Advice for community managers:
Use the Olivia Hill rule.
It's surprisingly easy to enforce:
Fascists get really upset and will talk to you about why the rule is bad.
You then ban them.
That's it, that's all the work it takes!
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Joining a new community
Me, peeking in through the door: "Hey, do y'all allow fascists in here?"
Them: "How do you defin--"
Me, yelling back over my shoulder, "It keeps working!"
5 months earlier
@pathunstrom that's an awesome rule.
I especially love that the rule bears her name. It's good to give people credit for their good ideas. Thanks for doing that.
. . . This post is 4 months old and I get a new person thinking they're the smartest special one that the rule won't apply to.
This is precisely why the rule works: This person just openly announced they'll be an unlimited drain on community resources with no actual prompting from me.
@pathunstrom I hate the position this person is expousing so much.
"Question everything!" Absolutely, ponder things from whatever angle you are able to, try and understand the how and the why behind it, but that is not their position is it?
Their "question everything" is, "don't think about how or why; demand an explanation for everything you don't like", which is more or less the opposite.
4 months earlier
@pathunstrom A couple of years ago, I was brought in as a moderator to help de-fascist a community that had practically turned into 4chan, in one of the most fundamentally-abuse-attracting and difficult-to-moderate categories of community (privacy/security-related).
The policy was set as "no fascists, no alt-right, nothing that looks like it" and people would either get banned immediately (if clearly intentionally abusive) or get a warning otherwise that they were expected to take seriously (doubling down would be grounds for a ban). Every ban was permanent but revocable if someone showed genuine reflection and commitment to do better - this sometimes took minutes, sometimes months or even longer, sometimes never.
Randos complained for months. "You just call everyone a nazi", "how do you define fascist then", "you're being unreasonable", "the alt right aren't fascists", and so on, and so forth. Without exception, the ones complaining about it the most were the ones who already had a track prior record of being an asshole in different ways. A lot of the bans were the result of brigading attempts from, well, fascists who objected to being pushed out, pretending to be 'new users' and mysteriously immediately knowing about previous bans that happened before they joined.
It took a while, but they eventually gave up. The result was a pleasant community to be in, unusually pleasant for a privacy/security community. I haven't been around there for quite a while now, but my understanding is that it's still a nice place to this day.
"No fascists allowed" works, even under the worst conditions, and the "no, seriously, this is not up for debate, the moderator decides" is a critical component of making it work.
So, unsurprisingly, the rule keeps working.
Behold this person, who immediately asked for a sharp definition of fascist.
This is the kind of person you're ejecting before they create problems.
As close as I can tell from what little information I can glean, I don't think this person is a fascist, but he's definitely not someone I want in my spaces.
This is why it works.
Got one who decided to respond to the deeper explanation to talk down to me about we need the definition to be more explicit.
I'll reiterate: anyone questioning the rule "no f fascists" directly is going to be a problem. There are no "false positives" because the signal is "willing to argue with a no fascist policy" not "full throated fascists!."
If you haven't adopted a code of conduct yet, that's where you put examples of bad behavior. If you're worried about folks not picking up on the subtly of the trap, put that example there.
And while you should absolutely get community input on rules, some things need to be deal breakers. Protecting fascism is high up that list. Also, ban anyone who questions the value of having a code of conduct. See previous statements about being a drain on community management resources.
@pathunstrom
https://youtu.be/IKICKcMU3MU
I love the line from this classic - "why the fuck are you a voluntary Nazi Safety Advocate? That's a funny thing to be concerned about, the wellbeing of hypothetical Nazis"
Aamer Rahman: Is it really ok to punch nazis?
YouTube
@pathunstrom i have been called a fascist for telling people to vote for kamala harris instead of jill stein
@AVincentInSpace It would be way more funny to just block you for this, but I'm gonna be nice this once:
The reason this works, besides fascists self selecting into being vocal about it, is because the kinds of people who are willing to quibble on a rule that says no fascists?
They're going to push on all of your rules. They will be an explicit drain on community management resources.
Frankly: letting rules lawyers overwhelm your community is a fast way to end up with a community with low trust and exhausted volunteers.
@pathunstrom Unboosting this, so I can boost it again.