What is the point of these forums if you’re banned for using it?

From the modlog: admin Banned @Julianus reason: 3 week timeout for more constant bickering expires: in 21d

There are admins with clear political bias and they are using their powers to suppress opinions they don’t like. This isn’t a ban for violating rules… but simply replying to their posts. What gives?

    • AgreeableLandscape
      104·
      3 years ago

      We have never removed any responses during debates, with us or otherwise, with the exception of clear violations against the (not at all political) rules. In fact, we sometimes leave rule breaking comments up if they have gotten a lot of responses, especially factual rebuttals, by other users.

      In the tolerance example you brought up, the user wasn’t banned for having that belief, they were banned because they were repeatedly being disrespectful to (attacking and insulting the) other users trying to debate with them, following multiple reports of their comments.

        • AgreeableLandscape
          12·
          3 years ago

          Can you link that user’s profile then? I’m not the one who took the action so I don’t know all the details off the top of my head.

          The modlog (now weirdly missing certain logs)

          It’s not perfect but also not malicious. Bulk actions are only listed as a single entry for example, something that needs to be addressed in further development.

          And of course we do have to hide links to things like porn, gore, etc from it so it can’t be seen at all. We also remove blatant spam and brigading posts (like the recent waves from 4chan) because they want it to be seen in any way possible, and knowing that it will remain visible in the modlog will just encourage them. We have never removed a rule breaking debate post from the modlog in this way.

            • AgreeableLandscape
              13·
              3 years ago

              I see now. I didn’t deal with this person, but IMO, I don’t see the ban as being unreasonable. The admins have generally agreed that advocating for bigotry such as white supremacy and Nazi ideology is also against rule 1. I guess whichever admin banned them saw this user as falling under that category.