Woozle/2022/02/24/1
originally posted on errorism v1; crossposted to Nextdoor (deleted by unknown moderator or admin)
Summary: Nextdoor's focus on "uncivility" allows a lot of really bad stuff to fly under their radar — and then we're called "uncivil" when we try to fight it. I think we need to change our approach to this problem.
As some of you know, Nextdoor recently suspended me for a few days.
Despite the fact that ND never did explain why they did this — and I therefore have absolutely no basis on which to modify my behavior, even if I totally agreed with their reasoning — I think I have nonetheless arrived at an attitude-shift.
I have realized there's really no point in snarking at conservoids. They don't get it. Some of them genuinely don't know how to add two and two together, while some of them choose to calculate the answer as "five" because that answer better suits their agenda. 'They don't care if they're wrong; they just want to win.
ND's attempts at keeping discussion productive have mostly emphasized the appearance of "civility" and "neighborliness". As long as assholes use polite words for their assholery, that's fine with Nextdoor — but forcefully calling out that assholery (as one often has to do with bullies, because forcefulness is the only thing they understand) is "uncivil" and "unneighborly",
The real problem falls under the radar, as microaggression so often does.
I think we need to change our approach to work better with Nextdoor's moderation lens.
As legitimately infuriating as their smug little self-serving posts and comments can be, I'm going to try to stop viewing each one as an attack which needs to be taken out lest someone fall for it.
I am instead going to quietly note the inherent incivility and unneighborliness, and keep a record — and anyone else who wants to can help out as well. When we have enough evidence to be worth reporting, then we can take action.
We also need to school ourselves to recognize the many ways in which they cloak deeply uncivil ideas and thoughts in the language of politeness; I expect I'll be posting about that soon.
In the meantime, I'm going to give them all the spare metaphorical rope I can find.