All trump supporters are ignorant rednecks.
You said, "A bad call by artificial intelligence would not at least...insult my human intelligence." That's ego.
You said that you preferred the moderation offered by Ask. Quick history lesson, Ask was a search engine first. They created their social Q&A (SQA) site to save the dying company because it couldn’t compete with Google. It flopped. They purchased ASKfm. Being designed as a business first, these sites leverage(d) moderators who were hired from the outside and were paid to be there. ASKfm has a bad reputation for member suicides due to the amount of online bullying. You can pay moderators, but you can’t pay them to care and people from the outside have trouble understanding what’s happening on the inside.
Online bullying and harassment are real problems that should concern everyone. Almost half of all adults experience it. Three quarters see it. The most common place for it to happen is social sites and the most common perpetrator is a stranger to the victim. These issues are associated with mental health issues, medical issues, and suicides. The initial group of people who helped grow this site knew that and had experienced it as members on another. That’s precisely why the policies were set up the way they were.
The thing is, some people don’t realize they’re being bullies. There’s actually a phrase for it: “unintentional bullying.” But, regardless of whether someone realizes they’re doing it or not, they have a simple way of preventing it. They can avoid talking about the people involved in the discussion and stick to the facts related to the topic.
Frankly, bringing up characteristics and traits of the people involved in the discussion is weak anyway. It has no part in intelligent debate. And yet, people do it.
Truth and respect can and should coexist. Anyone who doesn’t think so or is willing to toss respect out the window when it suits their situation doesn’t share the values in which this site was founded on and continues to operate on. That’s ok. There are other sites for them.
As far as how we handle moderation goes, our moderators have always been members. They’re real people who care about the community. Because they invest their time in it, they care about the outcome of the calls they make too. They care in a way you can’t pay someone to care. But, on top of this, I also make a point of selecting people from different backgrounds- people with different values and opinions. Each person is personally trained by me and no moderator ever acts alone. Every single time a removal is made, it gets posted for the other moderators to review. It actually gets quite interesting at times- all those opinions and values picking apart a moderation call. That serves two purposes. First, each person (myself included) has oversight. Secondly, it allows us to moderate in a more uniform way. So, that said, even if an individual feels their content was removed in error, multiple moderators eventually saw that content and agreed with the decision.
If there was a way to notify members in a “friendlier” way that their content was removed, I would be all for it. People naturally get prickly when their stuff gets touched, especially when they feel like judgment is being passed upon them. We try to tread lightly, but we want people informed so they know what we’re looking for and can avoid having issues in the future.
So, let’s say for argument’s sake that we pull something you posted under our respect guidelines because, to us, it sounded like you were slamming the other person. You’re right. We can’t read minds. We can look at the context and form a reasonable conclusion. But, let’s say you didn’t intend for it to be a slam. What has that changed? Nothing. You’ve said something that multiple people took as a slam. If we thought it was a slam, chances are the reader will too. So, even if that was not your intent, we still don’t want things that sound like personal attacks on the site. And, you can easily avoid having your content removed in the future by not talking about the person. Sure, it stinks to have your content removed. I get that. But, if you genuinely care about the people you’re speaking with and you agree that truth and respect can coexist, then you’re hopefully going to be open to the fact that maybe, just maybe, you could have chosen your words differently. Maybe you’ll choose your words more carefully in the future. I can tell you from my personal experience that the times people have told me I crossed a line, even when I knew I didn’t violate the TOS, I took it to heart and reread my own words to gain a better understanding of why someone might take what I’ve said in a way other than what I meant. I take the time to apologize and I keep it in mind when I post later.
As far as me avoiding Trump questions goes, it’s happenstance. I have a lot going on outside the Mug right now and I don’t engage in many threads at all anymore. If I saw something that piqued my interest, I’d respond.
And, to the comment about debate moderators not being candidates… Sure, but we also don’t typically moderate discussions we’re involved in either. We rarely do if it’s something obvious, like outright name-calling or cursing, but the rest of the time, another mod manages the threads we’re involved in. As you may recall, I made a note in a prior thread that a comment made to me was something I would ordinarily moderate. I didn’t because I was in the discussion. But, if we’re using your example, maybe it’s prudent to point out that the candidates are all residents of the jurisdictions they serve. The day America elects a non-American president to serve them, then we can make the case for having non-Muggers serving the site.
Sorry, but that is absolutely not ego. It's a philosophical statement of a value that I ascribe to---that the inherent value of a human being is always greater than that of a machine.
You say: “Frankly, bringing up characteristics and traits of the people involved in the discussion is weak anyway. It has no part in intelligent debate.” This is a thread, not a debate. Participants in a debate must meet higher qualifications---not the least of which is adequate knowledge of the subject to be debated. Each side of a debate must advance cogent arguments for their positions---not just their opinions.
As to censorship in general, you know where I stand from previous comments I have made to you in various answers and comments. And it’s been quite a while since a post of mine was removed, so this topic is for me a theoretical discussion. You present an explanation of the philosophy and procedures this site uses to enforce the TOS with regard to “respect,” and you suggest that using the moderation protocols of a site linked to suicides, etc. would be a bad choice.
But that would be true only if the greater evil is lack of respect as opposed to promulgation of error---after all, just because there is error in one direction doesn’t mean there is no error in the opposite direction.
You say: “Truth and respect can and should coexist.”
Here’s another quote---There are some things about which if one chooses to keep an open mind, one should keep their mouth shut.
I have no objection to moderators being members---but there are questions that I think a certain soupcon of wisdom would suggest they avoid answering.
my2cents 