Let's talk about The Cool Zone

[Mordent]

I think the place contains roughly every type of conversation I don't want to have as part of a community about a spaceman game, but that's okay because I followed the following steps:

1) Mute the channel
2) Carry on with my life

Anyone else is welcome to do the same.

Is it somewhat leftist? I think that's an understatement. Does that matter? Nope. Do I mind if people with right wing/centrist views don't feel welcome in there? Not especially because they're fully able to carry out Steps 1 and 2 above. Do I mind if people who are somewhat apathetic to it all don't feel welcome in there (this includes me) because lack of outrage at certain things is contentious? Nope, because Steps 1 and 2 above.

For some people going through some rough times what with -gestures at the world-, if they find some happiness or a chance to vent in there or whatever, good for them.

I think it'd be neat if people could report people being turds to admins rather than escalating or engaging with said turds, but we get the same joy with people not adminhelping when they should so I don't exactly expect that.

[vampirate]

personally i'm glad that the cool zone is somewhere you feel uncomfortable sharing these kinds of nobody-fucking-asked-you takes, and the quality of the channel has increased dramatically in your absence. 

This is a perfect example of what you may or may not decry as "bashing non-leftist opinions" but what it actually is is just downright disrespectful and garbage discourse. You saunter into a discussion people (who have a stake in the matter) discussing what upsets them and what would make it right, and you swung in, cheeks flapping, with some condescending thats-just-how-the-world-works-kiddo bullshit. All this enlightened non-partisan "it was inevitable" garbage has a single purpose: it takes up space and eats up time that people could have spent much better without you near it. 

Nobody is asking for this, nobody is welcoming this. If you want your own safe place to reminesce about colonialism and the inherent might of the european warlord, kindly cram it. You decided to flout the purpose of the tough times channel to play armchair revisionist and arrogantly "explain" some textbook anglo curriculum "history" to people who were trying to discuss the morality and righteousness of the fact. You got burned for shitting up the conversation, not for being outside the "acceptable opinions" or whatever, you just sucked ass to talk to. 

You could've walked in with some Merriam-Webster definition of Borders or Land, or just gone off on a monologue about oranges, it doesn't matter. 

The channel isn't broken, this is pure operator error. 

If you remove the comments I replied to the context is gone. A person was trying to shut down a conversation by saying the land is ours. Basically hahah gotcha we can't make laws on immigration because the land was taken by conquest? I stand by that being a fallible point that makes no sense. Most lands owned by anyone now were taken by conquest, and they warred with each other. it was the ugly part of human nature throughout history and it's not a hot take to say we can't just declare ourselves unable to make laws cause the land was taken by war centuries ago. I stand by that. I can understand why some people find it offensive. I think the history of treatment by America towards native Americans is hideous, but I stand by the point I was making that yeah... the land is "ours" even if it was taken by war. I don't find that a hot take. It's simply reality.

---

But... lemme say where I was wrong. I didn't understand the exact nature of the place, and I didn't take enough effort to learn. Some of the stuff I said hurt people, and that's on me and for that I apologize. I misread the room literally. I misread the purpose. I went into place to designed just lay out some complaints and where people wanted to be allowed to be bummed a bit, and I debated. That had to suck for the people who just wanted to vent. So for that part, I am sorry.

[Frank_Stein]

I'm not sure the remedy for all of this. I think you need a more honest approach when it comes to moderating this chat. Being a devil's advocate isn't a bad thing if you're trying to foster discussion and if I am going to be critical of Vampirate here, there would seem to be an issue of him "not reading the room". If there's a rule of "be honest and truthful" about your opinions, that might save you all a lot of heartache. This would stop people being provocateurs and if someone has an ignorant perspective, one doesn't need to attack, but to educate in reasonable discussion.

Ultimately, you seem reasonable. However you take the other party too seriously at times. Some individuals don't have your best interests at heart. They want to make you upset because they're bored and it's funny. Difficult thought it may be, it's best to disengage from such insincere discussions.

Good advice.

[Drago156]

The Cool Zone has been an extremely dogpiley kind of place every time I've looked in there, and that shouldn't be the case of any channel or civil discussion, because that really defeats the point of having it and allows people to be an ass because they're in the majority view of the people in said place. It's shameful and disrespectful that the channel has had, not just one, but numerous instances of expressed dissent, harm, or otherwise ill willed language and thought against any person or group.

I have the Cool Zone muted personally and have for quite a while, but it doesn't change the fact that a large portion of what goes on in there is uncivil and harmful in some manner. I understand that political topics are bound to come up and that discussions will form around that, and that eventually someone is bound to take it to a personal level, but it happens too often there to be chalked up to a one off deal or that the cause is always provocation. Opinions are merely that, opinions, and everyone will have one in some form or manner and I highly doubt that any two people will 100% agree about everything in the exact same way, but there should be a point where there is a disconnect between opinions and person in a way that everyone recognizes that we're all people, made of the same combination of molecules as any other person, and that differences will be had, but shouldn't be made or kept or taken on a personal level.

If the channel is used as intended, i.e. as a place for people to calmly and safely vent about something affecting or tolling them then great, I am fully in support of that, but at current the cool zone is often far from the original intent, and that it's not a safe environment for a large number of people, and that really isn't ok, no matter what your views are or who you are.

[zjdtmkhzt]

It's a pretty terrible place to be a lot of the time, but I remember when we had that stuff in the other channels instead of in the cool zone, which was a hundred times worse.
With the demographic of our community that kind of discussion won't go away, so we might as well keep it in the cool zone, so people can tune out if they want to.

[Roomba]

I don't think there's anything to be gained by rehashing Vampirate's own statements in that channel any further. Everyone, including Vampirate himself (albeit begrudgingly), agrees that what he said was bad. That doesn't completely invalidate all of the other issues that people have been bringing up.

I definitely agree that it's probably a channel that's necessary (given that prior to its establishment, such discussions simply took over #general all the time, which led to people with genuine anxiety issues being shouted down), but it could probably use more oversight. I don't think stuff that wouldn't fly in any other part of the community should be acceptable there just because it's the nature of the place.

One thing that probably needs clarification is where exactly people who want to raise issues about it can report to: whether it's because they felt like something someone said was personally offensive to them (like Sundance), or because it's a genuinely militant call for violence in a manner which could get the entire server into trouble. A good chunk of the admin team frequents the channel, and a large amount of the ones that don't take the viewpoint of 'it's The Cool Zone, if you disapprove mute it and move on', which can lead people to believe that any complaints they have about it won't be taken seriously, or will cause the admin team to turn on them. It's not an idle concern either, I've seen people go from 'hi' to banned in fairly short order back when such discussions took over #general, largely for the crime of not understanding a very specific strain of American leftist thought and also not speaking English very well.

[Carbadox]

I don't frequent cool-zone at all, I keep it muted and only glance occasionally whenever curiosity gets the better of me or when it spills into general but the above comments sort of echo my thoughts regarding it.

Theres alot of comments and behaviours from there and before it's inception that are honestly pretty disgusting, like an admin openly stating, in front of other admins, that someone should just go and silently die or another individual who choose to attack someone else because of their Mormon history. I don't really care about the reasoning that made them say such things, it's just disgusting to me and I see no reason why any of this has to be tied to Goon, especially when a good number of people in said channel don't even play or really care about Goonstation outside of that specific channel.

[bubs]

this post is wack cause you were all about the channel and by far - BY FAR - the most active poster in it until you got kicked out, and now that you cant see it anymore you're all about how bad it is


edit:

like an admin openly stating, in front of other admins, that someone should just go and silently die or another individual who choose to attack someone else because of their Mormon history.

this sounds made up, specifically the mormon bit

[vampirate]

this post is wack cause you were all about the channel and by far - BY FAR - the most active poster in it until you got kicked out, and now that you cant see it anymore you're all about how bad it is


edit:

I was also addicted to twitter, which is way more toxic. I have a bad habit of sinking my time into places that have extreme conversations. I used to spend hours a day arguing with TERFs on Twitter, and not cause I enjoyed talking to them, but because I have a bad habit of not leaving well enough alone even when I definitely should.

[Carbadox]

this sounds made up, specifically the mormon bit

https://imgur.com/dVGFVn9
https://imgur.com/ixmotnd

This is not included the person in questions previous incidents

[bubs]

second link dont work

[UrsulaMejor]

this sounds made up, specifically the mormon bit

https://imgur.com/dVGFVn9
https://imgur.com/ixmotnd

This is not included the person in questions previous incidents

second link broken.

if you look up the context from the first link, that isn't an admin saying that (the way you phrased it implied it was an admin), and an admin told them to fuck off within 5 minutes of them saying that.

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments...nknown.png

[popecrunch]

Here's the thing.

Setting aside for the moment the fact that I enjoy the cool zone, it still very much provides a valuable service, by giving conversations that a lot of folks don't like seeing in general a place to exist. If we remove cool zone or say 'you can't have these sorts of discussions because some people on the forums don't like it', one of two things is going to happen.

1) The conversations you do not like happen in general again, instead of in a channel you are more than welcome to mute and never look at. You are unhappy.
2) The conversations you do not like happen on other discord servers, further splintering the community, almost assuredly into multiple other discords, leading to cliqueishness, which is poison to a community. The community suffers as a result. You are unhappy.

If you don't like the cool zone, don't look at it. Problem solved. If you don't like that people are having conversations you do not like in a place you do not like and you don't want to not look at it, that is not the administration's problem. People are allowed to have opinions and conversations you do not like, and the fact that some of you are *annoyed* instead of *relieved* that they are having those conversations in a place you do not have to look at if you do not want to is bizarre and disappointing to me. I don't know how more clearly I can put this. If you do not like the cool zone, do not look at the cool zone. If you do not like the cool zone, just... just mute it. It really is that simple. Hell, you can even tell discord to not even show you channels you have muted - click the little down arrow next to the server name, 'hide muted channels' is the second to last item on the list. Complaining about people having opinions and discussions you do not like in a channel you can easily *not even see* is absolute foolishness, and I expect better of you all.

[vampirate]

Here's the thing.

Setting aside for the moment the fact that I enjoy the cool zone, it still very much provides a valuable service, by giving conversations that a lot of folks don't like seeing in general a place to exist. If we remove cool zone or say 'you can't have these sorts of discussions because some people on the forums don't like it', one of two things is going to happen.

1) The conversations you do not like happen in general again, instead of in a channel you are more than welcome to mute and never look at. You are unhappy.
2) The conversations you do not like happen on other discord servers, further splintering the community, almost assuredly into multiple other discords, leading to cliqueishness, which is poison to a community. The community suffers as a result. You are unhappy.

If you don't like the cool zone, don't look at it. Problem solved. If you don't like that people are having conversations you do not like in a place you do not like and you don't want to not look at it, that is not the administration's problem. People are allowed to have opinions and conversations you do not like, and the fact that some of you are *annoyed* instead of *relieved* that they are having those conversations in a place you do not have to look at if you do not want to is bizarre and disappointing to me. I don't know how more clearly I can put this. If you do not like the cool zone, do not look at the cool zone. If you do not like the cool zone, just... just mute it. It really is that simple. Hell, you can even tell discord to not even show you channels you have muted - click the little down arrow next to the server name, 'hide muted channels' is the second to last item on the list. Complaining about people having opinions and discussions you do not like in a channel you can easily *not even see* is absolute foolishness, and I expect better of you all.

But most of the objections aren't about the opinions so much as the calls for violence, and the way people are treated who have differing opinions. The calls for violence are explicitly against the discord rules, and some laws.....

that's be like people saying "man, I sure do hate f*gs" in cool zone, and the response being "Look if you don't like someone expressing that then ignore the channel".
The objections, and my objection, lies in the uneven approach to enforcement and the types of statements that are allowed to happen there that break the rules. It's not opinions so much as a toxic culture that is being objected to. It's like super the Wild West in there. I felt the exact same kind of relief when it was gone that I did when I stopped posting on Twitter cause the ugliness there is just saddening. Don't get me wrong, there IS positive conversation there. There IS something worth saving there and fostering, but there is a LOT going wrong too.

[UrsulaMejor]

Hating someone for their professed political beliefs is not the same thing as hating someone because they are gay. I suggest you drop that hand-grenade of a comparison and back away from it before it explodes in your hand.

I don't agree with calls to violence, but I also haven't seen much evidence of such in my brief forays into the channel. In the times I *have* seen it, it's been addressed rather quickly and judiciously by other admins.