Rule Changes + New Restrictions

[Angrboda]

John: It's just a few minutes after my waking up, and I confess I'm rather unclear on aspects of the new rule. However, my general observation of the way such rules are developed is, that it is seen that there are situatuations where there is a destructive or harmful effect to a certain behavior, either to a discussion, or a chill on the freedom to be open, or a repetitive trashing when certain virtues are exercised. (these are just potential examples) When reports of behaviors which have a clear effect of reducing possibilities, discouraging members from doing good, encouraging theists to ghettoize themselves in behavioral safe zones — anything which, if left unchecked would harm the health and the prosperity of the community — then the staff would like to do something to protect the community and keep its chances for prosperity strong. As laws and rules are an imperfect method for describing the nature of what will or will not be considered bad, there will be cases where the rule, though designed to stop a particular harm, does not sufficiently clearly mandate against that behavior, and that bad act or whatever will slipthrough the cracks. That is what motivates a staff to change the rules, a desire to find some way to take action in clear cases of harm to the community and the forum which, because of specific nature of a current ruleset, is going unchecked. There is a natural tension there. Very literal rules will be easy to understand and apply, but have more unhandled exceptions. A vague, one-size-fits-all-rule is more capable of preventing exceptions, but at the same time has negatives, one being that it relies much more on subjective assessments to make it work. It is true, a more ambiguous law can be abused because of that difference, but that's ultimately a result of poor quality staff who take liberties. The goal in "liberalizing" the rules in a process such as this is not to unbalance the playing field, but to address those behaviors and actions which are believed to be harmful to the forum, yet under current rules is not preventable. So, yes, in one sense, it will make certain theist acts less innocent, it will also greenlight other theist behaviors. It likely won't affect theist and atheists equally, but nothing ever will. What's important is to notice the goal. The goal in making such changes is not to single out theists in a particular area and deprive them of protection, whilst giving atheists carte blanche. What drives these changes is the desire to see less reports coming in, for which a member is clearly doing something that is not in the long term interest of the community and forum, and having ones hands tied because the rules didn't anticipate that behavior and codify it, so there is no mandate to take action.

So the goal of changes like this is not to create a Wild West where staff can do as they please, and smile on or shit on whom they see fit. There is always going to be behaviors that get past the rules; behaviors that do tangible harm to people, threads, and the community. The goal in "broadening the rules" is not to provide license to shape content by unfair and biased application — to target specific religious positions based on an anti-theist stance — the goal is to allow the staff to do a more complete job, to provide a more rounded and able safety net with less cracks through which bad behaviors can slip. Does this increase the potential for abuse? Of course it does. You're giving the staff rights and protection they didn't have before. More power opens the door to more abuse. But the ultimate questiion is not can X or Y happen under the rules, pointing to such a lopsided misuse of them, then the answer is yes; the new rules likely have more potential for abuse than the old. But the key question is what will happen, as many things that can happen, simply won't happen. And given that the motive of staff in changing the rules was to close the loop on certain harms, that's likely the focus of what will happen.

As noted however, it is a movement towards giving staff more power and discretion. And if you feel the mods exercise their power and discretion in an anti-theist way prior to the rule change, it's understandable that you feel giving more power and discretion to people who want to hurt you is not a good thing. The only thing you can hope to depend on is a belief that the staff at AF are good people and will use their powers wisely and fairly, rather than as a new stick to beat theists with. You either have faith, or you don't; your being here tends to imply that you have faith.


Now the bad. Because the rules are much more open and there is much more potentia for abuse of them, their application can go weird in unexpected ways. Figuring out where in the rules to add breathing room, and how, and why, is more an art than a science. And rules interact with each other, creating a dynamic whole that is very complex. Sometomes, many times, even though there is an intention to improve things with such a rule change, because of the change from rule based less people-centric guidelines to those that are more based on personality, it's harder to predict results. What may have seemed an innocuous change when it was written on the blackboard during discussion of it, may morph into a monster of unseen proportions in actual practice. And what seemed like a potent stick for combatting some ill, may be dicovered to be useless in practice. Many of the consequences of a rule change are unpredictable and only known in hindsight. It's practice which will tell whether a significant change to the rules will result in better health and productivity of the community, or if it will bite the hand that feeds it by creating chaos, dissent, and unhappiness?

Either are possible, which is why one needs to step back and see that it isn't the rules which drive the forum, it's the intentions of the staff and community behind those rules. That itself presents a problem as both sides have a tendency to distort their views of the other side under the influence of normal cognitive bias: the 'other' is always seen as a candidate for being a lunatic, or an idiot, or dishonest. These perceptions of bad faith and character which reach across lines work against the possibility of acquiring strong interfaith "faith" in the faith. And note how keyed it is to perception. A Hindu coming here might get treated roughly, and attribute inaction by staff as a clear bias. Until he discovers that a Hindu is on staff, and he is given a little hope. Until he learns that the Hindu is a Vaishnavite, and he's a tantric who has suffered at the hands of vaishnaivites his whole life. But note, nothing in this example changed, the perceptions of the new Hindu went on a rollercoaster of hope or despair based on the expectations that people like him would treat him well, and people unlike him will abuse and take advantage of him. His feelings about what were possible changed radically based on whether people were like him, or different from him, independent of any acts demonstrating favor or disfavor. So I think ultimately, those "cross-aisle" expectations aren't particularly useful. It's the relationships between people and the character of the people involved from which either good or bad acts will flow, the rules are just enablers. The new rules are more powerful enablers than the old. If you see the staff as having flawed or harmful motives, it's quite natural to see a rule change giving them more power as threatening And it isn't just one group, I find myself getting sucked in and being tricked by cognitive bias into believing the worst of someone (such as my somewhat excessive and likely inaccurate responses to Brakeman in a recent thread). So, I can understand the fear this rule change can invoke. Myself having faith in the staff, I don't have that fear. Ultimately, whether being afraid or not is justified will be determined by sampling the pudding and seeing how well these rules work in practice. There are dangers not even mentioned, such as the potential for a complex rule change to just go weird and crash and burn. But ultimately, what matters most is what will happen. Not what you fear will happen, because as noted, that's often an unreliable guide.


Anyway, I'm going to break the flow here because I'm still groggy and this is long.

With respect to John's specific complaints, it's easier to attract bees with honey than vinegar. Criticism, whether destructive or constructive, can be useful. But a far more potent tool or tools for fixing what is broken is to provide alternatives. Saying something is bad is not a particularly skilled trick. It's almost as easy to say what's good, but saying what's good can be more useful than saying what's bad. The best, however, is likely saying what would be better, because at bottom, in the main, the staff and the bulk of the community have the same goals; the difference is what happens when each has different expectations about this or that. (And I'm not saying staff are saints, either.) If you really care about theists getting appropriate treatment, it might be better to focus on how you can use the common interest in the health and vibrancy of the forum and this community to effect change. Analysis and criticism has its place, certainly, but ultimately is not useful if it does not lead to change. Appealing to the underlying commonality of interests between atheists and theists is likely to be a more potent weaopon for change, than retreating to the goal of preserving your own in-group's protections and advantages.

[This post wasn't proofed or edited.]

(ETA: In the channel on IRC / chat that I moderate, we have no rules, aside from perhaps, "don't ban the entertainment." The integrity of our channel is kept in place by two things: self-consciously vetting only high quality people after a long time of seeing what they can do and do do; a shared culture in which because we all are united by common values, disagreement over implementation is minor [our shared value is 'competence'; if you lack competence, don't expect any favors] So, basically, our channel is held together by a process which guarantees good intentions by only selecting people who can and will honor those intentions. Not a single rule. Seeing to the effective functioning of a social group has many interlocking parts; rules are a commonly used tool, because they have many virtues. However, rules don't work by themselves, and depend critically on the other elements to have a prayer of being effective.)