I totally agree with that!
No, I described one particular way (i.e., eyerolls and side-eyes) of expressing disagreement.
No, friend it is not.
I speak from personal experience.
I have both been criticized and modded just for using gifs in the past.
Even when they were topical and not any aspersion on the person being replied to.
That you are only talking about āeye rolls/side eyesā means that we are not addressing the same problem.
You seem to be talking about one specific type of snarky response, whereas I am addressing the whole reason why a huge chunk of Others took a whole week off from BBā¦
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Agreed. Iāve seen numerous instances where someone, usually a newbie but not always, has made a misstep has apologized and has continued to be piled on for it.
Heck, a user was just given a timeout and in the thread in which it happened they were still being piled onto even deter it seemed clear they were trying to politely extricate themselves from a series of dumb statements. They should have stopped about five replies sooner, for sure. But so should we have.
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Iām sorry. I apologize. I thought you were referring to my comments about eyeroll and side-eye gifs. Now I understand (I think) that you were referring to your own posting of all sorts of gifs.
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Iām open to that. Could you be specific?
The way I read the post that is now the OP in this thread, @cannibalpeas was lamenting that there are subthreads that go sideways due to a group of posters who āgang upā on someone for misunderstanding the obvious intent of the poster. The particular example involved an unannounced potential presidential candidate.
Iāve made several points in this thread that are related to that. In the thread in that example, the first response to that post was a query about what the poster meant, while pointing out that the potential candidate in question has stated repeatedly that they would absolutely not run.. The original poster insisted again that the potential candidate, a woman of color, might run. Letās be super clear: regardless of intent, that was a microaggression. Repeatedly not listening to women or BIPOC is a microaggression. And doing so in response to a member of that group is a microaggression against that person by proxy.
So I have pointed out that what might seem like an obvious misunderstanding is actually a challenge to shitty behavior that we might be blind to.
And these kind of microaggressions are worse from people we know than from random strangers, which I believe is a critical point that @TornPaperNapkin has made several times now.
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This is true. But if āassume good faithā is intended to mean something real, then there is a burden on the reader somewhere out there. Otherwise, scrap that guideline.
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At the very least, a lack of clarity should not open the door to any and all manner of assumptions.
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So the argument is between disagreeing as you would have it done, and disagreeing as others would have it done. Gotcha.
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Well, itās difficult for me because people arenāt saying their points. Like for instance zfirphdn has said they arenāt trying to make this about sides, but you have singled out a clique as part of the problem. That means you think there is some group on the other side, but you arenāt saying whom. I get why you donāt want to throw stones at particular peopleā¦but in essence you are anyway, just we donāt get evaluate whether they deserve it or not, weāre just supposed to take your word for it that theyāre guilty.
All I know about them is theyāre people who commit the great incivility of rolling their eyes sometimes, so maybe me, but maybe not. This sort of veiled attack makes it impossible to have a proper discussion. To me thatās a lot worse than saying āsure, Janā on occasion. But what do I know? I may or may not be the enemy here.
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We are all human, and have probably crossed the line at one time or anotherā¦ Now, I will say, I donāt always agree with the decision, but you work to make it transparent and clear what you are doing and why you are doing it. I have no doubt as to your good intentions on how you moderate this forum. I have no doubt that I can come to you with criticism about your decisions, and youāll take them seriously, even if I still disagree at the end of the discussion. I also know that youāll take mine and otherās concerns seriously, which matters.
Most of us have had a comment modded at one point or another, most of us have received pushback, most of us have had an animated gif posted at us, yes with some snarkā¦
Again, this is a key hereā¦ weāre not going to all get along or agree on everything. We might even cross a line and say things that are hurtful - for which weāll get modded!
But, as youāre very much pointing out, we have to understand the current online environment and whatās happening out thereā¦ Just look at what happened with Twitter this last year or soā¦ Just look at how FB contributed to an near insurrection by a fascist group! White men are just getting far less pushback than the rest of us.
We can have a place that is diverse, or we can turn into almost every other place onlineā¦ Remember the nazi bar analogy? We let in one nazis, in order to be polite, thatās very much a slippery slope. Same with allowing micro-aggressions to stand unchallenged. Yes, people might misinterpret something as such, when it was not, if you get called out for that, and people agree, then maybe take a step back and look at your comment in a different lightā¦ We all fuck up and if we refuse to see ourselves as fully human and own that, then maybe itās less about discussion for some, and more about winning a debate?
Iād love to see a discussion of what some feel is the larger problem hereā¦
Could be that some might not see their apology as sincere or there was some larger issue that you maybe werenāt privy too?
As for a removal, itās not like the people posting the gifs are the ones doing the removing. Itās the moderators doing that (meaning @orenwolf). Again, many of us have had our comments modded for various reasonsā¦ 
Do you think that heās playing favorites here? Because I assure you that he is not.
And of course there is the whole polite one liner or entirely ignoring women over and over again that happens quite a bit here. Like male presenting posters will get detailed responses while women, who write just as much as our male posters will get single line responses. There is also shit like men making the exact same point as a woman who made the point first, and getting the response. And yes, sometimes shit can be missed in long and winding threads (like this seems to be turning into), but itās strange just how often this happens to women and gets ignored as being a problemā¦
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For sure. But āassume good faithā also doesnāt mean āignore your own lived experience.ā If a poster encounters microaggressions, should they ignore them because others might not recognize them as such? Surely not.
Also, assume good faith must also be applied to respondents. If someone challenges a post that seems innocuous to you, maybe apply some good faith that they saw something that you didnāt, instead of assuming they are misreading the posterās intent?
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Sure. Itās the sound of one hand clapping, I suppose. And Iām definitely not asking anyone to endure micro aggressions and abuse that, because of my position Iām blind to. But I think the OP at top thread is an excellent point. It highlights an issue that I know Iāve been on the wrong side of. As have others.
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Ime good faith when raising issues about misogynistic speech is never assumed. Same with trans issues and race. Raising these issues with a person is considered de facto not assuming good faith by some even though it is actually a tremendous act of trust in the community.
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Personally, Iām skeptical about every new person that crosses our threshold until they develop a track record, and I refuse to feel bad about that.
When I first showed up here 7 years ago, I was met with skepticism and mild suspicion - and then I proved myself to be posting in good faith, and became one of the most visible members of the community.
No worries; instances like this one is where it becomes clear who is trying to communicate effectively, and who is just here to argue endlessly.
Though to be fair I wasnāt just talking about myself when it comes to posting gifs - @anon61221983 gets targeted to a ridiculous degree, and flagging her posts that are gifs is not only low hanging fruit, itās misuse of the system, IMO.
Since it seems to get weaponized against the community more than it ever benefits us, I concur; scrap it.
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Hmmā¦it seems to me that the argument is more like whether sarcasm, snark, eyerolls, and side-eyes are harmful to communication and human relations, or not.
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How far should we carry this āassume good faithā in the current environment? Context matters, and Iād argue caution is warranted with new posters right now, as long as there is an online movement to shut down people who are not white men. That is a real thing that is happening and itās frustrating that people are more concerned about tone policing than they are about the threats that do exist that have already shown to have real world consequencesā¦
Exactly right.
Not really no. @DukeTrout makes an important point about extended that concept of good faith to people pointing out problems. Weāre meant to assume good faith of new posters, but not long-standing ones?
Again, me too.
Iām better off for having known you, and so is everyone else here, even if they donāt appreciate that!
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I hear you, but what sprang immediately to mind for me:
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I never said anything about the eye rolling.
No.
To return to how I read the original concern, itās the piling on. And in particular when someone is clearly trying to extricate themselves from what they claim to be a mistake, and continue to get piled onto.
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@chenille is responding to the general idea that animated gifs with an eyeroll is some kind of bullying, which you generally seem to agree with as a point.
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