Edit: After several days of allowing for people to discuss these rules, there has been no major feedback. In light of this, these rules are now considered the new rules of the community.
Hey all! rockSlayer here with a mod update. Recently, I reached out to the other mods and we came to a consensus to operate our community by our values and democratically select community rules. We also want to use some ideas intended to lead discussion. As long as there are no major objections, these are the things being considered. If there’s anything you’d like to see, add it in the comments!
Rules regarding behavior:
- Absolutely no fascism, right wing extremism, genocide denial, etc.
- Good faith discussion about ideologies is encouraged, but no sectarianism
- No brocialism/sexism
- No ableism
- No TERFs/ anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric
- No racism
- No trolling
- No insults, dunking, or personal attacks
- No posting of misinformation, disinformation, or fake news
- Remember that there is no “right way” to implement leftist theory. Do not accuse historically classified socialist countries of “doing it wrong”. This rule does not prevent academic criticism.
- Try to avoid extremely sensitive topics unless approaching them with appropriate care for intersectionality. Use your best judgement, and be prepared to provide respectable sources when having these discussions. Wikipedia is not an acceptable source in these cases.
- Mods have final say
Posting Expectations:
- Comics/memes/shitposts/propaganda are only allowed on weekends
- Try to avoid liberalism unless discussing electoral politics. Even then, try to focus on tactical agreement towards leftist goals
- Only one meta post seeking consensus per person per day
- Posts about a particular ideology are ok, but remember the rules above
- Post titles must be meaningful and relevant, except on weekends
Ideas for discussion: (admittedly, this section is a lot more loosely structured, and will probably result in meta posts. That’s ok)
- Topic/ideology of the week. This could be done a few ways, like a megathread. It could also affect what ideological posts are allowed for the week. The next week’s topic could be voted on in a mod-pinned meta post.
- Theory Thursdays. On Thursday, post articles/questions/videos/infographics discussing leftist theory. This could be as simple or complex as you want. Alternatively, this could work in conjunction with the topic of the week
- Create a discord/matrix server
This rules list is overwhelming. Some of these things I haven’t heard of or can’t think of an example of.
What is good faith discussion about ideology, but no sectarianism? Like I can be a… M & M’s fan and you a Skittles fan, and we both want a world that supports more Candy, but I can’t say you’re wrong and I can’t say when we disagree it will result in bad candy being in charge?
What are the consequences for bad behavior? Am I gonna have my comment removed? Will that removal include an explanation? Will I be banned?
What is a historically classified socialist country and why can’t I say they are wrong? That sounds like a highly academic discussion to me.
wikipedia isn’t a valid source
Wikipedia is a great source though, 99% of the time the text on wikipedia sums up what’s in several sources linked below. So now I could go to wikipedia and the writer could have made a decision based on 3 different slightly conflicting sources, I pick the first one - now my argument seems stronger but it might be missing extra context.
A lot of the time I would rather someone link me to Wikipedia than Corporate News (CNN, NBC).
Oh okay so we can have fun on the weekends when the normies are off from work 😋 neato, sounds like a board designed to be a headache 5 days of the week.
What do I even post here, theory? I don’t care much about theory.
What is this community aimed at accomplishing?
If you don’t know what some of the things these rules regulate, then you’re probably better off not learning what they are. For example, brocialism is justifying patriarchy within a socialist society.
“no sectarianism” is aimed at people who just disparage a leftist ideology, for example a Democratic Socialist calling anarchists uneducated or something along those lines. The goal is to argue ideas, not ideologies. We want struggle-unity-struggle, where people argue leftist ideas and attempt to reach an understanding, even if that understanding is “we won’t agree on this”.
Bad behavior will result in comment/post removal, and repeated or egregious behavior will result in a ban. I do my best to make sure the reason in the modlog is descriptive and succinct. I haven’t needed to ban people and I hope I’m never placed in that position, but I don’t know if banned users are notified so I’ll figure it out if it comes to a ban.
A historically socialist country would include Yugoslavia, the USSR, Vietnam, Cuba, China etc. There are plenty of things to criticize these countries about, but “not doing socialism” should never be a primary criticism. I consider most ML states to have practiced state capitalism, but when discussing these countries directly, it’s not a major critique. If the discussion is about whether or not they were socialist countries then it’s a valid critique, but it shouldn’t be leveraged that they did it “wrong”. There is no International Socialism Certification Board and the material conditions within each country always results in a unique system of governance. Saying that it was wrong is a white colonialist mindset, which is why it’s wrong.
Generally, yes Wikipedia is a good source. However, Wikipedia becomes extremely biased towards the viewpoints of the imperial core on topics that are highly controversial. If someone were to make a post about the Israel-Palestine conflict, it would be immediately removed if they were utilizing Wikipedia as a main source. The point isn’t to ban Wikipedia as a source entirely, but it’s not an acceptable source on controversial topics.
We want to have a more serious tone for this community, there are already a lot of communities that constantly post memes and propaganda at all times, so reserving weekends as shitposting time allows a decent balance to keep people coming back. As far as what to post, it can be nearly everything as long as it’s leftist. Questions, articles, videos, essays, electoral politics, etc are all allowed, as well as loosened rules on the weekend. We want to avoid neoliberal positions, but no one will ever be banned or have their comments removed as long as it follows the other rules.
Bad behavior will result in comment/post removal, and repeated or egregious behavior will result in a ban.
Such a kind of enforcement is quite different from what I have observed.
Just a small note, but anti tankie posting does not count towards sectarianism.
Honestly, if you are establishing the community as anti-tankie, then the rule against sectarianism would seem meaningless, indeed misleading, and almost sophistic.
I suggest simply declaring outright the sectarian commitments of the community, as long as your enforcement will lead to such an effect in practice.
Tankies arent leftists, so if we are a leftist space, then its not sectarian to exclude them.
Every community has different expectations for participation.
Each should offer a cogent explanation for everyone to understand.
I am not personally interested in sophistry.