Yeah, true enough.
Important Going Forward
- Thread starter LordSunhawk
- Start date
KilroywasNOTHere
"BEEP!"
I find this weird considering the stuff on here I've seen is mild in comparison to crap i've seen on other forums and social media. if confederacy will rise again remarks and pro-nazi propaganda can be dismissed as a bunch of edgelords by the feds, I don't see how a 1776 meme can be considered prominent. Especially on some backwater site like the sietch.
Megadeath
Well-known member
Lol, no he didn't. You realise Australia and NZ are separate countries, right? Our PM is a right wing member of the hillsong Church, and the only time one of our MPs (NOT the PM!) has worn a burqa to parliament it was a racist idiot doing it to make a "point" about what a threat they are to our security.
Yes, I do know that Australia and New Zealand are separate countries -- hence the "in control of their governments". Plural. Learn to read.
I stand corrected on the burka-wearing MP not being the PM, though -- that was a fail on my part for misunderstanding. She's still an idiot for doing that, no matter her reasons.
ShieldWife
Marchioness
I watched those threads and I didn’t notice anything so “toxic” as what you describe. There may have been questionable claims in that thread, links to questionable sources, but that is the world we live in. We have left wing propaganda and anything that isn’t that is a conspiracy theory. I’m sure there were a few rude remarks, but most of what I saw there wouldn’t even rise to the level of needing moderator intervention, or at most a temporary thread ban.
Now sure, if somebody has a job that requires security clearance they might get in trouble for saying they want secession. Then again, they might get in trouble for saying that they voted for Trump. Any of us could get in trouble for saying that. People who might get into trouble for saying controversial stuff here shouldn’t say controversial stuff, or should be careful. I very much doubt that anybody will get into legal trouble because they posted on the site forum where somebody else advocated secession. Think about all of the left wing things people on SB said after Trump was elected, calling for secession was minor in comparison.
Megadeath
Well-known member
Lol. Yes, she is. But she's definitely not a leftist idiot. It was Pauline Hanson, who's best known for idiocy like "A truly multicultural country can never be strong or united." or "I can see in Donald Trump a lot of me and what I stand for in Australia" or there was the time she decided to climb all over a site sacred to the aboriginal people to prove she could whilst it was debated whether it should be legally protected, but got too tired a couple minutes in and had to give up. Or, there was her parties clandestine meeting with the NRA, in which they sought millions of dollars in return for relaxing Australian gun laws, including talks on how to sell a massacre for maximum political points, and ways to infiltrate and manipulate the media. The burka-wearing bullshit came after she warned Australia was in danger of being swamped by Muslims, a call back to her senatorial inaugural speech where she'd warned we were in danger of being swamped by Asians.
In short, that you'd use her of all people as an example of how "the Left is pretty much in control of their governments" is laughable, and makes it pretty clear you don't know the first thing about the subject.
Yeah, I can safely say I was wrong there after reading up more on the woman. She's an utter nut.
Still, Australia aside (though the whole "bash men"/misandry thing is still pretty rampant out there, sadly enough), my point still stands about Western civilization being rotted at the foundations. The next ten years or so are going to be interesting.
Please...stop this derail, the topic at hand is how the Sietch is to move forward and I dont see anybody commenting on new ideas or their implementation in regards to that.
Megadeath
Well-known member
Well, I'm glad that despite our disagreement on the latter part we can at least be united in ridiculing Pauline Hanson. And I will agree to drop the derail, with apologies to all.
While I am not willing to serve as a mod (already am one on another, smaller site), I'd be willing to serve as an ombudsman.
As for the secession mess? I think we need to take the policy of one of our sister sites, HPCA (History, Politics, and Current Affairs). run by the dearly departed Stuart Slade. (Mr. Slade left this world last week due to complications related to COVID-19). I assure you guys. Were that posted on his site, it would have been the mods pulling other posters off of those arguing for such a thing. I am not saying either is preferable, but whatever happens with regards to this mess of an election? We as a community must remain united, and within the confines of the law.
We should not add to the chaos. We should instead, transcend the chaos and if our lot is to be a lonely outpost of all that is good in Western Civilization? Then we should bear that burden with what the British used to call "the spirit of the Blitz" until that time that the West as a whole comes to it's senses and we can lead the vanguard of all that is right and good again.
As for the secession mess? I think we need to take the policy of one of our sister sites, HPCA (History, Politics, and Current Affairs). run by the dearly departed Stuart Slade. (Mr. Slade left this world last week due to complications related to COVID-19). I assure you guys. Were that posted on his site, it would have been the mods pulling other posters off of those arguing for such a thing. I am not saying either is preferable, but whatever happens with regards to this mess of an election? We as a community must remain united, and within the confines of the law.
We should not add to the chaos. We should instead, transcend the chaos and if our lot is to be a lonely outpost of all that is good in Western Civilization? Then we should bear that burden with what the British used to call "the spirit of the Blitz" until that time that the West as a whole comes to it's senses and we can lead the vanguard of all that is right and good again.
ShieldWife
Marchioness
Something I would like to see is more non-political activity here. It’s great that this is a place for right-leaning geeks to talk politics, but I think it would also be nice if there were just as much discussion about movies, games, sci-fi, fantasy, etc.
For some of of larger sister sites, that is how it is. SB is mostly apolitical content, with a leftist undercurrent.
The problem is, how can we encourage that? I don’t think that banning or discouraging political discussion is the way to do that.
For some of of larger sister sites, that is how it is. SB is mostly apolitical content, with a leftist undercurrent.
The problem is, how can we encourage that? I don’t think that banning or discouraging political discussion is the way to do that.
CarlManvers2019
Writers Blocked Douchebag
Compared to SB, somehow I don't think we have the same number or even kinds of guys who can keep on splurging out near random fic ideas for hours on end whilst talking to each other about it and posting snips
Who here's even interested in say, Goblin Slayer enough to talk about it for longer periods of time
We simply need more members. There's not getting around that. Sometimes I try to be more active in the "Media and Fandom" subforum, making threads and going on a small posting spree, but I don't get many replies.
Bear Ribs
Well-known member
I've resolved to simply throw out some content and see if like will attract like. It seems to be we do need a sort of board culture that takes notice of such things though. It's not encouraging to produce here when I see say, a map by Culsu that must have taken hours get 4 likes and no comments while a zero-effort repost of a political tweet gets 10 likes and five comments. But we can't exactly force people to like things either so I don't know how to get the community involved in that way.
KilroywasNOTHere
"BEEP!"
I don't think it helps that you have some members here that seemed content with it being an anti-SB political echo chamber first and content (Or even activity) 2nd I once commented that this was less a forum and more of a haven for SB refugees for a reason.
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SuperS4
I'll put something witty here eventually.
This.
I was informed about this site by someone. Came to have a look and joined on their recommendation. And honestly, I don't feel really comfortable on SB or here really. Because there is a lot of "Them vs us!" mentality going on on both sites. And not just in reference to SB/SV vs Sietch, etc. But a whole lot of it in politics in general.
Tribal is the way I'd put it. People can clamor about "Free Speech" all they want, but it rings rather hollow when it's less "Free Speech" and more "MY speech", so long as it fits with the majority crowd. To me, it seems a lot of posters are sour about what happened at SB, and anyone who wasn't involved in the situation are scorned, or at the very least, viewed with a level of distrust of "not being one of us" or "they're just here to spy on us"
I mean, look at the thread about the doxxing rules. Several members thought they deserved to know who someone might have been on SB, or that they should be treated like spies.
None of that fosters a healthy vibrant community. Especially one that you want to grow.
Same. I spend a bit of time trying to find interesting pop culture bits to talk about and post up in the non-political portions of the forum as well. It can be pretty hit or miss with such a shallow (in numbers) community.
ShieldWife
Marchioness
Well, the truth of the matter is that we are refugees from SB. If the PM hadn’t both been discovered and the members unfairly maligned, vilified, and/or punished then there likely would be no Sietch.
That doesn’t mean that we should allow that event to thoroughly dominate the nature of the forum, we shouldn’t. We should grow beyond the negative event that lead to our creation, though we also can’t entirely forget what happened at SB or what separates us from them - otherwise why even have the Sietch?
As for us and free speech, we are pretty open with it. We have the basic rules against hate speech and pornography that you see in most places, you can’t be a Nazi or Stalinism, though you can be a fascist or communist. Until relatively recently when we had a bit of a moderation meltdown, I think that we did a good, if not perfect, job supporting freedom of speech. We have had a number of communists here who argued against us and we allowed them to have their say. Moderators have probably cracked down harder of right wing speech than left wing speech, which puts us in the same place as 99.99999999% of internet sites.
Of course, if a communists comes here, they are outnumbered. They are outnumbered and the nature of the debate isn’t as cordial as could be desired. But what can anybody else expect? We are a right leaning forum, if we do not remain a right leaning forum then we become a left leaning forum and then just a less populous version of SB or SV. If one ideology is over-represented on a forum then people who disagree will be a minority and that can at times be unpleasant. However, while the communist on this site faced lots of arguments against them, were their hands ever unfairly tied by the moderators? Could our right wing members insult them and then the left wingers got infracted for defending themselves? That was the state of things in WH and pretty much every other geeky forum in the net.
Are we a bit on an echo chamber? Yes, we are and the are disadvantages to that. Then again, everywhere else is an echo chamber too, just one which excludes us.
Is free speech better served by there being 99 left wing sites that censor or restrict right wingers and one right wing site that censors and restricts leftists, or by 100 left wing sites that restrict or censor right wingers? Maybe free speech is better served by embracing our biases, by recognizing that if this isn’t an explicitly conservative nerdy forum that there will be no nerdy forums that welcome conservative people. I’m all for free speech and I honestly think that TS should be even more unrestricted than it is, but it’s a bit hypocritical for anybody to say that we only want free speech that we agree with when you consider how conservatives are treated on virtually every geeky forum on the net.
That doesn’t mean that we should allow that event to thoroughly dominate the nature of the forum, we shouldn’t. We should grow beyond the negative event that lead to our creation, though we also can’t entirely forget what happened at SB or what separates us from them - otherwise why even have the Sietch?
As for us and free speech, we are pretty open with it. We have the basic rules against hate speech and pornography that you see in most places, you can’t be a Nazi or Stalinism, though you can be a fascist or communist. Until relatively recently when we had a bit of a moderation meltdown, I think that we did a good, if not perfect, job supporting freedom of speech. We have had a number of communists here who argued against us and we allowed them to have their say. Moderators have probably cracked down harder of right wing speech than left wing speech, which puts us in the same place as 99.99999999% of internet sites.
Of course, if a communists comes here, they are outnumbered. They are outnumbered and the nature of the debate isn’t as cordial as could be desired. But what can anybody else expect? We are a right leaning forum, if we do not remain a right leaning forum then we become a left leaning forum and then just a less populous version of SB or SV. If one ideology is over-represented on a forum then people who disagree will be a minority and that can at times be unpleasant. However, while the communist on this site faced lots of arguments against them, were their hands ever unfairly tied by the moderators? Could our right wing members insult them and then the left wingers got infracted for defending themselves? That was the state of things in WH and pretty much every other geeky forum in the net.
Are we a bit on an echo chamber? Yes, we are and the are disadvantages to that. Then again, everywhere else is an echo chamber too, just one which excludes us.
Is free speech better served by there being 99 left wing sites that censor or restrict right wingers and one right wing site that censors and restricts leftists, or by 100 left wing sites that restrict or censor right wingers? Maybe free speech is better served by embracing our biases, by recognizing that if this isn’t an explicitly conservative nerdy forum that there will be no nerdy forums that welcome conservative people. I’m all for free speech and I honestly think that TS should be even more unrestricted than it is, but it’s a bit hypocritical for anybody to say that we only want free speech that we agree with when you consider how conservatives are treated on virtually every geeky forum on the net.
True, it is good for us to try to post non-political content, because it’s a self strengthening cycle of sorts. Less content leads to less content, more content leads to more content. More members help this, us posting more would help too.
Battlestar
Member
There is no free speech when perma bans are handed out for said speech with no warnings. The mods banned criticism of certain topics. No more commenting on the election.
Guncannon
Pessimistic Pilot
So with my point of view as an outsider here, I'll just say that if you want more people to join the site then keep all the Spacebattles bitching and other related communities in the thread already sitting in the NSFW section. Or even have one of the subscribers host their own private subforum. Does anybody use this feature?
The majority of members here I understand come from there and it was the glue that brought them all together for the foundation of this site, but now you gotta start building out. Tend the yard, get some new windows, and keep all the drama in the basement. Otherwise, people visiting the site are going to feel excluded before even thinking about joining!
The moderators and new owner are going to have to have to ask the members here a crucial question for the future: Are you content keeping this place as a social club tied to a particular circle of websites and defined by its politics, or do you want it to be a unique sci fi oriented site hosting creator content and discussion?
The majority of members here I understand come from there and it was the glue that brought them all together for the foundation of this site, but now you gotta start building out. Tend the yard, get some new windows, and keep all the drama in the basement. Otherwise, people visiting the site are going to feel excluded before even thinking about joining!
The moderators and new owner are going to have to have to ask the members here a crucial question for the future: Are you content keeping this place as a social club tied to a particular circle of websites and defined by its politics, or do you want it to be a unique sci fi oriented site hosting creator content and discussion?