aeka: (Power Girl [modcon]:)
[personal profile] aeka posting in [community profile] scans_daily
Greetings Scans Daily,

We would like to first thank all of you for being patient with us while we took the time to look over all the feedback we received on our last post regarding rule modifications. I would also like to personally apologise to everyone for taking this long to make this post since life took a serious hard hit on my end as of late and hadn't really had the energy to make a post of this size. So again, thank you all for your patience.

Since we finally got around to discussing most of the issues at hand, the overall major areas of concern seem to be in the following areas:

1. Change to the first rule about posting
2. Moderation is too strict
3. SD and NSD are on two separate platforms

Since the contents of this post are quite lengthy, we've divided these posts into sections addressing each point individually.


1. Change to the first rule about posting

First and foremost, we want everyone to remember that Scans Daily's primary function has always been to post and discuss comic scans, while NoScans Daily was specifically created for comic related discussions without the scans. This was true back when Scans Daily was still an LJ community, this is true even now. In fact, one of the former mods from the LJ days even confirmed this. As such, one of the reasons for the change was to clarify how posts to the comm were to be done. Another reason was to make the rules on the info page consistent with those on the posting checklist. One of the issues that arose with the way the original first rule was worded was that it was too broad and open to interpretation. As a result we started seeing an increase of posts on topics that were either loosely related to comics, or were more appropriate material for NoScans Daily with a legality scan thrown in there as a concession to first rule. Not only does this shift the purpose of Scans Daily from its primary function by treating scans as secondary to the main topic, but it is also not within the raison d'etre of the community, thus effectively defeating the purpose of both comms.

Another reason for the change is the fact that we are bound by the limitations of DW's blogging software. Since tagging is one way we make it easier for users to find what they need at a more efficient manner, keeping the two comms separate with more focused functions makes it easier to keep tags under the set limit (particularly in SD's case). It also means less rules for users of both comms to follow, and it even makes moderation of both comms easier on the mod team.

Some of you expressed that you felt this was an issue the entire comm should've been consulted about first before implementing any changes. We would like to assert this was not a question of redefining the comm's purpose, but an issue of moderation that needed to be addressed. The mod team spent over a month discussing the rules and suggesting changes that would clarify posting rules and guidelines for users, stay true to the comm's purpose, as well as make the posting checklist consistent with the rules on the info page, and so that it is easier for users to follow. These were not changes that were done over night and were heavily discussed, agreed upon, and supported by the mod team before releasing the finalised versions.

2. Moderation is too strict

With regards to our moderation style, some of you expressed the concern that we are "too strict." We would like to remind everyone that both SD and NSD are feminist communities. This is explicitly stated on both comms' user infos, and it is even reiterated on the SD comm's sidebar. Given the nature and ethos of both comms, anti-oppression and anti-discriminatory behaviour is our policy. As such we tailor our rules of conduct and disciplinary action to protect the interests of more marginalised groups, and to effectively reduce the chances of an all out flamewar from taking place.

It has been suggested that we are too PC in our moderation that we thus "suck the fun out of free discussion." The reality is there are plenty of spaces on the web where people can have fun with their casual racism, sexism, misogyny, homophobia, etc, while discussing their favourite comics. There are, however, very few spaces on the web where more marginalised individuals can openly discuss issues that affect them personally as comic readers without being personally attacked and ridiculed by other (typically less aware) users. Neither SD nor NSD are spaces where things like casual racism are tolerated and we will always take the side of the person feeling threatened by another user's oppressive and/or discriminatory behaviour.

It is often erroneously believed by many that things like racism and misogyny have to be deliberate and/or intentional for them to count as such, but I can safely say (as psych major) that this is not true. Intent is only one aspect that maintains and influences the prevalence of systems like racism and misogyny. Socialisation, internalisation, and subsequently behaviour are three others. As a result, most people aren't even aware of when they behave in ways that are racist or misogynist, even if they themselves don't actively discriminate against people of other ethnicities or women. Therefore if you are ever issued a mod note telling you to cease a certain behaviour, it is because you are either being deliberately offensive, behaving in ways that are offensive, or are just being generally disruptive in the community. Depending on the severity of the infraction and/or repetition of infractions can lead to a warning, a suspension, or a banning all in that order. That is to say you will never get to one without going through all the previous ones first. While we're on the subject, we would like to further clarify that mod notes are NOT warnings, but are in fact just notes. Notes letting you know to either tone it down or modify your behaviour.

All that being said, we would like to similarly remind everyone that the mod team is always approachable at any time via PM or our email: scansdailymod[at]gmail[dot]com. If you have any problems, concerns, or questions about anything you wish to address, you are free to contact us directly. If you are ever offended by a particular post, another user's behaviour, or are feeling personally attacked, contact us. If you are unsure of how to make a post to the community or if your post counts as legal, contact us. If you ever feel that another member of the mod team is behaving in ways that offends you, contact one of us. We do not bite and we will be more than happy to discuss the things that bother you.

3. SD and NSD are on two separate platforms

With regards to SD and NSD being on two separate platforms, since this is an issue that directly affects the [livejournal.com profile] noscans_daily community, we are actually holding this discussion and poll over there.

The mod team has actually been thinking about moving that comm over to this platform for some time now and the reasons for the consideration are addressed in the modpost linked.

You are all welcome to join in the conversation there, and if you are able to, vote on the poll as well.

gosh this got tl;dr quickly

Date: 2012-05-08 05:26 pm (UTC)
rallamajoop: By addygryff @ LJ (Cable)
From: [personal profile] rallamajoop
I realise my two cents are unlikely to mean much to regulars here, when I've only ever occasionally commented and even more rarely posted to this comm, despite lurking around here for years. I also realise a mod has already apologised for the wording in the statement that there are "plenty of spaces on the web where people can have fun with their casual racism, sexism, misogyny, homophobia, etc, while discussing their favourite comics". However, I feel the need to raise some further objections to this statement on a couple of specific grounds.

When I first discovered scans_daily as a total western comics noob back in 2004, there were two things which particularly attracted me to it. The first was the format. Between the lengthy archives and the high front-page activity s_d was a great way of staying relatively up-to-date with the big events happening at the big two companies (without buying every single issue of every big crossover or pouring over detailed reviews), to get a sense of the backstory behind a particular character or title (without having to track down hundreds of back issues), and to pick up recommendations for lesser known titles that you might otherwise never hear of. The many different posters and mix of squeeful, critical and LOLWTF examples ensured you heard plenty of different viewpoints. I own a couple of boxes worth of comics I never would have looked at twice if I hadn't heard about them here.

The second major attraction was, as the mods point out, that scans_daily has always been heavily feminist and openly slash-friendly. I think it goes without saying, however, that the way the moderators see the feminist credentials of the community has changed a lot in recent years.

The example which stayed with me was a case when a poster asking where the 'surprise buttsex' tag had gone was bluntly told that that term endorsed rape and was unacceptable - despite the joke having once been popular in the old s_d. Actually I think I first ran into the "it's not rape, it's surprise sex!" meme back in 2004 when I first got to s_d. As I understood it, it was a joke that had arisen out of yaoi doujinshi circles, where rape is a (almost ubiquitously) popular kink. There's a lot of interesting factors worth discussing over on that side of fandom, including a convincing argument that creating those doujinshi is itself a feminist act, given that Japan is really not nearly so friendly to alternative sexualities as a sampling of popular fiction might lead some fans to believe, and still has massive problems with women's rights and female sexuality. (A particular quote in an article where a doujinshi artist talked about BL as "the only way we can write a relationship between equals" has stayed with me ever since.) There's also a whole perspective on the role of rape in traditional Japanese romantic narratives and the way that shapes attitudes to this day - not entirely different from the bodice rippers of harlequin romance novels but not exactly the same either, and really there's a whole other essay topic. At the end of the day though, you can either dedicate yourself to writing that essay, or you can just sit back and say, "it's fictional, it's a common kink that does no harm, and I'm helping no-one by shaming people who enjoy it". Or, as the joke goes, "it's not rape, it's surprise sex!", because if you can't joke about something as socially convoluted yet ultimately harmless as young women enjoying weird porn, what else can you do? Yes, that sort of comment can sound problematic taken out of context, but really, what can't? Context matters.

To me, that spirit was what made the community. Maybe we couldn't change the what the media tells us we should find sexy, or the sausage-fest that is western comics, but by god we could subvert the hell out of every shred of subtext we could find, laugh at it, bond over it, and create a space where all that bullshit didn't matter so much. Let's be realistic, this is the past seen through rose-tinted glasses. The old s_d also had its vicious flame wars and genuine unpleasantness, but I'd still give it the edge over the new one.

These days, it seems the approach is to take anything as potentially problematic as the word 'lame' deadly seriously. There are certainly people out there, rape survivors included, who'd be uncomfortable with casual jokes about 'surprise buttsex', and that's nothing they should have to apologise for. However, there are also people who use humour as a coping mechanism, and who feel far more victimised by the implication they have to be 'protected' from a harmless joke in a supportive context than they would by the reverse. In the real world, people's needs and comfort zones conflict all over the places in ways like that. It's just not possible to create a perfectly safe space for everyone, and frankly, I'd side-eye anyone who tried to tell me otherwise.

Obviously, communities are made of people, and people will come and go, and change their attitudes with time. If the current moderators and remaining membership want to define the rules as they now read, then that is certainly their right; the onus is on me to move on if this doesn't suit me. But please do not suggest that alternatives are easily found. In all my years in fandom I have not found any comparable community, either in content or in spirit, on LJ/DW or anywhere else (though I would only be too happy to be proven wrong if anyone can recommend an alternative).

The mods have clearly put serious time and thought into how to create an inclusive community, and into this post, and yet still felt confident in dismissing anyone who felt less than comfortable under the current ethos as a bigot and oppressor. I don't think anything in any unfortunately worded comment I've seen here before has ever made me feel so unwelcome as that.

So as I said above, I guess I'm far from being the kind of member the mods want around here these days anyway, but I hope something in all this rambling might provide useful food for thought.

Re: gosh this got tl;dr quickly

Date: 2012-05-08 06:36 pm (UTC)
cleome45: (Default)
From: [personal profile] cleome45
The "community spirit" is made or broken for you based on whether or not we can make jokes about "surprise buttsex"?

o_0

Uh, okay then.

Re: gosh this got tl;dr quickly

Date: 2012-05-08 07:03 pm (UTC)
icon_uk: (Default)
From: [personal profile] icon_uk
I confess to being surprised when that one got stamped on so hard, especially as IIRC the phrasing seemed to imply that this was something we should all always have been aware of, when it had been in (relatively) innocent use for ages

Re: gosh this got tl;dr quickly

Date: 2012-05-08 07:12 pm (UTC)
cleome45: (fire1)
From: [personal profile] cleome45
Sorry. I missed the "real-time" discussion about it.

Honestly, though. I can see why the usage would skeeve some people out. It's never been one of my pet phrases or fave jokes, however.

I guess what I'm really wondering is: if the commenter above us really loves the space overall, why would their decision to stay or leave hinge on one phrase or joke? Or even half a dozen phrases or jokes? Is that really more important overall than the other parts of the "community spirit" that they approve of?

All of us make compromises and hold certain things back if we want to function effectively around other human beings. I guess that's what's confusing me. How is this so different? (I've been on one board that purported to be a "Free Speech Zone" and I don't think it even managed to survive a year. Even while I was there, I never went in without hip waders and a safety mask. The amount of sludge I had to wade through on a daily basis just to get a few gems was... unbelievable.)

Re: gosh this got tl;dr quickly

Date: 2012-05-08 07:20 pm (UTC)
icon_uk: (Default)
From: [personal profile] icon_uk
Don't feel qualified to speak for rallamajoop, but I suspect it was more symptomatic than definitive.

Re: gosh this got tl;dr quickly

Date: 2012-05-08 07:28 pm (UTC)
cleome45: (Default)
From: [personal profile] cleome45
Maybe you're right. Still, given the amount of space they spent explaining it, I'd say that's one mighty big "symptom."

Re: gosh this got tl;dr quickly

Date: 2012-05-08 07:38 pm (UTC)
ext_3679: (Default)
From: [identity profile] fiddlingfrog.livejournal.com
I don't think the length of someone's examples should be used as a mark against their central argument.

Re: gosh this got tl;dr quickly

Date: 2012-05-08 07:48 pm (UTC)
cleome45: (lightning1)
From: [personal profile] cleome45
Really?

Because I tend to think that if I have to spend a massive paragraph explaining very fandom-specific reasons why somebody (who may, BTW, know those specific circumstances but still not give a shit;I can't be sure) shouldn't take offense at a joke I told, it might be better all around if I just say, "Oops. Sorry," shelve the joke in question and move on. My own journal might be kind of like my own home, but a discussion board is more like the neighborhood bar, and I try (sometimes even successfully) to post with that in mind.

Re: gosh this got tl;dr quickly

From: [identity profile] fiddlingfrog.livejournal.com - Date: 2012-05-08 08:20 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: gosh this got tl;dr quickly

From: [personal profile] cleome45 - Date: 2012-05-08 08:28 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: gosh this got tl;dr quickly

From: [personal profile] rallamajoop - Date: 2012-05-09 03:44 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: gosh this got tl;dr quickly

From: [personal profile] cleome45 - Date: 2012-05-09 03:56 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: gosh this got tl;dr quickly

From: [personal profile] rallamajoop - Date: 2012-05-09 04:20 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: gosh this got tl;dr quickly

From: [personal profile] cleome45 - Date: 2012-05-09 04:40 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: gosh this got tl;dr quickly

From: [personal profile] rallamajoop - Date: 2012-05-09 10:33 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: gosh this got tl;dr quickly

From: [personal profile] salinea - Date: 2012-05-09 10:50 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: gosh this got tl;dr quickly

From: [personal profile] cleome45 - Date: 2012-05-09 04:56 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: gosh this got tl;dr quickly

From: [personal profile] salinea - Date: 2012-05-09 06:08 pm (UTC) - Expand

I'm sorry, Everyone. :o

From: [personal profile] cleome45 - Date: 2012-05-09 06:15 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: I'm sorry, Everyone. :o

From: [personal profile] salinea - Date: 2012-05-09 06:32 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: I'm sorry, Everyone. :o

From: [personal profile] cleome45 - Date: 2012-05-10 04:31 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: gosh this got tl;dr quickly

From: [personal profile] salinea - Date: 2012-05-09 09:38 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: gosh this got tl;dr quickly

From: [personal profile] rallamajoop - Date: 2012-05-09 11:43 am (UTC) - Expand

Re: gosh this got tl;dr quickly

From: [personal profile] salinea - Date: 2012-05-09 05:57 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: gosh this got tl;dr quickly

From: [personal profile] greenmask - Date: 2012-05-10 12:42 pm (UTC) - Expand

Re: gosh this got tl;dr quickly

Date: 2012-05-08 07:42 pm (UTC)
auggie18: (Default)
From: [personal profile] auggie18
I honestly never associated that joke with rape, which was why I was surprised someone reacted that way. I always assumed it was about sex that drifted in an unexpectedly butt-ward direction, but I can see why people are offended by it.

A lot of the issues might stem from the tone of this community. There have been things that stretched my expectations of what is offensive. I got in trouble once for using the phrase "normal sex" because it implied penetration and othered people who don't engage in penetrative sex. There was the whole Carlie Cooper-Poochie thing. There's a sort of hyper-vigilance towards making this a friendly space that can come off kind of hostile at times. I guess it's worth it to have a safe space, but I can see why it would turn some people off of us.

Re: gosh this got tl;dr quickly

Date: 2012-05-08 07:53 pm (UTC)
cleome45: (Default)
From: [personal profile] cleome45
I complained to a mod about the Carlie Cooper-Poochie thing because, yeah, in context, I found it fucking obnoxious. The people who complained about the character and how she got shoved up fans' noses in a heavy-handed fashion? Or they didn't like the way she was written or drawn? That didn't bother me at all.

I also knew the original reference before anyone explained it, but the thing about references is: if you take them out of their original environment, you change their context for others. Even if you don't intend to.

Re: gosh this got tl;dr quickly

Date: 2012-05-09 03:28 am (UTC)
rallamajoop: By addygryff @ LJ (Cable)
From: [personal profile] rallamajoop
...yes, that's exactly the point I was trying to make.

But okay, that was a whole lot of tl;dr, and I was kinda expecting at least one response along these lines, so I'll try to summarise: what I feel was important to the community spirit was the freedom to, when the mood struck, crack light-hearted jokes about pictures of a couple of characters in an unintentionally suspect pose without being told that doing so meant we were oppressing an underprivileged minority. Why I feel this minor matter was worth raising with respect to s_d's stated goals of creating a welcoming and supportive community... well, that's what all that tl;dr was trying to get into.

Re: gosh this got tl;dr quickly

Date: 2012-05-09 03:42 am (UTC)
cleome45: (brainy1)
From: [personal profile] cleome45
But... you're still free to crack light-hearted jokes. Aren't there any other jokes that could make your points effectively and still not upset people for whom "Surprise Buttsex" has unpleasant overtones?

Re: gosh this got tl;dr quickly

Date: 2012-05-09 11:26 am (UTC)
greenmask: (Default)
From: [personal profile] greenmask
P.S. The team at the time objected (suddenly) to "Surprise Buttsex" not because "hey they look like they're fuckin'" suddenly became unhumorous. If you can say it another way, say away.

Re: the tried and true...

Date: 2012-05-10 04:35 am (UTC)
cleome45: (michael1)
From: [personal profile] cleome45
...if somewhat less specific tag would be:

"Did They Just Not Know?"

;)

Re: the tried and true...

Date: 2012-05-10 12:11 pm (UTC)
greenmask: (Default)
From: [personal profile] greenmask
A+!

Re: gosh this got tl;dr quickly

Date: 2012-05-09 11:17 am (UTC)
greenmask: (Default)
From: [personal profile] greenmask
If you want to share scans or read shared scans, we want you here. If you feel that our moderation values are driving you out, then we regret that! Please don't think we'd be happy to see you go.

Your point about the use of rape in various contexts is a good one, and that would be a really interesting discussion to have. Rape being used in fictionalised porn as.. a metaphor, a get-out clause in a repressive society, a something-else.. that IS worth discussing, and it's not that it's something we don't think would ever be suitable for s_d. We also don't demand that we be allowed to protect you, if you don't want it.

We try to look out for the members who do ask or need to have certain words, certain jokes taken out of play. We would like to be entirely inclusive, for everyone - we're not there yet. We will continue to practise and improve how we address otes and warnings to members, and if you think we sound too sanctimonious at the moment we will take that into account.

You make the point that "Context matters", and that is what we try to keep at the front of our minds. If there were a post about what you would call "surprise buttsex" that was placed in the context that you elaborate upon ('rape as escapist plot device, let's discuss') I don't think there would be trouble. Unless comments or commentary got out of hand, but that's another story.

I don't think we're completely humourless yet? But you're right, there are fewer anal-sex and illustrated breast-based lulz to be had these days. Maybe we just need to find new ways to tell them. This last paragraph sounds sarcastic, and I apologise for that, because it isn't meant to be.

Re: gosh this got tl;dr quickly

Date: 2012-05-09 11:59 am (UTC)
rallamajoop: By addygryff @ LJ (Cable)
From: [personal profile] rallamajoop
I appreciate that you're speaking in good faith here, but everything you've just said is the opposite of the impression I got from the clarification of the rules above, and I don't know how to reconcile the two. Having just been through a long thread where I was challenged to justify my right to be offended at every turn, I'm afraid I don't think I'm in much of a state to engage with anyone else without getting needlessly snippy at the moment. Sorry, but I think I'd better bow out for a bit.

Re: gosh this got tl;dr quickly

Date: 2012-05-09 12:03 pm (UTC)
greenmask: (Default)
From: [personal profile] greenmask
From the way that certain threads have blown up (and gosh have they) in the past, the team as a whole has learnt to put the Dredd foot forward, to be honest.

If you want to talk about it later, PMs is cool.

Re: gosh this got tl;dr quickly

Date: 2012-05-09 04:17 pm (UTC)
quatoria: Cartoon avatar of me, holding a brick of C4, about to explode. (Default)
From: [personal profile] quatoria
And that exact thing is one of the issues I've found most problematic, lately. I'm certain that I will phrase this poorly, and I probably shouldn't even bother - but I've got to at least try to explain one of the things that's been making me feel alienated from this community lately. It feels like there's an unspoken assumption that when a member of the community says something wrong, it's viewed in the worst possible light, and they're frequently treated not as a community member with generally good intentions, but instead as something unpleasant a mod has stepped in, that needs to be stamped on, hard.

This isn't a universal 'every mod note, every time' kind of thing - sometimes a simple note instantly corrects behavior and everyone goes back on their way, but lately it feels like the automatic assumption is one of ill will. Much like the original mod post in this thread, it feels like when someone screws up, the assumption is that they're doing so from a place of ill will or malice, as opposed to simple ignorance or misunderstanding. It comes across as needlessly hostile, to me.

I suppose this is dangerously close to sounding like a tone argument, so I should probably just shut up - but I don't know how else to convey the sense of unease I've had about the nature of modly interventions lately. I hope somewhere in those ramblings was something understandable.

Re: gosh this got tl;dr quickly

Date: 2012-05-10 03:10 am (UTC)
the_glow_worm: (Default)
From: [personal profile] the_glow_worm
I agree.

Re: gosh this got tl;dr quickly

Date: 2012-05-10 12:13 pm (UTC)
greenmask: (Default)
From: [personal profile] greenmask
Hrmm. I think it is a tone thing, but that's not to say that it isn't something we need to think about. "The tone argument", as it's intended, is to protect people who are working from a disadvantage from the behavioural demands of those working from an advantage. As mods, perhaps we don't comprehend our advantage fully. How do you see us? What does the mod/member power relationship look like to you?

Re: gosh this got tl;dr quickly

Date: 2012-05-10 04:50 pm (UTC)
rallamajoop: By addygryff @ LJ (Cable)
From: [personal profile] rallamajoop
Okay, gonna give this another try.

Rape being used in fictionalised porn as.. a metaphor, a get-out clause in a repressive society, a something-else.. that IS worth discussing, and it's not that it's something we don't think would ever be suitable for s_d.

I would actually go even further (and at this point even I can't really believe I'm going to quite these lengths to defend something so silly as that phrase, but here we are). I think, to the minds of most of the people using it, a phrase like 'surprise buttsex' has never really been a true euphemism for 'rape', it's a term for a particularly kinky porn trope that could not even be relevant outside the land of fiction. Readers are free to tune out whenever they feel like (provided they haven't run into it unexpectedly, which is a whole other warnings debate), and therefore consent of any real person is never in question. I'd also point out that it gets applied to so many situations which are ambiguously sexual but where no-one involved looks like it's... an unpleasant surprise (for lack of a better way to put that), that the 'surprise' starts being as much about finding this scene in the middle of a mainstream comic as anything else, and at the end of the day, on that petty, vindictive level, gosh but it's fun having an in-joke that makes a certain class of misogynistic fanboy anything like as uncomfortable as he makes us feel at every opportunity.

The trouble with policing that sort of language is that for some of us, being suddenly expected to justify or censor something that relates (however tangentially) to ways girls and queer fans express their sexuality - that starts to take on some unpleasant connotations which I hope I don't have to spell out. Particularly when it's in a space where it was previously taken for granted that that kind of joke was welcome and encouraged. We spend enough time being reminded that we offend the majority just by existing (or having that haircut or that tattoo or that short skirt or just standing in that comic shop when everyone knows comics are for boys) that when we suddenly have to do the same in a space that's supposed to be for us, the feeling of being excluded becomes infinitely more personal.

The thing is, most of us don't come here to discuss the intricate ramifications of "Rape being used in fictionalised porn as.. a metaphor, a get-out clause in a repressive society", we come here to relax, check out some comics, and chat with others who speak our language. You mentioned in another comment that you hadn't heard from anyone else who felt excluded from this community, which surprised me until I realised it that most of what convinced me I wasn't alone in my feelings has come from anonymous comments made by former scans_daily members in completely different spaces. I think that probably speaks to just how excluded some people feel. To be honest, I'm not sure even I would have ever gotten up the guts to make my first response to this post if I hadn't seen a couple of comments above from people who'd taken similar objection to the same phrase from the post above which most bothered me.

I do want to restate here that I realise how much of a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" position this puts the mods in. There are people who are genuinely uncomfortable in a space where people make surprise buttsex jokes. There are also people who are going to be genuinely uncomfortable having their language policed like that. Still others are going to feel victimised by the very suggestion that they're so fragile as to need to be defended against something so utterly harmless. All these people want a feminist space to discuss comics in. Feminism and sexism are tricky like that, and only more so in a community accessible to virtually anyone in the world with Internet connection.

To my mind, a key problem is that the mods have already made a value judgement about what kind of member they want to prioritise when those conflicts come up, and yet the rules, the clarifications and the general tone of much of the modly intervention people see all sends the clear message that anyone who interprets such things differently isn't a real feminist/has internalised racism/suffers from unexamined privilege, etc. In such a climate, if those of us who no longer feel comfortable here were to take the logical step of creating our own comics community, we'd also have to deal with a perception of being set up as "the racist alternative to scans_daily". It's pretty well a no-win scenario.

I don't have a simple solution. I certainly don't speak for everyone here, and I doubt I could even claim to represent more than a subset of those who have ever felt excluded. But I do feel that at the very least, it shouldn't be too much to ask that people like me shouldn't have to come here and see rules 'clarified' in a manner that almost seems calculated to personally offend us.

Re: gosh this got tl;dr quickly

Date: 2012-05-10 05:06 pm (UTC)
greenmask: (Default)
From: [personal profile] greenmask
I only have like ten minutes of internet time left so this will be quick (more detail tomorrow is possible).

I went there a little in another comment to you somewhere in this post's comments, but I'll say it again - you're articulating a problem and essentially representing a subset of members that we haven't been conscious of previously. We have to bear responsibility for that, but we also need to hear it from members who feel that way.

We're trying to look out for the members who put their heads down and put up with [whatever] in other communities , or who leave them - because as far as we can see those are the members who need s_d to be the "safest" it can be. I don't believe I was a part of "surprise buttsex" going away (though I would have been in favour of it), but if the team had heard from members who had explained why they had such a fondness for the term maybe things would have gone differently. Maybe not; for some it's a real disturbing term as you accept.

It is a no-win scenario. We can promise to aim squarely at not offending or alienating you; we can't promise to succeed. If that's what it came to, we certainly wouldn't badmouth "new scans daily" or call anyone a racist if they wanted to join it. Let's hope it doesn't come to that? Your comments are really helpful and I hope that we can do something with them. Thanks, very much, for continuing to talk with me.

Re: gosh this got tl;dr quickly

Date: 2012-05-09 04:13 pm (UTC)
icon_uk: (Default)
From: [personal profile] icon_uk
I feel I should say, all other considerations to one side, someone who can present such an erudite case will hopefully stick around and take part in a few more discussions! :)

Re: gosh this got tl;dr quickly

Date: 2012-05-10 05:13 pm (UTC)
rallamajoop: (Deadpool)
From: [personal profile] rallamajoop
Thanks. It always takes so much longer than I counted on to get my thoughts into something resembling coherrent order on a subject like this, so it's rather nice to get to feel like it's worth the effort. ^^;

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Scans Daily
Founded by girl geeks and members of the slash fandom, [community profile] scans_daily strives to provide an atmosphere which is LGBTQ-friendly, anti-racist, anti-ableist, woman-friendly and otherwise discrimination and harassment free.

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