Welcome, phukkers, to /s/PoliticalDebate! I've had this idea for a while, inspired by Reddit's /r/CapitalismVSocialism, and I finally decided that I want to see how it plays out.
This is a sub that is intended for structured and civil political debate, without censoring any viewpoints. For the time being, there are no existing rules to enforce this, but that will be temporary. If you have any suggestions, feel free to chime in.
In the future, we will have extensive rules that are meant to allow debate of any viewpoints to take place, but force it to conform to a digestible and constructive format, prevent derailing and vote-censorship, prevent personal arguments, and above all, give every person a platform to speak their mind.
One way in which we could do this is by requiring a certain format to be used for every thread. For example, an AMA format thread would start with the OP stating their ideology and/or their viewpoints, and users would have to reply with some sort of question, and not with a statement or refutation. Some other examples would be a Q and A format thread, in which the OP asks a question of any political nature, possible for a particular viewpoint or ideology, and the replies respond with answers, or the classic point - refutation format, which is self-explanatory. You get the idea.
We will also close down the sub during weekends, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, to give users a cool-off period and promote putting more thought into one's own views.
Moderation should simultaneously be as limited as possible. The rules, in theory at least, are meant to refine and organize discourse, and absolutely cannot be used to crush or control it. There will be strictly enforced guidelines as to how a moderator can or cannot respond to a rule violation, and they will be as lenient as possible. For example, if someone is violating a rule, a moderator should respond to the violator asking them to edit their post/comment to comply, instead of skipping straight to removing any posts. There will never, ever, be any rules limiting what a person can and cannot believe. When a moderator is accused of abusing existing rules with a bias towards any certain viewpoint, they will be demodded and banned.
Finally, downvoting should be used only for discouraging spammy or poorly constructed posts. If people are frequently complaining that they are being downvoted based on their views, the downvote button will be removed and scores will be hidden for a temporary period of time, and frequent victims may even be given a temporary flair stating they are being targeted with downvotes.
Again, if you have any suggestions, please feel free to chime in.
As of now, I am looking for moderators from a diverse set of viewpoints to ensure impartiality in rule-enforcement. If you are interested, send me a PM with a brief explanation of your political views.
For now, go nuts.
I really like that idea. There should be sub entirely dedicated for that, like /s/socrates or /s/socratesMethod or something like that.
However I think it's not a good idea to have rules changing based on what day of the week it is or have multiple rulesets within a single sub. I don't think a sub will ever get popular if it cannot be explained in one single short sentence. No one wants to read a wall of text before posting or get the point.
If a dozen people downvote something, it means that a dozen people read something. Someone writing something, people reading it and then expressing their opinion by voting is not censorship.
Since voting just determines the order in which comments are sorted, upvoting one comment has the same effect has downvoting every other comment. Is upvoting a comment and not another comment therefore censorship?