# Moderation Question



## Phasestar (Mar 24, 2018)

Moved this over from this thread:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?627918-The-Journey-To-North-America-Part-Two/page2



> I understand "Social Justice Warrior" being derogative, but I don't get  "Virtue Signalling", which describes a practice that absolutely exists.   What is an acceptable alternative to describe this practice?


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## Morrus (Mar 24, 2018)

I disagree with your assessment of how that term is invoked. It is used almost exclusively to dismiss or deride progressive viewpoints by impugning the motive of the speaker. 

Like "social justice warrior", whatever its origin may have been, that is its modern function. It is a derogatory term. It's even in the rules as an example of one.

As is commonly said, attack the argument, rather than the speaker's motives.


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## Phasestar (Mar 24, 2018)

I agree completely with attacking the argument.

However, there is a real practice these days that some folks who do not actually have an argument that they can discuss or defend tend to express a point of view that they think is politically correct in order to go with the flow or be seen as cool.  Once the argument is attacked, the shallowness of the point itself becomes readily apparent, but the practice itself always seems to continue.  Banning a reasonably clear phrase for the description of that practice seems questionable to me without an adequate alternate phrase for something that does seem to keep happening.  I guess you could say to someone "please think for yourself" instead of "please stop virtue signalling" but one does not seem much more harsh than the others to me.

I've participated here (with older accounts) since Eric Noah first setup the site, then handed it off to you - and you've done a fantastic job with it.  However, my observation is that the idea of what is not offensive has shifted in many parts of society in one particular direction.  In this case, for example, the "Keep it inclusive" rule expresses general ideas against bullying and discrimination that no reasonable person would object to, but then specifically calls out only terms that might offend someone with progressive viewpoints.  That does send a bit of a signal, which may just be based on your personal experience with whatever folks who have been acting up on the forums, but nonetheless.

In any case, your site, your rules and I shall follow them but hopefully discussing them is not looked on badly.


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## Morrus (Mar 24, 2018)

Phasestar said:


> In this case, for example, the "Keep it inclusive" rule expresses general ideas against bullying and discrimination that no reasonable person would object to, but then specifically calls out only terms that might offend someone with progressive viewpoints.  That does send a bit of a signal, which may just be based on your personal experience with whatever folks who have been acting up on the forums, but nonetheless.




Yes. This community is unapologetically inclusive, and falls deliberately and firmly on that side of the line. I was hoping it sent more than "a bit" of a signal; I would hope that was blindingly obvious to anybody (in fact, I *know* it is from the nasty names I've been called on social media because of it).


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## Celebrim (Mar 24, 2018)

Virtue signaling is a scientific term whose origin is behavior which serves the evolutionary purpose of signaling fitness to other members of the species, particularly future mates, because by being costly in some manner, it signals the fitness of the individual and thus its ability to produce healthy offspring.

In social animals, the term can encompass acts intended to show fitness to the other members of the social group, in the hopes that they will reciprocate in kind.  

For decades now, the consensus biological explanation for religious observance in humanity was that it had evolved as a form of virtue signaling, where the persons self-sacrificing acts signaled both fitness and devotion to the band.  Piety of any sort therefore, is from a purely materialist biological view point simply virtue signaling.  It's a way of attracting social admiration and reciprocal resources, and ultimately increasing breeding success or near kindred breeding success.

I encourage you to read some journal articles on the subject of the evolutionary explanation for altruistic behavior and of religious behavior in particular.

Sometime in the last few years, conservative political commentators offered up the theory that since religious observance was accepted to be a biological imperative, and a universal instinct in humanity, one would expect that in people who had become irreligious or secular that there would be parallel behavior observed in some non-religious part of the persons life.  For example, one might expect that a person might show excessive irrational devotion to a sport team, not merely for some obvious reason like 'they enjoy sports', but because it was a subversion of their instinct to tribal piety - a set of ritual observances that they could engage in that would serve much the same emotional and biological purpose for them that pious acts serve in the religious.

From that, it was observed that very likely for many people this pious observance would become associated with political movements or political parties for the same biological reasons.   In other words, a person that gets up in front of a church and speaks in tongues or testifies or makes a large commitment of some sort or a large donation, is fundamentally engaging in the exact same behavior (from a purely biological perspective) as someone who builds a paper-mache mask and paints a sign of some sort, and marches down the street singing some sort of chant.   That is to say, they are both virtue signaling.


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## Morrus (Mar 24, 2018)

Celebrim said:


> Virtue signaling is a scientific term whose origin is behavior which serves the evolutionary purpose of signaling fitness to other members of the species, particularly future mates, because by being costly in some manner, it signals the fitness of the individual and thus its ability to produce healthy offspring.
> 
> In social animals, the term can encompass acts intended to show fitness to the other members of the social group, in the hopes that they will reciprocate in kind.
> 
> ...




All very fascinating, but that’s *not* the current modern usage of the term. It’s an insult used to  dismiss progressive opinions. Language changes; the term has been co-opted. It is not to be used in this community.


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## Celebrim (Mar 24, 2018)

Morrus said:


> All very fascinating, but that’s *not* the current modern usage of the term. It’s an insult used to  dismiss progressive opinions. Language changes; the term has been co-opted. It is not to be used in this community.




When I use the term, that's how I mean it.   And as far as I'm concerned, you are flat out wrong in this: because in the circles I run in, that's where the term came from and was probably being used long before you even heard it used.  

I concur it is often used as an insult, but not to dismiss progressive opinions per se.  It's used to dismiss the insertion of political opinions into every aspect of every conversation, often when the way that the insertion is done is very ostentatious and in particular when what the thing the person is doing is not very costly, but the person doing it pretends that they are taking a great risk in presenting the opinion.  When someone comes and says, "See how inclusive I am." as the very first part of a conversation, it's like that person with 21 bumper stickers on the back of the car.  It may well be that inclusivity is a great thing, but you can still disagree that the person is actually displaying inclusivity, tolerance, and open minded behavior as they trumpet their own virtue and pet theorems.     

For example, no one is going to get banned off of EnWorld for presenting a progressive opinion even when it is in violation of the terms of service.  They know that, because they know that it is tolerated.  You said it yourself:

"This community is unapologetically inclusive, and falls deliberately and firmly on that side of the line. I was hoping it sent more than "a bit" of a signal; I would hope that was blindingly obvious to anybody"

Oh, it is blindly obvious to anyone.  What is really hilarious though is that you anoint that behavior as "inclusive", despite the fact that most of the time - indeed, pretty much all of the time - no one is trying to exclude anyone from gaming - except, apparently, yourself.  Sure, you can tell yourself that you have valid reason to exclude people that strike you as jerks, and that's fine - maybe you are even right.  But please don't validate that as inclusiveness.   Labelling it "inclusive" though, poisons the well thoroughly, because it defacto declares disagreement with any part of the opinion is racist.   Yet, no one ever gets banned or red modded on EnWorld for calling people racist in order to dismiss someone else's opinion.  Or sexist.  Or really, any of the left terms of dismissiveness which is blanket dropped whenever they are disagreed with.

As for the term in question, I often feel people find it the term offensive primarily because they resent the comparison.  

Final note, so far as I can recall, I've not actually used the term on EnWorld to refer to anyone.  I don't find it particularly useful even when I find the term accurate, mostly because people just get offended instead of reflecting on the fact that it's potentially very valid criticism, so it doesn't accomplish the purpose of changing the person's opinion.   But it's not necessarily the opinions that bother people.  It's the act of politicizing everything that I think annoys people.  It's the equivalent of going around with a bible and a tract and knocking on people's door that annoys people.   If you can suggest better language for, "I find your insertion of political opinions into everything you write more than a little bit annoying.  And in fact, it strikes me as petty self-righteous passive aggressive behavior.", then by all means suggest.  Because most of the description of the problem strikes me as a bit more inflammatory and biased that "virtue signaling".


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## Morrus (Mar 24, 2018)

Too much gish gallop. Nevertheless, the term is not to be used here.


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## Celebrim (Mar 25, 2018)

Morrus said:


> Too much gish gallop.




I had to look that one up.



> Nevertheless, the term is not to be used here.




Nevertheless, it moves.


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## mcosgrave (Mar 25, 2018)

I agree with Phasestar and Celebrim. 
While the phrase may be used as an insult, you should read it in context, and in this case it reads to me like a general comment on marketing. I don’t see that the original post was using it prejoratively.  It’s a different beast to ‘SJW’ which, as far as I can see is almost always used as an insult.

I appreciate that you are looking at it from a viewpoint of the, often viscous, US culture wars, but that perspective is not universal. Mine is different: I’m an Irish academic whose spent 25 years not only correcting students writing, but also coaching them to give helpful, non confrontational feedback to each other. I feel you dropped a blanket ban on that phrase very quickly; there’s a lower level of alert, like ‘That’s a contentious phrase, please be careful how you use it’ for example. Because when anyone bans a word or phrase, it hurts my soul.


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## Phasestar (Mar 25, 2018)

Morrus said:


> Yes. This community is unapologetically inclusive, and falls deliberately and firmly on that side of the line. I was hoping it sent more than "a bit" of a signal; I would hope that was blindingly obvious to anybody (in fact, I *know* it is from the nasty names I've been called on social media because of it).




I'm sorry to hear that you've had to deal with that on social media.  I left it for similar reasons and I've done forum moderation so I understand how difficult it can be.

What is not clear to me is why being unapologetically inclusive means taking a political side, which by definition means that the community is exclusive.

I have no issue with the general rules, but why not simply say that this is not a place for personal attacks of any type and list examples across the political spectrum (of which there are many)?  If you go as far as declaring the phrase "virtue signalling" out of bounds, then there should be many similar comments on the left that should also be.  Private forums have a full right to enforce rules that keep their community constructive and avoid personal acrimony that can drive people away.  However, if you want to be unapologetically inclusive of the whole RPG community, then such rules should in my opinion be blind to politics.


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## Phasestar (Mar 25, 2018)

mcosgrave said:


> I’m an Irish academic whose spent 25 years not only correcting students writing, but also coaching them to give helpful, non confrontational feedback to each other. I feel you dropped a blanket ban on that phrase very quickly; there’s a lower level of alert, like ‘That’s a contentious phrase, please be careful how you use it’ for example. Because when anyone bans a word or phrase, it hurts my soul.




I agree with this, but because the internet is what it is, you will rarely find a private forum that allows full freedom of speech.  Unfortunately there are some remarkably nasty trolls (from all sides) out there who do their best if given such an opportunity to abuse it and spoil everyone's enjoyment, even when there's say a sub-forum set aside for that it can still cause more harm than good.  I do miss the early internet days when freedom of speech online matched it offline, but I understand the decision for forum rules in the current context, while I am steadfastly against banning phrases or words in the real world.

I do think in this case the rule has gone too far, but it is Morrus' right to disagree and it's his forum.  I also think that such rules are best applied without favor or political discrimination.


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## Morrus (Mar 25, 2018)

Phasestar said:


> What is not clear to me is why being unapologetically inclusive means taking a political side, which by definition means that the community is exclusive.




Popper's paradox of tolerance. 

A little (probably not very interesting) insight into my personal relationship with that line of thought: as mentioned in the rules, I don't subscribe to the argument that tolerance means that we need to tolerate intolerance or that inclusivity means that we need to include non-inclusiveness. In fact, I personally find that common argument childish, disingenuous, and asinine; it irritates me most unreasonably every time somebody tries it out on me (and that's often). So much so that I specifically called it out in the rules.

I think it irritates me so much because folks seem to assume it's simply never occurred to me.


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## mcosgrave (Mar 25, 2018)

Phasestar said:


> What is not clear to me is why being unapologetically inclusive means taking a political side, which by definition means that the community is exclusive.




Yes, if you have solid moral compass, even if it’s as simple as the Wheaton rule (Don’t be a dick) then, yes, you exclude people who don’t measure up. By all means engage, debate, call foul on a play but there is a point at which you have to say to people, even long term friends, ‘Sorry, I’ll miss you, but you’re out’ 

While there may be conservatives who are decent, the reality, I feel, is that if your basic ethical principle is ‘Be nice’, then the odds are your politics will be “progressive”.  So for me, ethics comes before politics, but I’m a contrary old liberal* grump who feels increasingly alienated from this century! 

*as in late C19 Gladstonian Liberal, not C21 neocon!


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## Celebrim (Mar 25, 2018)

Morrus said:


> I think it irritates me so much because folks seem to assume it's simply never occurred to me.




No, it irritates me so much because I knew that's what you would use to defend yourself.  I anticipated it in that "gish gallop" that you axiomatically would other anyone that disagreed with you as "intolerate", and that would axiomatically make you in the right.  I could have put money on the fact that you'd pull out Popper's Paradox.

The problem is that in this case it is bull crap.

I had an interesting experience on Enworld a few days ago.  I got into a conversation about the nature of chaotic clergies, and whether a religion could be non-hierarchical with someone I couldn't recall ever interacting with before.

In that conversation, at one point he out of the blue related almost all of my life story.  He got a few details of it wrong, but the substance of it was largely correct.  I was baffled.  How in the world did someone I'd never interacted with no so many intimate details of my life.   I have friends I game with that probably don't know parts of that background.  He explained that he had went back looking for my writing, and had pieced it together from these sorts of controversies.   And I started thinking about that, and the times I'd said things about myself at EnWorld and invariably they were of this structure.  Someone would say to me, "If you disagree with me, it has to be that you are afraid of strong women."  And I would say, "That's ridiculous.  If you knew me, you'd know that I married a woman with a PhD who is a long distance runner, and that one of the things that attracted me was that she was a non-retiring, opinionated woman, who wouldn't fully subordinate herself to me as was the typical expectation in the culture I grew up in."   Or someone would say to me, "You just hate black people.", and I would have to explain, "How can you make that claim when you know nothing about me?  When I was a kid, my doctor, my teacher, my pastor, my best friend, and indeed just about everyone I knew and everyone I loved outside of my immediate family had 'black' skin?"  

At this point on EnWorld, that crap has happened so often that a complete stranger can reconstruct much of my life story just by browsing the forum.  Yes, it's a lame debate tactic to try to say anything about who you are in reality in an internet debate where nothing can be verified, but given that I find myself continually arguing with someone whose mode of argumentation is "I know you are wrong because of who you are." or "You are inherently wrong because of who I think you are.", it's all I've got.   So now, here we are again.  Let me make it really clear.  I had a gay black man and his lover as players in my group for like 4 years before they moved across country.  I love that person.  I broke bread with him.  I gamed with him.  I fellowshipped with him.  If the basis of your argument, is I am 'intolerate' or trying to 'exclude' someone from gaming, or that I'm trying to defend people excluding people from gaming, you're already wrong.  The whole basis of your logic is flawed.   You've cut the world into pieces and you've thrown everyone into your boxes and labels, and generally speaking when people do that they surprise, surprise, give themselves the most self-flattering labels.   They put themselves on "team nice", and then axiomatically everyone else is wrong.


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## Morrus (Mar 25, 2018)

Celebrim said:


> No, it irritates me so much because I knew that's what you would use to defend yourself.




"Defend myself"? Is that what you think is happening here?

This conversation is over. You broke it. I answered the OP's question, but don't mistake Meta for "the place where you get to be obnoxious to Morrus". Because it really, really, is not.


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