4 ms·

That's a good start! I'd like to see banning of antisemitic JAQing of other topics such as: - The USS Liberty Incident - Holodomor - Aliyah Bet for starters.

ptero 5y ago
Prohibiting those who hold outlandish views from expressing them usually backfires in the end. If those who hold them argue rationally -- that is, without resorting to aggression or flashmob tactics I think they should be allowed to argue their views. Arguing against outlandish views on merits is likely to be much more effective. Silencing opponents is using "might is right" approach -- just the type of logic that allowed many atrocities in the first place. My 2c.
- Pfhreak 5y ago
  How do you propose handling the asymmetry between asking questions and answering them? It's much, much cheaper for someone with outlandish views to shotgun you with questions than it is to answer them all in detail. Combine this with the fact that there are fewer experts than there are trolls/people with outlandish views. Further combine this with the fact that the trolls/outlandish views folks are not coming to get themselves educated, they are coming to try and convince others to hold their outlandish views. How do you propose we keep a community resilient against that?
  - NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
    This is exactly why the "Gish gallop" turns out to be an effective debating technique.
  - scarmig 5y ago
    I remember back in the day when people cared about creationists, there was the Talk.origins FAQ, which you could just point people to. AskHistorians even has an FAQ that could be used similarly. That said, it'd still lead to a degradation and constant mod cleanup work to post links to the FAQ and close the thread (if not closed, fellow travelers would upvote it and use it as a JAQ platform).
    - Tostino 5y ago
      An insane number of people still hold the same creationist beliefs as back then, but I am happy it's not in the public discourse as much.
      - jfengel 5y ago
        Expect to see it more: https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2021/apr/08/house-advances-bill-to-let-schools-teach/ https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2021/apr/08/house-advanc... This is brought on by a change in the composition of the Supreme Court, and there's a significant chance it will permit creationism in schools. Expect to see more attempts to reach the Supreme Court to overturn its previous decisions, and if it does, expect a great many states to pass similar laws. And then expand them.
- tptacek 5y ago
  It's probably one of the most successful message boards on the Internet, and the rule we're talking about has been in place for many years.
- eloeffler 5y ago
  There are always a limited number of possible discussions that can happen at a time. Those with "outlandish" views, namely those who believe some people's lives are fundamentally worth less than others often turn this into a strategy. As long as Holocaust deniers are tolerated and especially counter-argued by everyone, Holocaust denial will be all that is being talked about because they take the stage. Even if they lose the discussion, they win the topic of the day. And that topic gets gradually normalized into an acceptable position, pushing away others silently.
- _r0fz 5y ago
  So a lot of this is wrong but irrelevant to this so I won't touch it. The main thing you seem to be missing though is that the subreddit is not meant to be a neutral ground for people to compare and discuss ideas. It's a place to get concrete, consensus- and literature-based answers from people with real experience and practice at history. Having people in the comments presenting ahistorical information entirely outside of scholarly consensus only detracts from that goal. So even if you consider this _only_ a power-vs-speech thing, there's still a strong argument that moderation is the correct step. When conversations detract from the stated purpose of the community they are restricted. Same as right here actually.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
tptacek 5y ago
They don't just ban Holocaust denial; check out the rules.

ptero 5y ago

Prohibiting those who hold outlandish views from expressing them usually backfires in the end. If those who hold them argue rationally -- that is, without resorting to aggression or flashmob tactics I think they should be allowed to argue their views. Arguing against outlandish views on merits is likely to be much more effective. Silencing opponents is using "might is right" approach -- just the type of logic that allowed many atrocities in the first place. My 2c.

Pfhreak 5y ago
How do you propose handling the asymmetry between asking questions and answering them? It's much, much cheaper for someone with outlandish views to shotgun you with questions than it is to answer them all in detail. Combine this with the fact that there are fewer experts than there are trolls/people with outlandish views. Further combine this with the fact that the trolls/outlandish views folks are not coming to get themselves educated, they are coming to try and convince others to hold their outlandish views. How do you propose we keep a community resilient against that?
- NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
  This is exactly why the "Gish gallop" turns out to be an effective debating technique.
- scarmig 5y ago
  I remember back in the day when people cared about creationists, there was the Talk.origins FAQ, which you could just point people to. AskHistorians even has an FAQ that could be used similarly. That said, it'd still lead to a degradation and constant mod cleanup work to post links to the FAQ and close the thread (if not closed, fellow travelers would upvote it and use it as a JAQ platform).
  - Tostino 5y ago
    An insane number of people still hold the same creationist beliefs as back then, but I am happy it's not in the public discourse as much.
    - jfengel 5y ago
      Expect to see it more: https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2021/apr/08/house-advances-bill-to-let-schools-teach/ https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2021/apr/08/house-advanc... This is brought on by a change in the composition of the Supreme Court, and there's a significant chance it will permit creationism in schools. Expect to see more attempts to reach the Supreme Court to overturn its previous decisions, and if it does, expect a great many states to pass similar laws. And then expand them.
tptacek 5y ago
It's probably one of the most successful message boards on the Internet, and the rule we're talking about has been in place for many years.
eloeffler 5y ago
There are always a limited number of possible discussions that can happen at a time. Those with "outlandish" views, namely those who believe some people's lives are fundamentally worth less than others often turn this into a strategy. As long as Holocaust deniers are tolerated and especially counter-argued by everyone, Holocaust denial will be all that is being talked about because they take the stage. Even if they lose the discussion, they win the topic of the day. And that topic gets gradually normalized into an acceptable position, pushing away others silently.
_r0fz 5y ago
So a lot of this is wrong but irrelevant to this so I won't touch it. The main thing you seem to be missing though is that the subreddit is not meant to be a neutral ground for people to compare and discuss ideas. It's a place to get concrete, consensus- and literature-based answers from people with real experience and practice at history. Having people in the comments presenting ahistorical information entirely outside of scholarly consensus only detracts from that goal. So even if you consider this _only_ a power-vs-speech thing, there's still a strong argument that moderation is the correct step. When conversations detract from the stated purpose of the community they are restricted. Same as right here actually.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

tptacek 5y ago

They don't just ban Holocaust denial; check out the rules.