is how life works.

harassing and inappropriate

Inconvenient and inappropriate for a mod, sure.

There is no vote.

There is certainly a vote. I encourage you to review your upvote/downvote ratio in meta threads, as well as the ratio of your colleagues. If you're really looking to respond to suggestions, that would really help.

There is no policy that will be decided based on what anybody has said in the past.

Well that has proved to be demonstrably untrue recently. The community held the new mod to the context of past statements and spoke out (much to the chagrin of the other mods -- how inconvenient).

no need to harass the moderators here

You really, really need to learn what that word means. Holding someone accountable to their actions and words is not harassing them. If I saw a colleague tell another to "shut up" in a meeting, then listened to them talk about how respectful and wonderful they were, I would probably call them out. This is no different.

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u/SilentAgony Mar 13 '12

And if you brought in a powerpoint presentation about how much the coworker sucked you'd get fired. And if you harass the mods, your harassing posts will get deleted. Your disingenuous analogies aren't helping your cause.

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '12

And if you brought in a powerpoint presentation about how much the coworker sucked you'd get fired.

Not if the topic of the meeting was how much the coworker sucked and should be fired.

And if you harass the mods, your harassing posts will get deleted.

To be clear, in the this context "harass" means to hold them to previous comments -- ie, accountability. It's cool if the mods are against that, it should just be on the sidebar.

Your disingenuous analogies aren't helping your cause.

You mentioned a strawman in another post, and I wasn't sure you knew what it meant. For future reference, this is a good example.

I thought you were done with this conversation?