Making it Better: The future of WP

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Alex, please do not make PPR optional like AF. I believe that would be one of the worst decisions that could be made for the future of Wrong Planet. It works on AF because the rules are enforced consistently regardless of which forum people attend.

WP would improve if we could all use PPR without fear of being mocked, heckled, insulted, or attacked for our opinions. It is the only "academic" area of WP and as an academic I would like the opportunity to discuss Politics, Philosophy or Religion within the rules you have already established. I would like to debate or argue on an academic level. If PPR becomes optional, a few problems will occur:

1) Making PPR optional would suggest that anyone who ventures inside did so "at their own peril", or their own risk of being bullied. There is a belief that PPR does not uphold the same rules as the rest of WP, and this would put users in double jeopardy. I can picture that if PPR is segregated and a member elects to join, they will be told "we warned you!", if something goes wrong. We have already heard the rhetoric of "you shouldn't have gone there!" or "it was your own decision!", and this rhetoric is used to discredit members' legitimate concerns when rules are broken within that forum. In this regard, it would be counterproductive, and promote more shaming / blaming for victims who get attacked.

We already have members being told that they should grow thicker skin, not be sensitive, not voice opinions they might espouse, and not speak up against people who break rules. We don't need to reinforce an idea that PPR takes no prisoners, or that we are responsible for anything that goes wrong in attendance.

2) PPR is an intellectual forum, and many members would like to discuss Politics, Philosophy, or Religion in an intellectual way. We should all be permitted to discuss academic topics without feeling restricted from any area of the forum. I studied and taught Philosophy. I shouldn't have to decide whether I will join PPR, or risk being blamed for that choice if someone breaks the rules to attack me.

3) WP is meant to be inclusive of all members and all members' opinions, so long as they do not break the rules.

The focus here needs to be on enforcing rules, and allowing members to use the entire site without disclaimers. All fora should be moderated equally and everyone regardless of their opinions should be safe, provided they don't break your rules.

Please keep PPR accessible for us all. I would not want to participate in WP if I felt I had to choose between academic discourse, vs the possibility of being blamed with "I told you so!", if I step into PPR.

Sure, but do you feel particularly motivated to help them? And while the whole all autistics (particularly males) are evil psychos might affect you less personally, it will affect a lot more those who have a public image to maintain or get involved in activism.

And for what? If all the fights in here proved something is that you're not going to change anybody's opinion or vote by shaming or insulting them if anything they just dig their heels in deeper and feel more motivated to fight against you. Surely people aren't naive enough to think that a stranger calling someone out for racism online - be it justified or not - is going to change anybody's prejudices: they just learn to hide them better.

Nope, they can be shunned and I am all for ignoring someone who has harmful beliefs. I liked when racists stayed hidden, I want to go back to that again. If we don't call them out, it gets normalized and they think their beliefs are okay because everyone is accepting them and acting like those are just opinions and it reinforces their behavior in expressing it because they think it's acceptable. If you keep letting a child do name calling and you do nothing about it, the child will think it's okay to call people names because there are no consequences to their actions. This is how I see racism. It won't stop the child from thinking their neighbor child is a poo poo head but they will not say it to them because of consequences.

You won't teach a child not to go and call people names by calling that child names for transgressing this rule.

So wait a second - as much as we're derailing - you'd rather hide things under the rug than deal with them?

Because that always ends up blowing back into your face - all of our faces actually.

The rest of the paragraph actually makes the same point I do: civilised behaviour and language, something that anyone (at least here) can either learn and more often is already capable of.

Not sure what to say about the rest as in my country we have the opposite problem: hidden racists that could be your neighbours or coworkers who meet in dark corners like cockroaches and believe it or not, they manage to cause a lot of problems and are more difficult to deal with.

LG, you are not in a parent/child relationship with your fellow citizens, and to suggest that it's analoguos to that is quite arrogant on your part. Also, if you censor a "bigot" before they can actually say their piece, how are they supposed to demonstrate that they aren't a bigot?

LG, I never said it's wrong - that's up to your own moral compass - I said it's useless.

Where exactly is all this racist, white supremacist and Nazi language that people are concerned about?

If someone makes a comment that is deemed racist, it should be reported to mods for a decision. Making assumptions or assuming that people are racist without a clear statement or evidence seems rather prejudicial to me.

Racism isn't allowed, and of course I'm antiracist, but I've yet to see any clear examples where a member has made racist overtures. People who call others racists have been asked for examples, but they've been unable to provide them.

Bigots exist on both sides of politics. As long as someone insists others must share their (non-violent or lawbreaking) opinion, they're bigots.

Bigots don't know they are bigots because if they knew, they would have stopped doing it after being called out. They cry censorship when they get banned or when their page shuts down by the TOS service. So yes, they do know they are a bigot but they do not believe they are one. In fact they like to call people bigots for not tolerating their bigotry so my comeback is "it is okay to be a bigot against bigoted opinions and it's okay to be closed minded against the intolerance."