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ActivismMinor Changes Made to "TERF" Definitions on dictionary.com
It looks like they've made two minor changes to the definition: in the main dictionary they've flagged it as "Disparaging" (but the definition is still utterly fucked); in the informal gender-sexuality section, they added a CYA sentence at the very end about "punch a TERF" leading to violence.
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/terf
noun Disparaging. trans-exclusionary radical feminist: an advocate of radical feminism who believes that a trans woman’s gender identity is not legitimate and who is hostile to the inclusion of trans people and gender-diverse people in the feminist movement.
https://www.dictionary.com/e/gender-sexuality/terf/
The phrase punch a TERF is often used on social media, particularly on Twitter. Trans advocates use the term to dismiss TERFs and their unsupportive statements and beliefs about trans people. However, the use of phrases like this has led to actual violence.
Not content with these changes? They'd "love to hear from you!" https://www.dictionary.com/e/contact/
(grammar edit)
First YouTube now ovarit. Are people butthurt that someone disagreed with them? They should get over it (ha. unintentional pun)
Seriously. Removing dislikes is not a good move.
I get the sense the mods are just tired-they're funding and modding a "controversial" site on their own, they don't need people picking fights with each other over things like downvotes on top of everything else. Hopefully one day users can volunteer to donate money/moderating time so some of the pressure is off, and maybe it could be revisited then?
But to be completely honest, I don't blame them one bit, I wouldn't want to deal with it either.
I kind of miss seeing them to be honest, it’s like we’re losing part of an overview on what people think here.
I don’t blame the mods or admins of Ovarit for removing them though, I’m all for anything that makes it easier for them to run this site.
But, it seems like it was just a small number of people complaining about downvotes, the same people, over and over.
I can see pros and I can see cons.
The pros are that it slows down fracturing of the community and lessens drama. It softens the blow for a poster when people don't like what they say--and that allows people to feel better about staying on the site.
The cons are that the ratio offered useful and interesting information about the views of this community. It also actually promotes downvoting because now it doesn't matter as much socially if we do downvote something. For example, I used to be very sparing about downvoting because I didn't want to hurt others' feelings without a really good reason, but now you can downvote much more without a twinge of conscience.
I don't have strong feelings one way or the other. My only concern is that I use the downvote button when someone is posting stuff that's excessively cruel or puts gender critical people in a bad light. I don't necessarily want to start a conversation with those posters every time because that just derails the discussion with arguments. But I want to send a message that I disagree, especially to those who may be observing the site.
Please utilize the report button when you have concerns.
We actually do deal with a lot of trolls and people who are trying to influence discussions here for various reasons. Mods and admins don’t see everything and can’t see everything. Please let us know through reports or modmail messages when you have a concern.
I definitely will. I have reported when I've seen things that are blatantly against the rules, but a few people here come close to skirting the line without actually crossing it.
Mods and admins don’t see everything and can’t see everything. Please let us know through reports or modmail messages when you have a concern.
I cannot emphasize this enough.
Please report strange shit that skirts the line or handles seeming to push odd narratives or wrecker inflammatory behavior, either through the report button or mod mail. It really helps us when we get an early warnings on potentially sketchy shit, even if the handle hasn't crossed the line yet it helps us to establish patterns and who to keep an eye on for the future.
It's better to over-report than not report something that is potentially going to cause a huge uproar. It doesn't mean the mods will automatically delete what you've reported, just that they'll be made aware of it sooner.
Precisely. I'm a mod and I greatly prefer over-reporting versus under-reporting. Sometimes we're busy with work and life and stuff gets past us, so it's good if the users help us out a bit and point out things that might need our attention.
If you think trolling isn’t a big problem here, that’s because mods are constantly monitoring and quick on the draw, not because there aren’t any.
I love downvotes. Who cares if people disagree with you?! Grow thicker skins ladies.
Why do you love them?
I just do ¯_(ツ)_/¯. It helps one understand the community better.
Unfortunately, what downvotes reveal is not conducive to open discussion.
Neither are upvotes in that case. May as well remove the vote feature altogether.
I don't think upvotes are comparable to downvotes when it comes to someone's reaction to receiving them, but frankly, It would not matter to me if the vote feature were removed entirely.
Idk why you're being downvotes for this? I think doing away entirely with the vote system wouldn't be an issue, so long as there is still a sorting mechanism to filter posts and comments (new/top (most replies)/etc).
Ok, I'm late to the party. I like being able to just click support for a comment or post without having to comment. It's like saying, Me Too, without having to repeat elements that you like and make the place full of redundant comments. It's fast and supportive. If there are down votes here and there, well, we are not all the same, and not all of us share the same circumstance, regional situation, view of every single topic addressed. And if I comment something that is rather tangential and it gets no votes, I recognize that again, not everyone comes at subjects from the same perspective. Complete homogeneity is an echo chamber.
Is tidder.com for sale? It’ll be a site for women who pretend to be men.
Anyway, c/p from the announcement thread:
Several people have asked why the votescore breakdown has been removed. This is something that I talked about removing in o/ovarit many months ago.
Too many comment threads have been derailed with meta drama around downvotes - especially over posts or comments that had a tiny percentage of downvotes. Many people have gotten antagonistic and tried to start arguments over it. This is not quality discussion. It does not make the site better. It is not worth the space it takes up or anyone’s time reading it. We’re trying to encourage worthwhile discussions about topics, not endless derails that are ultimately about site features and how people use them.
But it does give us an idea of how our comments are being received. If I see +35 on a comment, I might think lots of people are in agreement. But if I see +70/-35, it’s a quick visual to see how the community is reacting to the comment. Some of us appreciated seeing that there is a difference of opinion and not everyone can comment on every post/comment.
I understand that we don’t want to derail convos with too many discussions about upvotes/downvotes. But it feels a little like “you can’t play nice so we’re taking away your toys so you can’t play at all.” I know this may not have been the intent, but that is a bit how it feels.
This is a really good point - something with a score of +35/-0 is being received by the community very differently than something with +70/-35, but after this change, the two will look exactly the same. I can’t help wondering if we’re just exchanging one kind of pointless arguing / derailing (stemming from speculation over a few visible downvotes) with a different kind (stemming from the inability to tell a controversial post/comment from a popular well-received one), and if the latter might actually be worse and more toxic in the long run.
You’re making a case that seems based on the premise that people upvote what they like and downvote what they don’t like. Am I correct?
The thing is, downvotes aren’t supposed to be for disagreement, as stated in the Guidelines. They’re supposed to be a way for users to distribute a sort of moderation burden by downvoting content that doesn’t contribute to good conversation or doesn’t belong where it is.
The primary reason we have votes is so the most worthwhile contributions are seen more than low effort, trolly, inappropriate, or flamey contributions. It is not supposed to be about what people agree with and we’re not trying to sort content based on agreement.
Ideally people upvote content that they disagree with as long as it contributes to good discussion.
I do understand that upvotes/downvotes aren’t supposed to be for simple disagreement, but we’re all human and I don’t think it’s wrong to admit that most of us use it that way. “Ideally” is one thing, but reality is another.
I get that there are different POV here, but I wonder what percentage of the user base actually wants them removed.
Speaking as a veteran of online bulletin boards -- sadly, it is likely to be a substantial number.
I think getting rid off the comment score breakdowns will make people more likely to downvote comments that they disagree with, even if they only disagree with them slightly. In that sense it’s definitely counterproductive.
Before, I thought twice about downvoting something whenever I didn’t fully support or even disliked the message. In those cases, I usually opted for not upvoting that particular comment and went to read all the other comments to find a message that I agreed with more instead. I think it also gave a better incentive to read all and not just top comments.
Now it’s definitely easier to downvote something just because you don’t like the tone somebody used or when the comment strays even slightly from the other’s opinion.
I think the previous system had a much better incentive for voting for good discussion points. Now it’s much easier to vote with your feelings only.
It’d be nice if everyone followed that User Guideline, dispassionately voting on some sort of meta merit scale, but it’s pretty obvious that they don’t, won’t, and probably never will. People prefer their votes to say “Me too!” Or “Yuck!” Not “I may disagree with what you’re saying, but I think your statement adds to the discussion of the topic that we are exploring here…”
No amount of mod nudging is going to change that.
In design, form follows function. But then there’s often situations where human psychology and behavior is simply incompatible with a designer’s intent and plan. And humanity invariably goes its own way. Happens all the time.
But sadly, they DON'T upvote content they disagree with. They downvote it, the result being that people get buried in downvotes, not for posting offensive content, but for going against the consensus.
That is the reality.
Any updates about the Parenting circle?
Please don't derail threads to bring up a completely different topic. If you have a question for mods or admins, send them a mod message.
i hate it when people bring up a single downvote and the convo gets derailed, lmao. We could just make it rule tho, idk. No meta talking about votes.
Some of our circles already started doing this, but its exhausting and just a surprising amount of extra shit work for the mods. Not admin so not speaking from a place of authority on the decision making process... but the amount of derails that certain people would go into over one downvote on a post or comment was getting extremely tiresome as a mod. If it was legitimate complaints it would be one thing, but most of the time its literally "omg this post has one down vote, how could anyone down vote this, it couldn't possibly be fat thumb or even someone who legitimately disagrees with me; we must be over run with trans who are targeting meeeeeeee!!!!1!!!1!!!" Followed by 6 people derailing the thread even more to talk about the horror of that one lone down vote... and then normal people downvote the whole derail cause its so counter productive and so the down vote complainers get even more worked up. Maybe 1% of the time people bringing up downvotes have a legitimate complaints, but 99% of the time they weren't and it just leads too bizarre paranoid shit and purity spirals which then mods are forced to devote time to cleaning up. I will miss being able to see downvotes in circles I don't mod, I do think it was useful to see that we often disagree and are not a hivemind, but the fact is some people couldn't/wouldn't stop their wrecker downvote complaining even when warned, and we mods are already running close to burnout volunteering on short time around our offline responsibilities, so people making stupid messes about downvotes we then have to clean up has just... not been a great use of our time.
I'm so sorry to hear this is such a widespread problem and the people who do it are so dogmatic about it. I've seen exactly what you've been describing a few times and it really annoyed me for so many reasons (Even if it wasn't an accidental fatfinger, which it almost definitely was like you said... is one single downvote really that worth getting upset over, let alone worth mentioning? After several GC subreddits where we could talk were banned and we now finally have a website of our own run by kind volunteers who work very hard to keep it maintained, is one downvote what you want to spend your time talking and emoji-ing about? Are you sure whoever did it disagreed with what you said, and now how you said it, or maybe some small side tangent unrelated to your point? Does everyone have to agree with you on everything? I came here trying to get away from that mindset... but I guess it's human nature) and also saw others joining the the "whaaaaaat?? obvs a tra dont mind him boo 😘" threads and no one talking about how silly it is, so I'm glad I'm not alone here.
I tried to think of a solution that wouldn't end up giving you and the other mods more work. Maybe we could hide upvote/downvote scores from the poster/commenter? But then they'd just log out and find their post/comment to see them, which while extra work and therefore might be enough to discourage some, then you'll end up dealing with comments from the extra dedicated few who went through the trouble and that can't be good. So maybe instead, adding a "downvote complaining" option that temporarily hides the comment (but doesn't delete it, to avoid trolls/false positives) would work? But then you'd still have to sift through the reports, plus it relies on the users to take action first... Maybe you can set up an automod to reply with a warning when someone does that, asking the user to edit (if it's tacked-on complaining on an otherwise good comment) or delete the comment? But that would still rely on the user to follow through... Maybe the automod could also hide/remove the comment as well (and reinstate it if it's an edit-case and the poster complies?) I really wish I could help more.
This would be a WAY better solution. Then those comments could be reported and removed by the mods and the real conversation could continue.
People generally do not like having their comments removed, especially when engaging in meta conversations about the site... some people think the admins are jumping in to censor disagreement about Ovarit functionality/culture when it's the circle mods trying to return the conversation to the OP's original topic.
Deleting comments often doesn't end the conversation about votes - mods can end up continuing the conversation in modmail, or trying to defuse someone now adding a lot more unhappy comments to the thread, which tends to lead to the whole post getting locked.
And if someone is very unhappy about how things go on the thread, they might make another post about how to properly vote for certain subjects... which tends to get downvoted by others since we seem to be the type who don't like being told what to do or how to vote. 😉
Give it a chance, see how you feel after a week or two. It's different, yeah, but everyone still has the ability to vote. There will still be scores. I'm curious to see how the difference impacts our conversations here, myself. 😊
Still creating work for the mods, and downvotes offer very low information.
Except it's often not just a single downvote. It's a barrage of them, frequently not because someone has posted something offensive, but because they have gone against the consensus. The result is people not voicing their opinion because they don't want to get buried.
Been out of the loop a few days and I honestly didn't even notice. People do seem to get upset over downvotes more than they should, so I am in support of this.
How about going for radical transparency?? Usernames listed for all upvotes and downvotes. Maybe not until the features for efficient moderation are there and the mod forces have been built up, because there would surely be eruptions, but it would remove the feeling of being sniped at from cover, address concerns about vote manipulation, and give people more incentive to support their opinion.
I'm a member of a forum that does this. All I'll say is that it's a forum where they intentionally encourage fighting.
I fear this would be a bit too much like how Twitter goes about it.
I never really used the site at all but since this place regularly links to it I would end up liking things here and there. Only to realise much later that anyone who finds my profile can see all the things I liked. Considering the account was one of those default made ones with my name in it I very frantically ended up unliking everything.
This site is ofcourse a bit different since we're all a lot more focussed on being anonymous but I still feel like it will just end up painting a target on people their backs and stunt site activity more in general.
Aaand you have a -2 score on that. (Right now, but that may change, of course.)
I think that’s a fab idea, listing who votes and how. Nothing sanitizes quite like sunlight. ;)
I didn't even notice it was gone until I read this post. Guess I'm clueless. lol.
Hiding the downvotes bothers me as well. I think its interesting to see the ratio of positive & negative reactions to my comments. And trolls and special snowflakes are so rare here that I'm surprised that the mods saw it as a problem that needed fixing
What purpose do they serve other than enforcing conformity?
Aren't you interested to see if your comment/ideas are well received and shared by the rest of the community... or not?
Without the upvote/downvote separation, it's impossible to see if nobody cared about that +1 comment... or if it's at +10/-10 ; showing the comment is matter of debate.
Amen. I am lamenting the loss of separate upvote and downvote scores; giving only the net total has the effect of invisibilizing disagreement.
No, I am not, because I consider whether or not a post or comment is “well received” by everyone completely unrelated to its quality. All a lot of upvotes mean is that the writer is echoing the consensus.
I am interested in hearing people discuss a post or comment and if they disagree, explaining why.
Yes, that does involve some level of mental heavy lifting.
Been a little busy the last week or so, what did I miss?
I think it's good because the white christian conservative women on here always downvote anything that's a little too spicy for them and it's annoying always seeing it.
I mean I agree that they are annoying but I am fine if they want to downvote me -- if christian conservatives weren't mad about my radical feminism and lesbian separatism I'd be failing at my activism in some serious way.
So here's an illustration of why downvotes are a problem.
I am not a troll. I do not post inappropriate content. What I have done is posted things people disagree with.
So, in spite of the guidelines saying that is not what downvotes are for -- I get downvoted.
And see, the problem with that, folks, is that because I have been downvoted, my ability to post here is affected. I created a graphic I would like to share. I can't. Because, you see, my level is not high enough, even though I have been active here for a few months. The downvotes lower it.
THAT is the problem with them. Not people being thin-skinned about downvotes, but people having their ability to participate here limited by them.
Honestly, I don’t get why people get their knickers knotted when there is a downvote? Who cares? You’re not getting a bonus at the end of the year.
I did like the upvote/downvote ratio as a quick way of determining community views, even though I don’t tend to vote very often.
I'm also confused by people getting worked up about downvoting. How do you even notice it happened? Do you like go to your comments page and look at your comments constantly and see if they've been downvoted? Seems like so much work? Maybe I'm missing an easy way to do it.
Yes, if you post something, and all of a sudden your overall votes are in the negative numbers, you notice it.
What do you mean by your overall votes? Like the votes on each individual comment you've made? Are you going back to all your comments to check on the points, then? That's what I don't get. I don't personally do this, but maybe others do.
I mean the number alongside ones name at the top right of the screen.
I didn’t know that’s what those number meant, lol. My learn something new for the day.
Ooh! I hadn't even noticed those!
Yep. Until recently, mine was in three digit negative numbers.
Comments used to show not just total points but how many upvotes and downvotes they had, e.g. "12 points (+15 -3)". When I was last on Ovarit a few days ago it was formatted that way but now it just says the total points.
yeah I know but I just don't understand why and when people were seeing this. Do people go back to check up on their own comments and see what the points are doing? Once I've made a comment, I just leave it be, unless someone answers in which case I read their answer and respond... I don't go back to stare at my comment and make sure no one downvotes it... I mean, to each their own, I just genuinely don't understand how so many people even noticed that they were getting downvoted in the old system.
It’s not just about on your own comments. When you’re reading a comment thread, you see the up/down on each comment and can get a sense of the community’s perception of that comment/post.
that'd be a question for why have votes at all, too, though. Dividing it into upvotes/downvotes, vs just putting the total at the end is the question. If you don't care about voting on comments at all, that's a different issue. I'm sure some people don't even bother with the comments but just read the links. Be invested to the degree you feel comfortable.
Yes, some of us get more curious about responses and if no one answers at least you can see if people responded by voting. This is useful on your own comments or on the comments of other people, and to see what others think and add your opinion without having to write something out. It's not as clear, but it's a quicker way to share a general mood. If it's broken into up/down, you can tell the difference between something being neutral and being controversial.
I think I'd just occasionally notice it incidentally when going back to read new comments on a thread.
right, that makes sense!
Typically, when you get a reply to your comment, it shows your comment along with the reply. There, the votes were displayed. I seriously doubt anyone checks their comments to see the votes specifically.
I don't get why downvoting is so important to some people.
Getting down votes bothered me personally because it would often be on what I thought was a pretty innocuous comment or even just when asking a clarifying question.
It's fine if people disagree, but I'd find it unsettling not knowing why. Even though it was a rare situation to be downvoted, I found that I would sometimes refrain from commenting in order to avoid potentially having to confront nagging feelings of confusion.
We all approach the voting system so differently that it was basically impossible to know what a downvote meant. Do they think I'm wrong, that the comment was of low value, do they have sloppy thumbs? Criticism without some kind of context isn't helpful.
That all said, it definitely was interesting though to see which comments people were heavily split over.
Ditto. I rarely downvoted someone without leaving a comment about why I disagree. Because a downvote won't help the commentor realize why they were wrong, misinformed, etc
Downvotes are all too often, like emojis -- a crutch used by people who disagree, but can't frame an argument. They go against the entire intent of a discussion board.
Not all of us have time to respond to comments. Thus, the upvote/downvote.
If you don’t have time to explain why you disagree with something beyond blowing a raspberry, just get on with your life and cope with not being able to downvote. Too many people here use downvotes as a gesture of disagreement which, as has been pointed out repeatedly, is not what they are for.
I never said I used them for disagreement. Y'all are too sensitive about what people on the internet think if someone disagreeing with you and not explaining why puts you in a tizzy. It's not that deep. Nobody owes you an explanation.
No, it does not “put me in a tizzy.” Until very recently, my negative numbers were in three digits, so plainly downvotes don’t keep me up at night. But they do bother other people, and the result is that folks will not say what they actually think for fear of being downvoted into the ground. Downvotes are a tool for ensuring conformity.