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Rule 8. Politics. Gone. For good.

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UrsaTempest said:
Partially? SB was one of the greatest colonizer, after the whole CR-quest debacle :V

Enough to make people treated as lewd part of SB/SV, at least.;
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True, but it didn't come about because of SB, which is something that is important to point out. SB's denizens merely came around to find something that was already there and ripe for colonization.
 
tehelgee said:
Let me be blunt: the no politics rule refers to current events politics. I'll even add that to the rule as it's listed, since I did say there was going to be some confusion about what constitutes politics and what doesn't.
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That... helps somewhat. It does not, however, fix the issue. To illustrate, just about any of these fanfics could be considered in violation of this rule. Hell, RWBY canon itself could be... and that's a rather popular fandom here.

Now, you apply a different standard in a later post:

tehelgee said:
So long as you don't introduce a character named Drump, who got elected in a highly controversial election...
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That's one thing. Your rule, as stated and explained, is another.

The thing about rules is that you have to keep in mind a number of things. The behavior you want to eliminate is not the same thing as the behavior the rule semantically targets (ie. what's forbidden by the rule as written). The behavior you will infract or target is not the same as the behavior that others will... or, for that matter, the behavior that the rule has a chilling effect on.

As written, and, Hell, as explained, this rule would forbid the average episode of The Simpsons. That's... okay, I suppose, but really isn't conducive to the forum's purpose of being a "place for people to post their quests without having to worry overly much about policing themselves." In fact, I'd argue that it goes directly contrary to said purpose.

On top of this, the "if in doubt, you can ask us" bit is... kinda not accurate. If it's close enough for us to ask you, it's close enough for the rule to have a chilling effect on it. Do I have to call a mod every time I want to introduce, say, a character who's an outspoken feminist? If it's too much of a pain, I might just rewrite the character instead of bothering... and that's exactly the opposite of what QQ's supposed to be.

I'm not going to play that game.

Cherry Lover explained a good bit of the problem. I'm not going to bother retreading his arguments... but yes, that is an issue.

I'm not disputing that the rule's addressing a legitimate issue, or saying that you shouldn't have a rule forbidding the sort of thing you're trying to get rid of. I'm pointing out that the rule is very poorly thought out, and my opinion is that it fundamentally alters the character of QQ in a way that I think of as very much harmful.

magic9mushroom said:
The relevant bits would be a neo-Nazi villainous gang and a lesbian villain in the backstory who wanted to literally kill all men. Neither was the main focus of the canon story, but there are fics here that do focus on them.
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In the case of the lesbian villain, you're forgetting that her movement started out as a generically feminist one, before it fell into extremism and stereotype. The kill/castrate men thing was where it ended, not where it started.
 
Hm, pretty ambivalent about the rule.
Quick nitpick though, you forgot to bold the rule in the Rules thread.
 
Rule 8 Clarification
  • Threadmarks
    • Okay, there is a lot of fuss going on about a very simple rule, and as usual it looks like most of it could be solved by simply reading the rule itself instead of the summary.

    tehelgee said:
    8: Current politics is a banned subject here.
    • This rule applies to real life current politics. At the time of this rule is written, this means things like Trump, feminism vs men's rights, SJWs, etc.
    • It does NOT apply to things such as stories featuring past events like WW2, Vietnam, nobility, royalty, etc. If it's something that happened 20+ years ago, it's most likely fair game.
    • Probably more than any other rule, the practice of asking if you're unsure is very wise.
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    If you read the specifics, it applies specifically to politics that are both real and current. This is because anything involving real current politics. Should women have the same rights and opportunities as men? Of course. That's old and settled politics. It's when you edge into current political issues that you violate rule 8. In that case it would be the women's rights versus men's rights / red pill / sjw mess. Likewise populist American leaders are nothing new. However a populist American leader that walks, talks, and speaks like Trump is current politics.

    And if you want to complain that this is a restrictive move... It is. The user base of this site has proven that it is incapable of discussing current politics, so you no longer can. I spent four hours last night dealing with users who wouldn't accept staff decisions, wouldn't obey the rules, circumvented threadbans, threatened me and other real people, and generally lined up to bash my faith in this community's ability to handle current politics into flinders.

    You can can talk about Bush, you can make up your own President, you can make up your own men vs. women debate, but the people who want to talk current politics have proven time and time again that they lack the ability to do so without breaking the rules.

    So now we do things the way the site owner wants to, and I will gladly endorse this new rule, because I'm tired of being proven wrong.
     
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    • For reference, this was the original form of the rule, as of last night when I first saw it.
    8: Politics is a banned subject here.
    • Trump, Hillary, Bernie, and anything else to do with politics is banned.
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    I think we can all agree that the current form of the rule is superior, even if I still regret that anything like it was needed in the first place.
     
    The motivation behind introducing this rule was to do away with the giant shitshow political discussion threads, which attracted flamewars like beehives attract stray bears. It was not motivated by anything that's showed up in fics.

    If you write a fic solely for the purpose of turning it into a shitshow political discussion, then we will look at it askance. But "political" content along the lines of, say, canon Worm (E88, Lustrum) or Harry Potter (Thinly Veiled Wizard Hitler) should be fine.

    The goal of this rule was not to restrict what authors can write. It was made in response to the stuff in Rants/General.
     
    I have two idea threads. One of them, based on Ringworld/Halo etc, assuming I ever tried to write a story in it or someone else did, would mostly in fact be focused on the geopolitical impact of the situation, interspersed with personal stories amidst the social upheaval. Similar to WorldWar/The Race verse. But more poorly written. Much more poorly. I miss Turtledove when he was good. Anyways, what about it?

    Its about time I put something together here to justify my presence, and without a vs forum or something else, it will require all me. I cant just knock a boulder over a watch it tumble.
     
    Vashon said:
    I have two idea threads. One of them, based on Ringworld/Halo etc, assuming I ever tried to write a story in it or someone else did, would mostly in fact be focused on the geopolitical impact of the situation, interspersed with personal stories amidst the social upheaval. Similar to WorldWar/The Race verse. But more poorly written. Much more poorly. I miss Turtledove when he was good. Anyways, what about it?

    Its about time I put something together here to justify my presence, and without a vs forum or something else, it will require all me. I cant just knock a boulder over a watch it tumble.
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    You can write it... trust in your self... it doesn't matter how poorly you write, the key thing is writing and then keep writing. You'll improve.
     
    I don't think this was really avoidable given the nature of those threads. This website revolves around having thick skin and saying, and doing, most anything you want. The Rants subforum was made to be a place specificallywhere anyone can be as mean as they like, and talk about anything they like. It's also naturally self-selecting; you have to have the thickest skin to post there, and to want to post there, you likely are going to have something meanspirited to say. It seems a given that eventually the culture would become so toxic that one big political event (or, perhaps, multiple, over a relatively close period of time) would set the puddle of sludge on fire.

    I don't intend to be rude when I say this, but, frankly, I'm not sure what you expected.
     
    tehelgee said:
    I don't recall Buffy ever mentioning anything about politics, I don't know a damn thing about Worm, Sekirei I only know through In Flight and that had no politics, and Stargate was US military and I still don't recall anything actually political about it(I didn't watch it a whole lot, though).

    So, no, modern times are not implicitly political.
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    Stargate Earth politics can be summed up real quickly.

    "Hi, Im a sitting US Senator and I am a titanic dumbass of such enormous proportions that the Goauld will never bother jacking my body, as I am far too useful already"

    "Hi, Im not American. The only thing I am allowed to do is die to make room for the heroes, the Americans"

    "Hi, Im a nonEarth Human. If I am in any way potentially a rival to Earth, Ill be destroyed or smashed to make way for the heroes. The Americans. From Earth. Otherwise, we occupy one goddamn village on an entire fucking planet."

    "Hi, Im in SGU, aka, Battleshit Faglactica the ReFuckening, written by men who are clearly dreading their franchise Simpsoning, and therefore any likable traits as an actor or character will be gone asap"

    Harry Potter is more complex and intricate. Significantly more complex and intricate


    As for the new rule and its effect on fiction?


    My take is "Dont be Tom Kratman, Space Marine"
     
    Happerry said:
    For reference, this was the original form of the rule, as of last night when I first saw it.
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    Even that much wasn't up when I started commenting.

    gibbousmoons said:
    If you read the specifics, it applies specifically to politics that are both real and current. This is because anything involving real current politics. Should women have the same rights and opportunities as men? Of course. That's old and settled politics. It's when you edge into current political issues that you violate rule 8. In that case it would be the women's rights versus men's rights / red pill / sjw mess. Likewise populist American leaders are nothing new. However a populist American leader that walks, talks, and speaks like Trump is current politics.
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    Yeah, but that's exactly the problem. About half the fiction out there deals with current (or then-current) issues in some manner or another... and, frankly, the core issues don't change much over the years. The "SJWs" generally evolved out of the third-wave feminist movement (with imput from the gay rights movement and racial equality groups). Women's rights groups did the same. Black Lives Matter is deeply connected to the civil rights movement and anti-racism campaigns... etc., etc.

    Now, I can understand not wanting people to pull the politics threads' shitstorms into creative writing by using thinly-veiled proxies for the characters -- a fic in which, say, Ronald Drumpf gets gang-raped by dildo-wielding mothers who are furious about his Secretary of Education pick, Mancy DeBoss, defunding their kids' schools would likely be, well, a thinly-veiled attempt to use writing to circumvent the rules via thinly-veiled proxies. I certainly don't foresee people here getting off on it, anyway.

    On the other hand, take Pokegirls -- and specifically this part of the backstory -- or, alternately, groups like the Limbec Pirates. Take any of RHJunior's works (and yes, I know he's spectacularly unlikely to ever post here). Take my own current project, which includes web-shaming in its backstory, involves a trap deliberately set for political activists, and will include a Lord of the Flies-esque breakdown of group unity amongst a bunch of gamers with extreme/psychotic elements on all sides of various debates forming villain groups for the player(s) to deal with.

    I don't think you're intending to block that sort of thing... but you are, de facto. It's really fucking hard to continue to write my project while intending to post it here -- even if I could get the elements past the mods. As such, I'm not even going to bother.

    Even with alethiophile's elaboration, my concerns remain quite active and unaddressed... and I still think that the rule was -- and remains -- quite poorly thought-out and defined. Trying to keep politics out of fiction is... not exactly a good idea.
     
    Aleh:

    As I said, this rule was not motivated by anything we've seen in fic threads.

    We'll discuss instances on a case-by-case basis, but it's not that likely we'll be looking at fics unless they cause a problem. If a disruptive political discussion happens in the fic thread, and we determine the author was inviting it, that may be an infraction. If nothing bad happens, you don't need to worry about what political implications might possibly be read into the story -- as you note, it's not possible to remove all of these.

    Don't deliberately court disruption, and there won't be an issue.
     
    One of the things that really disappoints me about this thread is the lack of faith people seem to have in the staff. Does anyone actually believe they are hovering in their Mobile Oppression Fortress, twirling their villainous mustaches, with their hand hovering over the big red ban button? That they have sold out the user base to their non-existent corporate overlords? That they are just in it for the money they don't get from the users or the lack of advertising? No, they want to read fanfiction, write fanction and look at lewds. That is why they are on QQ.

    Seriously, the sky is not falling. This is not a nefarious scheme to crush peoples artistic freedom. QQ has not been infiltrated by lizard people.

    Instead of acting like 10 year olds, why don't we act like the adults we are and look at this from the staff perspective. Scuttlebutt says that about 90% of the report queue was coming out of the Rants sub-forum and was due to politics; off-topic posts, uncivil behavior, failure to comply with thread rules and ignoring mod instruction. All revolving around maybe a dozen people. Any sane cost/benefit analysis would suggest cutting the topic loose. Instead the staff took the time to sift through and warn people, then thread ban them, then forum ban them and finally permanently lock the threads. Before making new ones with concise, explicit rules. That lasted less then 100 hours.

    How about we give Rule 8 a month and see what actually happens? Instead of fearmongering, hyperbolic claims and reading of dire portents we actually take some time to gather data. Maybe rule 8 will need a bit of a trim? Personally I think, aside from rants, everything will continue on pretty much as it has.

    If people absolutely need a politics thread then put together a decent plan for one and submit it to the staff. And by a decent plan I mean raise $25000/year to hire a moderator to wade through the sewer that a politics/current affairs thread would quickly become. Because that is above and beyond the reasonable expectations for a volunteer staff member.
     
    Conu said:
    One of the things that really disappoints me about this thread is the lack of faith people seem to have in the staff. Does anyone actually believe they are hovering in their Mobile Oppression Fortress, twirling their villainous mustaches, with their hand hovering over the big red ban button? That they have sold out the user base to their non-existent corporate overlords? That they are just in it for the money they don't get from the users or the lack of advertising? No, they want to read fanfiction, write fanction and look at lewds. That is why they are on QQ.

    Seriously, the sky is not falling. This is not a nefarious scheme to crush peoples artistic freedom. QQ has not been infiltrated by lizard people.

    Instead of acting like 10 year olds, why don't we act like the adults we are and look at this from the staff perspective. Scuttlebutt says that about 90% of the report queue was coming out of the Rants sub-forum and was due to politics; off-topic posts, uncivil behavior, failure to comply with thread rules and ignoring mod instruction. All revolving around maybe a dozen people. Any sane cost/benefit analysis would suggest cutting the topic loose. Instead the staff took the time to sift through and warn people, then thread ban them, then forum ban them and finally permanently lock the threads. Before making new ones with concise, explicit rules. That lasted less then 100 hours.

    How about we give Rule 8 a month and see what actually happens? Instead of fearmongering, hyperbolic claims and reading of dire portents we actually take some time to gather data. Maybe rule 8 will need a bit of a trim? Personally I think, aside from rants, everything will continue on pretty much as it has.

    If people absolutely need a politics thread then put together a decent plan for one and submit it to the staff. And by a decent plan I mean raise $25000/year to hire a moderator to wade through the sewer that a politics/current affairs thread would quickly become. Because that is above and beyond the reasonable expectations for a volunteer staff member.
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    I mean, I'd volunteer. I already mod on another site and I don't get paid for that either!

    And hey, something else to put on my resume.

    :V
     
    It would be consistent with this new rule to remove the bitch-about-SV/QQ/SB threads, heck nearly the entire rants section is irrelevant to fiction and lewds.

    I'd have preferred to have seen a dedicated politics subforum, with a couple trustworthy mods (who wouldn't be allowed to post within).

    I really liked QQ's politics for the variety of opinions available, and the excellence of the moderation when applied. You guys never feel like your oppressing either faction unfairly.
     
    Generic_Generica said:
    "Shifts."

    Wait you're saying I don't have to be chained up to a report queue if I volunteer? Wow this whole QQ moderating business is sounding better and better amirightguise?

    :V
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    More importantly Biigoh has the awesome hot pink mod color and Gibbousmoons has the flouro green. You might end up with the scrub tier colors like Teal or Salmon.
     
    Why not just create a QQ affiliated IRC that the Hateful 8 can all argue in.

    While the Hard 8 can just wash their hands off?
     
    Generic_Generica said:
    "Community management for two websites. Setting policies and keeping the peace."

    I mean I could actually put being a mod on SV on my resume all I have to do is /not/ mention the porn on QQ and this'll be fine!

    :V
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    "So, we checked out this forum you mentioned on your resume. Why didn't you tell us it had porn?"

    "Well, I-"

    "Because shit, man, it has the kinkiest shit on there! Everyone in the office got accounts! You have good taste, my friend. Hired."
     
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