I think that much of the discussion here is focusing on point 4 without recognizing 2 also exists.
I am okay with multiple users expressing to another that a view they hold is - to put it bluntly - garbage. What I'm not okay with, and what we have a historical problem with, is multiple users dogpiling on to state/imply the
person is crap. Most of the extreme hypotheticals anyone can cite are going to fall afoul of point 2 and receive warns/sanctions of varying severity regardless - this captures your actual-goosestepping-Nazi-cosplayers, your "women are just too emotional and sensitive" misogynists, your "transpeople don't deserve human rights" cretins, your "homosexuals all deserve to get aids" bigots, etc. Depending on the severity, anyone meandering down these paths is going to find themselves in an ejection seat primed to launch or in various stages of descent without parachute.
Point 4 is designed for the friend-group correction process - "Hey Bob, sit down and shut up, that's idiotic" from six people around the campfire when Bob decides to announce that people questioning his favourite choice of beer is literal hate speech. Say your piece, Bob gets the hint that his take is genuinely bad, we move on with no hard feelings. We don't need moderators to step in in that scenario so long as it's over and done with. Now, if the same scenario in 30 minutes of "haha look at Bob he's an idiot" dominated by three people, that's a problem.
This is a forum. We respect diverse views, even to an extent that some of them are garbage - and to an extent, users (yes, Battuta, even you
) are sometimes going to have to suck it up in the face of comments you find personally objectionable or monstrous. The Standards exist to define a minimum behavioural standard and guide both users and moderators in their behaviour. Moderators, collectively, WILL draw some lines that not everyone in the community is happy with, and they will be case-by-case. I made it pretty clear early on in the COVID thread that there was going to be very limited tolerance for any 'truther'-type garbage that wasn't supported by actual scientific sources because it's a big deal. Other topics may see more, or less, flexibility. This is why it is important we have
a variety of active moderators who can set this kind of tone, and, of equal importance,
users who listen when that line is drawn. You don't have to like it or agree with it, but you do need to recognize that part of the reason we select moderators is to collectively set those lines for the whole community as these cases emerge. If a certain person finds a certain discussion objectionable on some grounds that are not covered by point 2 and where the moderation team has made one of these judgement calls, you have an option not to click on that thread. Letting these disputes fester and become a war of personalities instead of a war of ideas is part of what has landed us in this recent mess. Is the moderation team going to be as lax/apathetic as Facebook and Twitter? No. Will there be decisions that some of you may end up strongly disagreeing with? YES.
And, as Joshua pointed out, where things appear to get heated, the
correct approach is to Report the issue so these decisions can be made quickly and intervention occurs early.
EDIT: And before anyone gets too worried, while we are not re-litigating the past, I have numerous regrets and misgivings about the way some issues were permitted to fester around here in the past, so I, personally, have no intention of pursuing a "they're just debating ideas" approach that ends up with a subgroup setting up shop that is going to run the site's reputation into the ground. There's a reason the draft standards including a preamble about what HLP is for, and you should all note that "safe space for your favourite political soapbox take" is not among them.
