Articles & Happening Meta Discussion

Articles & Happenings is the third attempt at a news board on the Kiwi Farms. It is a cursed place. Every moderator who has been assigned here has resigned within a year. During 2016, the political crossfire was so bad it spread to different boards and culminated in me banning American news discussion entirely for several months. It has been deleted in its entirety twice. There is no actual discussion here, it's people posting garbage. It leans much further right than the rest of the site and doesn't particularly conduct discussion because dissenting opinions are dogpiled by a thousand memelords posting shit they read on /pol/ without any critical analysis.

The only rules that can be enforced are empirical ones with boolean violation answers. New threads must cite a real source directly and must use the headline of the article as a thread title without any editorializing. Articles must be archived in some way and must link to the original article. Replies that are one word or a reaction images are automatic one-month bans from the board.

I'm creating this now because it seems like this place is here to stay and is one of the largest areas of the entire site. I might as well throw in bare minimum effort to improve it. I don't even try to find mods for here because they will quit, without exception. I've added new prefixes ("Business" and "Crime") just now.

Discuss.


New threads should be made like this.

 

[Superman93]

There should be a post limit for all users for A&H to cut down on bullshit and sperging. People post way too much bullshit in here and if they can only post perhaps 3 times a day they are gonna fight a lot less.

That would suck ass. The bullshit and sperging is what makes the board entertaining. Also, it is rare but there has been some pretty good back and forth discussions on certain topics.

They encourage dogpilling and discourage critical thinking and responses
If the problem with this board is that its discussion sucks, then we should encourage people to discuss and not just press a button and move on, especially if its a dissenting opinion.

I dont give a fuck about internet stickers. I'm gonna say my piece and if they don't like or disagree I'll either re-think what I'm sperging about or tell them to fuck off.

 

[mindlessobserver]

The A&H boards issue is a reflection of the larger internet I think. Most places where political discussion occurs has been moderated to such a degree that only far left talking points are allowed. The reason A&H resembles /pol/ is the same reason /pol/ is /pol/. There are very few places left for people speaking the English language to go in order to defy the group think.

A&H is an echo chamber. But it's an echo chamber that reflects the larger social divide in the english speaking world. I don't think any amount of moderation or appeals for political neutrality will fix that. Reddit, Facebook and Twitter hold massive control over internet political discussion and they are heavily moderated to insure orthodox belief in the cult of intersectionalism. The mods on these websites are not disinterested volunteers wielding the ban hammer on speds like Kiwi mods. They are affirmed priests upholding a religious orthodoxy that brokers no contravention.

As for why there is no counter point discussion on A&H? Why argue the alternative here when you could get free ass pats elsewhere. The best we can do IMO is prevent A&H from becoming a new stormfront. It's going to have a right wing bias because it's one of the last dissident hold outs. But we can at least prevent it from being an anti intellectual hellscape of "guess the race" threads and "is X actually white?" Like /pol/ is.

 

[L50LasPak]

/pol/ has always been a exceptional shithole. It was way more NatSoc before the MAGA influx of 2016/17. There's been years since I last saw a decent Holocaust thread.

Was /pol/ always a haven for NatSocs as they call them?

For a very short period of time /pol/ was funny. What's that old line though? Something about pretending to be stupid will bring on people who are actually stupid and want company? I mean, here we are. Its like there are no /pol/tards, and there are no commietards, there are just people who say this or say that and there's nothing but rhetoric to tell the difference between them.

 

[Superman93]

As for why there is no counter point discussion on A&H?

There is counter-discussion here. The reason why it doesn't happen as frequently is because people come to kiwi-farms to laugh at retards on the internet not have gay debates. It's the reason why frequent A&H posters are called /pol/-lite. They sperg out on and on about objectively dumb shit. Also the "Internet" Overton window has shifted towards the right. That's all this is. Back in 2006-08ish being an atheist and advocated gay marriage and other lefty shit was ridiculed in real life and was forced to retreat into the "extreme" confines of the internet. When it shifts back to the left you'll have right-leaning people complaining about echo chambers.

It's going to have a right wing bias because it's one of the last dissident hold outs.

Unless you're an ethno-nationalist, or white supremeist, paleo-con, or something autistic of that variety I don't think some obscure internet forum is your last place to vent out your right wing views.

 

[sperginity]

Why would you want to limit the amount of what people would say on there?

It's supposed to be a free message board where anyone can post what they want to say on there as long as it doesn't derail the thread or the discussion is on topic. Limiting the amount you could post on there can dissuade people from posting there altogether, particularly in threads where the news is ongoing.

hm yes, why indeed

Articles & Happenings is the third attempt at a news board on the Kiwi Farms. It is a cursed place. Every moderator who has been assigned here has resigned within a year. During 2016, the political crossfire was so bad it spread to different boards and culminated in me banning American news discussion entirely for several months. It has been deleted in its entirety twice. There is no actual discussion here, it's people posting garbage. It leans much further right than the rest of the site and doesn't particularly conduct discussion because dissenting opinions are dogpiled by a thousand memelords posting shit they read on /pol/ without any critical analysis.

The only rules that can be enforced are empirical ones with boolean violation answers. New threads must cite a real source directly and must use the headline of the article as a thread title without any editorializing. Articles must be archived in some way and must link to the original article. Replies that are one word or a reaction images are automatic one-month bans from the board.

I'm creating this now because it seems like this place is here to stay and is one of the largest areas of the entire site. I might as well throw in bare minimum effort to improve it. I don't even try to find mods for here because they will quit, without exception. I've added new prefixes ("Business" and "Crime") just now.

 

[Nobunaga]

hm yes, why indeed

Maybe null should stop """"hiring""""
( )
Morons with a bias that clearly dont like politics that arent theirs and cant handle the heat to "moderate" ( ie try to force their own bias) A&H
The idea of assigning jannys that are liked by A&H and have numerous interactions with the community and arent complete spergs is a good idea
It wont make A&H more tolerable to the crybabys but it will atleast stop it from becoming a more shitty nu /pol/

 

[TheJelqster]

A&H seems a bit right-leaning, but its nowhere near as bad as stuff like /pol/

I actually don't have a problem, with that, considering I came from Reddit which is a hellscape of circlejerking Berniebros.

 

[Teazel]

It might be time to divide A&H into sub forums rather than just tagging posts with types and creating mega-threads.

It would be pretty easy to separate it into... Articles and Happenings. I could see Articles having more a civil board with longform replies, while Happenings is where people have more lax moderation and can fuck around proper. That being said, I honestly enjoy A&H the way it is now.

 

[Samoyed]

AnH is my favorite thing to watch once in a while because there are a few funny moments. When the garlic festival shooting happened in Gilroy, people in that thread were doxing the wrong person who turned out to be some emo sissy edgelord that had nothing to do with the shooting.

overall, keep doing your thing, people of the a&h board. just don't kill a samoyed.

 

[Alec Benson Leary]

My Overton window as a millennial Brit with the significant privilege I am lucky enough to have benefited from is quite simply not going to be the same as that of a zoomer who grew up in rural Appalachia with hardly a pot to piss in. That’s actually what makes A&H interesting and worth visiting: this is a place where the majority of posters get to hear views and opinions that lie pretty far outwith their own bubble.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

 

[L50LasPak]

Reddit, Facebook and Twitter hold massive control over internet political discussion and they are heavily moderated to insure orthodox belief in the cult of intersectionalism. The mods on these websites are not disinterested volunteers wielding the ban hammer on speds like Kiwi mods. They are affirmed priests upholding a religious orthodoxy that brokers no contravention.

I have trouble believing they really think about it that hard. A bunch of them probably do think they're disinterested.

See, this sort of thing is what people are talking about. Its not exactly /pol/-tier, but it borders on outright hysteria. I know political paranoia intimately and this is exactly what it looks like.

I actually don't have a problem, with that, considering I came from Reddit which is a hellscape of circlejerking Berniebros.

I've always presumed the majority of people who complain the most about certain websites in reality post there frequently and show up to places like here or /pol/ to unload the spastic shit those websites don't allow.

 

[Smarty Pants]

I have trouble believing they really think about it that hard. A bunch of them probably do think they're disinterested.

Dude, it's honestly astonishing how seriously Reddit mods take themselves. I think might have been spoiled by the good, lightly moderated side of the internet we find ourselves in.

 

[DumbDude42]

it borders on outright hysteria. I know political paranoia intimately and this is exactly what it looks like.

but can you really call it paranoia if it's demonstrably true?
like, twitter does ban users for misgendering trannies. this isn't some hyteric conspiracy theory made up by some loon, this is actually happening. the yaniv subforum is full of examples of it.

 

[L50LasPak]

but can you really call it paranoia if it's demonstrably true?
like, twitter does ban users for misgendering trannies. this isn't some hyteric conspiracy theory made up by some loon, this is actually happening. the yaniv subforum is full of examples of it.

Dude, it's honestly astonishing how seriously Reddit mods take themselves. I think might have been spoiled by the good, lightly moderated side of the internet we find ourselves in.

I'm not stupid enough to pretend there isn't a severe state of censorship culture at play here, but come on people. Comparing it to a religion or pretending it has some goal other than just covering people's asses and legal fees is /pol/-tier and is hysterical.

If /pol/ isn't known for making a crazy Illuminati conspiracy out of every little thing that irriates them, then I don't even recognize /pol/ anymore.

 

[Smarty Pants]

I'm stupid enough to pretend there isn't a severe state of censorship culture at play here, but come on people. Comparing it to a religion or pretending it has some goal other than just covering people's asses and legal fees is /pol/-tier and is hysterical.

No fam, the people I'm talking about are insane zealots who get drunk on power and they're everywhere. What kind of a person do you think would want to moderate an online community for free? Go to a forum or a Discord group that's not either completely abandoned by mods or free speechy in nature and you'll know what I'm talking about.

I'm not talking about people who work at social media companies so I don't know where the whole "legal fees" thing came from.

I don't know why you keep going after /pol/. We get it - /pol/ sucks, but it's certainly not the standard for suckage.

 

[L50LasPak]

No fam, the people I'm talking about are insane zealots who get drunk on power and they're everywhere. What kind of a person do you think would want to moderate an online community for free? Go to a forum or a Discord group that's not either completely abandoned by mods or free speechy in nature and you'll know what I'm talking about.

I'm not talking about people who work at social media companies so I don't know where the whole "legal fees" thing came from.

I don't know why you keep going after /pol/. We get it - /pol/ sucks, but it's certainly not the standard for suckage.

I guess we got turned around here, I don't have anything against /pol/ in particular. I just see them as having a really specific pattern of behavior.

I do agree that there are powertripping zealots everywhere, but I don't see this as anything particularly new. As with most power structures, usually the people at the top are insane but the bulk of the enforcers are probably just in it for their own personal reasons. I really don't think a lot of these people are capable of the introspection required to actually enjoy a powertrip. If they were, they'd be competition to the people above them and would probably be eliminated. Sometimes this plays out, but it'd be total chaos if the number were as high as people think they are.

The "legal fees" part comes from a simple presumption that most companies encourage censorship because they're afraid of lawsuits and negative PR. To this end they recruit the nutty mods and write the really harshly restrained rules because they know they can wash their hands of any controversy and avoid legal repercussions.

 

[Smarty Pants]

As with most power structures, usually the people at the top are insane but the bulk of the enforcers are probably just in it for their own personal reasons.

The enforcement positions, especially if they're on a volunteer basis, tend to attract the people who have little going on in their lives and want some semblance of power over other human beings.

I really don't think a lot of these people are capable of the introspection required to actually enjoy a powertrip.

Um, you don't need to introspect in order to enjoy a powertrip.

If they were, they'd be competition to the people above them and would probably be eliminated.

Aggressive enforcers are not a threat to the higher ups - it's quite the opposite. Zealously enforcing the rules is exactly what the people running the show want. Do you think Null would be threatened by a moderator who passionately follows his instructions?

Sometimes this plays out, but it'd be total chaos if the number were as high as people think they are.

It is as bad and it results in order, not chaos.

The "legal fees" part comes from a simple presumption that most companies encourage censorship because they're afraid of lawsuits and negative PR. To this end they recruit the nutty mods and write the really harshly restrained rules because they know they can wash their hands of any controversy and avoid legal repercussions.

I wouldn't put Twitter staff in the same category as a subreddit moderators, though.

 

[sperginity]

Maybe null should stop """"hiring""""
( )
Morons with a bias that clearly dont like politics that arent theirs and cant handle the heat to "moderate" ( ie try to force their own bias) A&H
The idea of assigning jannys that are liked by A&H and have numerous interactions with the community and arent complete spergs is a good idea
It wont make A&H more tolerable to the crybabys but it will atleast stop it from becoming a more shitty nu /pol/

shit talking the people who make the board possible to use is extremely ungrateful. Some of the posts in this thread are weird, they appeal to some kind of guarantee or ethical standard that doesn't really exist (like fairness or freedom of speech etc). My understanding is that KF is supposed to be either fun or interesting to use, hopefully both, and damn near every decision I have seen from the mods/admins has been to that end. I don't think it has much (or anything) to do with political bias, it gets tiring to moderate the volume of post problems here. I hope the new rules work but I am not hopeful.

 

[Slap47]

They encourage dogpilling and discourage critical thinking and responses
If the problem with this board is that its discussion sucks, then we should encourage people to discuss and not just press a button and move on, especially if its a dissenting opinion.

Ratings encourage dogpiling? I'm pretty sure they prevent it by reducing unnecessary posts. Forums without ratings like Resetera, MAL and Gamespot just have walls of people quoting the post and saying "Golly, what a fucking retard you are".

 

[A Pox]

After reading the last 10 pages I have a new idea.

1) We build a roof somewhere.
2) We assemble all staff, former staff and supporters of staff.
3) We push them off said roof for being massive gaylords.