Forum

鏡 wrote:

As for the readers, I don't know that ANN is equipped to recognize bad faith argumentation when it occurs - but maybe I am wrong and the mods have simply been restraining themselves.

Considering you and 2 or 3 others in particular in this thread are still here it's the latter. Once this issue is brought to a conclusion, and hopefully some rules change a bit, that will be rectified.

I certainly hope so! Though being able to recognize some cases and being able to recognize all cases are different things. I hope there are prohibitions on some of the specific forms that bad faith argumentation can take (through their being labelled OT or otherwise), like those I outlined in my first post.

I've been a member of the forums for some time, but like many others I mostly stopped visiting (much less commenting) because the same handful of posters who would derail threads and discussions in ways that always managed to skirt around the existing rules.

It was especially frustrating because it was always obvious what topics would set these people off: anything related to feminism, LGTBQ issues, anything remotely fujoshi-friendly, pedophilia, or any comments or reviews by whatever particular writer(s) they didn't particularly like. It got to the point where I stopped visiting the forums because discussions that would otherwise interest me became nothing but a hassle and an annoyance, and I know that I am far from alone from this sort of experience.

So changing the rules to weed out these troublemakers would be a welcome and LONG overdue change in my book. I know I would be willing to regularly post again knowing that constructive discussions could actually be had, good reviewers wouldn't be hassled, and that this forum wouldn't be seen as a joke by the larger community.

This is a bit of a quibble, but I personally don't like that formulation of 'all art is political'. I think it's more that political analysis of a work is a tool that can be applied to, well just about anything, but its utility is dependent to what the thing being discussed is and what the discussion is attempting to do. I think though that narrative fiction in general has a tendency to express the political norms/values of their creators, and therefore forms a meaningful part of the work to criticize.

Ashley Hakker wrote:

Seriously, being a white supremacist homophobe who watches anime makes about as much sense to me as someone who goes into a vegan restaurant and is shocked and dismayed that they can't order bacon. I mean it's clearly a THING but I don't get what their thought process is.

The connection between Japan and White Supremacy actually has a pretty lengthy history. German attaches serving in Japan during the late Meiji/early Taisho, many of which were racists, started to view the rise of Japan as a nation as a result of their 'racial purity'. And this sort of thinking was also picked up by the Japanese themselves, who came to justify their imperialist ambitions in East Asia as the natural result of their racial superiority over all other Asians.

I think the thought process is easy; idiots pushing ethnostates are eager to use any argument available to push for what they want here. They're also fine with consuming the goods of other countries so long as they never have to actually think about or properly understand them.

If anyone wants an example of why writers might be self-censoring, go look at the recent Devilman thread.

animenewsnetwork.com/bbs/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3083654

The article was posted around 10:00 Saturday morning, and for the next eight hours the conversation was all about how the Seven Seas edition differs from the French, and there are multiple different ways of ordering the chapters, etc.

Then last night, as if the Beacons of Gondor had been lit up, the usual suspects popped in to start complaining. How dare Rebecca mention that the story has problematic elements! Not everything has to be for progressives! She's just trying to score points with her liberal friends!

There's nothing wrong with pointing out when a reviewer missed something, but this isn't about any factual mistake. They're upset that the review interrogated the text from an angle they don't like, and they're questioning the reviewer's motivation for thinking that way. There's no reason for allowing that. It's a clear bullying attempt to scare ANN writers from even addressing problematic content.

Thanks. I've dealt with the most egregious posts.

Long time lurker here (2006?! What the F? Has it really been that long?). Probably the only thing I do here is lurk. I don't always log on but I'm always interested in reading the general sense of what the ANN community feedback is like. I read slowly and often times late so my responses have usually been parroted by someone else and then addressed so I usually don't feel a need to participate.

I will simply add my drop to the pool (if it means anything) that there definitely has been an uptick of thinly-veiled toxicity. Granted subject matter is also important to how easily a poster can derail the thread but it's most definitely there and the continued existence and their effectiveness to provoke does make reading through these forums for a lack of a better word: tiring. The thread stops being "on topic" and for a few pages over the course a some weeks they can maintain a side conversation.

To put some perspective, I would say I'm part of an older generation of forum users who will take the time to read through the entire thread, no matter how long it is (there' is no TL;DR) so that the response I generate is something that possibly adds something new or tries to reinforce an existing point. I have most definitely seen posts get buried or unaddressed in the middle of a lot of these storms where I usually stand on and the fact that they're seemingly unread also discourages my own desire to contribute. ("What's the point? Unless it's extremely combative or takes a firm hard stance to this side discussion, it's just going to get ignored anyway")

A bit a side note (but related to this) is that I think due to the nature and rise of this toxic behavior, there has also been some equally exhausting behavior of a few users who believe it's compulsory to respond and engage with said behavior. I'm not going to say something like "there's multiple sides to this" and very likely this kind of reactionary behavior is a result of the very outdated rules, but I believe it's important to reinforce (depending on how the redraft of the rules look like) that users should attempt to report more and respond less. I also may simply be too passive. I feel like I could have filled up a page of the ***sigh*** thread on my own but even that seems like a chore.

Also, the response to this question earlier in this thread regarding it's moderation system worries me greatly: animenewsnetwork.com/bbs/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=5042382#5042382 I too have been a mod and also responsible for leading moderating teams for forums for up to around 6000 active users, 400 or so concurrent on average, or 200 posts per hour on peak times, and the forum systems I've worked with have usually had some form of user history which made me assume that was the standard. Multiple tabs should NOT have to be required for moderation and at most, there should really only be 1 or 2 extra tabs per user/report max. I understand the internal development team is busy with other things but finding a forum system that has the basic function to look up moderation history should be pushed higher. Not having such a system is incredibly dangerous and taxing for the moderation staff and would contribute in explaining how things became the way they are now.

I think it is pretty simple. Anyone who is promoting hate shouldn't be allowed to be apart of this community. Forums and any place of discussion about media (like anime) shouldn't be allowed to promote hate or discrimination like that.

Random feedback for the feedback thread!

Several years ago I almost stopped coming to the forums. I had to take a lot of breaks. The main reason wasn't bad rules, it was bad moderators. New topics were funneled into threads nobody read, threads were removed for minor formatting issues by newbies, stuff like that.

While giving the rules an update might make sense, it won't fix bad moderator problems. There needs to be a mediation process for stuff like that, and also a clear way that when a pedantic moderator starts going nuts that someone above them will re-explain why those rules are there, and that while "the best kind of correct is technically correct" is a great attitude for Encyclopedia editors (no seriously, calling all pedants), it is a bad attitude for forum moderators. Wink

So the soapboxing starting in this thread by a few people can stop now. You're only proving the points about bad faith arguing and pushing agendas.

Zerreth wrote:

A bit a side note (but related to this) is that I think due to the nature and rise of this toxic behavior, there has also been some equally exhausting behavior of a few users who believe it's compulsory to respond and engage with said behavior.

I engage when I see somebody making tendentious arguments, like claiming feminism is about elevating women over men. Challenging factually incorrect statements is vitally important for ensuring that somebody reading the thread doesn't get lulled by a one-sided argument. That's especially true in a forum like this where a casual reader could be a naive teenager.

What happens when a forums member acts in bad faith elsewhere on the internet?

Someone in this very thread has been popping into people’s twitter mentions and lying about whats being said here and falsely representing my own website to me and telling me that my colleagues and I are endorsing censorship. In this particular instance it’s pretty easy to laugh off, but in the mean-spirited world of Twitter, someone could easily turn to harassment or threats.

If this were to happen, would there be consequences here?

Personally, I would say no.

1. I don't want to set a precedence of people coming in here to report the way other members are behaving other places on the internet. That's not my jurisdiction as a mod. I judge behavior as it happens on these forums, which are privately owned by ANN.

2. Admittedly, these are probably just unintended encounters rather than tracking those people across different social media, but allowing one instance of this could open doors to people coming onto these forums to complain about every instance someone said something on Twitter. I don't want to potentially promote stalking of other people.

2. We spend enough time just moderating these forums. To have to account for behavior elsewhere just adds more to the mods plate.

I agree behavior within ANN is what you have to deal with, and I can see a whole other variety of toxicity in users trying to use social media or some form of outside internet drama as a way to press a vendetta within the community. Don't think for a minute bad actors won't try to exploit that and induce many headaches in the process.

That said, there are times it MIGHT rightfully inform a decision. For example if it somehow did come to a mod's attention that someone had a certain history with outlawed bad behavior on 4chan or social media, and that mod were trying to determine if a user were trying to walk the vague line or not, I think it's only natural to take that into account when making a less-than-obvious judgement call.

But yeah, mods going out of their way to observe and litigate social media spats, not a viable idea.

willag wrote:

Personally, I would say no.

1. I don't want to set a precedence of people coming in here to report the way other members are behaving other places on the internet. That's not my jurisdiction as a mod. I judge behavior as it happens on these forums, which are privately owned by ANN.

2. Admittedly, these are probably just unintended encounters rather than tracking those people across different social media, but allowing one instance of this could open doors to people coming onto these forums to complain about every instance someone said something on Twitter. I don't want to potentially promote stalking of other people.

2. We spend enough time just moderating these forums. To have to account for behavior elsewhere just adds more to the mods plate.

I think your second point is a bit lacking. This isn't discussing the case of "unintended encounters" but rather the case of a user of your forums specifically and explicitly targeting other users in order to skirt your forum rules. In such a case does their attacking other posters not prove their comments on the forum are in bad faith? Again this isn't asking mods to police other areas, but to keep the forums operating on the ideas of a welcoming community and good faith discussion. If a user of this forum tracks down another to attack them for their //posts in this forum// then how is that not under your purview? Because the end result of that is that one of those people will most likely leave the forum, and do you want it to be the one chasing others away or the one simply trying to avoid being harassed for speaking here?

Forum - View topic
Forum moderation and white supremacists/neo nazi/etc

Dahlia in Bloom Staff, Ekachi Epilka Studio Respond to Report Claiming N. Korean Animators Worked on Anime

The Grimm Variations Anime Series Review

Anime to Watch if You Liked Shogun

The Quintessential Quintuplets Manga Gets New Honeymoon Anime

BLUELOCK THE MOVIE -EPISODE NAGI- Anime Film Review

Interview: Author Akihiro Nishino on Bottle George, His New Stop-Motion Animated Film

The Spring 2024 Light Novel Guide

SAND LAND Video Game Review

This Week in Games - Atlus With the Old, In With the New

The Story of Suikoden

	Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> ANN Feedback	All times are GMT - 5 Hours Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 Next
Page 6 of 8

Forum - View topicForum moderation and white supremacists/neo nazi/etc

Forum

Forum - View topic
Forum moderation and white supremacists/neo nazi/etc