Talk:Commenting Rules for the FSF Blog

Should there be a set of guidelines that apply to all?

One thing that several people came up with was "should there be a set of guidelines that apply to all?" rather than identifying a set of problems as "male behaviour" and identifying a set of problems as "non-feminist behaviour". Thoughts? Yonmei 06:46, 12 September 2006 (PDT)

• I reiterate my opinion that rules are a dangerous substitute for political action. Rules must be universal and indiscriminately applicable to be considered fair. If they require exceptions, those exceptions must be codified, otherwise their enforcers rightfully face charges of hypocrisy. Political action must adapt to the circumstances. For instance, identical treatment of unequals may perpetuate inequality, because the baseline's situation relative to each party may differ. (Taxing the rich and the poor by the same amount still leaves the rich much more money than the poor.) Yet preferential treatment, or favouritism, can either further unbalance the power relationship between people, or rectify it. Who benefits, in order to achieve one outcome or the other, is a question of politics. Anti-feminists claim that women who favour women are selfish, and that this is wrong. (Unfeminine. Lesbians. Man-haters. Separatists. And so forth.) This tactic discourages and vilifies women's liberation, and it is one of the most important forms of anti-feminist propaganda, because women favouring women jeopardises the fundation of patriarchy, which men's unrecompensed and unreciprocated access to women's time, labour and resources. On a feminist blog, what would be "fair" because it is equally applied to all can prove politically disastrous. (If you establish a rule to ban any poster for flaming someone else, you might keep "polite" anti-feminists and drive away justly infuriated feminists.) Civility is a product of political circumstances. Any change in politics will therefore entail a change in the nature of civility, and the rules of good behaviour have to be rewritten in consequence. The differences in case-by-case politics would make this unworkable, even for a tool as suited to frequent revisions as a Wiki entry. --Ide Cyan 07:44, 12 September 2006 (PDT) (NB: I started writing this before you outlined the Talk page.)

The original problem identified by me, Debbie, Pam, and others is that identifying the category "male", "feminist", "nonfeminist", etc., is difficult and won't necessarily reach the problem that we're trying to reach. For instance, guidelines for men/women references a binary that many feminist/queer activists are actively trying to question. Guidelines for "feminists" are appealing to those of us who adopt the term "feminist" to describe our views, but some people with similar views don't adopt the term "feminist" for various reasons; see, e.g., Alice Walker and "womanist". The "I'm not a feminist but..." information is great for trying to recapture and reclaim the term feminist, but I personally do not want people to segregate themselves based on a label that has come, unfortunately, to be problematic for people of color, young people, and other people for various historical and political reasons.

Hence, the suggestion that we address behaviors rather than addressing identity labels. --LQ 08:31, 12 September 2006 (PDT)

And I'm not suggesting we make decisions based only on the identity of commenters. I'm saying that their behaviour must be evaluated in light of their political status, otherwise the inter-poster dynamics will be too abstracted for arbitration purposes. --Ide Cyan 09:03, 12 September 2006 (PDT)

And furthermore, the elaboration of _rules_ tailored for various political categories was not my idea, so don't blame me for its failings, which I keep pointing out. --Ide Cyan 10:11, 12 September 2006 (PDT)

I see that my positioning made it look like that comment related specifically or just to Ide's comment; I saw it more as a response to Yonmei's original comment. I wasn't trying to imply anything about "rules" being Ide's idea. I imagine it was just convenient shorthand phrasing that was put in without much thought as to distinctions between "rules", "guidelines", etc. It was productive because it has given us something to react to. --LQ 14:58, 12 September 2006 (PDT)

As for Ide's comment, I don't disagree; but I would say, let us see where we get. Properly constructed "guidelines" should permit their readers to distinguish between feminist or political rage, or intemperate speech that furthers a useful political point; and hate speech, speech aimed at derailing conversations (trolls), speech unintentionally derailing conversations thru cluelessness, etc. --LQ 08:31, 12 September 2006 (PDT)

(Not to get pedantic about this from layperson to lawyer, but...) Properly constructed guidelines can explain what types of behaviour fall under our scrutiny, but distinguishing the nature of a given speech is something people do. --Ide Cyan 10:20, 12 September 2006 (PDT)

Right on. One amendment (in bold) should make this more accurate ... --LQ 14:56, 12 September 2006 (PDT)

• Really great idea to move the discussion here rather than email.

I liked what Kameron said: "Trolls get deleted; asshats who are just derailing conversations can be reeled in. If they refuse, shut them down. I suppose I'd just assumed this was what everybody was doing in the first place. And again: if you don't want to engage with somebody, don't." It can't actually be assumed, which is why we're talking about it.

My preference is that trolls don't get deleted; they get left up , and disemvoweled. That way we all know who the trolls are, it serves as a warning, it doesn't erase the publicness of the fact that we got attacked, and it can function as public shaming.

The fuzzy area is "asshats who are just derailing". I tend to act on the side of engaging with them for a bit, before I put in that "just" in front of derailing. I understand there are problems with that. I'm in the middle of a nasty situtaion myself where a hostile divisive guy is targeting me and one of my communities; in fact I have been warned that the guy has made nice to my friends and tried to appear reasonable to them, in order to isolate me. So, if that happens here, we need to be on the alert for it. So that the moderates, or engage-the enemy-more-closely-ites, remember to watch our backs.

I like the idea of emphasizing "feminisms" and the positive slant on things. I am agreeing with Debbie, Pam, Kameron, basically. I think we have Ide and yonmei on the side of heavy moderation and banning. And pretty much the rest of us trying to figure out how to say that if anyone becomes a huge problem, we will deal with it when it comes, and till then we have "guidelines". One problem with that is that we all have different threshholds of "huge problem". For example Debbie's teachable moment person making Ide exasperated. Or -- worse -- putting another of us in the position of being The Unreasonable One. (See the "rewards for placating men" section of Tia's post on unfoggged.) I appreciate Ide's alertness to derailing, etc. and am learning a lot from it. a LOT. (Were we an actual guerrilla movement engaged in revolutionary politics or violence, instead of a blog, I would probably be right behind her. Ide, you are suited to be a feminist Che Guevara.) But I think we can and will outweigh any crap from commenters, by the sheer force of our engagement with ideas and with each other. For me the crucial line in the sand not to cross is not to let men be original posters here. --Liz Henry 08:56, 12 September 2006 (PDT)

Does nobody remember the Pankhursts?! Also: I created a FSF Blog Moderation Log. By all means, let's keep a public record of offenders and our handling of them. --Ide Cyan 10:11, 12 September 2006 (PDT)

Disruptive behaviour

People asking the same-old same-old questions, disrupting an interesting thread by challenging a basic point of feminism: do we want to point them at the guidelines and tell them "go read" or allow them to disrupt the thread further by responding to their points at length? Yonmei 06:46, 12 September 2006 (PDT)

Yes, any of us should be able to point someone to those guidelines (rules, readings, whatever) when inspired to do so. That could be out of a spirit of frustration ("you're wasting my time; go read this"), encouragement ("you've got some good ideas or a good point but you're missing some critical analyses; go read this"), or any other reason or combination of reasons. It's not a "do we want" because we are all individuals, ultimately, and if we're engaging in conversations as individuals, we will have our own levels, thresholds, and reasons for referring people to the guidelines. -- LQ 08:19, 12 September 2006 (PDT)

Tone, Format, Structure

Good writing should engage the reader. Ideally, I would think that the "guidelines" would be friendly, humorous, & brief, with links to more pages that include examples, etc. In practice, it might work this way: A conversation on a blog posting is progressing at a fairly high level of analysis with a lot of interesting feminist disagreement. A newbie comes along, and, in a non-hostile but clueless fashion, asks some fairly silly question. One of the bloggers who has been participating in the discussion shakes her head, rolls her eyes, and posts a response that says, "The current discussion is way beyond the issue you raise here. You should start by reading the Guidelines; see particularly #5, and the links that explain in detail." The guidelines are a fairly short rules-of-the-road kind of document that list w/ brief description common problems to avoid, common fallacies, basic behavioral & communication guidelines; whatever. Each includes links to a page with a lot more information. These pages can even have their own discussion threads which could remain open. -- LQ 08:37, 12 September 2006 (PDT)

Fuck it, I guess I'm not going to get *any* work done today. What about a structure like:

1. Critical thinking / reading / Communications 101
2. Feminism 101
3. Check Your Privilege
4. Common Issues in Feminist SF Criticism: Educate yourself
5. No hate speech (this can be outright negative language)

• Most of these can be styled with positive language, not negative language, although I think that the "no hate speech" is fine to do in outright negative language; it *is* a prohibition, a rule.
• Each of these could be a short blurb or paragraph, with sublists of issues where appropriate, and links, always, to pages that have more detailed, discursive guidelines and discussions (if appropriate).

-- LQ 09:00, 12 September 2006 (PDT)

How about a section called "We've heard that one before." This is where we could list things like "I'm not a feminist, I'm a humanist," and "Sexism hurts men, too," with a discussion of what is wrong (or point-missing) about these statements.

-- JL

I have added a set of general "communications 101" guidelines (not specifically feminist) [[1]]. For easy readability, I think it's important that we keep these short and general.

-- JL

Additional resources

• Guidelines for Participation (FSF Blog) draft - http://blogs.feministsf.net/?page_id=19
• Call for Participants (FSF Blog) http://blogs.feministsf.net/?page_id=18
• Communications 101: How to Argue Effectively & Respectfully http://blogs.feministsf.net/?page_id=33
• Communication Guidelines (FSF wiki) http://wiki.feministsf.net/index.php?title=Communication_Guidelines
• Ginmar on invalidating women by telling them they're too angry, too crazy http://ginmar.livejournal.com/873536.html?nc=6
• Unfogged : for men on how to talk about/to feminists http://www.unfogged.com/archives/week_2006_09_03.html#005405
• The WisCon moderators' rules might be of use.
• Something to be gleaned from this analysis of weird & inappropriate communications on the part of commenter?
• How Not To Be Insane When Accused of Racism: A Guide for White People http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2005/12/02/how-not-to-be-insane-when-accused-of-racism/
• How to Repress Discussions of Racism http://coffeeandink.livejournal.com/607897.html
• 12 Helpful Suggestions for Men Regarding Conduct in Feminist Spaces http://community.livejournal.com/feminist/1362470.html
• Male Privilege Checklist http://colours.mahost.org/org/maleprivilege.html
• Yes, You Are (a feminist) essay http://www.tomatonation.com/youare.shtml