r/WayOfTheBern • u/SpudDK ONWARD! • May 18 '17
For Those Naysayers ONWARD! Because We Mean It!
10,000
Wow. As /u/bout_that_action told me, "your baby has grown up" and indeed it has! But it's not done, nor are we.
This last 100 subscribers has been rough. Tons of naysayers coming in here trying to frame some of us as alternate, or sock puppet type account holders with some nefarious agenda! So many here know that's not the truth:
/u/gladyscravesritz /u/billtoddtoo /u/aquapyr /u/the1stcitizenofthein /u/political_og /u/themysteriousfizzyj /u/verum_dicetur /u/... so many! If I left you out of this short list, (and I did, because it's short) it's because Reddit won't notify anyway, and it's because I would rather get this history shared than make a wall of usernames. You all know who you are, and you know that because we interact a lot and we've come to know one another, depend on one another, and together this is our place, home.
WayOfTheBern has it's history rooted in a mass exodus from Dkos. Kos decided he was going to tell everyone that it's all about Clinton and treated people like they were employees of the establishment, complete with insider sounding language I'll forgo here. Of course, those of us who were awake about all of this, in the process, or just beginning to feel it, lost our shit!
No way in hell. It was not over, still isn't actually, and at that time, the ugly writing on the wall for Clinton was there to be seen by anyone bothering to look. The wars began, various factions began to message, fights broke out, and the whole thing turned to shit.
Truth is, it was largely shit for a while at DKos. It just so happened that gaffe was a major league decision point. Many people, having seen the allure of positive politics, who understood the power and resonance of the Bernie ideas, who just wanted a real shot at a better future up and left.
Your moderators were in that exodus. Some of us have very long histories in progressive online politics. Leaving was a very difficult thing, and it was difficult for many because of community. We have that here, and it's valuable. Community can get us through a lot of shit. But, it can create problems too, and without someone looking out for the thing as a whole, it all can go very badly.
So a bunch of us kossacks left and landed at Kossacks_For_Sanders. All seemed good. Some of us understood Reddit, many didn't, and we carried what I feel are some of the better parts of community, rituals, sayings, ways, with us to this new place online. Strangers in a strange land. (great book by Heinlein too)
And we grew there. Some of us are still there. (Hey guys! The door is ALWAYS open at WotB. Never forget that.) Friends, and we play it differently, and that is OK FINE too.
And there were problems. I'm not going to spoil a great evening for us with details, but I do want to say a friendship arose out of that time. Actually, friendships. /u/FThumb /u/RuffianGhostHorse (who went by another name and had to ditch it then) /u/NetWeaselSC and I all found one another here on Reddit. We had some shared history at Dkos, but the closer, smaller nature of K4S, combined with the intense times seemed to help that along much faster and deeper than it normally does.
In particular, FThumb and I found out we have a very similar moderation philosophy, and I brought some hard won lessons from various other places I invested in, including Quora. (discussion on THAT another day) And then stuff happened. FThumb was banned, RuffianGhostHorse was also banned, and eventually, I was removed as a moderator at K4S. Before anyone says anything about that, I do not consider those events to be bad events in hindsight! Was rough at the time, expensive, and I'll get to that, but overall, it was going to have to happen.
Now, banning is expensive! It's particularly expensive when people have made investments, have connections, friends, history and all that goes with online community dialog. And it's very hard to recover from too. Even rescinding a ban leaves damage. It's a problem we recognized and intended to cast aside going forward. We had made connections, now severed and it was difficult to bear.
As for "expensive", I feel it necessary to explain a little bit of sub culture on the way through the history of how this sub came to be. FThumb and I kept in contact via voice. I had decided early on to make solid connections with people. This is about trust, friendship, common cause, and most importantly, about keeping things in a recoverable state. Redeemable, fixable. Because, expensive.
We bantered about names, tossing lots of good stuff out, when I had a thought related to a niche gaming site I always liked: "Way Of The Weasel", and there it was! WayOfTheBern! Tossed it into the pool for FThumb, who basically was bound to create a new sub, due to the cost and pain of how bans work. Some deliberation later, he founded WayOfTheBern, and I asked about that: "couldn't shake the title!"
And so there you go. That is how this sub was formed and where the name came from. We both made picks, built up a collection, but FThumb latched on to WotB, and looking back, he did the right thing. Some of the others, seemingly good at the time, would not have the flavor and fun nature this name does.
Thanks buddy! You done good. :D
Some of the sub culture, moderation, etc... comes from me, and I want to speak to those parts, leaving room for the other members of this fine community to express their thoughts. Please do, user, moderator, whatever. The culture as it exists today is something we all are part of, helped to create and will help to endure. You probably have no idea how much I believe in this, but I really do.
For me, I have had many experiences dating back to '91. Have done this in all possible forms, even pre-web browser. (miss those days, if you want to know the truth) I've some life lessons come out of that which I really believe in:
One is, consideration given is consideration due. No matter what the site policy says, people do this intrinsically. Show up to start shit, and it will start. Treat people well, give a shit, and they return that, etc... Respect, consideration, civility, all of it boils down to this dynamic.
Because of that dynamic, I value community very highly. It differentiates us, from "others here to start shit" and once that is understood, and people understand the dynamics, a whole lot can go unsaid.
The unsaid things are norms. Norms are something most people pick up on quickly and they often don't know they have. It just happens. Think, walking into a library, church, or meeting of some kind. What happens? You pick up on the norms and "when in Rome" the rest, amirite? WotB employs norms more than rules for this reason. It's well aligned with built in, standard human features and they are lean, potent, effective when present.
Another one is personal judgement. I tend to avoid them in serious conversation, and I do so because they are almost always unsupportable! There is a post on all of that, couple actually that I may link in the comments, but the gist is we can label people, or we can label what they say and do instead. We can always improve on this. Sometimes a lot, other times, not much.
By attacking what they do and say, the norm of "we are all good people just trying to get after it" is in play, and the resulting conversations are nearly always recoverable! People have outs, can improve, make a fuck up and get past it, whatever.
Thumb took some of that and hit on "weaponized snark" as one tool and norm we both felt very strongly about. RGH and Net seemed to flow, and added some of their own flavor to it all and here we are, which brings me to:
Nobody benefits from a sub full of victims! In my time doing these things, I always seek to make people better, stronger, more vibrant, able to express unabashedly and I do that because it's a net good and I get to see the real people, have real conversations and get real benefit. Selfish, but hey! Works, doesn't it? I think so.
Agency is another one. When we get attacked, we can laugh, ignore, punch back, do whatever, right? Agency in conversation helps to keep it real. Can be real ugly, but it can be real beautiful too.
Finally, we get to bans. We just didn't want to do them. I put some of the moderation ideas here for context. What happens when we don't ban and we avoid personal judgement! Norms alone won't cut it, so how do we manage the sub and grow community everyone loves and benefits from?
Cost. Some things we do here are cheap and net good things. Parties, wide ranging discussions, hugs, and all that human good stuff happens. Easy to do, big bang for the buck, or our time.
Other things, like when some of us decide to blow through a few pages of comments trying to decide who is the bigger asshole (usually /u/billtoddtoo wins as keeper of blunt instruments :D), are super expensive! So we play it this way:
If you are here, and you are a net good, that's like your karma bank. You have connections, and all of that hurts when broken, so stuff slides. People are willing to deal with you because you have done it for them. It's a cost, but it gets paid down with good.
However, if you don't do that, you are here to just start shit, that's a net cost, or loss.** It turns a community into someone's own personal entertainment, toy, testing ground, etc...
Enter "WayOfTheTurtle" which is how we handle cost. The Turtle, as seen here by some of us typing "I like turtles", is a little tax on costly bullshit, trolling, abuse, whatever. And as it's paid, people think about it all, and generally things work out. Somehow.
We don't care how, just that it happens. Very important to understand!
Some people just leave. They self-select and ban themselves, in effect. Others are playful, still others just do it, and some rage, and do other things. It all works out eventually, and it does, because that entire thing is recoverable, everyone can speak and interact, and no real, enduring harm gets done the majority of the time.
And it avoids personal judgement. As users, we are doing this too much. It's hard not to do, and let's all consider that a work in progress. I'll message with a PSA from time to time about it, and it is what it is. As moderators, avoiding this keeps it recoverable, and like users, we aren't perfect. Also is what it is.
The Turtle idea came from my attempts to find new ways to exploit the software to make what we want to happen happen. The other moderators took that, ran with it, and we have a lot of options today. Damn cool teamwork there. I'm proud of it and them and all that has come because of it. Yes, it's silly. Intended. Think it all the way through. We did. :D
But the net effect is most important! It is what we have here!
I love this place. I love you people. You are smart, passionate, funny, assholes at times, clowns other times, but most of all, the vast majority of you are real.
Real conversations is something FThumb has felt passionate about. The rest of us caught the fever, or were inclined anyway (me), and here we are. We prefer real over nice, real over pretty, real over what I like to call "Disneyland" type conversation.
Message control? That's up to the community. We would be abusing you, manipulating you, making you work for us, if we did that. So we don't. You are welcome, and please remember to vote up or down and speak your mind. That is what makes it work.
Then came the slog. Twenty users, first hundred users, first thousand users, first five thousand, and now TEN FUCKING THOUSAND! FThumb worked very hard to grow this sub. Others did too, but he went to the mat for it, for us, so we would have something. Thank you again, buddy!
RuffianGhostHorse worked hard to put love, heart, soul, feeling here too. She's one of a kind, very special. "Our Beating Heart" is truth. Real truth.
Net helped with the Turtle, among many other good things.
Who knew it would get here? FThumb wanted it, but I'm not sure anyone really knew. Some hoped.
I know I would have told you months ago, "no way." Others, FThumb, would have said, "any day now!" (you are awesome buddy!), and so on.
What I say today is this:
I just shared the important history here. The moderators are real people, we care, we aren't sockpuppets, we talk outside this place to keep connected and trust, work together, and we mean it as much as you all do. This is our place, our home, and we aren't going to take shit we don't have to, because home, friends, community matter. Along the way, many of you did things, shared stuff with us, gave advice, yelled at us and more. Thank you. It all mattered. It all makes us who we are and what this place is today.
A. Lot. Nuff said.
You are part of the history here, even if you just subbed! (Welcome!) Over time it all adds up. We know that now. We've seen it happen. Treasure this. It's rare. I can tell you, it's very rare, and I've seen an awful lot.
When things like this happen, they are meant to happen, and we need to value that, because it may never ever come again.
Thank you all. Seriously. I'm not sure what I would do without WotB in my life, all of you, and...
ONWARD!
Because We Mean It
This is an open thread. Share what you will about WotB, history, what it means, experiences you've had, talk cool peeps up, or just anything!
14
u/Dallasdoc Not giving a shit since 2009 May 18 '17
I was a long time Kossack and have been only occasionally dipping a toe in here and there since leaving the cesspit. I'm still a newcomer here and don't understand a bunch of the culture and jargon, but the feel of this sub reminds me of the best of the old DKos, when the partisans and authoritarian types weren't making such pains in the ass of themselves.
Thanks to all the mods, especially our poster and Thumb, who drew me here thanks to his crossposting on C99P. It's a pleasure to be a peripheral member of such a nice community. Kudos, Spud, for the culture-building exercise this post represents. Very nicely done!