#(though they usually don't couch it in social justice language)

[juney-blues]

if you have a very vibes-based politic you are vulnerable to someone convincing you that the people who are being oppressed are actually the *oppressors* and supporting them was wrong and bigoted of you.

it's something you see a *lot* in discussions of transfeminism, where any discussion of transmisogyny gets twisted in whatever ways are available to a person, to make it seem like actually trans women are the *privileged* ones, the *real* oppressors. Talking about transmisogyny is lesbophobic or intersexist or transandrophobic/transmisandrist or racist or sexist or ableist, or whatever it needs to be for trans women to be bigots who we have to silence.

If you have a vibes-based politic, this is a great way of shutting down the conversation, because you don't have the tools to tell when someone is genuine or not, and denying any of it has a bad vibe, it feels like bigotry, it feels like denialism.

but you do have to learn, sometimes when someone says you have structural power over them, they're lying, or wrong.

[hillbillyoracle]

Red flags a community leader is not dealing with fragile reactive behavior well:

Differences of opinion are extremely rare

Differences of opinion are met with passive aggression

Differences of opinion are met with misappropriated social justice language - "you're gatekeeping! you're gaslighting! you're ableist!"

Merely expressing a difference of opinion without couching it in self effacing language gets you warned, kicked, or banned.

Warns, kicks, or bans are based on whether "you made someone feel bad"

Pushing back on incorrect statements or information in a plain language gets your warned, kicked, or banned.

There is an emphasis on shallow positivity - "we're all nice here"

These qualities are anathema to forming healthy bonds with other people in a group.

Speaking as someone who's moderated and been an admin for some longstanding communities now - there has to be an mindset shift. Trying to include everyone and make everyone feel good is not only not possible, it gives reactive folks the upperhand. You aren't trying to keep everyone in your group. You're trying to keep the people who will grow your community into something deep, stable, and beautiful.

In a garden, I weed. Not because I hate weeds but because they take away resources and crowd out what I want my resources to go toward. I do the same in communities I run. To be clear, people aren't the weeds here - inappropriate behaviors are. If people stay so committed to their bad behaviors that they get booted too, that's a shame. It's always my hope that people learn and do better.

How do I weed? By enforcing rules.

Rules should be based on objective measures of behavior - not subjective measures like whether someone was nice or mean. They should be written in a way that completely takes the pressure off of any mod to figure out "who deserves to be here" or some personal judgement. It should be a straight up and down and very easy to tell. Did this person do this? If yes, then this is our policy.

A bad rule I see all the time in servers:

"Be nice!" - too often be nice means don't express a different opinion or offer correct information.* Nice is always a matter of opinion. That places mods under pressure because what if they don't think it's nice but another mod thinks it's fine - now they're in conflict with another mod and that's stressful. That often leads to unclear guidance to members and usually leaves the most fragile - i.e. most likely to say something is mean based on whether they like it - on the team.

Better rules:

"No name calling or character accusations" - this should include things like homophobic, transphobic, ableist. Which isn't to say those things still can't be called out, but it's amazing what happens when you say let's not use those words - most people can't back them up in plain language by pointing to what was actually said. Which is to say it keeps people from misusing them.

"No passive aggression or bad faith questions" - Bad faith questions are questions that the person asking in place of their personal opinion.

The only way to have this one work though is if you genuinely protect people's right to say things like "I disagree" and "I'm not a fan of that"; in fact I've stepped in and asked people to rephrase passive aggressive comments in those terms before. People who obliged I kept and later said they felt good for being backed up to express things directly.

The ones that were reactive to that I warned and booted. One person I booted after an incident like this raged out at me on several platforms and digitally stalked me for weeks. Believe me - these are not people you want around your community. The more you walk on eggshells for them, the more the community suffers.

"Negative self talk and discussions of trauma belong in the venting channel" - My servers got so much better after I implemented this rule. We talk about how men in relationships often expect free emotional labor constantly from a woman. Why is it suddenly okay to expect that from a person if they're a stranger?

I've had to leave so many spaces because they become emotionally exhausting to be in because despite the topic headers being concrete - all discussions come back to how valid someone feels about their practice/work/project etc. Responses were all about making that person feel better. Using an online community to regulate some isn't inherently bad - but it shouldn't be the whole of the community and get in the way of discussing other topics. Give it a channel. That way you're not "being mean" and telling people to stop but you're putting it in a place where people know before clicking that that's what they're getting into.

The other reason to do this. So many dysfunctional people when challenged will whip out their childhood trauma in graphic detail to try to illicit pity and escape accountability. That is not appropriate in any community - online or off. Having a spot ready so you can go - "If you want to describe your trauma, you can do so in x channel with appropriate CWs, you're breaking another rule by bringing up in detail here. Right now I'm warning you not to make a character accusation as that is against the rules" is really helpful.

Bonus Tips:

When dealing with active conflicts, feel free to lock or slowmode a channel to read through so you can make a better decision. But in cases where one person got reactive - started ascribing thoughts and emotions to the other the person they haven't explicitly expressed, made character accusations, or played the woe is me card - toward a different opinion, warn that person.

If you tell both people to cool off, you make the reactivity to the correct info/different opinion an equal offence to offering the correct info/different opinion. That sends a bad message to the reactive person that they were right to be upset, they should just be sneekier next time. And it tells your knowledgeable person not to correct misinfo or mention their perspectives which usually drives them from the group.

Consider either taking the time to or making someone's whole position on the team to heart or star comments that demonstrate the kind of behavior you want to see more of in the server. When someone says "Oh that's an interesting perspective, I'm not sure I agree but it's cool to hear about" instead of becoming passive aggressive or "That's not for me personally" instead of launching into character accusations - reward them. Highlight to your community that this is what you want to see. Maybe have special roles or whatever your community can provide for those folks for a week afterward or something.

It's not just about defining what you don't want. It pays to be equally clear on what you do want. Restrict/boot bad behavior and reward good behavior. I'm thankful for the communities I came up in that did that. I became a better internet denizen because of that. When you're willing to establish pro social boundaries for a community - you're helping everyone involved. It's worth the effort.

--

*I literally got warned and then booted in a server for correcting someone who said Kentucky's hills were why we didn't get tornados. I explained and offered proof that Kentucky gets plenty of tornados annually, they're just statistically on average weaker, and that the hills aren't why - it's where we fall in geographically in the US as a whole. Totally verifiable facts. And I got booted. Because offering correct information alone was "mean" to that admin. Was thankful honestly cause who wants to spend their time in a space like that.

Not that I use it a ton, but Reddit probably needs to be on the chopping block. It is semi-argorithmic even without the homepage and boy oh boy is the culture there bad.

Online communities really are only as good as the moderators in charge of them are at dealing with fragile and reactive behavior. And that's becoming rarer and rarer.