One thing is clear: The discussion needs to continue.
Starting today, there will be two new sections on The Good Men Project. One will be on “The Issues of Men’s Rights” and one will be “Men and Feminism”.
For the “Issues of Men’s Rights,” we would like to be able to highlight, discuss, and look to solutions around the specific issues the Men’s Rights Activists have. We will start some of the topics that were highlighted in the post that ran on The Top 10 Men’s Rights Issues, including Father’s Rights, Anti-Male Double Standards, Reproductive Rights, False Accusations, and Educating Boys. We are open to others.
The “Men and Feminism” section will be a place for intelligent discussion about the ways in which feminism can benefit men. Articles for this section, like all of our posts, should be framed within a male POV. In the spirit of continued discussion, we will repost some of the original posts that put us in the crossfire. We will continue with some new, additional posts on the debate; some that are critical of the way that we handled the situation, some that are supportive. We are clear on one thing: This is a discussion that needs to continue.
We will be moderating comments. This is not an invitation for MRA’s and Feminists to go to war. It is intended to continue the discussion of topics that are important to men. If you do not think that Men’s Rights or Feminism are worthy of discussion, please reserve your comments for other articles in our other sections, which include Dads, Sex and Relationships, Sports, Ethics and Values, Advice and Confessions (including many of the first person narratives that are at our core), Psychology/Health/Addiction, and many others.
If you comment on posts within these sections, you must follow our commenting guidelines. In particular, you cannot attack the author of the post, The Good Men Project as an organization, or other commenters. You must remain on the topic of the original posts. In addition, you cannot criticize the ideology of the other organization. You cannot bash feminism as a whole nor Men’s Rights Activism as a whole, nor any of the individuals within those organizations.
We encourage civil discussions and debate around the specific points of the articles. We also encourage you to submit counter-posts to any posts you disagree with.
Please send submissions or address questions to [email protected]
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photo by centralasian / flickr
“The “Men and Feminism” section will be a place for intelligent discussion about the ways in which feminism can benefit men.”
Please god yes, especially the intelligent discussion bit.
“This is not an invitation for MRA’s and Feminists to go to war.” As if they need an invitation? 😉
“you cannot criticize the ideology of the other organization.”
So criticizing GMP for a gender feminist slant and collective blaming of men is off limits then?
This is silly and fully expected from a feminist run website.
Well I read that as within the context of the “normal” articles. In other words “criticizing ideology” is used here to mean “have a big fight between MRA and feminists”. You can do that but keep it to the articles that are tagged with the two new tags.
Of which there are many.
Would you say this is a good sign and the way the website should be going? That is — 75% of the commenters being male, 25% female, with the majority of the female commenters being “pro-men”. No Lisa, As a Liberal Mens Righs Activist, I agree with Feminism in the sense that it calls for equality for both genders at least in theory. I would want some “Anti Men” or ‘Anti MRA” women to balance it out. There is no real discussion if there is no 2 true opposing viewpoints from both genders. Conversely, I would want some MRA’s who… Read more »
Thanks, this is a great assessment of the situation! We’ve actually been talking about this elsewhere — that this might be THE only place that MRA’s and feminists can argue with each other (or intelligently debate each other, depending how you look at it.) We have asked more MRA’s to submit — we’ve run pieces from W.F. Price (Editor, The Spearhead) and Paul Elam (A Voice for Men) before. We are looking for feminists who want to continue the discussion as well. At the same time — we’re looking at ways to make the comments more productive. Adding a forum/discussion… Read more »
This is going to be a monumental task because whenever the topic of any type of gender debate between men ad women come up emotions through previous hurts arise but the task is necessary. How does one submit an article to be published on The Good Men Project? I think once the word gets out about The Good Men Project being part of the MRM movement, and will help MRA’s , the Good Men Project will be a regular link on many MRA websites and the Good Men Project can really become transformational in terms of bridging the gap between… Read more »
Please email any article you would like to submit to me: lisa at goodmenproject dot com.
You can also submit on the website itself, here is the link. The link includes our guidelines. Thanks! https://goodmenproject.submishmash.com/submit
Though Im a nonfeminist, im not exactly happy with the current balance in the commentariat. Hopefully balance is naturally restored soon. I learnt to think about sex, gender, gender performance etc reading feminist thoughts, feminist opinions. They gave me the vocabulary, the structure with which to think about these things. And Though i dont agree with half or maybe even most of their conclusions(eg rape culture). As one of the main players who think about these things, the feminist perspectives on gender need to be heard loudly in comments( even if im rolling my eyes while listening). With comments overwhelmingly… Read more »
Awesome comment jameseq, thanks! Very helpful.
A few things: 1) We would love it if you could go hunting for us. 2) Please feel free to submit a post yourself 3) Regarding the moderation ratings — We’d happily consider 3 or 4 different ratings — what are your suggestions.
Moderation/ civility level rating suggestions (a link to an article modded in a similar manner could be included, so commenters know what to expect). 1. comments disabled for this article 2. comments will be heavily moderated, and will be kept tightly on topic. discussion is to be kept as civil as if discussing with the queen of england. 3. comments will be lightly moderated, discussion can wander quite abit offtrack. discussion to be as civil as the average person is supposed to be at their workplace 4. open ssseason bunfight (hehe) – i mean minimal moderation, heated language, opposition baiting,… Read more »
Thanks for this jameseq. Appreciate your thoughts very much. I do like the idea of having posts called “open season” — with both the author and the commenters being aware of that. We would still prohibit name-calling or attacks on the posters or commenters as individuals.
We never have had to have comments disabled. So maybe it’s just the three. Or, I guess we could keep that as an option, you never know what might become completely out of hand.
Lisa – Thank you for having the overies to do this. Now you know why we stay so busy over in the Manosphere. This “feminism vs. the burgeoning online men’s movement” that boldy and brashly counters it, is the “elephant in the room” and people feel passionate about discussing it…”it” being the “gender war”. On a side note; I believe “The Good Men Project” is false advertising to the extent it’s very woman POV centric; almost reads like Glamour or Mademoiselle women’s magazines. I’d prefer the “Project” be called “Menimism: Feminism for Men” or something along those lines. Thank you… Read more »
It’s not false advertising at all. There are a lot of posts about feminism right now because that is what people are writing about. But as I said in a different thread — if you look at the comments over a 24 hour stretch, almost 200 are by men and 58 by women. Of our 350 writers, 80% are men and 20% are women. Hardly a “very women” site. The “problem” — if there is one, is that we do tend to go very much in depth on topics once we start on them. We believe that is the only… Read more »
The site is MRA in the comments and feminist in the articles. So there is a weird imbalance where the articles are more feminist while the commenters are very anti-feminist. Keeping the site balanced will be hard.
That’s a valid point, assman. Two things to note: 1) We have been asking MRA’s to write more for us for a while. I hope some rise to the occasion! Please consider writing for us yourself, or encouraging others to do so also. 2) there are a lot of feminist articles right now because that’s what people happen to be talking about. It became a hot-button fueled by the internet and social media in response to a few posts. So I do think a balance will be achieved over time. With regard to commenting — we’re taking some of the… Read more »
I found the article on “grinding” to be very edifying.
The fact that someone who calls himself “assman” posts here speaks to the manliness quotient of the site, gay, straight or otherwise…..
Only in the last week maybe two has that been so. Assman you remember the autumn, comments were split equally between feminist and nonfeminist. The current situation reminds me of spring 2011 when GMP did that Men’s Rights Series. My recollections are: GMP was overwhelmed with nonfeminist comments. Feminist comments were in the minority. For some reason within about two weeks most of the nonfeminists had left (perhaps the articles didnt interest them), and GMP returned to having a 70% feminist commentariat(i dont care about the dictionary definition) and feminist leaning gender-issue articles . This continued all the way through… Read more »
Will there be the option of reading posts in chronological order, inaddition to the current nested format. After 40 or so posts on a thread, i find it hard to locate new comments
I’ve noticed that if I take a long time reply to someone, which is usually the case with me, the page will refresh and my comment gets bumped to the bottom. I wonder if this is an accident or deliberate? At any rate sometimes disabling the ability to reply to individuals makes it harder to call out specific people in comments and creates a more sort of “address comments to the chair” environment. It would also mean all comments were displayed in chronological order. But I wouldn’t recommend it for all threads by any means. It might be better for… Read more »
I better bump up that female quotient then….
Lot of good ideas on this thread and I’m sure you’ll land on something that works – though please don’t be afraid to change/adjust course if it does not work as expected. The most common mistake I see in policy decisions is the entrenchment of a position for investment sake (time, energy and clout). Accountants have a wonderful term disbar such mistakes – sunk costs.
Future decisions should not be slave to sunk costs.
I agree elissa, thanks! No, actually I believe one of our strengths is to be able to really listen to our community and be able to adapt as we go forward. Especially now, that we’ve been at it a while and have stabilized somewhat in terms of mission/audience and growth.
ALWAYS open to listening to what people have to say about what is working and not, and I appreciate and value everyone’s responses.
Here is a question I would like to have everyone on this thread answer. When I look at every single one of the past 250 comments, (just a days worth) they break down this way. 192 male 58 female Of the male commenters, those are made by 54 different men. Of the female commenters, most are Julie, Erin and a few others. All but one of the comments by females are either pro-men or neutral. Would you say this is a good sign and the way the website should be going? That is — 75% of the commenters being male,… Read more »
Would you say this is a good sign and the way the website should be going? That is — 75% of the commenters being male, 25% female, with the majority of the female commenters being “pro-men”. Ultimately its not the numbers but the attitudes of the people behind the numbers. Out of those 54 different men the majority are either reasonable pro-men/neutral and that’s what I’m looking at. Out of that small groups of women the majority are either reasonable pro-men/neutral and that I’m looking at. As long as the majority are either reasonable pro-men/neutral and that men actually have… Read more »
Thanks. Danny, I’m working on all that you describe in the second paragraph — and I appreciate your continued involvement and engagement in working through these issues with us.
As for the first paragraph — that makes sense too. I really do want everyone to feel they have a fair chance to speak up.
I appreciate the efforts on working on the stuff in that second part (even though all three of those things I mentioned we done not in the comments but by contributors themselves, making the job a lot harder).
Oh – Lisa – Statistics…. B^0
As a straw pole they look good and reflect target audience, mission and desired out come. It would be interesting to be able see if the same straw pole analysis was the same for just page views, but the technology doesn’t go that far.
If the sex ratio were reversed, would you see that situation as needing quotas?
What do you mean by quotas? If the sex ratio were reverse, I wouldn’t think we were doing a great job against our mission of being a place for men to tell their stories, speak the truth as they see it, explore the meaning of men, manhood and masculinity, and ultimately help figure out what it means to be a “good man” in this day and age. So my actions would not be quotas, but to go out and find more people who are interested in talking about those things. I’m just not sure it makes sense for it to… Read more »
Quotas, meaning the need to recruit more men to post if the majority of postings were female.
Fair answer.
One way to avoid individual posters (of either sex) monopolizing the discussion is to delay a repost after four consecutive posts in a given period of time.
Yes, someone mentioned that is something FeministCritics does, I would like to look into that, thanks for the suggestion.
One way to avoid individual posters (of either sex) monopolizing the discussion is to delay a repost after four consecutive posts in a given period of time. Thats a great way to kill a board. Ive seen it happen to another board that decided to adopt a daily post limit. The Conversational nature of the boards stops, and posts become disjointed standalone speeches. People need to be able to expand on their initial posts, so the point can be more clearly understood – thats gonna take alot more than four posts in a thread. Would Lisa have been able to… Read more »
The way the folks at Feminist Critics do it is mostly geared towards keeping someone from getting piled on by a constant flow of people responding to their comment (“gang tackling” I think they call it). For example if I make a comment then you respond, jameseq responds to me, then mjay responds to me, i respond to you, then MediaHound, Erin, Copyleft, DavidByron, Rapses,Tom, Marcus, etc.. respond to that response. Before it got to that point the mods at FC would intervene by getting you all to stop piling on me. It would not even be a matter of… Read more »
Posting limits can have value, but it does depend on how the Board Functions, Traffic and its aims. The traffic on FeministCritics does appear appreciably lower than here. That does allow for the moderation time to monitor and enforce posting limits. On a more diverse site with a higher traffic level and subject base, you would need a very complex and very well structured system to enforce such limits – and the number would have to reflect site usage and aim. Programmers are very good in some ways, but Programming for social/human patterns is fraught with peril. Personally, I’m more… Read more »
Would you say this is a good sign and the way the website should be going? That is — 75% of the commenters being male, 25% female, with the majority of the female commenters being “pro-men”. It doesnt bother me if alot of women, or alot of ‘anti-men’ commenters post, it keeps threads lively lol. Ive seen comments that a number of women currently find these boards overlyhostile to post on. Well ive certainly seen ALOT of hostility on women’s boards if the topic of ‘babies, toddlers in adult spaces eg restaurants’, ‘breast or bottle feeding’, ‘home or hospital birth’,… Read more »
“It doesnt bother me if alot of women, or alot of ‘anti-men’ commenters post, it keeps threads lively lol.” Yes I agree. The danger of this site is always that it either becomes feminist or pro-men/antif-feminist. I think there needs to be an attempt to make the site neutral enough that feminists, anti-feminists and everyone in between can comment. If the feminists leave than the site loses a lot. I felt that before the site was too feminist and now it has a danger of going in the other direction. This site is very unique in that it is the… Read more »
THIS!! –>> “This site is very unique in that it is the only place where both groups can directly argue with each other.” Yes, exactly! This is what we strive for, and I think it’s great.
Do you have an outcome in mind, or is this site just happy with providing a forum?
I do believe you should be able to criticize the ideology of the any organization. I not saying that some form of feminism isn’t needed.. But I do believe that alot of it really needs to change.
We need moderators that are not feminist in order to make things more fair and balanced.
I am at a disavantage because I am a not a very good articulate writer. Although I am interested in attending one these conference calls..
I do believe you should be able to criticize the ideology of the any organization. I not saying that some form of feminism isn’t needed.. But I do believe that alot of it really needs to change.
Agreed.
I’m all for keeping the conversation on track but throwing out “I challenge the assertion that there is no such thing as misandry/female privilege/sexism against men.” under the guise of getting rid of “feminism is dumb because they don’t acknowledge misandry/female privilege/sexism against” is dishonest and a bit of the baby/bath water situation.
Right — that’s what I’m trying to avoid. I’d rather the conversation be specifically around the issues that are brought up in the post, and using the post itself for talking points about what people think is right/wrong, rather than dismissing either the movement as a whole or the people in it.
So, a discussion challenging the notion of “patriarchy” would be okay? It’s a key tenet in much of gender feminism, and while I agree that our society has repressive gender roles and expectations, I think labeling it “patriarchy” is dishonest and misleadingly one-sided. Would that be a legitimate point for discussion, or off-limits?
So — Copyleft, that is absolutely something we should be talking about. What I would like is a post *just about that* so then the comments will stay on track. The problem, as I see it, is not that we shouldn’t be having the discussion about whether the “patriarchy” exists or not, but that we keep having that conversation in other posts. It’s such an abstract concept that to have someone bring it up in the midsts of something else just doesn’t seem to get at the root of the issue. But that comment is as much directed at the… Read more »
I think you are attempting an impossible task, because you are focusing on content, not the focus of arguments. The solution to the problem you are describing is to have a forum where discussions are moved to different topic-specific threads if they stray from a given subject.
The fact that you need to do this at all is an indication of how pernicious political correctness has become when discussing feminism.
Why not say you are just trying to “create a safe space for male discussion” and ban any virulent radical feminist discourse outright?
Part of creating a safe space for people, and especially men, per the GMP mission, is to not allow attacks on people because of their sex *or* their ideology. Nothing virulent is likely to be acceptable, but if someone with radical views wants to talk and can do it respectfully, I for one want to hear what they have to say.
@Beste (or others) If you would like to join the call, email me at [email protected] and I can explain how they work and how to get involved.
I think this is a very interesting idea and I’m curious to see how it goes. Good luck!
The other thing I should explain here — if you ask me what my personal goals and intentions are here — they are to solve the f*ing problems. The really big problems that no one else can solve. The marginalization of individuals and groups based on things they can’t control. The shame and fear that abuse victims have when talking about abuse. Racism. Homelessness. Prison. Ageism. Sexual Violence. The inequality of the educational system. None of those things are particularly gendered, and I want to ultimately solve them because they are problems of humanity. And I don’t particularly want to… Read more »
That reminds me Lisa, I still don’t know the story behind how you stopped being afraid of men. But what I said was that often changes like that can happen when someone meets and gets to know people of the group they used to distrust. And that is why the gay movement (and more recently atheists too) have asked members to “come out”. In this way people that know them will say, “oh well so-and-so is such a nice person and he’s an atheist so they can’t be all bad”. …Racism. Homelessness. Prison. Ageism. Sexual Violence… What I didn’t say… Read more »
@David Ede, that happened to me. The abuse by females took quite a toll on me. I can spot the abusive males very easy in my life usually, I’ve been called a good judge of character for it, but with women? Total mystery. So I became quite fearful of all Young women (40+ seemed to be nice to me), it wasn’t after I got to know some totally 100% awesome young women that I realized humans are individuals. One thing I noted especially was I was more fearful of beautiful young women due to the popular pretty crowd in highschool… Read more »
are all comments now being moderated in all sections?
and who are the mods?
Right now, I’m one of the moderators, along with Julie and Joanna. Not all comments are moderated. There are certain words that automatically trigger the moderation system — most strong swear words, nazi, porn, racial slurs. Those comments need approval from one of us first. Also comments that are longer than average or that have multiple links. I try to check all links to make sure they go to where they say they are going. Also, the moderators will also regularly go into the moderation panel that has all incoming comments and will unapprove anything as needed. So *most* comments… Read more »
thanks for the reply post
Shouldn’t some of the mods at least be male and not feminist?
Absolutely. We’ve only just begun testing out this system. I am always looking for more volunteers. The ones who are moderating now are only doing so because I asked for volunteers and they volunteered. If you or anyone else would like to volunteer, that would be great. The only criteria is that you have to have written at least 2 posts for us (so you can see for yourself what an author goes through when people comment on a post) and you have to attend at least 2 of our conference calls. (Fridays at noon). Anyone interested should email me.… Read more »
FYI, I also do occasional moderation, but I’m not as reliable about being able to check the queue several times a day. Since I’m more inclined to find technical improvements than to spend more time managing a comment queue where the only options are show/don’t show, I’m currently putting my energy into finding and hopefully implementing those kinds of improvements. Even though I’m not handling a lot of the moderation right now, I would say I’m heavily involved in the direction that moderation is going, both philosophically and technically. It’s still too much in the early stages to preview or… Read more »
Hi David B, So this is a provocation. But you can hardly stop every feminist making such a comment because they are so common. OTOH you can hardly stop every critic from registering an objection either. And that isn’t too bad if it is short (“I disagree!”) . It’s just when / if it starts going back and forth after that. So at what point should a moderator step in? Or what should happen? There’s a sense of wanting to have this thing move somewhere else, or reference somewhere else.. perhaps something as small as a link. Do we need… Read more »
Oh no! I think those wars are great! But I know others really hate them. And then there’s that third group that sort of hates them but finds them a guilty pleasure.
I think I am part of the third group
Motivation: lots of threads end up talking about the same thing (MRA vs feminism war). Objective: stop the MRA vs feminism wars taking over all the threads. Solution: have a distinct area / tag / menu item / category for those the MRA vs feminism wars and try to herd cats into those areas on those discussions. Sounds like a plausibly good solution. What are the likely problems arising with this solution? One issue raised above is that people might feel they are being dismissed by being sent to a “troll pit” sort of folder. My guess is that won’t… Read more »
David – as usual you are looking and words and meanings and being pernickety and picking up real issues. We will have to see what Ms Hickey has to say and how she adjudicates. Personally I would like to see a set of banned words, that get a post sent to the spam sin bin if they are used. The two words I would have top of the list are “Conflate” and “Trope”; they are such nothing words that hide so much. “Essentialism” is on the hit list too, ‘cos mainly it is too specific and abused in dissection! All… Read more »
So there are a few ideas here that might be worth exploring David: 1) I actually like the idea of making a section called “arguing”. You could even still have the MRA/Fem sections for civil discussion. But arguing could allow for more heated debates — you’d still have to have some groundrules like no personal attacks or racial slurs, but you could just moderate a lot less. 2) In the regular posts, if comments go off track — the moderators automatically step in and create a new post. Say someone writes a post on Divorce Laws. But then two people… Read more »
Fair moderation regardless of sex is all I care about. From what I have seen you, Julie and Joanna have been very fair with your moderation. 1) I actually like the idea of making a section called “arguing”. Almost like a flame-pit that some sites have. I dont know, do people prefer more organically arising flame-wars(very heated discussions), to prearranged ones? If they do, then flame threads could be moved into the flame-pit so the firebreathers can continue there 2) In the regular posts, if comments go off track — the moderators automatically step in and create a new post.… Read more »
Love the idea of “cinema type rating system”. Brilliant! An example of the “different authors have different tolerance levels” was when I worked with Tim Pylypiuk on his post asking for stories of abuse, particularly abuse of men by women. He had worked with me on that post because as he said “he got tired of sitting around complaining in the comments.” And as someone who had gone through abuse himself, and knew how difficult it was to talk about it, he wanted to make absolutely sure it felt like a safe place for people to tell their stories. I… Read more »
Yeah I saw that thread. Quite intimidating for a guy like me who likes to argue but I also felt encouraged to try to contribute in the manner requested.
As a matter of interest DID you need to do a lot of moderating there? (beyond popping comments from the queue)
What would be interesting is if you could get the commentators to sort of pre-moderate their own comments and self-flag as eg “OK I want to pick a fight / say I disagree with that other guy here” Maybe a little fist icon appears on their post. Another icon might mean “OK I realise this is way off topic and might get moved to the arguments folder”. Maybe give that a icon of a megaphone. Or even “OK I guess I am really angry and this post is pretty nasty” like maybe with a bloody skull symbol….. Or even worse… Read more »
Thank-you, didn’t realize I had that much effect. Even brought a tear to my eye.
Whatever happened to the forum idea? I think it is an excellent one and would allow for a specific section for male abuse, female abuse, etc and allow people to open up with their experiences?
@David Ede, I can understand your meaning, I believe you are referring to how text doesn’t give any tone of voice or characteristic of our intentions? How a comment can be seen as hostile when merely it might just be inquisitive?
Ms. Hickey, you have certainly earned your pay as a publisher today. Brilliant at multiple levels. Kudos.
Thank you JustAMan. This job probably looks a lot easier than it really is. 🙂
And I have a sneaking suspicion that there is another motive behind this….
Could you clarify? What do you think the other motive is? Let’s discuss.
Yeah, I’ll be interested in hearing this.
I’m also wondering at the mystery?
I’m still wondering!
Look at my comment below. I was wondering if this was a round about way to try to get Hugo back into GMP.
Danny – if you look at the time stamps of posts – you may detect a hint of Irony? P^)
Oh you’re not talking about that last post that just put up last night by Hugo are you? Nah that was actually something that was written before he left (and if I’m not mistaken that post actually had something to do with why he left).
My basis for the suspicion was only how this idea to create two new sections came very shortly after Hugo left GMP and that one of the new sections is “Men and Feminism”.
Your first paragraph is correct. Your second paragraph is close — I can’t say Hugo leaving had *nothing* to do with the idea. It did — we want to continue the discussion because it is actually something that people like to debate, and certain key issues are important. But we want to make sure the discussion of Feminism if “men first” and I thought a specific section would help make comment moderation easier, because it would be clear that a specific post is only because we want to talk about a particular aspect of feminism — and it’s clearly labeled… Read more »
At first I was trying to avoid it, then I decided I’ll hint to it, but no I should just grow up and ask it.
Is this some round about way to try to get Hugo back?
🙂
He was too mild. They should get some seriously pissed off feminist. They’re a lot of fun.
I’m glad you asked that Danny. Please, I would hope by now that you would think you could just be straight with me. But the answer is “no” because a) I’m not that smart b) Hugo and I have talked quite a bit since he left. We’re both sure we’ll work together at some point in the future. At this exact moment, it does not seem right for either sides. BUT c) we are going to run the post that he reportedly resigned over. And “yes” it is going in the “men and feminism” section d) so all that said,… Read more »
Actually it wan’t you I was worried about, it was other commentors. Thanks.
What about feminists like Lori Day? Is this some round about way to try to get them back commenting?
This is not a strategy to get any one person “back”. What we want to do is make it a place where men feel comfortable telling stories, being honest, having open discussions. On the other had, we don’t want to exclude *any* women who also feel the same. And we certainly don’t want to exclude anyone from commenting. We want to continue to have a balance of voices. We don’t want this to *just* become a bigger Men’s Rights platform for example.
I am the only person who is a regular at Femnist Critics that read this post and thought of the double post system they use over there?
This is going to be interesting to say the least. One one hand I understand trying to give everyone a fair chance to speak. But on the other I worry that this is going to turn into a grassy knoll situation where people who dare to disagree (whether reasonable or not) will be dismissively told to go to the appropriate grassy knoll.
The goal is really to give everyone a fair chance to speak. I thought about the potential for the “grassy knoll” and decided it was still worth trying. Our moderators are fair. We listen if you disagree with us. We want you to be heard. We want people to be able to post about specific issues without their entire belief system called into question. That is the goal.
I’m all for giving everyone a fair shot to speak. What I’m worrying about is that this is creating a way for people to come to GMP to read “good stuff” while not being bothered by “them” (and you can fill those in as you wish when talking about different groups). Chances are your moderation will be true and fair but I think this may end up becoming another line drawn in the sand between the different sides.
Could you clarify what that double post system is?
The majority of the posts at Feminist Critics have two versions. The No Hostility (NoH) version and the Regular Parallel (RP) version. Each has their own set of rules.
http://www.feministcritics.org/blog/about/newcomers-read-this-first-faq-12262008/
And how does that work out? I wouldn’t be allowed to post in a NoH at all.
The way the Feminist Critics comments work has actually been held up to us as an example of a really good system. It seems a little complicated, and we would have to put more resources into moderating, but I’d be interested to know if anyone thinks it would work here.
Lisa – I have been looking at how it works, but also at the language focuses that occur.
To me it seems that the NOH engenders focus on the Topic itself whilst the RP engenders focus upon the wide implications and manifestations across cyber society.
It’s not a scientific analysis – just observation from looking at how a post which has both NoH and RP status lead the respondents. That could even lead to different labels “Me” – “Society”. If people want to write from the First Person on a social issue it could get very interesting! P^)
That is interesting MH, and the use of language is fascinating. I think it does make sense to look at different tags for different posts and moderate them differently. Would love others thoughts.
I also have to remember myself that the Internet and Web (The application layer overlying the Internet which we all so freely interface with) are actually still very young and immature technologies. The tech may be highly developed, but it’s the humans who are still playing catch up! I’m happy to see so much discussion of how it can be done better and in a more humane way. Reading web content is not the same as reading a book – and it’s not the same as a face to face conversation. Smilies were an interesting development as they did allow… Read more »
I think it would be an interesting experiment to try at the very least. I know from moderating other forums that having a “silly section” in which to throw posts which breach a certain posting guideline can be more effective than just deleting them: to a certain extend posters will tend to self censor by voluntarily posting in the no-holds barred area rather than the one reserved for rational discussion.
It could really help clean up the discussion.
David – I can’t see your reasoning as to why you would not be able to post under an Noh heading. I’ve been looking at whole sets of posts over at feministcritics.org – with many posted as both “Regular Parallel” and “No Hostility”. It is interesting to see which get used. Some there is only use of one thread and the other has zero comment. Even under “No Hostility”, there is quite a level of critique and deconstruction of both The OP and comment, but that is not seen as hostility but quite constructive. I’m looking at how the labels… Read more »
I’ll say this David. Unless you say something that is actually hostile the worst that will happen is that the comment will be moved and you might be warned (but if you are warned Ill also say I’ve yet to come across anyone that was banned for just posting in the incorrect version of a post, unless they were specifically told not to before hand).
Very good.
Let’s begin with the ultimate arbiter of justice,the courtroom.
1:Presumption of innocence returned to men.
2:Actual equal recourse under written law,not “administrative law.”
3.Due process returned to men.
No more ex-parte PPO’s or RO’s that violate men’s rights w/o a hearing.
These are widely abused.
4:Equal access to the same legal resources.
Right now men must find and pay for their won lawyer whilst women get it free through Federal subsidized VAWA grants/shelters.
5:Equal Presidential councils for men
None of these would detract from women’s rights.
I expect opposition.
I would not expect opposition beyond “Yes men have some issues, but…”
Have you tried posting that stuff before?
See, I would like to see a post on that. So my goal is to make this a place where someone would be comfortable enough to get those issues out there.
It sounded like a good idea until I read the “you cannot criticize the ideology of the other organization” part. I am not sure how you have a discussion with people with different views if you bar them from critiquing views they disagree with.
I’m curious about that phrase too. I wonder if criticize is being used not as “critique” but as slander etc. I’ll ask Lisa.
I personally feel that critical examination is a good thing, but saying (on either side) “well that’s just wrong because it’s stupid.” Is not a good thing. Not a useful thing anyway.
Yes, good point. Criticism is totally valid and essential to the discussion. What I would hope we can avoid in these conversations are statements like “[MRAs/Feminists] believe [x]” without a strong defense. We’ve had some good content already, like the piece The Top 10 Men’s Rights Issues, as a starter for people like me who came here not knowing anything about what MRAs think. If we have some other good foundation docs we can agree are basically true (even if we argue with some of it), it will go a long way toward productive criticism that actually changes the way… Read more »
Jacob – I got the impression that it was about not making Sweeping and Gross generalizations – the “all Men are”, “all women are” etc comments that some use quite deliberately to inflame and misdirect.
Frankly, anyone who did debating club 101 knows they are not of value when it comes to getting your message across.
… we will see! P^)
Exactly, MediaHound. What I really want people to get into the habit of doing is being critical of the specific points in the post that they disagree with. But to say “Feminists are this” or “MRA’s are that” just doesn’t seem to get us anywhere. I want people to stop attacking the groups as a whole, but debating the issues themselves, if they have an issue with them.
Please ask more questions if this is not clear. This is important.
Lisa – I think all editors are just bossy! P^)
Could we have a random selection of occasionally improper posts so that it gives people a “What The F ” moment. It can be a good reminder!
Like a best of worst of?
Julie – I’m shocked by your use of the Binary!
It could just as easily be the Worst Of The Best of! P^)
… but I think we both get it. Salad can be fun – and allowing a new and unusual dressing can give a whole new dimension to dinner!
Even I fall prey to the Dreaded Binary. 😉
Note to Universe: We all need to do better. P^))))
… including the Salad!
I make a great salad, actually. I’m quite adept at making salad dressings too.
I want to have dinner with y’all. What a conversation we’d have.
Oh I agree! I’d love that!
Maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle…….
“I want people to stop attacking the groups as a whole, but debating the issues themselves, if they have an issue with them.” If this rule holds then I expect to hear silence from the feminist side. Their primary tactic is and has always been to shame and dehumanize men both in making their outrageous claims and also in defending them. What will the poor wyminz do now?? Of course I’m being sarcastic here. I know full well that GMP is not capable of ensuring rational debate just as I know feminists are not capable of rational debate. Oh was… Read more »