I want to reduce the no politics rule. What do you think?

[RunForTheHills]

We are kind of beating a dead horse at this point. This thread has demonstrated that it doesn't take much to push peoples buttons and fire them up. You either want that or you don't. I don't, but I am not a moderator. The Internet is a big place. This forum is unique, but I can avoid this site if it turns into a dumpster fire.

 

[E-HP]

We are kind of beating a dead horse at this point. This thread has demonstrated that it doesn't take much to push peoples buttons and fire them up. You either want that or you don't. I don't, but I am not a moderator. The Internet is a big place. This forum is unique, but I can avoid this site if it turns into a dumpster fire.

Yup, if it all goes bad, why stay. Maybe the poll is asking the wrong question, and should focus more on why people joined ES in the first place.

Why did you join ES?
1. To learn and share information about ebikes
2. To have political discussions where I can educate other people about reality
3. To have political discussions where I can be educated about reality by others
4. To find out how to unlock the speed limiter

 

[99t4]

subforum

If it was all contained in its own subforum, I'm OK with that. As long as the subforum has its own dedicated moderators.

Q: Is there a risk that this increased political content on ES could attract increased bot and troll activity on the rest of ES forums?

 

[RunForTheHills]

If it was all contained in its own subforum, I'm OK with that. As long as the subforum has its own dedicated moderators.

Q: Is there a risk that this increased political content on ES could attract increased bot and troll activity on the rest of ES forums?

“Slamming the political opposition was the most powerful predictor of a post going viral out of all those we measured. This was the case for both Republican and Democrat-leaning media outlets and politicians on Facebook and Twitter,”
Slamming political rivals may be the most effective way to go viral

 

[neptronix]

Just to be super clear.
The chances of either of my proposals going through is virtually nil and i am okay with cancelling the motion.

No consideration that comes at the cost of our core topic is acceptable to me.
I paid a very high emotional and time cost to get the get to where we are at today. And i would do it again.

But let me play devil's advocate for a second..
What if my hothead filter worked?
Would a mostly hidden part of the site discussing things you disagree with invoke too much of a disgust reaction to you?

( i have this for sure. If i noticed that i was in a room with a bunch of white nationalists for example, it would spook me even if the discussion doesn't go there. Racism and ignorance are the thing that disgusts me the most. Outside of that, i have an unusually high tolerance for people i disagree with. )

Is one of the problems the temptation of knowing that such a place exists?
Let me confess that i would have a hard time staying out of such a section myself.

Q: Is there a risk that this increased political content on ES could attract increased bot and troll activity on the rest of ES forums?

Yes. The gate to entry is there for a reason.
That happened with OTD in 2020. One of the straws that broke this camel's back was knowing that outsiders were coming in because it was one of the rare free speech zones on the net that wasn't 4chan.
Online speech was heavily censored around a number of topic back then.
The conservatives went nuts and attracted their ideological mirror image and i got to field reports of death threats.
OTD had no gate.

“Slamming the political opposition was the most powerful predictor of a post going viral out of all those we measured. This was the case for both Republican and Democrat-leaning media outlets and politicians on Facebook and Twitter,”
Slamming political rivals may be the most effective way to go viral

This is part of our problem. Other sites encourage the Jerry Springer action because it results in more ad revenue.
Many people are on those sites and can bring the resulting mentality here.
And since there were some years where people were not actually allowed to interact outside of cyberspace, the increased exposure to this toxic incentive system is still affecting the world's culture in a negative way by effectively encouraging people to attack and hate each other.

Our modus operandi is the opposite. Ours is that we continue to remain the best website on the internet to discuss DIY of small electric transport. Nothing is ahead of that goal.


Side note, i would like to keep this discussion open for a while. Traffic is slow during winter and i would like the maximum range of opinions i can get.

 

[fill]

This is funny. You addressed Americans by saying "the current american chaos" and to "engage with family and friends" yet you live in the UK and your avatar is an Ukrainian flag. You better look inside your neck of the woods, fix your own problems and let Americans do what they want to do. We are in much better situation than what you represent.

If you want to try to remain Civil while i attempt the same please feel free to PM me to educate me on what should be getting my attention and where my focus needs directing, I suspect you have me boxed as a type as I have you, lets explore if our first impressions prove true? I welcome being proved wrong, i have been wrong about many things, im sure my learning is in-complete too.

Is it possible to take winning out of the equation and instead consider some understanding as the goal of a discussion?

if winning is all that matters i concede. you win.

 

[floydr]

The occasional slip up is ok. The mods should know the posters that keep injecting there views on politics into threads not in off topic/dumpster should have there posts pertaining to small electric transport to be subject to approval by mods. After a warning of course.

Our modus operandi is the opposite. Ours is that we continue to remain the best website on the internet to discuss DIY of small electric transport. Nothing is ahead of that goal.

Later floyd

 

[BlueSwordM]

In the end, just know we're all comrades in this EV evolution.

We need to act and stay together as a unit of pure electron power. Adversarial behavior is fine, but avoir assuming the other is the enemy: always steer the conversation so we keep talking directly about electric stuff.

Remember, derailing the conversation is often in the interests of those who want to divide us.

 

[E-HP]

We need to act and stay together as a unit of pure electron power.

Hmm, maybe a different metaphor. Electrons strongly repel each other.

 

[eee291]

A nice feature would be a "ignore thread" option so that it may never appear for you as long as you are logged in. There are so many threads that keep getting bumped for no good reason, the interesting/technical ones always get drowned out.

 

[Comrade]

In the end, just know we're all comrades in this EV evolution.

Shhh! You are blowing our cover. ☭

 

[neptronix]

A nice feature would be a "ignore thread" option so that it may never appear for you as long as you are logged in. There are so many threads that keep getting bumped for no good reason, the interesting/technical ones always get drowned out.

This is a good idea.

There exists at least one Xenforo plugin that could accomplish that: https://xenforo.com/community/resources/ignore-content.6538/
Most importantly it would allow ignoring of an entire subforum!
There may be more plugins like this. That needs more research.

Right now i think our ignore function simply doesn't show posts by a certain person in a thread, but it won't hide quotes from them. So it's bad at virtually silencing someone you find obnoxious.

I have a few social media accounts that i use sparingly and i hit that ignore/mute button often to keep the noise level down. It works well. it's the only way you filter out a place with an awful signal to noise ratio and high rate of communication.

I think a primary problem with allowing a higher spice level is that if users don't have a way to control whether they see things they find aggravating/ridiculous/tasteless, then the site can lose it's appeal.

I remember the posts around the 2020 election liked to be at the top of 'new' quite often.
And the posts in those threads always starts as high quality, devolving to endless bickering.

Maybe we should have something like that function regardless of whether we increase the spice level or not.
Thoughts?

 

[neptronix]

I had plenty of time to ruminate on this.

Political tensions are high, and will probably continue to rise. We also have USA versus EU hostilities on top, which bubble up a bit here lately ( not bad enough to do anything about ).

Based on people's feedback and some experience here on what it looks like when you open pandora's box by just 0.1mm...
I think at this time, this isn't the right thing to do, even if we technologically control for it.

So here's what i want to do:
- no change to existing rules
- we figure out way better ignore mechanics so you could reliably hit ignore to increase your personal peace level
- when the zeitgeist improves, we will revisit adjusting the allowable political spice level upwards, but not as high as we used to have it!

Any further thoughts, gang?

 

[Apartunis]

Any further thoughts, gang?

As long as the standards apply equally across the political spectrum, I'm cool with that. But in my life I've seen a lot of regressive politics, right wing disinformation, and white supremacist nonsense pass the "nonpolitical" filter while factual historical observations that imply leftist views get stomped on as political agitation.

I trust that won't be the case here.

 

[neptronix]

As long as the standards apply equally across the political spectrum, I'm cool with that. But in my life I've seen a lot of regressive politics, right wing disinformation, and white supremacist nonsense pass the "nonpolitical" filter while factual historical observations that imply leftist views get stomped on as political agitation.

I trust that won't be the case here.

No. We pick a mixture of moderators across the political spectrum so that we don't accidentally get biased. That's been policy for a long time.
The last thing i want is a monoculture like all the other sites. Politically biased moderation is how you get one.

What's happening over the last 5 years is that Americans whose party lost an election recently cause the most trouble. They want to take their feelings out on someone who they perceived voted differently. And will never stop or de-escalate when asked.

So what unbiased moderation looks like, is every 4 years, we ban a lot more of one side than the other. Then get accused of being politically biased ( of course ).

We keep examples of the worst of threads and most controversial moderations.
It's part wall of shame, part transparency about the process, and part education on what not to do on ES:
The Dumpster

Scroll to the bottom and you'll get a taste of why we have the rules we have today

 

[n00b]

Just to be super clear.
The chances of either of my proposals going through is virtually nil and i am okay with cancelling the motion.

No consideration that comes at the cost of our core topic is acceptable to me.
I paid a very high emotional and time cost to get the get to where we are at today. And i would do it again.

But let me play devil's advocate for a second..
What if my hothead filter worked?
Would a mostly hidden part of the site discussing things you disagree with invoke too much of a disgust reaction to you?

( i have this for sure. If i noticed that i was in a room with a bunch of white nationalists for example, it would spook me even if the discussion doesn't go there. Racism and ignorance are the thing that disgusts me the most. Outside of that, i have an unusually high tolerance for people i disagree with. )

Is one of the problems the temptation of knowing that such a place exists?
Let me confess that i would have a hard time staying out of such a section myself.



Yes. The gate to entry is there for a reason.
That happened with OTD in 2020. One of the straws that broke this camel's back was knowing that outsiders were coming in because it was one of the rare free speech zones on the net that wasn't 4chan.
Online speech was heavily censored around a number of topic back then.
The conservatives went nuts and attracted their ideological mirror image and i got to field reports of death threats.
OTD had no gate.



This is part of our problem. Other sites encourage the Jerry Springer action because it results in more ad revenue.
Many people are on those sites and can bring the resulting mentality here.
And since there were some years where people were not actually allowed to interact outside of cyberspace, the increased exposure to this toxic incentive system is still affecting the world's culture in a negative way by effectively encouraging people to attack and hate each other.

Our modus operandi is the opposite. Ours is that we continue to remain the best website on the internet to discuss DIY of small electric transport. Nothing is ahead of that goal.


Side note, i would like to keep this discussion open for a while. Traffic is slow during winter and i would like the maximum range of opinions i can get.

If you were in a room full of white nationalists, that would probably be every single one in the U.S.
I'm an American Nationalist, and the red man and black man have been here the whole time.
They are us.
The guy that got shot and it kicked off The Revolutionary War was not white.
Oh, he had some friends, though. Do you know who I'm talking about?

 

[Risky Rob]

Not true. In my experience, the forum nazis are almost always Canadian and European. We are seeing, though these comments how dogmatic and intolerant the members of Endless sphere can be. Allowing politics to poison this forum would be a huge mistake.

 

[Hummina Shadeeba]

I'm an American Nationalist

I think people on extreme ends of the political divide in this county can call themselves that but when getting into contemporary issues they differ. The label has a shameful history.

Having a discussion where anyone who insults is booted seems a win for everyone and sounds easy enough to monitor here

 

[HardWaterATX]

I’m more in favor of productive discussion moderation tools. Something along the lines of Bluesky’s nuclear block function for OPs within their threads.

For instance, my main thing is e-bikes in the service of mutual aid which is from a certain point of view inherently political. Primarily for doing work with the unhoused, which does bring people wanting to talk about their problems with the unhoused whereas I would like to have discussions about the practical aspects of doing the work. It’d be swell to be able to talk shop with others who like I do enjoy helping people using e-bikes as a foundational tool, on the other hand I would not like to have a discussion (to put it kindly) on the merits of doing the work.

 

[HardWaterATX]

Like this, but for threads essentially

 

[neptronix]

If you were in a room full of white nationalists, that would probably be every single one in the U.S.
I'm an American Nationalist, and the red man and black man have been here the whole time.
They are us.
The guy that got shot and it kicked off The Revolutionary War was not white.
Oh, he had some friends, though. Do you know who I'm talking about?

We may have a difference in definition of terms.
Point i'm trying to make is that even an unusually tolerant person is going to have something that disgusts them and makes it hard for them to not go nuclear.

Not true. In my experience, the forum nazis are almost always Canadian and European. We are seeing, though these comments how dogmatic and intolerant the members of Endless sphere can be. Allowing politics to poison this forum would be a huge mistake.

You know the USA government is really screwing those people over right now economically.. and it's no surprise that some would get fighty.
From the moderator POV, yes, they've been worse lately, but they've yet to overtake Americans in making problems

I am in good contact with ebikes.ca and have seen what the government i pay taxes has done to them. It's not pretty. The only reason they've survived so far is because the owner is killer at thinking ahead many moves in the chess board we call business. I believe ebikes.ca will be one of the few survivors.
You know ebikes.ca pays the bills here so if their business is threatened, this site is threatened. We are a stronghold of DIY, so that in effects threatens DIY also.

I'm quite mad at my government on their behalf but it would not be right for me to take that out on someone.

I hate that the right thing to do is to re-seal pandora's box. But you're right.

I’m more in favor of productive discussion moderation tools. Something along the lines of Bluesky’s nuclear block function for OPs within their threads.

Yes, i think we should institute that as a hedge against the worsening of the Zeitgeist.

For instance, my main thing is e-bikes in the service of mutual aid which is from a certain point of view inherently political. Primarily for doing work with the unhoused, which does bring people wanting to talk about their problems with the unhoused whereas I would like to have discussions about the practical aspects of doing the work. It’d be swell to be able to talk shop with others who like I do enjoy helping people using e-bikes as a foundational tool, on the other hand I would not like to have a discussion (to put it kindly) on the merits of doing the work.

This kind of work is motivated by a punk or anarchist ethos which is something hard for the average person to wrap their head around. I get it.
If you told me you perform acts of charity because you're catholic, i'd view it the same.
Ideology aside, this is humanistic work, and that is to be respected.

Feel free to start a thread about it. You probably want to remain off hot button topics. But if someone wants to be a big ass to you for helping people because they dislike your motives, i have a problem with that person.

 

[E-HP]

Maybe try a experiment/pilot.

• Create a subforum for open political discussions. No rules. Enter at your own risk.
  • Monitor the activity without intervention.
• Create two more subforums, each representing the two sides of the "political divide".
  • These two have a single rule, you can only participate if you are in alignment with the subforum, with exactly the same opinions as the other participants.
  • Monitor the activity without intervention, except for violation of the alignment/cancel rule.

It would be interesting to see where folks gravitate, and the volume of discussion in each subforum, and especially the behavior of folks that are under no rules.

The first subforum is like real life; no rules. Today folks take things to the extreme and judge people's character based on the opinions they hold, so it would be interesting to see how the open forum would evolve. Civil discussion or hate fest. It speaks to whether ES is a community where people put forth some effort to belong or whether they are just fine with hating on each other.

I've been married for around 45 years. We don't live in subforum 2 or 3; we have our differences. We live in the first subforum, the real world. But we don't ignore our differences or judge each other based on them. The things that unite us is what's most important. We don't try to change each other's opinions; we accept that they're different. If ES is really a community, then maybe that's what the open forum will evolve into.

 

[E-HP]

For instance, my main thing is e-bikes in the service of mutual aid which is from a certain point of view inherently political.

It may be inherently political to imply the rendering of mutual aid is inherently political.

 

[DanGT86]

Allowing politics in the tech and bike areas of the forum will destroy it. I'd vote to allow them in the biker bar or off topic but prohibit it everywhere else.

I remember instances years ago where I was completely disgusted by some member's opinions and had constructive and informative dialog in the tech areas. That has been something I loved about ES.

If people are given the opportunity to argue politics and hurl insults on tech threads, they will. This will muddy up and obscure all the good info.

Valuing someone's technical expertise or their willingness to help pursue a shared interest can establish mutual respect and foster productive dialog about polarizing topics. So I think some area of the forum for politics is healthy. Just please not in the general area.

Political talk here needs to be fully opt in with informed consent and never an involuntary obstacle to the main goal of the shared community around electric vehicles.

 

[neptronix]

Guys.
I want to sincerely thank you for your feedback to help make a good decision for the site here.
This has not been an easy discussion but i feel like enough aspects got aired out and considered.
And we also got a few reminders of what happens when we crack the lid.

The idea is canceled.


The discussion also brought up some holes in understanding of what off topics section is for. And i also noticed that the politics rule is hanging out there and should actually be in the rules post these days. So, some new members might be missing it.

Here's the changes that are made today:
- the wording about what is acceptable spice level for political discourse in off-topic is un-stickied and remains up for historical context.
- the main rules post now clarifies the existing politics rule, and a super condensed version of the why.
- the main rules post clarifies that off topic is a little less loosely moderated.
- we've always replaced the F word with 'frock' to help tone things down. Today the 'T' world invokes much stronger negative emotions than the 'F' word, so it will be replaced with 'Orange Man'. <-- not popular and percieved as partisan, so cancelled

I want to apologize to those who can handle respectful discourse on highly charged topics, and miss this part of ES. I am in your camp.
We will re-evaluate this idea when the zeitgeist is far less fighty, but not before that.