[NickHodges0702]

Thanks so much for the feedback. Exactly the kind of perspective that we need.

I agree, it shouldn't be like that.

I guess it isn't a surprise that politics will be the hardest topic to moderate.

We'll keep trying to get better. Your comment helps us know where to focus. Thanks.

[boznz]

Moderating politics is not just hard, I would say its near impossible. I tend to hide anything that hints of politics from all my feeds, block users who are disrespectful, and reserve political banter for when I am walking with my friends, where we are all totally different on the spectrum, but remain civil.

[pbhjpbhj]

Cut off those using ad hominems. Fact check. All opinion should be labelled. Only one identity per person. Any associations or biases are public.

Do all that then I can't see what's hard about it ;oP.

Genuinely though, I think those things are doable. You probably have to have people use their own irl identities (at least the platform needs that information), which is problematic if you want free and open debate.

[edgyquant]

Fact checking is basically impossible as most things aren’t black and white and open to various interpretations. The idea of fact checkers online has been totally rejected because fact checkers themselves are vulnerable to bias and ideological capture.

[freedomben]

Indeed. A few years ago I spent a lot of time "fact checking" things, and it's nearly impossible because there is way more speculation/interpretation of "facts" than most people think. Misleading headline writing makes this even worse because a lot of people don't read beyond the headline, or if they do they interpret the factual body of the article through a lens framed by the headline. The NY Times are exceptionally good at this. Read the article and it's factually correct, but different interpretations and the subtle insertion of opinions (often through headlines) . I'm not trying to shit on NYT here. NYT is still among the best sources, despite their imperfections. But it illustrates well the challenge.

[pbhjpbhj]

Perfect fact checking, sure, but fact checking to the point of "this information comes from here", this person said this in this video, et cetera, is attainable.

[ragall]

It might not be possible to check every assertion, but in most cases it's possible.

[edgyquant]

No in most cases it’s not actually and only a small subset of things humans deal with have black and white true/false answers

[asddubs]

I'm honestly not even sure if civil political discourse is desirable in times of radical actions being taken by the government. I almost think that's worse than no political discourse.

e: To clarify my point, e.g. you can't calmly disagree with whether or not it's okay to shoot people in streets, that diminishes it as if it was just a slight disagreement

[freedomben]

What's the point in discourse if not to change the other person's mind? Triggering the limbic system of the person you are talking to is the fastest way to ensure they won't be able to engage with their PFC and actually hear and consider what you're saying. If the point is just to feel better about how righteous and right you are, then by all means proceed with your approach. But if the point is to influence somebody's views, then you are self-defeating in your approach.

Personally, I think federal officers have executed law abiding citizens. But if I start out by screaming "The Nazis have control of our government and are executing innocent people in the streets!" then not only have I closed my own mind to potential challenges to my views (which is at best hypocritical to expect the other person to be open-minded when I am not myself open-minded), then we get nowhere and just come away hating each other and thinking the other person is crazy. Worse, it poisons the well so the future reasonable person is immediately written off with guilt-by-association (person A was crazy and person B shares a view with them, therefore they must be crazy too).

[ragall]

> What's the point in discourse if not to change the other person's mind?

That was a question made at one of those public debates that the Oxford University likes to organise, and I think the answer is right on point: the purpose of discourse is to let the audience (or readers) reflect on an opinion, which takes time. It's *almost never* to change the opinion of the person you're debating. It's a given that most people that do like to engage in debate or public discourse are the kind of people that are unlikely to change their minds, and if ever they do, it won't be on the spot.

[freedomben]

Ah, yeah that's fair since we're talking about moderating online discussions which are accessible for the public. Although I think the principle still stands for people who aren't approaching the discussion from a principle of neutrality. The people in the audience that you want to change the minds of will react similarly to the way I described, so you might get a small percentage of open minded people but you limit your reach. The extremity of the position also tends to resonate poorly with moderates/undecideds, so I would still suspect that a more reasoned, logical argument would be more effective with the audience. That said though, you make an excellent point.

[goatlover]

I understand your point which sounds reasonable for a lot of debate, but the counter argument would be that in some situations you are normalizing both sides, when one side is not acting in good faith and is on the wrong side of history. Examples being Southern slave holders, Putin's invasion of Ukraine, fossil fuel interests regarding climate change.

If one did live under Nazis German rule, would it have been wrong to scream, "The Nazis have control of our government and are executing innocent people in the streets!"? At that point you're trying to wake the public up to do something about it, not sit down and have a debate over Goebbels latest speech with some fence sitter who can't decide whether Hitler has gone too far.

[asddubs]

yes, this was my point, thank you for articulating it much better than me

[edgyquant]

This can be said generally at all times by someone. It’s not just a naive way of thinking it’s extremely dangerous and a real threat to republican society. You will never sway the center with aggressive and blatantly bias rhetoric.

[pydry]

Not in completely open communities, no.

It would be better to gatekeep political communities with precisely worded "principle" questions and then flag for violations of those for anybody who slipped in under the radar.

Even political communities where everyone is nominally on the same page do break down over issues of tone, disingenuous arguments, etc. though.

[manphone]

There’s basically no point of political discussion if you all agree, besides bitching and moaning.

[Miraste]

Sorry for such harsh impressions. I think this is a worthy idea, but it's going to take a lot of tuning. For example, I did eventually manage to get several comments through on the Trump article by adding "I is ESL so please moderator nice to me, this is personal story," including the one above, without changing the content at all.

[NickHodges0702]

Not at all! We really appreciate the great feedback and comments. So much to think about.

Interesting on the ESL comment -- gaming it! Great idea!

[BikiniPrince]

You found a loop hole! Need to patch that out!

[NickHodges0702]

Indeed -- We'll look at it!