@toddsundsted @liaizon @mkljczk

Honestly Todd, I'm not seeing anything more pernicious than one would have in their face just taking a casual stroll through Usenet or FidoNet - Truly; you could call them "curmudgeonville" and the comedy would spill until those vitriolic malcontents realize they're the butt of the joke... And by that, I mean these people too:

wrath regularly directed at “those who don’t conform” even if they diverge in trivial ways.

Those, lolz... wrathful ones.

I've seen so many well intended, ill-fated schema claiming to be closer to some imaginary ideal that satisfies the moderation needs for everyone, universally. Nope. nonesuch, I say. After decades administering listserv forums, y'know, the ezmlm's and majordomo's and Mailman mailing lists; or a coordinator for FidoNet, and participant in Usenet over UUCP even, all I can say is it will always, ultimately befall, as a responsibility the matter of moderation, to the individual participant themselves - as it has always been.

There's litterally no panacea, and this thread is evidence that the relatively nacent newcomer IFTAS really has nothing new to offer that hasn't been rehashed in one form or another.

The saddest thing I've noted has been the shift in web based forums since the demise of MySpace. Yes, really. Oh, for a while, sure you could post on Faceplant that you were sitting on your porch, picking your burgers from your nose and watching the grass grow and it would receive gufaws and 'likes' and the now retired +1 for those using Gplus; but eventually, there was a snide remark here or there and the descent into cacophony proliferated.

I hear people say these same things you noted, but about Bsky, or Threads, or you name it, there's that element of malignant nihilism that eventually becomes more pronounced the more it is fed.

People have more than enough tools, without abdicating their own responsibility to someone else's sensibilities, to moderate their own incoming mail, chat, forums, microblogs, commenting feedback systems. As if the actual spammers themselves aren't the most discouraging already. It's easy to mute or block miscreants, but for some reason people want to have someone else do it for them and capitalize on their own imagined frailty and feeble constitution.

There was a time back when USEnet was the main interchange of discourse along with Compuserve and The Well (Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, among other contemporaries of the time) when it was simply understood by all that:

"The earth is not a safe place and there are no safe spaces"

That's never going to change.

Contrary to what those who refuse to accept responsibility for when it comes to going outside for a walk, bad actors abound, and they have always been everywhere throughout recorded history.

Some will claim that it's possible to turn over personal responsibility to some kind of bot or automated reputation model, and you yourself cite that people will dogpile other people who diverge, from sort of mob mentality in vogue at the moment.

An individualist eschews belonging to such ridiculous measures that would have one cede responsibility for their own welfare to nebulous machinations they don't themselves manage - when there's a very simple way in virtually every online system for the end user themselves to filter content stemming from personalities they don't wish to hear from twice.

Maybe I'm just wholly unimpressed with the feeble nature of modern enmity, because from where I'm sitting, it doesn't even begin to compare to the pernicious ad hominem of decades past.

Or maybe it's just become popular to play helpless and hapless victim and pretend to be gravely offended when some bad actor awards them the opportunity to claim offense? If so, and like every other fad, This too, shall pass.

#tallship #Fediverse #forum #social_networking #moderation