None affiliated. No mods here are Reddit mods, we’re just a community, some of whom have evacuated Reddit, wanting to discuss UK politics. The megathread is here to make us /r/ukpol types feel at home.
Alright so there’s no fash mods here yet then? Any future plans for that?
I ask because I mod /r/greenandpleasant and our experience with the ukpolitics modteam was that they made excuses for multiple fascists existing on the team in the name of “diverse representation of the UK political spectrum”, which was bullshit because they also refused to have any marxists on the modteam.
The unbiased space it presented itself as it was not, and the left on the site boycotted it accordingly outside of election periods lending a considerably right lean to it.
I’m not averse to engaging in a space that genuinely seeks to engage all corners of our country’s politics in good faith.
Yeah, as a former ukpol regular I am aware of the problematic nature of some of the moderation there. The following is all my personal thoughts (@NuPNuA may chime in, neither of us are particularly dictatorial in how this place is run but we haven’t disagreed yet) but hopefully gives you the gist of what I hope the community will be.
Because of the small size of this community right now, moderation is very light touch. Lemmy gives you the tools to block and hide threads as you see fit so mods right now are for clearing spam and stickying mega threads and not much else. That would only need to be reviewed if and when the community gets to a much more significant size.
Because of 1), additional mods would only be appointed if there was a need. If a Reddit ukpol mod came to this board, they’re quite welcome, but they would not be given mod permissions just because they had them on Reddit. If we decide there’s more mods required, we’ll have an open discussion with the community about filling that need.
That said, and I am about to go all centrist dad here, I personally am as uninterested in moderating a hard left community as I am in moderating a hard right community. Lemmy has no shortage of hard left spaces already (including, I believe, an /r/greenandpleasant spinoff) and this will not be one of them as long as I am a mod. Right now we don’t have any real rules (woo yay anarchy) because we haven’t needed to get strict with anyone. If this place starts getting filled up with soapboxing, hate speech, any kind of *-phobist behaviour, or generally becoming an unpleasant place for me to discuss my tedious centrist views, I will push for us to have rules and for them to be enforced.
If I had to articulate what I’m after, it’s a BBC / Guardian / Financial Times comments section with shitposting and more political nerdery and without the spEak You’re bRanes brigade.
I’m the same here, the goal is not for this to lean in anyone direction but for people to discuss and debate and even argue as long as it’s respectful. I’ve already made the mistake of wondering into the Lemmy.ml and Behaw news communities and angered the tankies and I don’t want that here.
The “i don’t want factions” faction is as much a faction as all the others. Would you prefer I not say the word faction? Would you prefer the word ideology? Everyone has an ideology, whether they are aware of it or not. These ideologies result in political factions. The core ideological factions of the UK are the socialists, the neoliberals and the fascists. There used too be a faction between the neoliberals and the fascists but they basically collapsed with David Cameron followed by Brexit.
These groupings exist because they have irreconcilable differences in ideology. Socialists want to abolish private property whereas the other factions do not. The fascists (or at least part of them, complexity occurs here) want an anglo ethnostate and to stamp on the neck of the workers with hierarchical power while the other factions do not. The difference between ideologies is that create factions is in the policy beliefs where there is no middle-ground, where things become irreconcilable. There is no middle ground between the existence of private property and not. There is no middle ground between an anglo ethnostate and not.
If you believe in property and I do not we are naturally going to be in opposing factions. How do you propose eliminating that? Trying to claim this is a problem only because of people who acknowledge the factions exist is just refusing to accept the real differences that create them.
Which you’ve just invented. No such animal exists unless you insist on comprehending the world in absolutes. It’s an unhelpful choice.
irreconcilable differences in ideology
There are none. When you choose an ideology that claims there are, then you are de facto giving up on politics in favour of fighting.
The reason we as a species gradually invented politics over the last five or ten thousand years is precisely to reconcile differences of opinion that would otherwise lead to conflict. A refusal to partake in it would be base barbarism, in my estimation.
There are none. When you choose an ideology that claims there are, then you are de facto giving up on politics in favour of fighting.
You did not answer my question. What is the reconcilable position between “private property exists” and “private property does not exist” ?
If you can’t answer this then you must accept that all you are saying is “stop having politics that can’t be reconciled” which is just out of touch with reality.
The reason we as a species gradually invented politics over the last five or ten thousand years is precisely to reconcile differences of opinion that would otherwise lead to conflict. A refusal to partake in it would be base barbarism, in my estimation.
What? “Politics” is not about reconciliation. It is a battle between competing ideologies created by contradictions in society for the securement of the power to implement those ideologies. The very idea that you think a person of colour can reconcile with the people that want that person exterminated or deported is utterly absurd. “Politics” does not simply take place in the halls of institutions dedicated to policy either, politics also takes place in the streets, in the workplace, and through the barrel of a gun. Seeing politics solely as what occurs in westminster is an extremely narrow field of view, lgbt people for example did not achieve all the gains they have in the halls of power, they achieved them in the streets. Similarly workers rarely ever achieve their victories in the halls, they achieve them in the streets and the workplace.
I’ll be honest, I noticed that in my last few months of using the UK Pol on Reddit that the mod team seemed to lean in a particular direction politics wise. I realised after reporting transphobia a few times it was actually comeing from a few of them.
I’m happy to allow all sides here as long as it’s respectful. I’m not going to give much truck to right leaning ideas myself but nothing is banned.
I’ll be honest, I noticed that in my last few months of using the UK Pol on Reddit that the mod team seemed to lean in a particular direction politics wise.
I’m glad it’s at least become visible. It was quite hard to see it at one point because there was still some participation occurring from the soft-left. We did an awfully large amount of work at gap to create conditions that make it more visible.
The biggest problem on reddit is that subreddit moderation is a black box. It is extremely easy as moderators to moderate along ideological lines and hide that from the userbase, I say that because we moderate ideologically in many subreddits and it’s completely hidden. Not because we want it to be hidden of course (I am happy to speak openly about it) but because that is just how it is on reddit. It’s impossible to make it clear or visible that it’s happening and you can’t actively inform the userbase of a community who are unaware of it from within that community when the modteam is actively suppressing it.
A few times we tried to address this with r/ukpol, even explicitly offering to have marxists join the modteam for more balance and to represent the 33% or so of the UK that isn’t currently represented there. This was rejected most likely because it would have given access to the history of their moderation, automod rules, etc etc and made clear just how bad it is. 3 or 4 times we went through the motions of trying to achieve this kind of thing and it ended up being wasted effort every time.
Is this lemmy affiliated with the subreddit?
None affiliated. No mods here are Reddit mods, we’re just a community, some of whom have evacuated Reddit, wanting to discuss UK politics. The megathread is here to make us /r/ukpol types feel at home.
Alright so there’s no fash mods here yet then? Any future plans for that?
I ask because I mod /r/greenandpleasant and our experience with the ukpolitics modteam was that they made excuses for multiple fascists existing on the team in the name of “diverse representation of the UK political spectrum”, which was bullshit because they also refused to have any marxists on the modteam.
The unbiased space it presented itself as it was not, and the left on the site boycotted it accordingly outside of election periods lending a considerably right lean to it.
I’m not averse to engaging in a space that genuinely seeks to engage all corners of our country’s politics in good faith.
Definitely a few mods I don’t miss from /r/ukpol!
Yeah, as a former ukpol regular I am aware of the problematic nature of some of the moderation there. The following is all my personal thoughts (@NuPNuA may chime in, neither of us are particularly dictatorial in how this place is run but we haven’t disagreed yet) but hopefully gives you the gist of what I hope the community will be.
If I had to articulate what I’m after, it’s a BBC / Guardian / Financial Times comments section with shitposting and more political nerdery and without the spEak You’re bRanes brigade.
I’m the same here, the goal is not for this to lean in anyone direction but for people to discuss and debate and even argue as long as it’s respectful. I’ve already made the mistake of wondering into the Lemmy.ml and Behaw news communities and angered the tankies and I don’t want that here.
Oh I have another question.
Are unions politics?
Yes, I’d say so.
Is there really any need to import stupid school playground drama from reddit?
No. No, there is not :)
I kind of want Optivo to turn up and rant about Corbyn just so I can ban him for a laugh. Lol.
You are expecting us not to do politics in political communities?
You’re keen to do “factions” (your word).
That’s not politics. That’s the problem with politics.
The “i don’t want factions” faction is as much a faction as all the others. Would you prefer I not say the word faction? Would you prefer the word ideology? Everyone has an ideology, whether they are aware of it or not. These ideologies result in political factions. The core ideological factions of the UK are the socialists, the neoliberals and the fascists. There used too be a faction between the neoliberals and the fascists but they basically collapsed with David Cameron followed by Brexit.
These groupings exist because they have irreconcilable differences in ideology. Socialists want to abolish private property whereas the other factions do not. The fascists (or at least part of them, complexity occurs here) want an anglo ethnostate and to stamp on the neck of the workers with hierarchical power while the other factions do not. The difference between ideologies is that create factions is in the policy beliefs where there is no middle-ground, where things become irreconcilable. There is no middle ground between the existence of private property and not. There is no middle ground between an anglo ethnostate and not.
If you believe in property and I do not we are naturally going to be in opposing factions. How do you propose eliminating that? Trying to claim this is a problem only because of people who acknowledge the factions exist is just refusing to accept the real differences that create them.
Which you’ve just invented. No such animal exists unless you insist on comprehending the world in absolutes. It’s an unhelpful choice.
There are none. When you choose an ideology that claims there are, then you are de facto giving up on politics in favour of fighting.
The reason we as a species gradually invented politics over the last five or ten thousand years is precisely to reconcile differences of opinion that would otherwise lead to conflict. A refusal to partake in it would be base barbarism, in my estimation.
You did not answer my question. What is the reconcilable position between “private property exists” and “private property does not exist” ?
If you can’t answer this then you must accept that all you are saying is “stop having politics that can’t be reconciled” which is just out of touch with reality.
What? “Politics” is not about reconciliation. It is a battle between competing ideologies created by contradictions in society for the securement of the power to implement those ideologies. The very idea that you think a person of colour can reconcile with the people that want that person exterminated or deported is utterly absurd. “Politics” does not simply take place in the halls of institutions dedicated to policy either, politics also takes place in the streets, in the workplace, and through the barrel of a gun. Seeing politics solely as what occurs in westminster is an extremely narrow field of view, lgbt people for example did not achieve all the gains they have in the halls of power, they achieved them in the streets. Similarly workers rarely ever achieve their victories in the halls, they achieve them in the streets and the workplace.
I’ll be honest, I noticed that in my last few months of using the UK Pol on Reddit that the mod team seemed to lean in a particular direction politics wise. I realised after reporting transphobia a few times it was actually comeing from a few of them.
I’m happy to allow all sides here as long as it’s respectful. I’m not going to give much truck to right leaning ideas myself but nothing is banned.
I’m glad it’s at least become visible. It was quite hard to see it at one point because there was still some participation occurring from the soft-left. We did an awfully large amount of work at gap to create conditions that make it more visible.
The biggest problem on reddit is that subreddit moderation is a black box. It is extremely easy as moderators to moderate along ideological lines and hide that from the userbase, I say that because we moderate ideologically in many subreddits and it’s completely hidden. Not because we want it to be hidden of course (I am happy to speak openly about it) but because that is just how it is on reddit. It’s impossible to make it clear or visible that it’s happening and you can’t actively inform the userbase of a community who are unaware of it from within that community when the modteam is actively suppressing it.
A few times we tried to address this with r/ukpol, even explicitly offering to have marxists join the modteam for more balance and to represent the 33% or so of the UK that isn’t currently represented there. This was rejected most likely because it would have given access to the history of their moderation, automod rules, etc etc and made clear just how bad it is. 3 or 4 times we went through the motions of trying to achieve this kind of thing and it ended up being wasted effort every time.