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@VictorVenema @admin
I noticed QOTO wasnt listed on your STEM server list:
https://fediscience.org/server-list.html
QOTO is in fact one of, if not the, largest STEM oriented server in the fediverse. I might suggest you consider adding us to the list? Or if not I'd be curious to know why.
Huh? We explicitly state that we moderate in our rules and list several examples of actions we moderate for (including hate speech and discrimination among others). We both have and will continue to ban users who break those rules.
Why in the world would you think we are unmoderated?
Why would "strange people" getting into your mentions be my fault? That would be the result of **you** not moderating against those strange people, but wouldnt have anything to do with me.
As for free speech, free speech does not imply lack of moderation. Nor does it mean you can say anything you want.
More importantly, and to the point, have you ever seen a single incident that you would deem unacceptable where a moderator didnt act? Sounds more like what if isms than the actual reality, which is that we moderator and do so regularly.
Sounds like you never even bothered to read our rules or look at our past moderation actions.
Which by the way we publicly keep a record of our moderation and users weve banned for hate speech or other offenses. So there is more than enough evidence that we dont just have rules but actively enforce them...
So again any examples of a case where we didnt enforce moderator action when called for, even one?
@freemo @VictorVenema Maybe I’m butting in here, but I’m a former #QOTO member. I realize that while #QOTO is marketed as a free speech instance, and it is part of its reputation, it has some rules that wouldn’t fall under the banner of “free speech”, most notably the following:
Explicit hate-based racism, sexism, and other hateful speech, but generally unpopular opinions voiced respectfully will be fine.
The portrayal of #QOTO as supporting all free speech isn’t accurate and I don’t think they should be treated as a “world wild west” site where anything goes, because that’s just not the case.
Yup qoto was Snow's first home. They got the boot pretty quickly and the entire mod team was in agreement on that actions.
There are countless examples of us blocking users for racism or hate speech. Which makes Victor's claims extremely puzzling and im left wondering where it comes from.
Victor are you familiar with what we call at QOTO the "LGBT exodus" where early on in our career the server was flooded with LGBT members over a free speech issue that ultimately caused servers they were fleeing from (like the scholar instance) to start bad mouthing us. They literally lost a huge portion of their community to QOTO because of some policy decisions and ultimate is where the rumors started about QOTO, completely fictional. Thankfully our LGBT community remains strong to this day for that reason but some people love to gossip anyway.
I suspect that may be where you get the idea from about QOTO, especially if you dont know the details (it was some time back).
@freemo That does not ring a bell. That exodus was probable before my time.
I just know how bigots interpret the term free speech server. They expect to be welcome. They expect the moderation against hate to be protecting them from hatred.
Next to all the strange mentions after talking to you, QOTO having to kick off a Nazi is another piece of the puzzle. Admittedly our instance is smaller, but we never had to ban a Nazi, they do not expect to be welcome. @realcaseyrollins
We get about 30 - 50 new users per week. Of that we might get, at most, one nazi a year in the 5+ years we have existed. That's 1 in 2080 users that turn out to be nazis. I'd say thats a pretty good track record, especially when we are quick to block them so they never cause a problem.
The incident I speak of with the scholar instance was from the days before gab was even on the fediverse, it was some years back. But it was the start of it all. I will try to explain what happened.
The scholar instance had started blocking many of its LGBT users largely for frivilous reasons. Things revolving around personal opinions between its admin and the users. Many of them started flocking to QOTO as a result and there was a short lived movement on the server of users protesting their admin and suggesting the users come to QOTO. This was all before GAB was on the scene, so we are talking a long time now.
This caused the QOTO community to have a significant LGBT lean, which I was very happy to see in its own right. However it wasnt a huge movement, I think QOTO's numbers were well below 10% of what they are today at this point. Then came the GAB server and the isolate GAB movement which eventually led to the exodus.
At the time of GAB debates across the fediverse began regarding suspending GAB. Some people decided to suspend GAB and then suspend anyone who didnt suspend GAB, and anyone who didnt suspect them, etc... others, the ones loosely called "free speech" decided to leave that power in the hands of the users. QOTO at this point was undecided on what stance to take but our policy was still open until we decided. What we did see is that QOTO was seeing a huge surge in new traffic that I didnt understand, i later found out this surge, which lasted weeks, was mostly LGBT users, but I didnt find out why until later.
Since QOTO is a democratically run server and moderators are ellected we thought it fitting to put the policy decision up to the community. It was during this disucssion I discovered that the huge LGBT exodus we were seeing was due to LGBT users fleeing from servers employing extensive block policies on other servers. The reason, as they explained it to me, was that they wanted to be able to observe certain bad actors in the GAB community (such as milo) who might be doxxing LGBT members or otherwise doing things that put their lives at risk. They felt being able to see this (rather than having the content blocked) let them warn people of being doxxed and generally let them take actions to secure their safety. Not being able to see this information from their local server simply but their lives at risk.
The problem was, however, that most servers that took a free speech stance, as you rightfully point out, were filled with biggots of many flavors. So obviously they would feel equally unsafe going to a server like FSE. QOTO however, from the earlier incident with scholar, had a reputation among the LGBT who went through that drama of being welcoming and accepting place for LGBT. So they really saw us as the only option in the whole fediverse that was a "safe space" for LGBT while still holding open-federation policy.
This ultimately led to two things, the mass exodus of LGBT to QOTO itself, but also our policy to continue to protect that LGBT community and consider their safety in our own policy making, and that means free speech.
Why do you think it is that our about us page uses the terminology "an inclusive free speech instance"? You say free speech is a trigger word for biggots, well what about the word inclusive, how do they feel about that?
@freemo @realcaseyrollins
You did talk about the GAB episode before. A weird argument for federating with GAB. There are many more Fascist spaces that do not federate at all where LGBT+ people could be doxxed.
I do not think a bigot would take the term "inclusive" on a free speech server seriously. It is not as if they like free speech. They are the book burners and the ones who legalized killing protesters by car. That is just the argument closet-racists use to defend them without coming out.
> There are many more Fascist spaces that do not federate at all where LGBT+ people could be doxxed.
When GAB came on the scene it was mostly about GAB. However you are right there are other spaces where they could be doxxed, and we also dont block those spaces for the exact same reason, the safety of our LGBT community.
> I do not think a bigot would take the term "inclusive" on a free speech server seriously. It is not as if they like free speech.
Perhaps not. But in the end the fact is we get very few bigots signing up, and what few bigots that do sign up get blocked almost immediately.
All of this what if ism is fine.. but at the end isnt it more important that our server doesnt have a single biggot on it, nor has there been a single incident worthy of a ban that didnt get a ban... arent those things more important than the "what if ism" of what a biggot might or might not think?
The fact is we **are** an inclusive (read care deeply about all races, creeds, and orientation) free speech instance. Are you really so scared of LGBT and minorities having a voice and the freedom not to be told what they can or cant read, in a safe environment?
You point to no problems or incidents of any kind.. so it really is just a contrived attempt to justify being against a pro-LGBT community where we put the safety of our LGBT members above policy or above censoring what they are allowed to read.
Frankly, if thats the hill you want to die on I cant stop you. But I think it is a horrible and dangerous approach to take.
@freemo @realcaseyrollins
I did not want to die on any hill. I did what I could to stop this pointless conversation. I ain't promoting a free speech server. Period.
You now suggesting that I am a bigot is exactly what a YouTube racist with a black picture tried to do to me. As I am not, I do not fear such baseless attacks. It does not put you and your instance in a good light to use that strategy.
I am not suggesting you are a biggot and frankly have no idea how you got that idea. Where are you coming up with this stuff.
Furthermore it was #QOTO's federation with #Gab that drew whatever right wing users they got (I was originally on #Gab before joining #QOTO and then leaving for other instances). With #Gab gone and far more prominent right wing/free speech instances like NAS, Quodverum, Brighteon, FSE, SPC, and others, I can't really imagine right wingers choosing #QOTO over them. Especially considering that at the time I left #QOTO, snow was gone and I was literally the only right winger on the instance (in fact part of the reason I left was to keep my--at the time--high(ish) profile presence from unfairly giving #QOTO a reputation for being a right-wing instance
I think its clear at this point he doesnt care about the reality. He is just going to manipulate things into fitting his dogma. Thats fine, not much you or I or anyone can do to change the mind of someone behaving this way. You just need to let them do their thing. I think its more than obvious to anyone reading this thread (which thankfully is now public record) what his motives and priorities are.
