Is this the official stance? (Or did I misread it?)
It's a long story, but Sciforums, as near as I can tell, hasn't been a "science site" for over a decade.
Start with the idea that some abstract
we want a science site, but also need to be "fair".
Now, then: What does that mean?
It's over a decade later, and I still cannot tell you.
We have throughout that period bent over backwards to fulfill a bizarre notion of "fair" that basically involves lowering standards for certain blocs, perspectives, or argumentative ranges. Throwing bones, cutting breaks. Once upon a time, your browser title would read, "Sciforums - Intelligent Community". That was a long,
long time ago.
Over the years, we used to refer to this idea, and I would sometimes refer to "The Company", the firm that owns Sciforums, because we've never really known what they want of us, so we've never really been able to be useful to them. At the same time, the idea of a "science site", or "rational argument", or a weird phrase that came up a few years ago about the defining aspect of Sciforums being its overriding respect for the scientific method, turns out to be ... eh ... not so much.
So, here's one of the problems with that phrasing: If it ain't hard science, then apparently anything goes. This was never quite explicit, and neither is it entirely correct, but that's sort of what it means to be "fair". The idea, of course, ought to be apparent to anyone who recalls the Colbert joke about reality having a well-known left-leaning bias; it will continue to, as well, until the left is actually in charge. Which is part of the joke, but also a digression if we keep chasing that rabbit.
The bias, though, is why it's not entirely correct. One of the results is that we're constantly backing up and bending over for bad behavior. Consider the question of reality as bias, and the question of rational discourse according to a story I
told in another thread↗:
A moderator wrote a political post denouncing Mexicans for being an army that was invading the United States and stealing jobs and economy from good, decent Americans. (You know, because we born Americans are just lining up for the privilege of that awesome job picking strawberries the rest of the world would prefer to not allow on their shelves for the dangerous manner in which they are grown.) Someone picked apart the racist tropes, explaining why they were racist. The moderator, elevated specifically for his political outlook—increasing conservative representation because, you know, we need to be "fair"—struck the post criticizing his own and instituted an unwritten rule that accusing racism is off limits for being ad-hom. As far as I know it was never enforced again.
The fundamental argument was that it is okay to attack ethnic groups as such, but not okay to accuse those attacks improper for their superstitious and ethnic focus. The advice from on high was to settle it between ourselves; the rule was never enforced again, but the action and principle allowed to stand.
We used to actually have a rule against saying stuff like "sheeple" and "AmeriKKKans", among other such denigrating language, but once upon a time we had this right winger who liked going off about Mooslums and such, and posted right-wing conspiracism and yelled at sheeple, so we didn't enforce the rule, and eventually did away with it.
Fair: So, someone accuses brutality in war. Someone responds that if you invade their home, they'll fight back, too. The one complains that the other threatened. The posts are reviewed, the complaint is dismissed. The complaining poster is incensed and continues disrupting other discussions complaining until he is issued an infraction. Another authority steps in and issues an infraction against the "threat" in order to be "fair". Let us be clear: In order to establish naked threat, we must ignore the preceding discourse
and eliminate one half of an if/then statement. Naturally, the other was offended, and said so. The issuing authority demanded an apology and threatened a thirty day ban. The apology was not forthcoming; the thirty day suspension was issued. Bottom line: We rewrote the English language in order to go after a member someone didn't like,
because a right-winger complained.
Over the years these fights have cost the staff; we've seen friends quit and leave over some of it. But the whole time there is a back and forth between important rigor like making certain to strike an
if clause in order to establish appearance of threat as pretense for disciplinary action, and the fact that it's just a website and everyone needs to chill out when it comes to figuring out why such things happen.
And it always works one way.
There was a point about three or so years ago when a particular issue came to a head, and as we started dealing with appearances of targeted harassment, one member declared his intention to continue behaving as such, having no less than five times refused to acknowledge the content of his own posts, and was thus banned.
That one ended up in a staff riot, but there are two points in there relevant to the line I've dropped on you. One is that it is whence originates a phrasing I've used on and off since then, about the defining aspect of Sciforums. It is also part of the beginnning of an arc that is especially symbolic, all things considered.
Because for years, when we appealed for advice, what we were told was to abide the rules and hierarchy and settle it ourselves. And when stuff gets out of hand, the question is frequently why certain things weren't done. After fighting tooth and nail over a ban for harassment, and then seeing a new, one-time rule implemented specifically to undercut moderation specifically in order to protect willful sexual harassment—triggering a bitter and costly dispute—it seemed clear that certain issues were to be referred up the ladder. So the response was that if you couldn't discuss certain issues without trolls, think twice about discussing those issues. When we had actual disciplinary problems, the eventual pattern was that the administration would sigh at being dragged into it, ask a couple questions, and then perform the ban that any of us could have issued, but for the history of pushback.
Some of it, of course, is general mod drama. And some of it is particular to our own bedlam.
Because all of this leads to a period and episode you might recall, Dave, from last year, a thread on misogyny in which latecomers blew everything that was flaming over into open rhetorical warfare. You and I had already done rounds a few times in that one, and shortly after everything blew up in that thread the last time there was a very unfortunate discussion behind the scenes, and I should note that James R was not involved, which is important because, for our purposes, we can fast forward a little while and certain of his remarks in analysis of complaints about white supremacism set me off, and I rained a certain amount of fire and hell all over the place, and namely on James R.
And it was in the fallout from that, at the end of last year, as I thrashed and mocked the bit about the scientific method that, well, you know, it turns out ... kind of not so much a defining aspect
per se as something of an aspiration. That, if I write my own punch line, we never really get around to trying for.
And in truth, part of why I haven't really been saying much on this count is that I'm uncertain what to actually do. I have a policy idea involving explicit obligation to good faith, as that, really, seems the problem.
That is to say, if we look at the prejudicial and other seemingly abusive speech that was in question, we had a couple theses to consider. One is that, being more enlightened, we cannot be so judgmental as to forbid something merely because we do not like it. I would, to this point, agree that if you're wondering at the absence of "science" or "objective" or "rational" in that thesis, the lack turns out to be important, so, yes, you've probably noticed something important. Because what people need to do, then, is argue it out in the thread, see? Especially since they are enlightened and shouldn't be so judgmental. This proposition, however, presumes the extremist participates in good faith.
The other says that if we forbid such speech, we will only empower it, and that's why Donald Trump was elected. No, seriously, shite thee not.
So ... okay, alongside the misogyny thread was one about rape culture. And that one is a powerful example because just how believable is the proposition that one goes out of their way to educate themselves about a subject and is utterly unable to find any proper source material, only YouTubers telling them what is wrong with the subject?
At some point it starts looking like the whole point is to go through such cycles, in order to normalize certain political irrationality. Which, in turn, sounds silly, but that's the thing. This is why Sciforums is not a science site. This range of superstition is what the variability and flexibility is for.
As a policy matter, it's a question of good faith. What that means is a bit more complex. It's one thing to recount these unfortunate histories, and quite another to know what to do, next.
And it's easy enough for me to make this sound like it's about, say, James R, but he's just another player in orbit around this weird principle that, apparently, refuses under any circumstance to be identified because to speak its name would be to gravely insult anyone near even its shadow.
This notion, though, to be "fair", has long been mysterious. The word does not seem to mean what we think it means, and explaining what we know about what it means is uncertain.
The majority of forum posters want there to be some accountability and some decorum. This habit some of our neighbors have of posting whatever crosses their mind as "fact" when they have nothing to back it and plenty of evidence against it, and then repeatedly stating their idea as "fact" in the face of overwhelming evidence, is a key reason why several of our brightest members have left.