I was wondering if there were systems in place for users to report mods who are just ignoring the code of conduct and just abusing their power of moderator as a whole?

I’ve seen that we could get in touch via Mastodon, but I don’t have an account for that unfortunately and I was curious to know if there were other ways

  • @[email protected]
    1•8 hours ago

    Ah, there was eventually a thank you!

    There was immediately a thank you. It was in the message you were replying to, where you accused me of not saying thank you. You actually quoted it back to me at one point, in one of your sections after you said it.

    It can’t just be that I have knowledge and information and suggested readings and pointers for where to criticize media. You have to be honestly interested in investigation and learning. Technically I don’t think my part should even be necessary: a curious skeptic would be asking themselves the same questions I’ve asked you before taking the genocide claim seriously in the first place. And a curious skeptic might appreciate being told to read more deeply because there is intrigue. But clearly that’s not happening on its own. You are either new to critical readings and investigating sources and think tanks and funding and seeking out criticisms or you just aren’t interested in doing that on this topic. I think it’s probably both and connected to the antagonism to basic things like giving you a source or treating me criticizing that source as something inherently wrong.

    You’re coming at this from the perspective that you are right, and I am wrong, and you need to educate me. That’s fine, but it’s coming in conjunction with getting some basic facts wrong, which is why I’m so unreceptive. That’s my process: Test some things that people say, before you believe them on the wider narrative. You keep trying to do the educating and making much broader claims, without doing the proving piece in detail first.

    Let me show you how it works:

    Because it is relevant to the basics of this propaganda push, one pillar of which is premised on a handful of testimonies where every time the person is named it turns out they are tied to funding and usually very inconsistent.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Uyghurs_in_China#Compulsory_sterilizations_and_contraception

    Let’s test your assertion. How are Zumrat Dwut and Sayragul Sauytbay tied to funding? Can you send me the source which indicates that they are? Also, do you know of inconsistencies in their story?

    You want me to be open to being led to conclusions and doing investigations prompted by you, so let’s see if it goes both ways.

    As a multi-ethnic country that embraces and protects its ethnic minorities, China implements affirmative action for them. One example of this is that ethnic minorities, including Uyghurs, are permitted to have more children, with the numbers being dictated, in part, by lifestyle (urban vs rural).

    This hasn’t been true since 2017.

    • @[email protected]
      2•4 hours ago

      Didn’t you say you were done with this conversation and then said goodbye?

      I will note again that you ignored nearly everything I said, including the part where I said you keep ignoring what I say.

      There was immediately a thank you. It was in the message you were replying to, where you accused me of not saying thank you.

      It was a few replies in, actually, and I already acknowledged it. Why belabor it while ignoring nearly everything else I said? That’s not a rhetorical question. Really ask yourself what the the basis of these incredibly selective responses is.

      You’re coming at this from the perspective that you are right, and I am wrong, and you need to educate me.

      I’m coming at this from the perspective that you are by your own admission unfamiliar with this topic and that I am not. You, by definition, need education on this topic and if you weren’t putting up irrational barriers I could indeed help you with that. I began by simply sharing information, but you started trying to argue combatively about it and treat this like a debate and I am now just responding to the (usually silly) things you say.

      You being wrong isn’t interesting and has little weight. You know basically nothing about this topic, still, and are spending your energy trying to fight me rather than investigate critically. What would you call someone that declares combative opinions before doing enough investigation?

      That’s fine, but it’s coming in conjunction with getting some basic facts wrong, which is why I’m so unreceptive.

      What basic facts have I gotten wrong? As best I can tell every time you’ve tried to dispute I have only needed to clarify and you then ignored what I said.

      That’s my process: Test some things that people say, before you believe them on the wider narrative.

      That’s an irrational process. You need to actually read critically and inform yourself. Your process will fail in both directions: people with correct understandings will get details wrong (though I and not) and people with incorrect understandings can give you a perfect regurgitation of bullshit from sources with the veneer or credibility.

      You are also not really following that process, given that you bail early on nearly every point discussed.

      You keep trying to do the educating and making much broader claims, without doing the proving piece in detail

      I give you context because so far you seem to be quite gullible and unquestioning when it comes to confirming your priors and reading this report. At one point you declared, epistemically, trusting the UN, holy shit. If all you do is lazily read without investigating sources or critical responses you will simply never see the information I have provided you. The first 50 results for searches will be various rewordings of a statement by one NED-funded think tank and you will, apparently, find that credible by default.

      You are welcome for having been provided with context to help you understand this topic and investigate it critically. As a curious skeptic, surely you appreciate this kind of information and won’t search for a way to whine about my audacity.

      Let’s test your assertion. How are Zumrat Dwut and Sayragul Sauytbay tied to funding? Can you send me the source which indicates that they are? Also, do you know of inconsistencies in their story?

      It is actually your onus to investigate all of this. This is not a debate and I am not here to fetch you yet more sources when you are being resistant to self-education and very selective in your responses. I do not require you to simply accept what I say and stop investigating. I give you breadcrumbs. You’re a curious skeptic, right?

      Here are some breadcrumbs to help you answer your own first question: Zumrat Dawut got a US Visa, lives in Washington, DC, and is now publishing a graphic novel. How did those things happen so quickly, and during the Trump Administration, particularly given the US’ islamophobic immigration policies? Why Washington, DC? What does she do there?

      I await the results of your curious sceptic investigation.

      You want me to be open to being led to conclusions and doing investigations prompted by you, so let’s see if it goes both ways.

      I’ve already done that work years ago. It did not require prompting let alone whatever this is. I critically examined multiple narratives and sources and spent particular time on the most slick academized works, as they seemed most credible at the time.

      This hasn’t been true since 2017.

      Yes it has. China actually recently scrapped most of the family planning policy at the highest level, but regionally its reveal is still being implemented.

      • @[email protected]
        1•4 hours ago

        Didn’t you say you were done with this conversation and then said goodbye?

        Yeah, but then I got interested again.

        I will note again that you ignored nearly everything I said

        Really ask yourself what the the basis of these incredibly selective responses is.

        I began by simply sharing information, but you started trying to argue combatively about it and treat this like a debate

        You are welcome for having been provided with context to help you understand this topic and investigate it critically. As a curious skeptic, surely you appreciate this kind of information and won’t search for a way to whine about my audacity.

        Yes. Like I said before, if I have no particular reason to trust you, then I’m not going to accept the information that you give me. I’m not sure why that’s so persistently difficult to understand, or why you keep framing things in terms of you providing information that I am required to accept, and me making things difficult by examining it skeptically first.

        What basic facts have I gotten wrong?

        • The special treatment of Uyghurs for family planning quotas ended in 2017: https://web.archive.org/web/20170908140929/https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1058905.shtml (or in section 105 of the report you sent me)
        • You claimed the OHCHR made no claim of wide-scale destruction of mosques. You then tried to claim that “wide scale” and “a large number” are two totally different things, and you sort of hinted that if I read the underlying sources, I would find something damning. I spot-checked the underlying sources, and I found confirmation for the idea that mosques are being destroyed at a wide scale, or a large number, or whatever you want to call it.
        • You claimed “Though it should be noted that Han have the most restrictive control over reproduction,” when the numbers cited by the OHCHR report indicate about an order of magnitude greater sterilizations among the Uyghurs (section 108).

        You don’t have to trust the OHCHR report, of course. Let me ask this: What sources would you trust? What can I refer to that you consider as a trustworthy source of information? That’s why I specifically referred to globaltimes.cn above. But then, I have no idea if you trust them.

        It is actually your onus to investigate all of this.

        I just got tired of the conversation again.

        You seem to be interested in talking about this, to some extent, but I’m not going to respond to general hints about what I might want to look at, or retreats into “do your own research”-type non-answers. If I’m making a claim, it’s my duty to be willing to back it up instead of just sort of hinting.

        You have a valid point that I’ve been ignoring things you’ve said or questions you ask. Are there any of the unanswered questions that you want me to take some real time and answer for you? Part of my not “getting with the program” so to speak, it seems, is like I say that I simply don’t believe you based on my little bit of investigations so far, so I’m focusing my attention on seeing if you’re trustworthy before taking anything of the very large and varied number of claims you’re making seriously.

        That’s my process: Test some things that people say, before you believe them on the wider narrative.

        That’s an irrational process. You need to actually read critically and inform yourself.

        In your world, what does “read critically” mean? If testing some of the things from a particular source before you start to take it seriously isn’t that?

        I generally trust the OHCHR report, not because I automatically trust everything from the UN, but because it doesn’t have any obvious inconsistencies with its sources and seems to draw on things that broadly match with what’s broadly accepted by human rights NGOs, Wikipedia, news sources with a variety of allegiances, and so on. I went through some version of the process with it that I’m trying to do with you, and it didn’t have sudden changes in its story, factual inconsistencies with other things that were trustworthy, suspect logical patterns, and so on.

        Like I say, I think we’re just at an impasse, because you’re absolutely convinced that you’ve already done the critical reading, and I just need to get with that program and accept what you’re saying. I don’t think your reading of sources is as critically minded as you think it is. I think you’ve absorbed, and are trying to relay to me, a particular way of analyzing sources that I’m just fundamentally not on board for.

        There’s a very particular failure mode that the human brain can get into when “it’s all propaganda” or “all their sources are biased” or corrupted by money, or whatever, start to become how you analyze sources. It starts to become very easy to just discard anything that doesn’t match the picture that’s already in your mind, and accept anything that matches the picture that’s already in your mind, because you’re defining the trustworthiness of the source in that sort of self-referential way. The way you talk about needing to “contextualize,” and the way you allocate trust to different sources, makes me think you’re unintentionally using that type of maladaptive pattern. Part of the reason I’m spending this length of time talking with you is that you do seem passionate about the truth, willing to invest energy into getting to the bottom of things, and so on. But I really think that you could benefit from some self-reflection about objectively, “Is this statement I am making true? Is this source trusthworthy?” before starting to go HAM with it, or uncritically accept other things from adjacent sources.

        Does that make sense? Just my two cents, good luck with everything.