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.

 

[Christ Cried]

Sometimes it can be a bit boring like Reddit reversal where Orange Man X posts flood into everything. It's just replacing Trump with Jews.

Maybe we need a "Hot communist chicks" megathread or something where a fat dude wearing a horse hair wig and banana hammock can be the top model or something.

But to be fair dude, it really is always because of the jews.

 

[User name: Required]

Lmao why would you quit from modding a&h.

 

[Haramburger]

People argue on this board? I thought the problem was we all circle jerked too much about yelling about black people and trannys.

Yet, oddly enough, never about black trannys

I think we all agree that RuPaul is an elegant and refined woman, there's nothing to argue.

 

[Christ Cried]

Jokes aside, I think the biggest issue with A&H is that it has a lower standard for new threads than say the Lolcow board. Anyone here can grab and archive a link and apply the minimum amount of commentary to it, whereas a thread in Lolcow needs to be refined and reworked multiple times. I don't necessarily know how to remedy that problem though.

 

[Slappy McGherkin]

In society as a whole these days, the line between what's "politics" and what's "news" has become incredibly thin, if existent at all anymore. A&H reflects that as well. Overall, I have no issue with A&H and I do see it as both a viable news source and discussion about said events. What makes it even more interesting to me is the userbase here at the Farms -- it's worldwide and whether I agree with any said opinion or not, it's good to read how others view a particular event outside my own optics, as well as read crazy stories other than "Florida man."

Having been Admin/Mod on a smaller forum, politics is ALWAYS a huge bone of contention. Folks would let it creep into the most mundane threads and it would always turn into a shitshow and everybody pushing the mommy button over being butthurt. It came to the point that I created a sub-forum for politics, unmoderated, y'all go there and fucktard each other all you want over it. If I see politics brought up in any of the other forums, banjaxxed, period.

I'm not saying this is the right approach for here, but it DID work for me (other than a few re.tards that just couldn't STFU). I have seen other forums take a similar approach and it does provide containment for most of the political jism. Coming into an election year, people DO want to talk/sperg/fight about what the hell is going on. I see that as one of the better characteristics of the Farms -- open opinion. Really never have thought of A&H as an echo chamber because there is such a large variance in opinion.

Anyway, my meager .02 on A&H.

 

[Questionable Ceviche]

Jokes aside, I think the biggest issue with A&H is that it has a lower standard for new threads than say the Lolcow board. Anyone here can grab and archive a link and apply the minimum amount of commentary to it, whereas a thread in Lolcow needs to be refined and reworked multiple times. I don't necessarily know how to remedy that problem though.

I actually like the relaxed threadposting rules on A&H. New interesting stories would get buried in a megathread if they all had to meet some kind of quality or source standards in order to qualify for their own thread.

 

[X Prime]

I'm asking how is left and right wing defined in this context. I apologize if I steered anybody the wrong way. Left wing in America differs from left wing in Europe and vice versa.

I don't really think you are being honest and the question is rhetorical, but all right.

It is funny you brought up Cosmos. They are guilty of doing what I suggested of backing out as soon as disagreement rears its head, even if articulate.

https://kiwifarms.st/threads/greta-thunberg-megathread.61351/page-9#post-5317959

 

[A Pox]

All the fainting couch hysterics over /pol/ users reminds me of when /r/MDE was banned on Plebbit.

/r/Cumtown became a garbage pile of people crying over MDE refugees ruining their precious subreddit culture and turning the place into an alt-right cesspool.

Some exceptional individual made a bot that calculated how often users posted in /r/Chapo and, wouldn't you know it, all of the tards crying and making unfunny posts in /r/Cumtown were Chapo or Stupidpol posters with an agenda.

The dreaded MDE invasion never happened because people adjusted their posting style or went deeper into schizoposting with subreddits like /r/realgarfield.

A&H doesn't seem like a hard place to janitor. Autolock threads after a week or two. Don't step in unless you have a group of regulars coordinating a dogpile on their partisan enemy or a thread degenerates into pages of circular slapfights with the same people talking past each other.

Megathreads like the Trump Derangement Syndrome thread seem like more of a pressing issue. People are using it as their personal discord, talking about whatever topic they desire and making it unreadable until the next big event brings everybody back on topic. That's happening more and more as certain parts of the site stagnate.

 

[BONE_Buddy]

There should be a separate (sub)board for explicitly non-political new headlines. i.e. Tech news.

Hear me out:

We have a bunch of technically inclined people here who would probably like to discuss their non-politics related headlines/articles. But because A&H is such a mosh pit of political hot-takes and joke articles, Everything in A&H gets painted with that brush.

Eyes will never get drawn to the non-political/spergy stuff because people don't think that there is anything non-political/spergy.

Because very few people are actively looking in A&H for non-political shit, the stuff that isn't overtly political gets less interaction than the stuff that is simply because no-one knows that it exists or cares to dig.

_
Now I like A&H, and I don't want it to change, but perhaps a separate area for a specific set of non-political topics could be on the table.

(I will never suggest a Defense News board separated from political spergery because I do not think such a thing can exist)

That is just my humble opinion however.

 

[Unog]

I've changed my mind. Delete A&H and get rid of the political discussion therein, it's a good idea.

 

[X Prime]

I've changed my mind. Delete A&H and get rid of the political discussion therein, it's a good idea.

Hey now, do we really want the forums to turn into Mad Max?

 

[ConfederateIrishman]

A&H posts make up the lion's share of the posts shared in the cringiest posts thread. Users who have massive spergouts are often those who post in A&H most. When we have people complaining about "oppressive jannies deleting their posts" its typically someone who was being a sped in A&H. We even had a user who was an A&H regular who would make TTS posts for other users, unilaterally, without any request at all to do so for them, just because they felt staff was encumbering the user's "free speech".

A&H just feels like a board for people to post who have a case of the angries. If you don't see the hugbox circlejerk, then that's probably because you're a part of it.

So... I have a slightly controversial opinion on this: A&H is absolutely a "Democrats are the real racists!" circlejerk yet it seems the cringiest post area is turning into a smaller circlejerk of its own.

What I mean by this is it feels like instead of usually engaging with each other, kiwis search out other like minded kiwis and stick to talking with them. As time goes on these circlejerks grow while they do their best to ignore the other circlejerks. Eventually, however, the circlejerks grow too large and start creating friction between each other, which I think is what the website is seeing now. I feel like the resent data leak is really bringing this low tension to a boil.

Now I might be completely wrong here, but that is my take on what is happening.

Edit: To expand on my thoughts further, I think a lot of people want A&H to remain 50/50 left/Right but I am not sure that is possible; It seems that on all forums politics eventually tilts one way or the other. On forum that somehow manage to maintain a balance, eventually some
internal drama weakens one of the sides and one political side starts dominating.

 

[ES 148]

this is like a honeypot thread but better

 

[X Prime]

What I mean by this is it feels like instead of usually engaging with each other, kiwis search out other like minded kiwis and stick to talking with them. As time goes on these circlejerks grow while they do their best to ignore the other circlejerks.

You're thinking of things like the Trump Derangement Syndrome thread versus the r/the_donald thread in Community Watch, aren't you?

 

[Null]

Jokes aside, I think the biggest issue with A&H is that it has a lower standard for new threads than say the Lolcow board. Anyone here can grab and archive a link and apply the minimum amount of commentary to it, whereas a thread in Lolcow needs to be refined and reworked multiple times. I don't necessarily know how to remedy that problem though.

I actually prefer that. No one cares about your commentary. That's why no one reads past the first post.

 

[Unog]

Hey now, do we really want the forums to turn into Mad Max?

I don't know what you're talking about, obviously we'd be better off without A&H

this is like a honeypot thread but better

I agree, we should throw out all A&H supporters.

I actually prefer that. No one cares about your commentary. That's why no one reads past the first post.

Jokes and sarcasm aside, the fact that people read past the first post in A&H is literally the reason this thread exists.

 

[Lone MacReady]

2020 is going to be so fun

 

[User name: Required]

But really why would a mod quit from a&h because of it? It doesn’t make sense

 

[Christ Cried]

But really why would a mod quit from a&h because of it? It doesn’t make sense

Imagine watching hundreds of monkeys shit into each others mouths and fling said shit at each other over the slightest disagreement. You would tire of it quickly

 

[User name: Required]

Imagine watching hundreds of monkeys shit into each others mouths and fling said shit at each other over the slightest disagreement. You would tire of it quickly

Would I?