the 'culture' of Libcom

I've found myself discussing things with my friends as I sometimes do on libcom, and they found it very offensive. It's been somewhat of a bad influence in that sense, though the merits outweigh it.

I try not to take things too personally and extract whatever useful data or ideas I can even from the most abusive posts. I don't know, I just have that kind of mentality, maybe that's why I'm doing so well as a retail worker.

the intro thought forum is something we could bring back. i think we wanted to simplify the forums, and make them match the rest of the site - organise/org forum, thought/thought forumm etc. but we could do that again, that might be a good idea.

I think the only stuff worth talking about is practical stuff that we can do to make things better. Lots of people on here "complaining" are not genuine but are weirdos with their own agendas - like Kevin Keating, a petty smear artist, Barkan a head-banging supporter of Hezbollah, etc.

so where does that leave discussion about principles ie internationalism?

or are you just talking about pratical stuff on this thread?

I meant on this thread

Yeah I think it is clear that some people have issues, if those people want to suggest improvements or ways they think we can tackle things I am sure we would be interested.

However I maintain that there is a limit to what admins can do. The general culture of a forum such as this (where we try to be as hands off as the net allows) is that it is down to the users to manage their own behaviour. If someone is abusing you on a thread, and you think there is stuff worth discussing aside from that - ignore and it and concentrate on other stuff.

I think catch's proposed 'policy' of simply deleting one-liner crap between people in non-flaming forums is fine.

Discussion on a new introductions forum - http://libcom.org/forums/feedback-content/introductions-forum

I think more people should start concrete discussions about problems at their work, what's going and what people can do about it. Those discussions are always good, and if they were more prevalent they would flood out the other stuff. But most people don't do that.

Worth repeating.

If we ever get forum access going, I think we should have maybe a registered only forum just for that (so google doesn't get it, but not 'closed').

could you stop google on a particular url with a robots.txt?

Joseph, yeah we can, but it'd be multiple urls (and maybe comment permalinks like comment/1234 one day), so it wouldn't be enough. Also some scrapers ignore robots.txt

We should use robots.txt more though.

On this thread
Devrim countered the post first, then MJ chipped in, then Khawaga completely dismantled it. Eyal Rozenburg also added some. There was one insult, which Joseph K. edited out. This is an example of how the boards should work. Instead of having a slanging match which becomes about insults a couple of good posters demolished the arguments. Although Doreen (probably a troll anyway) didn't seem to take any of the criticism on board it was good to see the response.

We are in a position where we need to convince people of our arguments, so that is what we must do.

With regard to introductory though, I agree that there was a poor distinction between the two previously. Secondly I think that it would imply that flaming/insults was allowed in other forums. Thirdly it would require a lot of modding, not sure how much time the mods have or are willing to spend.

This is an example of an insulting post, but it is unlikely to be removed.

I think insults are not just limited to swearing, the biggest problem for me is dismissiveness. The whole point of discussion forums is for discussion, which require effort and quite frankly if posters can't be bothered to make that effort then they should have the self-discipline not to post.

I think the open insults and flaming have dropped noticeably but there is still and aggressive competitive side that causes problems. It is a question of changing the culture but it is more about individual posters rather than admins having to play super nanny. Some of the complaints here have cited the libcommunity forum, which is, as JK said, to be taken seperately. IT's designed for people to mess about in.

I post a lot less than usual and I think my posts have improved, partly from learning more about politics from other posters and partly because I try to actualy add something to the discussion.

I do sometimes wonder if the news forum is worth keeping, because some of the posts/threads really belong in libcommunity.

the you won't like rise's post here any more than i did

Maybe then you'll explain why you accused me of badjacketing?

From this other thread, the Kevin K one.

I for one would support a blanket ban on insults if the admins had the time and energy to enforce it. I think the costs to doing so - in terms of offense etc to people who like to insult - would probably prove no greater than the costs of the current frequent climate on libcom.

Revol also says this

and that makes a lot of sense. But if insults were banned stuff like that could be dealt with by simple argument - ask for evidence or argument, then take it apart if it's false or a bad argument. That at least is worth something. No insults would prevent those conversations from degenerating into totally unproductive namecalling. Also, the line between this second kind of insult - smears by applying inaccurate terms or positions - and argument is even more subjective than the line between the kinds of insults Revol is most concerned with protecting. This second kind of insult is best dealt with by insulting. Straight up namecalling should just be deleted.

yeah, i agree with you here nate. i think revol is engaging in rationalizations. a thing that i particularly dislike about the anarchist milieu is this attitude that "I never have to say i'm sorry", that i can do whatever i want. It's completely individualistic.

Totally. I've said a bunch of times that if nothing else my union and organizing experiences has made me a better person than I was. The biggest one is learning to disagree. I'm from the midwest, in my house as a kid there were two way to be - agreeing with a smile or fighting with raised voices. My early political experiences had a similar dynamic. Later movement stuff (in the IWW mostly but not just there) is where I learned to tell the difference between disagreeing and fighting, and that really strong ties are the ones that don't demand constant agreement but can take or even grow from disagreement, even heated disagreement at times.

"Petit bourgeois" is a reference to the small business class. hard to see how a proposal for all means of production to be owned in common by everyone, and dissolving the power of the professional/managerial class hierarchy is "petit bourgeois".

in my organization, WSA, we don't countenance personal attacks and if someone did that it would be grounds for expulsion.

From memory

You were sort of suggesting rise was a state agent for sort of suggesting that the CRA were state agents.

It was in other words a weak joke made funnier by your failure to spot the contradiction in your argument even after the joke. But as with most weak jokes it doesn't get funnier on explanation so I didn't bother.

Edit: Comment moved here - http://libcom.org/forums/thought/banning-paid-organizers

well i'm an anarcho syndicalist so i don't accept the validity of a seperation of the political and economic like that, I would imagine your position would be similar but apparently not.

And surely if NEFAC are serious about working class self organisation (as opposed to mere leftist ideological recruitment) then surely they would think it's vital that any industrial strategy builds up working class self organisation and as such would have a bar on members taking 'full time' organiser roles.

We don't "recruit".

Edit: comment moved here - http://libcom.org/forums/thought/banning-paid-organizers

Just saw this now. It's quite accurate (dust, u reading my mind punK?)

For the first year or so I made considerable effort to engage constructively. At a certain point I basically abandoned any hope of the place improving. To be precise, once the place became overrun with ultra-leftist comedy outfits I realised that it wasn't just inexperience and a misguided reluctance to impose rules which caused the place to resemble a L4M3rZ SuX phorum, but that the malaise was rooted on a political level - since one defining attribute of ultra-leftism is the love of polemic, political insult and invective.

Since then I pretty much only look for comedy value from the place, whether that means making some ultra-leftist theoretician look foolish, or sniggering while the NEFACers do the same (hats off to them). I'm still entirely sure, however, that any objective observer would find that I'm much more polite and politically constructive than those who argue against me.

Edit: Comment moved here - http://libcom.org/forums/thought/banning-paid-organizers

Edit: Comment moved here - http://libcom.org/forums/thought/banning-paid-organizers

revol and Nate, I think it's worth bearing in mind that it's a pain in the arse for admins to split threads with the current software.

Anyway, I quite like the idea of a separate subforum within organise for specific workplace issues, which would encourage people to discuss stuff in their own workplace more and keep all the competitiveness and bitching away from useful discussions.

Not too arsed if threads about which page of Capital volume 3 has the bestest mathemagics get derailed or descend into flaming, to be honest.

Catch, Sorry for derailing the thread and for posting after you posted this. You posted it while I was typing. I didn't know the control function for new threads. I can set up the new thread and copy the content to it if you like.

Edit: new thread's here - http://libcom.org/forums/thought/banning-paid-organizers

I haven't copied any content to it yet.

Thanks Nate, that'd be lovely.

(ctrl-c is just a keyboard shortcut for copying (and ctrl-v for pasting). I was trying to indicate to revol that starting a new thread takes considerably less time than arguing with me.)

Comments moved to this thread - http://libcom.org/forums/thought/banning-paid-organizers. Revol, let's continue there. Moving comments like that is really annoying. Kudos to the admins for the work of doing this stuff, I certainly wouldn't have the patience.

That's quite funny, because the only person you've ever made look foolish on here is yourself!