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A red "Keep Calm" poster with the caption KEEP CALM AND STAY ON TOPIC

Spillover #21

Moderator Team

A red "Keep Calm" poster with the caption KEEP CALM AND STAY ON TOPICThe commenting period on the 20th #spillover thread expired a few days ago, so it’s time for a new one. Some reminders:

  1. #spillover is part of our comment moderation system for keeping other threads on-topic. It is intended as a constructive space for tangential discussions which are veering off-topic on other threads. This is part of our blog netiquette, which has the general goal of making it as simple as possible for commentors to find discussions focussed on topics of particular interest without entirely stifling worthwhile tangents of sorta-related or general interest. #spillover is also a space for those ongoing/endless disagreements and 101 issues that just keep on popping up.
  2. Commentors are encouraged to respect the topic of each post and be proactive regarding inevitable thread-drift in long threads: we hope that commentors will cheerfully volunteer to take off-topic responses into #spillover so that each post’s discussion gets room to breathe and tangents can be indulged in a room of their own.

More detailed outline/guidelines were laid out on Spillover #1.
The Moderator Team will enforce topicality where necessary, and off-topic commentors who ignore invitations from others to take their tangents to #spillover are one of the reasons commentors might consider sending the moderators a giraffe alert.

4 thoughts on Spillover #21

  1. I’ve left a moderation note for Sue and bookshopcat over in last Sunday’s Self-Promotion thread.

    Situation: bookshopcat has been leaving a content warning on Sue’s links since mid-September. Sue has not responded to any of these challenges to the content of her links. Two Sundays ago another commentor requested that bookshopcat clarify her objections to Sue’s links, and bookshopcat did not respond to that commentor.

    While the guidelines for the Self-Promotion threads make it clear that discussions are meant to happen on the linked articles rather than on the Self-Promotion threads (so that other readers don’t have to wade through long subthreads to find more links to follow (and the linked articles get comments there)), that does *not* mean that it is OK to ignore objections (or objections to objections) entirely, particularly when the objections are repeated week after week. Feministe has spillover threads so that any necessary metadiscussions can happen without derailing the original thread.

    It’s past time for a discussion to happen on this. Go.

    1. N.B. I’m not necessarily expecting the two of you to end up resolving this situation to your mutual full satisfaction, although I would be thrilled if that does in fact happen. Please don’t see this as any attempt to force either of you to come to any compromise or agreement if that is not truly possible. I do however see it as necessary that this situation is acknowledged and discussed to see if a resolution of some kind can be reached, or at least that some rules of engagement get laid down.

  2. I will say this: I’ve read a lot of things Sue has written, both posts linked here and through independently looking at the phglesbian website, and have never seen anything supporting such charges. I also happen to be friendly with someone who’s trans who is Sue’s colleague at that website and is also in Pittsburgh; I know that that person would not knowingly tolerate anything of the kind.

    So I’m not at all willing to accept the charges without evidence.

  3. One good (for me, anyway) thing that has come of this: it’s made me aware of Sue’s blog.

    I also notice that a number of recent posts have been about trans people, esp. violence done to them (and esp. trans women of color.)

    No idea what bookshopcat’s problem is with Sue, but it’s hard to believe that it’s about Sue’s (alleged) cissexism.

    I can believe that some of her posts could be triggering for some people; a lot of her posts are about violence to LGBT people. But it’s usually pretty obvious from the titles of the posts if that’s the subject of a post.

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