Rules update: new policy (#10) and its immediate implementation

[Laird]

A new policy has been added to our forum rules and guidelines:

10. Perpetrators of serious harms and their supporters are unwelcome here.

They will be removed if/when discovered.

Examples of serious harms include but are not limited to:

• Grievous forms of personal abuse and exploitation, e.g., active paedophilia; domestic abuse.
  
• Systematic oppression and any underlying ideology, e.g., (neo)Nazism; Zionism.
  
• Wars of aggression, e.g., Russia's war on Ukraine.
  

Perpetration includes active participation, e.g., as a soldier in a war of aggression.

Support includes but is not limited to:

• Adherence to a systematically oppressive ideology.
  
• Written or verbal expressions, whether publicly or privately, and whether on this board or elsewhere.
  
• Knowingly and deliberately supplying money to, or engaging in trade that benefits, the perpetrators of the harm so as to perpetuate it.
  

Mitigating factors include regret, reform, and redress.

The determination of serious harms, their perpetrators and supporters, and whether or not they are sufficiently reformed, is at the discretion of board moderators.

Caveat: Deliberately excluded here - even though it is abhorrent - is support in the form of beneficial trade for the systematic oppression of animals in farming, entertainment, sport, tourism, and medicine, etc, only because almost all of our current members would be excluded if that form of support was included.

Consistent with this policy, several members will be removed via a permanent ban. [Update: the names of those members and the reasons for their bans have been elided now that access to the opt-in forums has been removed, and therefore that the links supporting those reasons are also no longer accessible. Additionally, given that they were not given the opportunity to defend themselves against them here, their breaches will no longer be publicised here either.]

These members have roughly forty-eight hours to finalise their affairs by posting any concluding on-topic posts in any public threads, and sending any concluding messages in any private conversations, after which the bans will be implemented. They should note that anything that they post is now subject to moderation, and that posts or threads attempting to defend their support for these harms will not be approved.

I have to admit I think this is a bad idea.

Creating a politics forum and then judging people for posting in it seems rather dangerous as a precedent?

I’m shocked reading this description of members I’ve debated with on several occasions. I want to be absolutely clear that I take complete and unequivocal distance from anyone involved in the kinds of serious harms outlined in the new rule, and I fully support banning such behaviour and ideologies from the forum. Even though I often represent a minority viewpoint here, I’ve always assumed that discussions took place within a framework of basic human decency. This rule is therefore important and necessary, and I support the moderators’ effort to enforce it.

I never wanted a Politics forum or a Conspiracy forum, but these were created.

People posted their opinions, not expecting that their posts would lead to their banning.

I can understand the desire to take action for what one believes in, but there must also be a space for discussion.

I however don't believe Psience Quest needs to be that space, and as such I'd recommend removing the aforementioned forums instead of banning people for expressing the opinions they were invited to express.

I’m shocked reading this description of members I’ve debated with on several occasions. I want to be absolutely clear that I take complete and unequivocal distance from anyone involved in the kinds of serious harms outlined in the new rule, and I fully support banning such behaviour and ideologies from the forum. Even though I often represent a minority viewpoint here, I’ve always assumed that discussions took place within a framework of basic human decency. This rule is therefore important and necessary, and I support the moderators’ effort to enforce it.

I think it might be worth seeing the posts that are linked to if you haven't looked at them. You'll have to join the respective sub-forums to do so. I joined to see the posts then un-joined, as the opening post startled me as well in its accusations.

My politics are probably closer to yours and @Laird 's but those threatened with banning for politics don't seem like bad people to me, and have contributed extensively to discussion here.

I never wanted a Politics forum or a Conspiracy forum, but these were created.

People posted their opinions, not expecting that their posts would lead to their banning.

I can understand the desire to take action for what one believes in, but there must also be a space for discussion.

I however don't believe Psience Quest needs to be that space, and as such I'd recommend removing the aforementioned forums instead of banning people for expressing the opinions they were invited to express.

I think historically, those forums were offered as a sort of concession or bribe to avoid an exodus of various members en masse. However, so much time has passed and membership moved on that the initial arguments no longer carry much weight. I'd simply remove (or lock) the hidden forums and leave it at that.

To be honest, I am not sure I'd feel comfortable posting in a forum where vague and subjective standards are enforced on a whim.

You never know when you will cross that invisible line, when you will become a target of ire.

Moderators are supposed to keep the peace ~ not enforce their personal views.

Just ban politics instead of the users. Some of those accusations don't even have meaning supporting evidence, as it is...

I'm new here but this doesn't seem like the best idea on a site that is struggling to keep active members around and discussions going.

I can understand the desire to take action for what one believes in, but there must also be a space for discussion.

I however don't believe Psience Quest needs to be that space, and as such I'd recommend removing the aforementioned forums instead of banning people for expressing the opinions they were invited to express.


I think it might be worth seeing the posts that are linked to if you haven't looked at them. You'll have to join the respective sub-forums to do so. I joined to see the posts then un-joined, as the opening post startled me as well in its accusations.

My politics are probably closer to yours and @Laird 's but those threatened with banning for politics don't seem like bad people to me, and have contributed extensively to discussion here.

While I acknowledge that people can sometimes fall into the trap of believing one-sided propaganda in ongoing international conflicts, my stance on paedophilia is fundamentally different. The term itself evokes nothing but revulsion for me, and I do not regard it as something that can be justified or excused under any circumstances.

While I acknowledge that people can sometimes fall into the trap of believing one-sided propaganda in ongoing international conflicts, my stance on paedophilia is fundamentally different. The term itself evokes nothing but revulsion for me, and I do not regard it as something that can be justified or excused under any circumstances.

I specifically mentioned politics.

I am actually okay with some of the rules aspect relating to causing harm to others, and am limiting my objection to banning people for the very posts they were invited to make in a Politics Forum.

We should just scrap all those forums anyway, IMO. They are unrelated to our central purpose.

[Laird]

It's not necessary for support to be rabid and frothing at the mouth. Pseudo-rational, pseudo-measured support can in fact be more insidious, because it occludes moral clarity.

Nor is it necessary for any individual to be judged in the aggregate to be bad. All that's necessary is that they support a serious harm or its perpetrator(s). People are multi-faceted; even some brutal torturers return home to love and cherish their families.

Of course, what qualifies as a serious harm and/or support for it is a matter of judgement, but it is not arbitrary.

Invitation is not immunity. Analogously: if you're invited to a discussion and freely admit to a crime, "But I was invited to share my thoughts" is not a defence at your trial.

Ordinary political opinions are not cause for exclusion. Spouting "trickle-down economics" and "immigrants are taking our jobs" nonsense, although harmful enough, will earn you only contempt, not a ban, but when "your guy" crosses over into "round them all up without due process and send them to hell-hole jails overseas or newly-built concentration camps in swamps right here, destroy or cripple all government institutions and checks and balances and attempt to centralise power in yourself, attack and undermine the free press and your opponents, suppress all criticism through lawfare and threats, turn billion-dollar bribery into an open sport at the highest level, etc etc" and you continue to support him, then you've crossed the line.

Likewise if you're invited - given apparent historical support or at least tolerance for its figurehead - to condemn it and your response is (paraphrased) "But can we really believe it's actually happening?". In that case: be on your way too.

We live in a world of exploitation, oppression, warmongering, and creeping fascism cloaked in populism. Those will ultimately end, but only through our resistance. If you are not resisting, and instead siding with and giving cover to the exploiters, oppressors, warmongers, and fascists, then you don't belong here, nor in civil society in general. That this was not codified in our rules nor enforced until now is irrelevant; it is the right thing to do, more important than this board's activity and membership levels and ongoing viability.

Recognise and meet the moment, people.

I see no problem with the opt-in forums as a venue for sensible diagnosis of the world's political and scientific problems and how to solve them. In all honesty, these days sociopolitical progress is more important to me personally than discussions of parapsychology and consciousness. Given, though, that, historically, too many of their participants have abused the opportunity they provide, that, currently, there's barely any activity in our topical forums, let alone the opt-in forums, and that, as has been pointed out, they're not anyway topical, and were in the first place a sort of compromise to retain members, I personally would have no problem with their being shut them down: closing them to new posts but otherwise leaving them accessible as-is.

Let's see what the consensus on that turns out to be, especially among the other two remaining active founders.