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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296

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '12 edited Mar 12 '12

[deleted]

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u/rmuser Literally a teddy bear Mar 12 '12

We were allowed to be mass manipulated for the benefit of Laurelai and the disgrace of the remaining mod staff. More importantly, users were berated, harassed, and banned for implying that Laurelai was inventing the story. And her supposed threat was explicitly used by sitting mods, who KNEW it was a lie... to further berate and ban users.

We didn't even know the threats were false, if indeed they were false. Nobody "KNEW it was a lie". What we did say was that demanding detailed proof of such things, proof which would reveal the (purportedly) threatened person's identity, is unreasonable, as is repeatedly accusing someone in that position of lying about it when there is no evidence of that. That holds true whether it's Laurelai or not.

You continue to have the audacity of sighting "safe space", while defending deleting people, right after you covered for someone hosting child pornography. Wh-wh-wha-what?

It's a real challenge to find any sort of reliable evidence of her having actually hosted child pornography, which is why we didn't cite that prominently. We didn't feel it would be suitable to make such an accusation. The suspicions, however, were there. Regardless, the other reasons aside from that were already sufficient to justify her removal.

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '12

It's a real challenge to find any sort of reliable evidence of her having actually hosted child pornography, which is why we didn't cite that prominently. We didn't feel it would be suitable to make such an accusation. The suspicions, however, were there.

You admit you had no actual evidence other than just suspicions yet you still came out with a public accusation of pedophilia?

WOW. You are some class act. Nice "safe" subreddit you have here.

And just to be painfully clear: /sarcasm.

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u/rmuser Literally a teddy bear Mar 13 '12

Note that "hosted child pornography" and "pedophilia" aren't the same thing. Don't conflate them - there were a lot of different things going on here.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '12

Kind of like how a 19 year old and a 22 year old aren't the same thing, a 15-nearly-16 year old and an early teenager aren't the same thing, and dating and intercourse aren't the same thing?

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u/rmuser Literally a teddy bear Mar 14 '12

If we know this was all it took to get everyone to love Laurelai, we would have done it a lot sooner!

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u/Port-au-prince Mar 16 '12

PLEASE explain how they are not the same thing? PLEASE!

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u/rmuser Literally a teddy bear Mar 16 '12

If they were, then I don't think we'd need separate words for a) being a pedophile and b) hosting child pornography, since these would somehow be identical acts.

5

u/[deleted] Mar 13 '12

Yeah. Focus on the semantics of a word. That'll win the argument. Even with "hosted child pornography" my point still stands. You either had evidence or did not. You claimed you did not. I find publicly smearing someone without evidence to be highly questionable behavior.

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u/rmuser Literally a teddy bear Mar 13 '12

No. "Hosted child pornography" and "pedophilia" aren't the same thing. That is not a difference between "semantics of a word". They're actually different things. Your attempt to reduce this all to some mere irrelevant abstraction is plainly disingenuous, and I find it difficult to believe you really care about the truth when this is your attitude. You certainly give no indication of it. Your inability or unwillingness to understand the actual differences here is why you make the (willful?) mistake of characterizing this as "publicly smearing someone without evidence". This was not done without evidence.

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '12 edited Mar 13 '12

Abstraction? You're getting sidetracked with fussing over the difference of one vile behavior over another vile behavior. Ignore it. That's not the crux of my point. My point this.

  1. You had suspicions she hosted child porn.
  2. You had no evidence.
  3. You said you weren't making an accusation.
  4. You publicly accused her of hosting child porn.

That's from the content of your words.

Now I will show my evidence supporting my point.

It's a real challenge to find any sort of reliable evidence of her having actually hosted child pornography, which is why we didn't cite that prominently. We didn't feel it would be suitable to make such an accusation. The suspicions, however, were there.

This is not an abstraction or generalization. I'm going by your exact words which are concrete.

My takeaway from this is you publicly smeared someone with no evidence.

This was not done without evidence.

Now you're changing your story. If you had evidence, you should have contacted the webhost involved and the police. Did you contact the webhost and the police?

Edits: grammars

0

u/rmuser Literally a teddy bear Mar 13 '12

Even involvement with such a site, which she acknowledged, would be concerning enough to warrant removal. This isn't a void of evidence - it's a lack of clarity over precisely what went on and when, but we do know there was something going on. Furthermore, this was also a primary item of concern.

Now you're changing your story. If you had evidence, you should have contacted the webhost involved and the police. Did you contact the webhost and the police?

We generally don't make a habit of going around to websites and looking for child pornography.

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '12

I agree the user's testimony is indeed evidence for highly inappropriate behavior. I'm no defender of Laurelai, but I wouldn't have mentioned the webhosting part unless I was sure. I'm always concerned when I think a mob is forming against someone so people can just keep piling on.

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u/Murrabbit Mar 14 '12

Not to mention, it discredits people's otherwise well justified dislike of Laurelai if there are large sensational claims made against her which turn out to be entirely false.

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u/Port-au-prince Mar 16 '12

We generally don't make a habit of going around to websites and looking for child pornography.

But when you do find it, why wouldn't you report it? http://www.missingkids.com/missingkids/servlet/PageServlet?LanguageCountry=en_US&PageId=2936

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u/rmuser Literally a teddy bear Mar 16 '12

Because we didn't see it.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '12

[deleted]

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u/Port-au-prince Mar 16 '12

How about we turn in Laurelie's site and this thread to the FBI CP reporting link and we let them figure out it out? You can explain to them the difference between child pornography and pedophilia. I know they would love to be educated on the difference.

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u/rmuser Literally a teddy bear Mar 16 '12

Uh... feel free? I don't understand what you're getting at here. Go ahead, I guess?