The future of CEPS

[deficiT]

There has been discussion on whether hosting a contentious political sub forum is useful for this website, for a long time, but this discussion has been renewed recently, and I believe some manner of change is inevitable by now, based on the opinions of directors, staff, and users.

We are looking to see what the general opinion is on the future of CEPS and if we should keep it open, so please consider voting here, or if you have any different ideas for managing it, that is not listed in the poll, please feel free to comment

 

[deficiT]

Please see this thread for some related discussion, on this topic:

Open Discussion Thread 'Explanation for recent staff events and future staff obligations, criticism & discussion welcome'

Mar 24, 2025

Hey guys, I am opening this thread to have an open dialogue related to the recent staff and policy changes.

While staff here has always been willing to answer questions and hear criticism, my hope is that we can have a productive conversation without turning to personal insults or conflict, and yeah, I'll just close it if it does.

I did want to just make a clear outline of what exactly happened, and why, from an organizational standpoint, without pointing any fingers at anyone or inserting too many personal thoughts. I don't think my personal feelings in this really matter, nor have they...

• deficiT
• Replies: 158
• Forum: Site Technical Help

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[mal3volent]

I think there should be more context given before introducing this question.

If the argument is that political debate is counterproductive and distracts from the HR functions of the site, then that is reasonable. In that case, I would either vote for a ban of all politics across all BL platforms OR an opt-in system that I have been advocating for.

But, it can't be that one platform gets to be a safe haven for one group of people who all share basically the same opinions, while the other platform has their system completely nuked.

It either has to 1) be abolished everywhere, or 2) both platforms should be left to create what works best for them.

 

[deficiT]

I think there should be more context given before introducing this question.

If the argument is that political debate is counterproductive and distracts from the HR functions of the site, then that reasonable. In that case, I would either vote for a ban of all politics across all BL platforms OR an opt-in system that I have been advocating for.

But, it can't be that one platform gets to be a safe haven for one group of people who all share basically the same opinions, while the other platform has their system completely nuked.

It either has to 1) be abolished everywhere, or 2) both platforms should be left to create what works best for them.

I agree, and this is us establishing context, as of now we are just gathering sentiment and discussing this issue, there are no moves set in stone right now. The manner to which any changes are made is still to be determined, so I simply can't say for sure whether this would be an org wide thing or not.

Though, I don't disagree with you that I think whatever move is made, it needs to be a policy that applies everywhere, and I do think that is the direction it would go, should sentiment be to archive it or remove political discussion.

Personally I'm on the fence with it, and have switched positions multiple times, based on new concepts or methods. The method Ali put forth would be, to make CEP opt-in, moderate it more effectively and remove personal insults etc. as they happen, and to archive TD. Right now, I'm supportive of that, but tbh I am most likely going to just take the position of whatever the general sentiment is. I'm really just still undecided, and I don't want to push in either direction or try to influence what people think is best. I do believe that political discussion is more often a problem than it is useful, I believe there are other measures we can take before removing it though, and we need to consider how effectively we can manage the outright removal of political topics, figure out what topics we do allow, etc.

This is an informal poll, to gather opinion, any of these approaches are up for discussion, and I think it'll be helpful to get ideas from the community and see what people think.

 

[JahBeeuS]

I chose something else bc I like the idea of opting-in but I bristle at the idea of "tightening up" moderation. Maybe moderation does need to tighten up though, idk I'm not there a whole lot tbh.

My experience there has been that one side (political leaning) tends to have control of moderation there and seems to persecute the other side via points/bans. The latest moderation team seemed to have a fair balance and was doing things well imo.

 

[deficiT]

I chose something else bc I like the idea of opting-in but I bristle at the idea of "tightening up" moderation. Maybe moderation does need to tighten up though, idk I'm not there a whole lot tbh.

My experience there has been that one side (political leaning) tends to have control of moderation there and seems to persecute the other side via points/bans. The latest moderation team seemed to have a fair balance and was doing things well imo.

I don't quite see it the same way, I've been pressured from both sides to moderate it in different ways. I think it's a difficult distinction to make, because just on an ideological level, the left is going to be more sensitive to abuse or racist content, and so obviously you'll see more "restrictive" types of arguments from them regarding problematic content. The right is just naturally going to care less about that kind of thing, and consider borderline material to not be problematic at all, which is its own problem. I think everyone brings some amount of personal bias that's unavoidable, and that's what makes it difficult to moderate.

I've seen a lot of people with all sorts of beliefs do a good job there, and I don't know that the moderation is necessarily the problem with it. Politics just carries such an overwhelming presence, and it seeps into everything. Once one knows what political beliefs another user carries, this creates all sorts of bias and preconceived notions about what that person thinks, what motivates that person, we make strawmen out of each other, etc.

My approach is more to moderate content that is specifically targeting an individual user, or promotes violence or harm against any individual or group. The moderation changes I would envision for CEP, would be more along the lines of just not discussing certain topics that are specifically contentious or cause a lot of problems. But that creates it's own problems, so idk

 

[Skorpio]

In that case, I would either vote for a ban of all politics across all BL platforms

I think this is a good approach. Apparently we don’t get any legal protection for an opt in system, and we have to keep decisions even across the platforms.

 

[TheGyattDamnRizzler]

Idk if I have the right opinion on this but we talk about safety like for illegal drugs. Drugs are illegal regardless of your stance. I don't think any of us are going to be politicians in the future. I personally have been avoiding discussing anything political on here, and I was very political at one point in my life but like I don't give a shit and people get really messed up over political stuff sadly. Including the people running this site I imagine. I didn't know Australia ran this site, Australia likes to send people to jail for the first ammendment as well as blacking out events from history on the internet. I'm not saying we shouldn't have the to right to discuss but why bother?

 

[mal3volent]

I think this is a good approach. Apparently we don’t get any legal protection for an opt in system, and we have to keep decisions even across the platforms.

If that's the case then the poll needs to be adjusted to reflect the true nature of what we are voting on.

It also needs to be defined what is considered political speech.

Because I was told last year on discord a very different story than what is being presented now. I was told that aggressive vocal support of certain political and social causes are inextricably tied to our mission of harm reduction.

So my fear is, "political" speech will be abolished, but other speech will be considered allowed because it's reclassified as some other term. Social justice, advocacy for this or that, etc. Then you don't have a less toxic HR focused community, you have the same problem we've always had. One side feeling alienated, unnecessary tension and resentment... and it will all build up again.

The only realistic way to address this in my opinion is to have designated areas that are controllable where all sides are held to the same standard. If there was a legitimate way to ensure all political/controversial social issues could be banned and everything was enforced fairly, I'd be perfectly fine with that. But I think the natural biases of the parties in control would inevitably lead to certain things passing through while other equivalent statements would be removed.

Then you have the constant litigation of what constitutes politics and what doesn't. That sounds like a problem for a forum with an over abundance of active staff members... not us.

 

[paltatomate]

My experience there has been that one side (political leaning) tends to have control of moderation there and seems to persecute the other side via points/bans. The latest moderation team seemed to have a fair balance and was doing things well imo.

i have never been very active in ceps because i'm not interested in discussing issues i can't do little about.
but in my short time as mod i could see how something that seemed almost impossible to moderate suddenly was manageable with no problem. both mods come from very different mind spaces, and both have their own ideas. more often than not they were able to find and agree to a solution even to a difficult post or user.

it was only when old disputes that had nothing to do with this forum were brought in that they asked for help. because they couldn't understand the meaning behind the posts.
you can make very good and reasonable points, but package them in a lot of explosive wrap.
or the way round.

and this can happen in any sub forum.

giving users the possibility to discuss and vent about what is going on in their country (which in most cases in *not* australia) might keep them from going out and vent where they might be more tempted to abuse drugs in a dangerous way.
or worse.
the option to opt out (or stay out in case it should be an opt-in option) would give users who feel triggered by politics protection

in the end it's up to the mods (not smods or admins) to detect whether someone is posting high and drunk, or if they have a pushy personality, or if they have an ulterior motive for posting what they post. and then react to each questionable post correspondingly.
and like i said... most cases are open-and-shut, dealt with by editing or deleting, and informing the poster why so they might avoid making the same mistake again.

edit:

aggressive vocal support of certain political and social causes

being what has caused most of the real problems.

 

[deficiT]

I think we'd be better off coming back to this when we have something more concrete. The poll was to take the temperature and gauge what people thought generally, it was not intended to determine exactly what the approach is or outline what exactly is going to happen.

Just from everything I've seen so far, staff and users are pretty much evenly divided about this