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I just realized...
Feb. 8th, 2010 11:01 am...that the post two spaces down this page, where I spent much time and energy and spoons engaging with someone who was trying to be "helpful" in steering the anti-racist conversation to "more productive" channels by avoiding words like "racist" that might hurt people's feelings and cause them to be less receptive to, you know, justice and tolerance and junk didn't even call anybody "racist". The post used the word "racist" exactly three times, in only two sentences, both of which dealing with the idea of racist actions arising without racist intent.
Apparently we can't even use the word "racist" to describe how much racist intent we think people in general don't have without it hurting people's feelings to the point that conversation about racism is pointless.
Ugh.
Well, I'm done with it. Not with blogging about social issues, but about engaging with derailers. I have a tendency to give a lot of slack in not assuming the worst, especially since I know that unlike dedicated social issues bloggers my audience is often not going to be immersed in the conversation to begin with... but... I just don't have the time or energy to say something meaningful and then deal with this kind of shit and also do anything else, like write the stories that I enjoy writing and people enjoy reading.
There was a mod post up on Shapely Prose recently called "We Are The Boss Of You" that was restating and expanding on some of their comment policies over there, in particular the "this is not a democracy" aspect. One of the things that I really appreciated was reading the commentary form the site moderators (and they have like 5 of them now) about how hard it is, how draining it can be, to moderate online discussion.
It really is.
If you let an iffy comment stand because you're afraid of looking like the bad guy or because you don't want to assume the worst, chances are you've already invested more time than it deserves in arriving at that conclusion. Multiply that by a few dozen times... and then there's dealing with people who don't accept your decision when you don't let a comment or a line of discussion stand.
You're either second-guessing yourself and letting the lowest common denominator run roughshod over everybody else, or you're being a "tyrant", a "control freak", a (would you like a side order of misogyny with your point-missing today?) "bitch"*.
All very true. I sometimes go weeks without looking at the Tales of MU comments (which means some languish in moderation queue for weeks) just because it burns me out so badly dealing with them.
And on this post that was basically "We are in charge, there is no court of appeals.", what was the response? There were a couple (or at least one) flounce and damned near four hundred people saying words to the effect of "Thank you! This is why your site is the only one where the comments don't make me headdesk!"
This post doesn't really have much more of a point than 1) I needed to vent and 2) I need to rethink my approach to comments, on here and elsewhere. I mean, even while I crack down on the worst things I've always let some pretty heinously gendered/misogynistic language slide on the MU and MoarMU comments and I know that this sort of thing drives away other commenters who might have something more interesting to say... I know this because this is the most common thing people tell me when they meet me in real life.
Not "_____ is my favorite character! Can we see more of _____?" Not "I love your work." No, "I hate the comment section. I love your work but I don't know how you can stand to look at them." The fact is I can't. At one point I let the comment section die completely and left it off the site for months. Not a week goes by that I don't think about doing that again... let it be someone else's problem.
I don't know. I'm going to go take a bubble bath and then I'm going to write.
*The Conversation We're Not Having On This Post: how "bitch" is or isn't misogynistic, how you and/or all your friends call yourselves "bitches", any cutesy acronyms about what it stands for.
Apparently we can't even use the word "racist" to describe how much racist intent we think people in general don't have without it hurting people's feelings to the point that conversation about racism is pointless.
Ugh.
Well, I'm done with it. Not with blogging about social issues, but about engaging with derailers. I have a tendency to give a lot of slack in not assuming the worst, especially since I know that unlike dedicated social issues bloggers my audience is often not going to be immersed in the conversation to begin with... but... I just don't have the time or energy to say something meaningful and then deal with this kind of shit and also do anything else, like write the stories that I enjoy writing and people enjoy reading.
There was a mod post up on Shapely Prose recently called "We Are The Boss Of You" that was restating and expanding on some of their comment policies over there, in particular the "this is not a democracy" aspect. One of the things that I really appreciated was reading the commentary form the site moderators (and they have like 5 of them now) about how hard it is, how draining it can be, to moderate online discussion.
It really is.
If you let an iffy comment stand because you're afraid of looking like the bad guy or because you don't want to assume the worst, chances are you've already invested more time than it deserves in arriving at that conclusion. Multiply that by a few dozen times... and then there's dealing with people who don't accept your decision when you don't let a comment or a line of discussion stand.
You're either second-guessing yourself and letting the lowest common denominator run roughshod over everybody else, or you're being a "tyrant", a "control freak", a (would you like a side order of misogyny with your point-missing today?) "bitch"*.
All very true. I sometimes go weeks without looking at the Tales of MU comments (which means some languish in moderation queue for weeks) just because it burns me out so badly dealing with them.
And on this post that was basically "We are in charge, there is no court of appeals.", what was the response? There were a couple (or at least one) flounce and damned near four hundred people saying words to the effect of "Thank you! This is why your site is the only one where the comments don't make me headdesk!"
This post doesn't really have much more of a point than 1) I needed to vent and 2) I need to rethink my approach to comments, on here and elsewhere. I mean, even while I crack down on the worst things I've always let some pretty heinously gendered/misogynistic language slide on the MU and MoarMU comments and I know that this sort of thing drives away other commenters who might have something more interesting to say... I know this because this is the most common thing people tell me when they meet me in real life.
Not "_____ is my favorite character! Can we see more of _____?" Not "I love your work." No, "I hate the comment section. I love your work but I don't know how you can stand to look at them." The fact is I can't. At one point I let the comment section die completely and left it off the site for months. Not a week goes by that I don't think about doing that again... let it be someone else's problem.
I don't know. I'm going to go take a bubble bath and then I'm going to write.
*The Conversation We're Not Having On This Post: how "bitch" is or isn't misogynistic, how you and/or all your friends call yourselves "bitches", any cutesy acronyms about what it stands for.
