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.

 

[Oaat]

It's not a bad place to find weird news stories but all the discussion is cursed right wing autism. There is a lot of cool/overlooked stories posted there, but reading the comments is a waste of time. I'm not sure how you would improve the quality of the forum without modding people to take out the trash.

What does taking out the trash even mean? That sounds like a recipe for making the board into an even bigger circlejerk, just a mod-sanctioned one. Having only empirical rules was a good idea.

 

[Fish-Eyed Fool]

I don't know about the rest of you, but I need a janny to hold me close at night and tell me my political opinions are valid.

 

[Ahriman]

I don't know about the rest of you, but I need a janny to hold me close at night and tell me my political opinions are valid.

Yea that's the vibe I'm getting here, judging by a few posters on this thread. Not naming any names, you know who you are.

 

[Scratch This Nut]

Yea that's the vibe I'm getting here, judging by a few posters on this thread. Not naming any names, you know who you are.

Pretty sure everyone here thinks you’re talking about the side they AREN’T on.

 

[Freedom Fries]

You're missing the point. What I'm getting at is that there definitely is a tendency for users to start dogpiling other users when they give an opinion that doesn't match up with their overall political or personal beliefs. It's been happening in this very thread with @Scratch This Nut.

Users in general just seem to get too worked up over stuff in this board.

I think to a large extent people see something that disagrees with them and are hungry to engage, which is ironically mirrored by @Scratch This Nut 's sentiment posted a few posts later.

I know I’ll never be popular here and I don’t really care how the regs here see me. But if someone here wants to discuss something with me and I might get something of substance out of it, why not reply, right?

But if jokingly calling them inbreds was enough to get them going...

I agree jokingly calling someone inbred shouldn't trigger someone, but nor should similar snark directed at anyone. I actually enjoy the sperg outs people have sometimes over minor insults, so maybe I'm just weird and not the right person to listen to.

To be fair, watching everyone take the low hanging fruit there is absolutely a good reason for getting pissed at A&H

You could have just stopped reading them after the first one like I did. I think the merge into a megathread for that was a good move though and actually made me look at it again.


Couple other things I wanted to say:

1 - A&H is nothing like /pol/. I regularly get push-back here talking about da joos, and my takes on them would absolutely have me called JIDF there or are obvious shitposts.

2 - A&H is not r/thedonald. I don't generally get pushback (or if I do it's thought through) for listing the fumbles the President has.

3 - Maybe instead of punitive measures, people like @It's HK-47 should be somehow rewarded or others should be encouraged to make effort posts like he often does.

4 - Do people actually care about neg ratings? I think it's funny to get a few every now and again.

 

[Slap47]

I disagree, NOT challenging intellectually lazy posters who hoot and holler for "their side" is what led to SA and the GAF forums becoming shitholes. This scrutiny from the staff looks more like a push to not let that happen here.

An idiot being an intellectually lazy elitist is harmless on site where power is held by responsible people. Moderating these people away would just destroy the subforum.

These types of people getting in charge is what kills websites.

 

[Fish-Eyed Fool]

Do people actually care about neg ratings?

Yes, plz no bully.

 

[rocknrollmartian]

I've always felt that people are free to challenge anyone on here at anytime. Dogpiling is a joke if someone is truly making sound arguments or has facts to back up whatever they're saying. Also, disagreement =/= dogpiling.

I don't fully understand all of the handholding and kumbaya sharing sessions on here as of late. I like A&H and find it funny and unique even if some people are saying OTT shit or spewing nonsense. Further, I remember some people getting really nasty really quickly in defense of tards like AOC, so I don't view A&H as some altright cesspool, either. Maybe I'm not too observant.

 

[whatever I feel like]

An idiot being an intellectually lazy elitist is harmless on site where power is held by responsible people. Moderating these people away would just destroy the subforum.

These types of people getting in charge is what kills websites.

Let them pile up for long enough and they became the user base, and when they are the user base who do you think the userbase is going to recommend be made mod when the site admin shows up to ask "who's next?" That how Something Awful got that retarded, reaction image posting, scam artist, Puerto Rican woman as a mod. And then they couldn't fire because "racism".

 

[Smarty Pants]

Pretty sure everyone here thinks you’re talking about the side they AREN’T on.

It's pretty evident that left-leaning people want more moderation than right-wingers.

 

[Slap47]

Let them pile up for long enough and they became the user base, and when they are the user base who do you think the userbase is going to recommend be made mod when the site admin shows up to ask "who's next?" That how Something Awful got that exceptional, reaction image posting, scam artist, Puerto Rican woman as a mod. And then they couldn't fire because "racism".

We're applying the Paradox of Tolerance to a webforum? Interesting.

SA has always been trendy Californians so I don't really see your point. It was always a shit place populated by shit people.

I think I'll counter you with the examples of Facepunch. Facepunch was a site was run by a guy named Garry who was pretty apathetic about the sites management and the site became center-right leaning with libertarian tendencies. Garry appointed left wing mods who were part of a rat-king (mod elections are a bad idea) and they used their newfound power to slowly cleanse the site. It didn't matter what the userbase was, a small group of goons and troons was able to organize and coopt the site. Conclusion: The answer isn't to block out and censor opinions, its to be aware of the various factions who are autistically hungry for power.

Its kinda silly to jump from internet forums to real life politics but its the same response we should have to groups like the Nazis or communists. Be wary of them organizing to seize power in some kind of subversive coup while maintaining freedom expression to force their ideas to prove themselves as functional.

 

[Fish-Eyed Fool]

It's pretty evident that left-leaning people want more moderation than right-wingers.

I blame the jews.

 

[Ebonic Tutor]

It didn't matter what the userbase was, a small group of goons and troons was able to organize and coopt the site.

That's one thing SA related people have always enjoyed doing. They like to rot places from the inside out from what I've seen.

Edit: They will of course call you crazy for saying such things and that any and all evidence was fabricated.

 

[Smarty Pants]

Let them pile up for long enough and they became the user base, and when they are the user base who do you think the userbase is going to recommend be made mod when the site admin shows up to ask "who's next?" That how Something Awful got that exceptional, reaction image posting, scam artist, Puerto Rican woman as a mod. And then they couldn't fire because "racism".

I don't think Null would ever ask the users that frequent A&H "who's next" so we can all take a breather.

I blame the jews.

That goes without saying.

 

[Recoil]

There's something to be said for rewarding quality, as @Freedom Fries has said.
Assuming we can incentivize good citizenship on the Farms with meaningless internet stickers, why not give it some thought?

 

[X Prime]

I do not think Null wants this website to be a popularity contest for stickers and positive ratings.

I mean I could be wrong, but that's my impression.

 

[The Pink Panther]

I do not think Null wants this website to be a popularity contest for stickers and positive ratings.

I mean I could be wrong, but that's my impression.

Yeah, what's the neccessity of having rewards for the simple act of laughing at someone?

 

[Ebonic Tutor]

Yeah, what's the neccessity of having rewards for the simple act of laughing at someone?

At the end of the day though somebody must put the effort in to show why we should be laughing at somebody/situation and acknowledging the effort put into finding the information should be encouraged in some fashion I'd think.

 

[Freedom Fries]

Yeah, what's the neccessity of having rewards for the simple act of laughing at someone?

It helps cut one word and meaningless replies out

 

[Feline Darkmage]

I probably am one of the people "dog-piling" in this subforum, but I don't see it as particularly bad as at least half of the dog-piling seems to be good natured ribbing to me. I think the groupthink in weebwars is much worse.

tbh you're onto something. Weeb Wars has a little too many people treating Nicky Rackets and Ty Beard and other ISWV people as sacred cows. As though it's more a groupthink/shit on sjw thing to them instead of combing through dumb internet people flinging shit at each other like monkeys.