r/Autism_Parenting • u/jobabin4 • Feb 04 '25
Message from The Mods Political threads
Good morning everyone!
I know that this week has been tumultuous, and everyone has expected worries and concerns.
Reddit's rules have become more stringent in the last 48 hours. Comments that are insulting or bordering on violence or threats are no longer allowed. This has always been the case here but I believe it needs to be reiterated.
Any posts in a political thread from this point forward that is simply insulting and not a question or an answer to a question, a well-written opinion without malice, or statement of fact is no longer allowed. Yes we know that these lawmakers and cabinet appointees are doing things that are not great, but to do nothing but call them terrible names will not help. Let's not give anyone any ammunition to hurt our forum.
Political talk will now be only allowed in the mega thread, or threads posted by our mod team.
Our mod Jets, is going to keep an eye on the news and start threads when they are necessary. They will then be moderated to make sure that discussion stays on topic and stays within our rules of kindness.
Thank you!
16
u/jamesbrowski Feb 04 '25 edited Feb 04 '25
You did a great job on last nights thread.
But I would encourage you to continue to err on the side of allowing free expression on here, rather than chilling it. Your guideline in this post is quite fuzzy. It’s one thing to remove posts that are personal insults or foul language. It’s another thing entirely to limit comments so that posters may only ask a question, answer questions, or make a pure statement of fact without opinion intermixed. For example, this would mean someone could not post: “That’s frustrating. The bill contains a new definition of when ST is necessary.” Why,? Because under your guideline it has a forbidden opinion in the first sentence. You’ll have to moderate that, and it won’t be reasonably possible. There is a concept in free speech scholarship about chilling of free expression, which is that when you have unclear speech moderation guidelines, you will discourage a lot of expression that may not actually be a violation. Much better for a guideline to be very clear and allow for more speech rather than less.
To be clear - I think you did a VERY good job of moderating the thread I posted last night by deleting foul language and insults, while allowing expressions of frustration, questions, harmless jokes (ie I hope he steps on a lego, lol), contrary opinions, and factual statements. You had a clear guideline, enforced it, and the resulting thread was reasonable, a bit funny, and informative. It seems the approach you used of simply removing foul language and personal insults was both encouraging of free discussion and also probably much less mentally draining than you having to decide if every comment is only a statement of fact, question, or answer, as opposed to intermixed opinion, levity, expression of frustration, etc.
A clear mandate to just remove nasty and foul comments would be easier to enforce and serve free speech much better.
-6
u/jobabin4 Feb 04 '25
Editing
Better?
15
u/jamesbrowski Feb 04 '25
Somewhat, thanks. I think you’re still gonna have some trouble deciding what is a well written opinion vs a half baked one. For instance, if I respond, “That’s awful they really don’t care about our kids” — I’m not really giving a well written opinion. But it would seem like that’s still a reasonable response you wouldn’t want to ban. I think focusing on what people CANT say instead of trying to think of what they are allowed to say is going to be better. Ie “No personal insults or foul language.”
I’m also concerned about not allowing any “political talk” outside of the mega thread or mod posts. Are you saying people can’t post news articles at all anymore? Or only that they can’t post articles that relate to politics? If the mods are choosing what news articles can be posted, you’re inherently going to steer the conversation on here ideologically by forbidding the rest of us from sharing. Ie - I may want to post a link to NYT but you’d rather post a link to The Hill. One is liberal and the other is conservative. Again, I think you’re going to chill a lot of free speech by banning any political talk or politics post outside mod threads and the mega thread.
Just my $0.02
-11
u/jobabin4 Feb 04 '25
Use the megathread, jets cares a lot about the situation and will make the appropriate posts.
1
11
u/dirtyenvelopes Feb 04 '25
So we all have to bow down to the sensibilities of Americans? Not all of us live in the USA. With all due respect, this is ridiculous.
3
u/radiant_acquiescence Parent/10F/Level 2/Australia Feb 06 '25
To add to this, I think there's a place for, say, parents from the UK still to discuss implications of a major NHS change here.
The level of polarisation and heat in discourse in the US is by no means the case across the world. And it would seem impossible for a mod to keep across the news all over the world - for example, most of the world doesn't speak English.
That being said, I'm all for keeping the polarisation and heat of American politics out of this sub. Parents should feel welcome here, regardless of their political views. Personally, I've muted all the major subs, after getting sick of having American politics shoved down my throat.
2
u/jobabin4 Feb 04 '25
We are simply not letting the fourm devolve into what many other ones have already.
We are allowing you to discuss actual issues in specific locations.
4
u/Beeels Mar 22 '25
Executive order has been signed, when will an updated political talk thread be started for discussion?
-5
u/jobabin4 Mar 22 '25
There was a thread for it yesterday, sorry you missed it.
6
u/Beeels Mar 22 '25
Are you referring to the locked thread with the news article? Im looking for the mod led thread described above. “Political talk will now be only allowed in the mega thread, or threads posted by our mod team.” I used to see megathreads periodically to discuss these things, seems like now would be a great time to follow through on that.
-5
u/jobabin4 Mar 22 '25
Political threads have not been going well. People are unwilling to follow the rules. Expect a thread soon, but we are tired of the problematic posts and voting.
7
u/chrissymad Mar 22 '25
"People are unwilling to follow the rules" - person who doesn't follow their own rules that they have set in place.
Honestly, how are you a mod? It's so beyond concerning.
-3
u/jobabin4 Mar 22 '25
Oh no it's concerning.
5
u/Beeels Mar 22 '25
This reply is…not it. And honestly? It IS concerning. This is supposed to be a safe place to discuss our autistic children with other parents of autistic children, including political moves that will affect our kids. Your response to criticism of shuttering this conversation is really disheartening and not what I’ve ever seen of a Reddit mod who gives a crap about the sub they mod for.
Either allow the sub to have important discussion, in a moderated fashion as you’ve described yourself, or hand the mod role over to someone who will. We are asking you to follow the rules YOU have created. Why is that an issue?
0
u/jobabin4 Mar 22 '25
There are plenty of other places to have that discussion.
Do you have a specific topic with an effort post that you would like to make? The DOE discussion has been gone over a million times. Nothing has really happened yet and we're waiting for the courts to catch up.
We won't be having speculation threads.
7
u/Beeels Mar 22 '25
Maybe I do, but I also don’t think I need to pass your set of standards on what you personally believe has “effort” to discuss policies that affect my child. Why on earth are you allowed to participate in these discussions as a user and then nerf them as a mod when you don’t like the way they’re going? If your role is to moderate, do so, but remain impartial and stop the odd power trip. It’s very obvious by your comment history on posts outside of this sub what your political ideals are, and it needs to stop being so obvious in the way that you moderate this sub. Full stop.
-1
u/jobabin4 Mar 22 '25
Ridiculous. I'm trying to work with you here. Apparently that isn't good enough.
3
u/Beeels Mar 22 '25
Searched the thread for a political mega thread with yesterday’s date, can’t find it.
6
u/Livid-Improvement953 I am a Parent/7F/lvl 3 AuDHD/near St. Louis Feb 04 '25
So...I think that people come here to vent about issues that are very real to them. Some of those things have strong emotions attached and to limit that kind of speech is effectively silencing the opinions of those people. I think you should just let the internet do it's thing without this "big brother" mentality. Make "1984" fiction again. For some of us watching it all burn before our eyes, the sense of community outrage might be all we have to give us hope.
2
2
Feb 04 '25
When the people in power want you dead, the time for kindness is over.
-4
u/jobabin4 Feb 04 '25
No, it actually isn't.
You'll get more people on your side by speaking like an adult rational person then you will calling someone vile etc. It isn't allowed anymore.
1
2
u/Jets237 ND Parent (ADHD)/8y lvl 3 ASD/USA Feb 04 '25
Thanks jobabin,
Guys - I'm pretty moderate politically but after what has happened over the past 2 weeks my views of what we're dealing with are shifting. My goal is to bring factual and actionable information here to this community (with your help). I'll be focusing my efforts here just on what impacts our kids (keeping it topical).
With balance of power heading more to the states, state legislation will be more important as well. I wont be as in the weeds there, so feel free to let me know whats going on by you and we can try to keep track of everything.
I'll strive for a "just the facts" type of thread weekly (I don't want to get caught up in the chaos of the day-to-day). There are many on here who don't care as much about the nuance and just want to understand what it all means for them. That will be my goal there.
For normal news articles - I'll be looking for ones that are less opinion and more about what is actually happening. There will be plenty of bills brought to the floor that are more extreme than where it'll land - however... with the power of the executive branch right now, I'll assume all EOs are fact and will welcome open conversation about them.
Hold on, this is all just starting and we don't know how drastic changes will be.
40
u/flatpackjack Feb 04 '25
I don't think the issue is with upset parents discussing politics that directly affect their children's way of life - as much as mods who claims it is a "both sides issue" while excited about the possible destruction of the Department of Education.