Public Service Announcement: Let's be a bit more civil about divisive topics

Question

^{Note: I originally posted this in chat; I've decided to write it here as well as per the advice of apaul34208 and NVZ, to get it more attention.}

Hi, all. I'm here to write a message about some recent problems we've had. Specifically, I'm addressing those who participated in How to respond when told to “check your privilege” and My best friend has become increasingly xenophobic towards Muslims. What do I do?.

I had never, in my time on Stack Exchange, been embarrassed to be part of a particular site. But that changed after I spent the past couple of days handling various disputes and flags on those two questions. A mod on another site joked that Interpersonal Skills causes more interpersonal problems than it solves. I'm starting to think he wasn't too far off the mark.

Let me be clear: we're here to answer questions about how to solve interpersonal problems. We are not here to argue about ideologies. Or sling insults at those who disagree with us. Or call people "bigots", "social justice warriors", and all the other pejorative crap I've seen on those threads.

If you find yourself baiting, insulting, demeaning, or otherwise hurting another person to try to prove a point . . . then you're doing it wrong. And let me tell you, I saw a lot of people doing it wrong, representing almost all sides of all of the micro-arguments that sprang up.

We're gonna have divisive questions in the future. I guarantee it. And we all need to have the maturity to deal with them civilly and respectfully, even when talking with people who don't think the same way as us.

People should not be using a site about interpersonal skills if they are incapable of, you know, dealing civilly with an interpersonal situation. We have standards for behavior. Let's live up to them.

This is mainly a public service announcement, because things have gotten out of control on those questions. That said, if people have feedback, general advice, or anything else relevant to say, then I'd be happy to hear it as a comment or an answer. But this meta post is not for arguing about these two particular issues; it's about the fact that for a site about interpersonal skills, we really messed up in these interpersonal situations.

Answer 1

I think a huge reason why the check your privilege question went so poorly was that it was a bad question that should be closed.

The question currently reads as:

Essentially, how do you politely respond to a random stranger that tries to 'check your privilege'.

But this is missing a lot of important information. Is the OP trying to politely disagree? Or is the OP trying to understand what the phrase check your privilege means? We can't actually give an answer tailored to the OPs needs without this information. Which is why the question received a lot of answers that were about peoples opinion of the phrase, rather than answers that attempt to solve the OPs actual problem. This is why that question created drama.

If a question is receiving answers that are mostly people trying to debate their personal opinion, then that's a sign that something is wrong with the question.

I see that the check your privilege question has been reopened, which is a mistake. Close it, and get better about closing these sorts of questions quickly in the future. Don't let them spiral out of control.

Answer 2

I agree with the OP. This site is not the place to enter into discourse about divisive questions and answers. Nor is it the place to enter into discussions about them. In fact, under the Stack Exchange Network's design, purpose, and model, it is not the place to engage in any subject discussion. Comments are for addressing the post by suggesting corrections and improvements, and for meta-type input, not for a discussion thread as in most forum-type environments. Provided the "Be Nice" policy is followed, extended discussions may happen in chat rooms, however, but that's not what this PSA is about.

This site is still in formation, having only been in beta for 8 weeks. As such, many things are still left to work out, and many experiences are yet to be had. How to deal with such issues, as a community, is one of them. Yes, the moderators can, and do, handle these situations. (Many thanks to them, and my condolences to their soon-to-be-lost sanity.) As members of this community, however, there is much we can do to reduce the stress on our team of volunteer moderators. Remaining civil in our behavior, even when challenged, is one habit we can develop.

I'm sure that I am guilty as charged on more than one occasion, even though it is not my intention. I am also on this site because I recognize that my interpersonal skills are less than ideal, and hope to improve them. I can hope that there are others here doing the same thing. Recognizing that my skills need improving, I hope to always be open to correction from others, including, but not limited to, the moderators, when my online activities become unacceptable for our community. I also hope that other users, especially the moderators, will recognized that my goal is personal improvement, not trolling or political posturing, etc.

Finally, as a reply to the closing statement, for a site about interpersonal skills, we really messed up in these interpersonal situations, I have to disagree. We, meaning the community, did not mess up there. Those of us who were party to the problem could be said to have messed up, but the community didn't. Rather, the situations demonstrated the need for this community, and the community has dealt with it, and maybe even some of us learned from it. The unfortunate side-effect is the extra stress on the volunteers who have given of their time and energies to try keeping this community out of the fire.

Answer 3

When comments are used for off-topic discussion of divisive topics rather than the interpersonal issues in question the whole comment thread should repeatedly (at regular intervals without being allowed to build a 'head of steam') be deleted or moved to chat.

When an answer publishes 'popular misconceptions' about a community in the form of hurtful and discriminatory statements before proceeding to explain 'how to tell Bob these misconceptions are not always true' [I shall not point fingers but you can make up your own minds] the nonsense statements should be edited out or the answer should be deleted at the earliest.

Our 3 moderators have been heroically dealing with all the flags, but might often have legitimate real-world necessities that need their attention, possibly preventing 2 or more of them from being online for a few hours at a given time. So I think this rapidly growing site needs at least 2 more moderators in order to maintain the systems without wearing out those who have generously volunteered their time and efforts for this difficult undertaking.

High reputation members with access to moderator tool privileges are already assisting the moderators in their work. The community can contribute by adhering to the 'be nice policy' and resisting the temptation to engage in off-topic political debates, especially on emotionally volatile and divisive topics.

Summary:

It is time to expand the moderator team and deal ruthlessly with inflammatory answers and off-topic discussions.

Answer 4

Let me be clear: we're here to answer questions about how to solve interpersonal problems. We are not here to argue about ideologies.

I'm sorry to say you are missing the point.

We live in times when politics play an important part in interpersonal problems and relations. You cannot just wish that away, just pretend the problem does not exist. It will not work.

For example, last year, during the US election campaign, on another forum I lurk on, I was fascinated by the number of posts like "OMG my husband is gonna vote trump, I'll have to divorce." It struck me that these people could have ironed out that small point of disagreement before going to the altar and everything. You know, like adults and stuff.

The same people are on your interpersonal stackexchange now. Because these people are normal people.

I will predict several possible outcomes:

• Status quo: people keep expressing their opinions, and moderators only slap down people who are too rude or really out of bounds. Is there anything wrong with this? I think not.
• Politically correct people and SJWs take over the site and admin roles and actively censor and shame anyone who disagrees with them. Thus, everyone who disagrees leave, the site becomes an echo chamber and ultimately dies and falls off the internet.

I'm an engineer. I design electronic stuff. This crap doesn't run on wishful thinking or ideology. So I have to take on a pragmatic attitude. Whenever I apply the power to something I built, I'm ready to be proven wrong, by sparks, smoke, fire, or worse, all of which happened. But the majority of people don't think like that, in fact most firmly believe if they blow enough hot air and shriek hard enough their wishes will come true.

So, I'm afraid the current situation is too polarized to suggest other outcomes. You can either ban the righties, or ban the lefties, or act as a referee and try to be reasonable.

EDIT

Explanation for the kinda rude sentences above:

I favor the scientific method whenever I need factual information, because it is the only one known to work. For example, if I want to know how a system performs in a situation that is not covered in the documentation, then I will either design and carry out an experiment, or google it and find someone who already did.

I accept to be proven wrong at any time, and it does happen, it comes built-in with the job description. There is nothing wrong with being wrong... it should be grasped an opportunity to learn.

Thus, this post was a probe. I wanted to measure the ambient level of SJWism here. So, I stated the truth, while carefully wording it in a way that would be slightly offending to the target group. Thus, the amount of downvotes would be highly correlated to ambient SJWism. Simple as that.

But I am a good evil overlord, so in the next paragraph I explained my masterplan for anyone to see, but I obfuscated a little bit, then added another triggering sentence. The intent was to select for people who would choke on the rude words, stop thinking and miss the big picture..

When you want to know what people truly think about "really touchy subject X" then asking is no use, because subject X is really touchy. So I poke them a little bit, say something that will elicit a response, and observe the results. For example, if you want to know if someone is a racist at their core, you do not ask, because the social stigma of being racist is high, so they will lie. Instead you casually mention about your sister dagting a black guy, and watch for subtle clues, changes of attitude and other observable outputs that a human being shows. And then you have your answer.

So I watched the downvotes pile up. I was not disappointed. Therefore I will update my previous predictions:

This is your answer: this stackexchange is doomed.

Have a nice day.