"News threads" defeat the purpose of a website like CFC

[Ordnael]

Late to the thread...but If OP really wanted news free unmoderated discussion he would plea for the removal of the report button...
I have complains about the hyperactive moderation on baseless reports...but I am still pretty comfortable here.
Could I be on the reddits, on the Xs or discords of life? I could but I hate giving personal data, and CFC asks for so little and I get to be more informed on topics I wouldn't follow elsewhere.

 

[Akka]

It's still fun, but it used to be really fun, fully spicy, and there being more small threads meant someone could jump in one and not another. We used to cap threads at 300 posts. First it was for database reasons, but then caps were maintained because aggregating topics into single threads was recognized to reduce quality of the subforum as a whole. If you really want to reduce the feeling of dog piling, make likes private in OT. We still know we get them, but it reduces the mob vibe if you're in the minority position.

That's one of the main reasons I never use the "like" button as a point of principle.

 

[Ordnael]

I use the like button to give traction to a point of view I agree with.

 

[danjuno]

Honestly, I think they should be disabled. Forums shouldn't try to be social media. If you agree with something, you should add your own thoughts. That said, as long as it exists, I use it like Ordnael mentioned.

 

[Lexicus]

news free unmoderated discussion he would plea for the removal of the report button...

This is just silly, I don't want unmoderated discussion, but I want discussion, not just "summarize news links or your post gets deleted/the thread gets locked." Despite the fact that some are taking this to mean "unmoderated discussion", forbidding posters to express original thoughts and ideas is the actual abdication of moderation. A moderator is supposed to use their brain to apply the rules to posts. This is fine, and posts that violate the forum rules should result in moderator action. Well and good. The problem is that there seems to be an unspoken policy that certain topics are too spicy to allow discussion, moderators don't want the headache of dealing with them. I'm sympathetic to this and know a bit about the difficulties moderators encounter here and elsewhere, but if you're going to be a moderator you need to be willing to moderate, at the end of the day.

That's one of the main reasons I never use the "like" button as a point of principle.

Idk man if you have the courage of your convictions your interlocutors getting likes really shouldn't bother you. If we're talking about insulting posts getting likes, the rules against personal insults not being followed seems like a separate issue, solvable without changing the like system.

 

[Patine]

forbidding posters to express original thoughts and ideas

The problem is, there is an very sharp premium and shortage of, "original thoughts and ideas," on these discussion platform. Someone regurgitates and paraphrase incendiary rhetoric and semantics from on partisan script and narrative, some back them up, then another chimes in material from a rival partisan propaganda mill, they get egged on by their supporters, "likes," flare, and the two go at it like pit bulls in a dog-fighting ring, and then the moderators come in. A lot of the fault traces to our lying, divisive, blame-gaming, stereotyping, myth-spouting political zeitgeist in the Western World, right, now, but it does responsible moderators no favours to know WHY.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Using the like button to note a post can have multiple meanings that may not have anything to do with the content of the post.

 

[Fippy]

Likes can become a problem when one poster goes aggressive on another,
and his friends back it up (since like usually means i agree with you, they also "attack").

That has been the same occurrence almost everywhere i looked.

On topics without explosive potential they are harmless "hey nice of you to say that".

 

[s.bernbaum]

Honestly, I think they should be disabled. Forums shouldn't try to be social media. If you agree with something, you should add your own thoughts.

I agree wholeheartedly! I never use likes, pay no attention to them when they show on comments, and have disabled being notified about them.

 

[Hygro]

I’ve defended them after my experience in another forum where their similar “give or remove reputation” (which was private!) helped me like, understand people and reality better. And I like them here to know people who don’t respond to me directly ever but are showing me they appreciate xyz.

But I would say overall they gatekeep more than help off topic.

 

[Akka]

Idk man if you have the courage of your convictions your interlocutors getting likes really shouldn't bother you.

Okay, how me refusing to engage in a system by not giving like to people does change in any way how my interlocutors get likes, exactly ?

As for your reasoning, I'd point that :
1) It's just ubermensch-fantasy BS as if people weren't influenced by group mechanics. Trying to pretend this doesn't exist is ridiculous.
2) I find it pretty funnypocrital (yeah I invent words) to see you use it considering how you decry group pressure depending on which population it's about.

 

[Hygro]

Yeah, I have convictions to say unpopular things but it stops being fun very quickly if it’s against a have dozen names. Then I leave if it feels a certain kind of stacked.

If I’m just arguing with the one or two people who bother articulating the popular view it’s easier but if every one of their posts has a chorus of endorsements, it’s not a vibe.

I say this as someone usually saying the popular take in a debate.


Also, I bet which posts get likes changes somewhat if set to private.

 

[Patine]

Yeah, I have convictions to say unpopular things but it stops being fun very quickly if it’s against a have dozen names. Then I leave if it feels a certain kind of stacked.

If I’m just arguing with the one or two people who bother articulating the popular view it’s easier but if every one of their posts has a chorus of endorsements, it’s not a vibe.

I say this as someone usually saying the popular take in a debate.


Also, I bet which posts get likes changes somewhat if set to private.

That's often how I feel when debating things on the MSN Message Boards (where they have both upvotes and downvotes), as I often have views that are unpopular - to both current, "sides," of our modern excuse for a political divides - such scathing aberrations as facts, rational thinking, and looking for solutions rather than clinging to partisan scripts and narratives. I have gotten so much abuse, name-calling, and false allegations by some of the most enstupidated trolls I have ever met, that make my memories of OT here seem like a Sunday-night library debate club, and then some have the gall and chutzpah to tell me me being, "objectively wrong," is, "proven," - as though by paradigm parapsychology, consentual reality theory and other such wonky fringe metaphysics by my much higher total downvote count to total upvote count, alone, somehow So, yes, I do very much understand this phenomenon..

 

[Lexicus]

Okay, how me refusing to engage in a system by not giving like to people does change in any way how my interlocutors get likes, exactly ?

What I'm trying to say is you shouldn't worry about liking posts, it's fine and doesn't hurt anything.

As for your reasoning, I'd point that :
1) It's just ubermensch-fantasy BS as if people weren't influenced by group mechanics. Trying to pretend this doesn't exist is ridiculous.

Honest question, is this a language barrier thing? I used the word "shouldn't" for a reason.

2) I find it pretty funnypocrital (yeah I invent words) to see you use it considering how you decry group pressure depending on which population it's about.

Well, idk exactly what you mean by this, but i suspect it may boil down to this:

[snip]Moderator Action: Edited by Birdjaguar

 

[Core Imposter]

The report button got me banned here in more than one decade, so I'd like to see it removed. Seems to me that Lex wants to have his cake and eat it too. If you want to have meaningful discussion you can't really railroad people out that you disagree with. The moderators are trying to create a safe space for certain viewpoints at the expense of others. That's what moderation does.

 

[Akka]

What I'm trying to say is you shouldn't worry about liking posts, it's fine and doesn't hurt anything.

I disagree with this idea that the system of "like" being fine and not hurting anything. As such, I refuse to use it.

Honest question, is this a language barrier thing? I used the word "shouldn't" for a reason.

And my answer is precisely about that. We're a social species, and as a general rule we ARE bothered by what the group think. So saying that people shouldn't be bothered by what the group think is, as I said, ubermensh-fantasy BS. I don't see what here shows a problem with language barrier.

Well, idk exactly what you mean by this, but i suspect it may boil down to this:

I'm pretty sure it's extremely clear what I mean by this : you are commonly defending the "safe space" and related things, whose entire schtick is about people being insulated from the opinion of the larger group, yet at the same time you're introducing the "people shouldn't be bothered by the opinion of the larger group" argument. If you can't see the irony, I'd say it's just an instance of "not getting it because not wanting to get it".

 

[Lexicus]

you are commonly defending the "safe space" and related things

Can you quote me doing this even once, let alone "commonly"??

 

[Birdjaguar]

The report button got me banned here in more than one decade, so I'd like to see it removed. Seems to me that Lex wants to have his cake and eat it too. If you want to have meaningful discussion you can't really railroad people out that you disagree with. The moderators are trying to create a safe space for certain viewpoints at the expense of others. That's what moderation does.

Well, not so. Moderation tends to chop off the most extremist views at both ends of the spectrum. In the past few years we have seen more extremist views from the right than from the left. Pre pandemic it was more balanced. Pre Trump, I would say the more extreme views came from the left until you get back to the Tea Party days. Most of what "the right" sees as extreme Leftists are hardly left at all; they are just so far away from the kinds of things proposed by Trump, Musk, and Project 2025 that they appear radical from so far to the right.

 

[Akka]

Can you quote me doing this even once, let alone "commonly"??

Let's be clear : I'm not saying that such idea or such is bad here. I'm saying that pretending people shouldn't be influenced by the displayed opinions of a group is, as I said twice, ubermensh-fantasy BS (the kind of teenage self-insert power fantasy with the square-jawed protagonist stands firm and tall, totally unfazed and indifferent, against the faceless petty masses, and such fantasy exists precisely because, well, it's a fantasy that allows escape from the reality that people DO care about what others think), and that I highly doubt you'd put the same argument if it were about someone from your favourites minorities complaining that they are facing disapproving stares and comments from the hetero cismen at work or in the street.