Hello,
The situation in Israel/Palestine right now is a shitshow. Discussion about the conflict right now is also a shitshow across the entire internet. Misinformation is rampant and actual information on the ground is scarce and hard to come by.
Anywhere on the internet, this is a recipe for a moderation nightmare. While Boing Boing and the BBS have had their share of hot-button and controversial topics in the past, this is different. In my 7+ years of moderating this site I have never felt more lost as to how to even approach a topic as I do now. To make matters even more complicated, many BB Authors and partners have family or friends directly involved in one way or another (including me, as my brother-in-law’s family moved to Israel one week before this conflict began, and my niece joined up with the IDF about three months before that.)
After discussion with the BB Authors, we’ve decided the following:
- While news about the conflict is important, and there will undoubtedly be posts about the conflict on Boing Boing and here on the BBS, we ask that comments be restricted to those news posts themselves (and, obviously, discussion surrounding them.)
- We are not comfortable trying to moderate broader opinions about the conflict in general, and we ask you not to post them here. We are not equipped to handle that discussion, and for now, we’re not even going to try. Replies or posts that veer too far into this category will be summarily deleted along with replies.
I know this is an unusual position for us to take, but we ask for your understanding and support here. We are a small, independent blog, and we are simply not equipped to properly adjudicate the broader topics at play here generally in a way that makes any of us comfortable.
Lastly, my sincere thanks to those Mutants who have been taking the time to post news updates as they happen (special shotout to @GagHalfrunt who is now doing this for TWO conflicts.) The signal-to-noise ratio here on the BBS surrounding news about this conflict is IMHO miles better than elsewhere, and we all have all of you to thank for that.
Thank you.
