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comment by silentpundit
silentpundit  ·  3190 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: PSA: Welcome to Hubski, Redditors.

If I'm the sort of guy who likes fierce, but respectful debate, holding no sacred cows and considering nothing free from exhaustive intellectual deconstruction, will Hubski be tolerant or maybe even encouraging of such discussion?

For example, am I free to question the fundamental assumptions of both the War On Terror and 'rape culture' alike, assuming I'll never call names or execute personal vendettas against other users?

In other words, is Hubski going to be fertile ground for multi-dimensional debate and conversation? Or does it aspire to be a 'safe space' for any particular group or ideology?





mk  ·  3190 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Grendel, might have a clearer view than me.

It's tough. Some people are looking for engaging polar viewpoints without vitriol, and it happens, but IMO it's almost as destructive to force that to happen over the entire site as it is to make a 'safe place'.

So, what we do, is put moderation in the hands of individual posters. At best, what happens is that people that don't want such discussions don't host them, but those that do can. I think it works better than a top down approach, but it's not perfect in this regard. I am not sure if there is a perfect solution.

Grendel  ·  3189 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Like mk said, the system we have at Hubski might not be perfect, but in my experience, it’s as good as it gets. Speaking as someone who’s butted heads with feminists on Hubski and elsewhere, and has been dubbed “that MRA guy” from day one, Hubski is the only community I know of where you can expect anything close to a fair debate.

The worst that can happen if, for example, you decide to go against the feminist majority is that some might resort to calling you a troll/misogynist and maybe a few people will be offended enough to mute you (which just means you won’t be allowed to comment in their threads).

Hubski gives users a good degree of control over what kind of content they want/don’t want to see, so it would be possible, in theory, for a certain group to create something akin to a “safe space”, by creating and maintaining a list of unwanted posters and then forbidding them from participating in their discussions.

That wouldn’t be very practical however, and to the best of my knowledge it's never happened, so I would say that Hubski is not designed to facilitate insular thinking, nor is the community prone to ostracisation and censorship (at least when compared to places like Reddit and Hacker News).

It goes without saying that most people don’t like having their views challenged, and identity politics notoriously breeds zealotry, so if you come here (or anywhere else, for that matter) expecting a feminist to be appreciative of your 500-word deconstruction of rape culture, you’re going to be sorely disappointed; but if you’re at the stage where you don’t want to feel like you’re just preaching to the choir and you also don’t want to have to walk on eggshells for fear of being lynched by the mob, Hubski is a good place to be.

mk  ·  3189 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Thanks, Grendel.

Of course, I still disagree with you. :)