patrick.net

Patrick says

The key is whether the post or comment has good will or not.

Well that is a totally subjective standard. From my experience the moderators on this site definitely trend to the right.

I have been more or less able to post as long as it is 100% impersonal on anti Trump posts. On occasion I slip up and use the word "you" and usually II am flagged. Ok except the rightist posts are left alone. And when I flag them they return unscathed. So given current moderation This seems like the site will only move further right, perhaps that is the goal?

rd6B says

No personal insults rule seems to be sufficient.

We disagree about that. What happened under the no personal insults rule was pretty predictable. People just divided into sides and the vitriol kept growing.

I was OK with it for years, but lately it grated on me more and more to be a platform for animosity. People who disagree with the MSM narrative of !RACISM! are definitely being censored and I was happy to make a place for those people to go, but that's only one level of resistance to being trapped and exploited by our owners.

The next level is to unify against our owners. We are deliberately being divided by the media so that we cannot possibly threaten the unethical business and lobbying practices of oligarchs.

Are you not entertained ?

rd6B says

they can just block the user

Not many people use blocking, they want to see everything anyone else can see. Especially anything that might be about their own comments.

I asked a friend who used to work at Facebook about how they prevent flame wars, and he said they don't have to, because people will quickly unfriend anyone who is being deliberately insulting. Sadly, that does not work on an anonymous forum. It really does need to be anonymous here because people can easily lose jobs when the powers that be get alerted to unorthodox opinions.

I thought about just letting each user moderate his own thread, but that doesn't do anything about the division.

Patrick says

The next level is to unify against our owners.

Yep. People need to understand that it's not Democrat versus Republican - it's us versus the government.

Bricks were being left out in areas where protests were being done and in several cities so it's coordinated. Who is doing that? Why can't any security cameras pick it up? Nobody has been detained for doing this - isn't that odd? You mean in all these cities that have just been attacked, not ONE had a cop driving around to run into a group of people just piling up bricks in the middle of the night?

The people doing this are stooges for our owners and the police appear to be ordered to stand down.

And something else - this is an example of a conspiracy. A group of people are doing this, they are coordinating, the police never catch them in the act, and no video is ever made of it being done. That's a group effort.

rd6B says

I suspect that if this new rule is implemented, the site will turn into a complete echo-chamber.

You may be right, but I don't see exactly why. If people know they are likely to get a civil response, they may be more likely to really debate.

Patrick says

People just divided into sides and the vitriol kept growing.

I think, given that we have more right-leaning Patnetters, new rule will turn site into a complete echo chamber/circlejerk where everyone will be in 100% agreement on everything.

Patrick says

eople who disagree with the MSM narrative of !RACISM! are definitely being censored and I was happy to make a place for those people to go, but that's only one level of resistance to being trapped and exploited by our owners.

The next level is to unify against our owners. We are deliberately being divided by the media so that we cannot possibly threaten the unethical business and lobbying practices of oligarchs.

Having an echo chamber will not help this, as now we at least occasionally listen to "the other side" which sometimes is not really "the other side".

richwicks says

Anyhow, you can only really learn when somebody points out you're wrong and then takes the time to explain how you're wrong.

I agree. It's hard to admit you're wrong, kind of humiliating. But one should actually thank anyone who took the time to prove them wrong in a civil way. The civility is essential to getting people to listen.

When the argument against your point starts out extremely hostile, all listening shuts down and nothing is accomplished. It's just human nature.

richwicks says

Inflammatory
Personal insult
False information
Vulgar

Yes, maybe a drop-down of reasons would be good.

rd6B says

richwicks says

False information

that is a slippery slope.

Agreed there too. The global warming debate would just degenerate into each side blocking all opposition as "false".

Onvacation says

Does this mean I cannot mock anyone for spelling and factual errors?

Right, don't mock them. There's no point other than to be cruel.

It's OK to correct them, in fact it's a good deed if you're nice enough about it.

Patrick says

I agree. It's hard to admit you're wrong, kind of humiliating. But one should actually thank anyone who took the time to prove them wrong in a civil way.

Haha. I think that's asking a bit much! Humiliating enough to be shown to be incorrect, even worse if you have to thank them for pointing out you've been a dummy for a decade especially since you were arguing the wrong side of it for years. It's the "Oh sh!t - I've been filling people's head with propaganda for years!" moment.

richwicks says

Well it turns out that girl is lying. She was the daughter of the Kuwaiti Ambassador. Her testimony is false and she was given acting lessons by Hill and Knowlton, a "PR" firm (read propaganda).

There's very little possibility that nobody in the intelligence agencies knew who she was, and unlikely that most of congress didn't quickly become aware of her true identity. That was propaganda not produced for congress, but for us. It's my favorite example of how the government lies to the population and it underscores just how long blatant dishonesty is used to trick the American population into supporting a war.

This is exactly the kind of manipulation by our owners that I hope we can all help expose and be unified against.

Trump doesn't kill babies either. The MSM is doing exactly the same thing now that they were in the lead up to the Iraq war - lying to the public for political reasons.

WookieMan says

Part of the problem is the trollish behavior. The repetitiveness without context or content of meaningful value. "Well I'm X party, but cops are bad and racist."

What is the right response to that? Some people are trolls and some people are just repetitive. I know I'm repetitive about outsourcing to China and insourcing illegals.

I think trolling may fall under "lack of good will". Trolling is really designed to make people angry, to cause suffering.

Richwicks idea or a variant might be good.

Another thing you might do is have a list somewhere of articles that are interesting. Hear me out on this. You used to do it in a way that was too labor intensive for you, and I get that under the current system we can share articles, but what if every time someone posted a link to an article (or editorial ) they liked, in a "new post" it went to a list somewhere, and people could upvote or down vote the artcle (one vote per person), on that list. Maybe some other way members could get an article moved up, if they really thought it was good and important.

The affect would be to promote reading that both sides like. Think about it. Although, I'm pretty sure right wingers outnumber lefties, and also probably more alt accounts of right wingers, so the downside is it could make the site more of a Trump Cult echo chamber (all the top articles would be stuff right wingers like) I don't know, maybe some other proprietary ways of not letting it get overly gamed by the political unbalance of the forum.

OR you could just color the links blue, tan, or red depending on the perceived bias (a second button that is part of the vote - some algorithm to determine left leaning right, or neutral). That way I could scan the list for top left leaning stuff, but also check out the most popular right leaning stuff.

That's what originally got me hooked on the site, it was the reading, the links. But it was also more about Real estate back then. But not nearly all. Just spit balling but I think it would be good to have other places to go on the site when TPB or AF are getting overly fiesty, not that it's not entertaining. If you can have enough good left side and neutral content (I know you think there is too much), it might balance out the site. Just some thoughts.

FYI I would probably down vote a lot of really SJW identity politics stuff, but would in some cases be sympathetic, for example now, defending the protesters rights. And how fucked up it is that we are in martial law. What the hell is going on ?

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How can you simultaneously have civility with freedom to offend ? I thought both would be incompatible or mutually exclusive.

Some view the freedom to offend as being uncivil if not racist or "pro-Fascist". It just seems like you will have an arbitrary label as what is civil and uncivil.

I can see as far as setting ground rules like no name calling or personal insults against a poster.

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marcus says

The affect would be to promote reading that both sides like. Think about it. Although, I'm pretty sure right wingers outnumber lefties, and also probably more alt accounts of right wingers, so the downside is it could make the site more of a Trump Cult hangout.

That could be fixed perhaps by categorization.

I really don't believe in the left/right paradigm - but most people do, so it could be categorized in that way.

Again, categorization is a difficult thing to do and I think it would require a group effort.

I'd also suggest, just keeping a list of articles that were referenced and allow them to be sorted in a completely random order, regardless of up/down votes. After all, truth by consensus isn't truth at all. Finding old articles is interesting anyhow. For example:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/world/americas/what-happens-when-you-fight-a-deep-state-that-doesnt-exist.html

And here's a newer article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/20/opinion/trump-impeachment-testimony.html

I don't think it's very useful to read mainstream news since they constantly contradict themselves, don't make retractions, produce endless dishonest spin, and sometimes outright propaganda. But it's funny to see what they've said years after the fact:

https://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/08/world/threats-responses-iraqis-us-says-hussein-intensifies-quest-for-bomb-parts.html

Everybody is on board for promoting a war - even "liberal" NY Times..

marcus says

what if every time someone posted a link to an article (or editorial ) they liked, in a "new post" it went to a list somewhere, and people could upvote or down vote the artcle (one vote per person), on that list. Maybe some other way members could get an article moved up, if they really thought it was good and important.

I tried that with housing articles, and people didn't vote them up or down much. But it would not be hard to just have, say, https://patrick.net/links be a page of links extracted from the latest posts.

marcus says

Trump Cult

That's the kind of phrase I'm hoping to remove from the site. Lacks good will, stops all debate dead in its tracks. "Libtard" is about the same from the other side.

Freedom is not always civil. Don’t know if it’ll work.

Playing around with algorithms, affecting that list, might be a little fun for you too.

ad says

How can you simultaneously have civility with freedom to offend ? I thought both would be incompatible or mutually exclusive.

Some view the freedom to offend as being uncivil if not racist or "pro-Fascist". It just seems like you will have an arbitrary label as what is civil and uncivil.

I'm pretty sure it happens all the time that people are civil yet be perceived as offensive by someone with an ax to grind.

Do men and women think differently? Yes, I'm sure they do, but that idea was so "offensive" to Google that idea got James Damore fired, even though he was nice enough in saying it.

And you're right, these are the very ideas that will instantly be labelled racist or pro-fascist. The MSM labels all opposition to illegal immigration as "racist" every day, no matter how carefully reasoned or politely expressed.

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richwicks says

Everybody is on board for promoting a war - even "liberal" NY Times..

You don't understand how Trump is making the neoMarxists and globalists heads metaphorically explode when he goes after the ChiComs on trade, etc.

Just like their heads explode when Trump seals the border and reverses the Obama immigration policies.

You don't understand how much they want to get back to Obama 2.0 with a continuing "fundamental transformation of America". They want open borders, free passes to their ideological allies the ChiComs, gun confiscation, welfare state, a weakened Pentagon that is just a social experiment, etc

Trump is in their way, and his supporters are the American Left's target.

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Patrick says

And you're right, these are the very ideas that will instantly be labelled racist or pro-fascist. The MSM labels all opposition to illegal immigration as "racist" every day, no matter how carefully reasoned or politely expressed.

Patrick, look what the Left and its mainstream media did to the Google engineer Damore.

They dragged him through the mud, and then publicly tarred and feathered him. He pointed out that many professions like human resources, nursing, public school teachers, etc. are dominated by females.

So how can you justify having 50% females as engineers when more than 80% of those professions are females ? How is that sexist ?

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jazz_music says

This level of America seems to all be tied into war profiteering at some level.

So pro-war is not so surprising.

No, you know it is about a war against the Republicans and Trump supporters. That is why the NY Times refuses to criticize or call out AntiFa.

Stop pretending otherwise and being disingenuous.

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Patrick says

Lacks good will

IF reflects VERY VERY VERY strong belief among a huge segment of the country that this guy is by far the all time worst President. You can't relate, but is it even remotely possible that it really is a cult, and you're "all in." At least it must have something to do with the fact that you like him. You defend him. That is your dislike of the phrase. It's not that far out. He's a gifted con artist. There are some good articles on this forum presenting legitimate analyses of why it really is a cult.

You can blame liberals for the divisiveness, but A LOT of very smart people see it plain as day Very much trumps fault. The increasing polarization that is .

I agree with you about civil debate, and the benefits of fighting for things we agree on. Donald Trump WILL NOT be a person that brings us together. How can anyone not see that ? He was never intended to.

By the way, plenty of people that voted for Trump aren't in the cult.

jazz_music says

Oligarchy keeps winning by keeping us from activism, divided.

I'll play: what kind of "activism" you propose we do together, united?

Patrick says

marcus says

Trump Cult

That's the kind of phrase I'm hoping to remove from the site. Lacks good will, stops all debate dead in its tracks. "Libtard" is about the same from the other side.

I don't think those are equivalent. For few people, Trump is a God-like personality who can do no wrong with his 6905325 dimensional chess (so there is a small number of individuals where Trump cult is an accurate expression), while libtard is just a term meant to offend 100% of time.
My attraction to patnet is that it is a relatively low tech site without bells and whistles, that there is little if any censorship, and that it is small with respect to number of users so I have an approximate idea whom I am talking to. If we start color coding everything, hiding posts under warnings, or deleting posts because of nebulous "good will", then site will change for worse, I think.

Fortwaynemobile says

Freedom is not always civil. Don’t know if it’ll work.

There's a big difference between an argument and a discussion.

I think what @Patrick is aiming for is a discussion.

There are times when I explain, in detail, my position and my reasoning to get to my position expecting to get a response of "well, here's where your logic is failed what information you don't know and here's where your reasoning doesn't add up" because I went through all the effort to lay out how I formed my conclusion.

Instead I'll get a response along the lines of "you're dum" or "what a lot of nonsense!"

That doesn't give me ANY ability to figure out where I'm wrong, or give me the possibility to rethink my position. It's simply PUSHING me into a position by ridiculing me. I can accept when I'm wrong and when I don't have full information and when my reasoning is faulty - but I'm not just going to take somebody else's word for it that "I'm wrong".

Some people (too many people) seem to enjoy this type of combative argument but I hate it. I always walk away thinking more than ever I'm correct, and I ran into somebody who couldn't get over their cognitive dissonance and admit they were in error, so they insulted me instead - but I don't know!

Well, back to work.

Y'all know I'm a huge fan of Slapback, because the problem when about half of people are for civil discourse and the other half is win by any means, it doesn't end well for the civil discourse folks.

Remember one of Alinsky's rules: Force the Enemy to live up to his own standards. So one side has to fight with one hand behind their back and not punch below the belt while the other is free to do whatever they please, eventually the constant kick in the nuts against one-handed fighter will bring his ass down unless he lands some lucky repeat hooks to the face.

I think no outright personal insults is fine.

That said, I prefer civil discourse, because while I'll like the occasional Zing like anybody else, it quickly degenerates into an insult slug like the old Captain vs. Dan threats about meetups at the Ft Lauderdale Gay Bar.

Oh boy, do I have a suggestion for you @Patrick

Allow downvotes in two modes:

1) just the way they are
2) the downvotes only count if there's a response from the person who downvoted it.

Also controlled by an option button.

Upvotes are easy - I read something I agree with, yeah, not much to say.

But a downvote - if I disagree with it, I won't very often downvote it unless I explain WHY I disagree with it. If somebody got 30 downvotes but all the responses were trivial arguments like "you don't know what you're talking about" - you can see that the people downvoting it really isn't putting any effort into thinking about what was said.

I'll sometimes downvote a post I just consider "stupid", like somebody calling people Redumblicans or Demonrats. It's my way of telling them I wish they'd go away.

This is also not patented - but perhaps could be.

rd6B says

I don't think those are equivalent

Agreed

rd6B says

If we start color coding everything, hiding posts under warnings

I know what you mean about it being small. But wouldn't it be fun to see it grow ? Maybe Patrick finally cashes in a little ?

The color coding was just for some page with a list of articles. And the reason was to counter the affect of up and down voting if the political unbalance of the site made the list too right wing. Because liberal perspectives get down voted so far that the whole point of providing popular points of view is lost. ) That goes against the idea of growing the site and also the idea of even having it be a site for for good civil discourse. More balance would improve the site.

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jazz_music says

Oligarchy keeps winning by keeping us from activism, divided.

What do you mean by activism ?

Did you not witness NY Times, Washington Post, MSNBC, etc. all gush over Obama from 2008 to 2016 ?

Don't tell me he did not achieve the goals of activism. Look at his coal policies for example, as well as support for renewable energy.

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richwicks says

Allow downvotes in two modes:

I'll automatically downvote the reply someone makes to justify their downvote of my original post.

The Left is trying to undermine everything about America. They spread lies like "I can see Russia from my House" "White Supremacists are Fine People" and the Media repeats them, suddenly "forgetting" to Fact Check.

Let me know when Polifact/WaPo fact checks Biden saying You can't be Black if you don't vote for me.

HEYYOU says

So Freedom has been removed from the theme.

Technically, yes. The word "freedom" is no longer there. It was abused.

You're still totally free to civilly advocate any idea you want. Just don't for example openly wish for the deaths of all Republicans. That's not civil. It's hostile and doesn't help anyone debate anything. It divides us.

rd6B says

hiding posts under warnings, or deleting posts because of nebulous "good will", then site will change for worse, I think.

Well, let's see what happens.

It's something I just have to try. The riots convinced me that we are getting nowhere with the partisan tribalism fomented by the media.

NoCoupForYou says

the problem when about half of people are for civil discourse and the other half is win by any means, it doesn't end well for the civil discourse folks.

I'm not sure. Being civil lends some weight to any argument.

Hostility betrays insecurity, and undermines an argument.

jazz_music says

covid_shmovid says

what kind of "activism" you propose we do together, united?

Whatever it takes.

Maybe online petitions which spread virally as you ask your friends to sign. And then the exact names of our Congressmen who vote for or against them, resulting in voter guides on fundamental issues.

If the petitions are very simply worded and clearly in the public interest, then Congressmen who vote against them could have some serious headwind against getting re-elected.

But sure, there are many possibilities.

richwicks says

2) the downvotes only count if there's a response from the person who downvoted it.

Yes, with civility rules this could be good. Maybe "dislike" should require a comment to explain why. So you click dislike, and it puts a quote of that comment in the comment box starting with: "Patrick disliked: ..."

jazz_music says

You get to beef up enforcement and eliminate laws that bar defacto acts of martial law and unconstitutional use of the American military power against Americans.

Serious question. Where has this happened? Think about it.