State of the Sub April 2021, looking for new moderators edition
Hello everyone!
As you may or may not know this past month has been incredibly tough for everyone, as we got hit by multiple different brigade attempts from multiple different sources. A couple of our moderators were harassed, if not outright doxxed or worse. Some of our moderators have taken well deserved breaks, or have been in a required medical leave as well.
On top of that, we've noticed that our mostly lax way of handling posting has caused some disgruntlement among the userbase, and while we've been a bit better on catching reposts, and other things that don't belong, we can always be better. From now on, posts outside of Wednesday (12am UTC - 11:59pm UTC) that center around homophobia will be actioned upon with a bit more vigilance. Nothing too harsh, but we feel that applying the lowest ban possible (24hrs) will be an efficient deterrent to those we catch doing it.
Moving on to posts that focus not necessarily on "the straights being ok" but more so on basic sexism, anti-feminist, weird shit parents put on their kids, etc. this is still a bit up in the air. Some posts arguably could fit within the context of the subreddit, or at least what it has evolved into, and some don't but get heavily upvoted anyways. Right now we think it best to ask the community their thoughts on it, and while we are not looking for that feedback quite yet, we want to dedicate a post to it, it is something we are listening to.
Finally, remember that transphobia already has a home in r/AreTheCisOK, so we will continue to direct that content there.
So suffice it to say, we are short handed, and we need to fill in those spots as best as we can, as we have a lot of content in this subreddit, and only so many volunteers (and volunteer hours) to get it all sorted.
Please fill in this google form if you would like to apply as a moderator
(Note that it helps if you have previous moderation experience <3)
Also keep in mind that those of your who report content in good faith are the loveliest people, so thank you for that.
Posted Apr 2, 2021, 1:30 PM UTC
I feel like if you remove sexism, anti feminism, weird parent things, etc (the things you said in that paragraph), this sub would lose a lot of their variety and posts. Also, since this sub is are the straights ok, transphobic posts should also be allowed, since it also fits well with the sub and will show to mlre people that it is bad behavior.
That's honestly a good point. The only thing I disagree on (and I'm saying this as a trans person) is the transphobic posts, as that already has a dedicated subreddit for it at r/AreTheCisOk, which we advertise like everywhere, since it's basically a sister subreddit.
I'm going to go the opposite way, stuff like this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AreTheStraightsOK/comments/mj73g1/ha_husband_bad/
Is just husband / wife hate, I find it gets super boring really fast, and just feels low effort. Half the sub is filled with this sort of thing.
Then you end up with this as the top rated comment:
I my mind this doesn't feel like this sends the right sort of message, if people stumble of this sub there is a lot of casual straight bashing in the comments (for want of a better phrase).
I almost feel like people post provocative anti-straight stuff here because they know it will be allowed and get up voted as this is a pro-LGBT+ bubble.
Of course you could argue that even the sub's name is a bit "edgy", if there was a sub called AreTheBlacksOK I'm not sure it would last for very long.
Still, as a bi person in a long term hetro-relationship, I guess I feel a lot more on the fence in seeing things from both sides, so others here might disagree with me.
Personally I come for the funny jokes "fellas is it gay to" type format, not the stereotyping and low key "straights are bad" type stuff we see all too often. I think a lot of straight people enjoy these "fellas" type of jokes as well just by how ridiculous some of them are, but the general feeling of the sub is not very straight friendly, and I think a lot of people leave because of that.
Maybe if you do decide to keep the current format, also make a new sub that's a bit more light-hearted?
I'm not going to apply, because I disagree with what is currently acceptable on the sub (as stated above), but maybe if the content was changed in future...
Although I wish the mods best of luck in their current search.
This.
I absolutely agree with all of this. More and more I see posts that I feel are just used to talk shit about straights. Like they are just trying to find a problem and projecting stuff onto something that could be portrayed as bad in certain context but isn't so bad as what it is; for example a post of a woman saying she feels fulfilled being a housewife to her husband, with no other text, gets posted and people are like "women don't HAVE to be housewives we can be more than that" etc. And while the comments are true, I feel it's irrelevant to the picture. They weren't saying anything that says other women should be fulfilled that way. They weren't saying it's a womans place. It didn't even seem implied. It was all just projected onto it.
I had a decade and a half of abusive relationships with men (yes I've been in therapy 5 years now don't worry) and have had women saying how I should be acting to make things work. I know there's plenty of that bullshit everywhere. But I genuinely feel that some of these posts are just projecting it onto any straight person that fits into the box of doing something in specific "gender roles". We're meant to be wanting to erase the idea of gender roles, not bashing anyone that happens to fit into specific ones that have been normalised. How is that fair? Some people are happy to be a feminine homemaker, including some in the LGBT+ community. Some men will be overprotective of their daughters (light heartedly or not), including some in the LGBT+ community. Gay/Bi/Pan etc guys can be overprotective dads. Gay/Bi/Pan etc women can be feminine homemakers. Why do we pretend this stuff is exclusively a straight thing? Because then it can be used to bash anyone presenting as straight in a picture.
^(PSA: Bi/Pan/Trans etc people can be in relationships with the opposite gender. It's not exclusively a straight thing either.)
I do feel a lot of posts are just used to bash straight people and quite frankly this just makes our community look like a bunch of intolerant assholes sometimes; acting just as bad as the homophobes.
I totally agree.
Posts just bashing straight people are quite boring after not too long, this sub would be much better if its content was more 'why do the straights think we are like this' (e.g. fellas is it gay to) and 'why is this product gendered' (e.g. "girls' colours") than just outright queerphobia that's imported from other subreddits or 'look how abusive this relationship is - straights bad'.
I believe (and I may be mistaken) that the purpose of this sub was to ask why straight people are doing certain things, not to hate them purely for being straight. To poke fun at heteronormativity, rather than to hate people who fit into the label of heterosexual.
A lot of this sub's content is also things like 'omg look at these baby clothes, they are promoting child sex' which I am not sure whether or not fits into the description of the sub, but it is certainly content that the userbase would upvote, so whether or not it is spam or rule-breaking is up to the mod team.
And god forbid you're like "hey this feels like shitting on straights" because then you're the fragile straight who can't take a joke and straightphobia doesn't exist (it doesn't) so it isn't possible for anyone to be rude to a straight person because they are straight
But mocking straight people hating their significant other is literally what this sub was created/is titled for. That’s what the ENTIRE sub should be, and if you get bored, you go to another sub. It’s never been about “bashing straight people”. It’s about making fun of straight people who specifically have the ‘boomer-like humor’ of disliking their SO. There must be a more appropriate place for the general homophobia type stuff. It’s just not what this sub was created for. @bleeding-paryl
[deleted]
I'm not sure we are talking about the same post.
Anyway nothing like a bit of bi-erasure to brighten my day. As far as I'm concerned it just as more weight to my post, I hope the mods read this, as it's showing what the community is becoming.
I literally don't understand- CisOK is for transphobia and StraightsOK is for homophobia? That seems off. Unless we're looking at transphobia as at a unique gender? That kinda makes sense. I'm not trans tho, so I'm guessing
My friend was banned from this sub by mods for saying he was straight.
I need clarification:
Is r/AreTheCisOk a bigot thread?
I can't tell what the goal of these threads are, the posts are confusing or convoluted.
No, r/AreTheCisOk is just a sister sub (to this sub), in which the sub is all about cisnormative characteristics and transphobic/enbyphobic content.
What sort of pattern did they have (e.g. ending with a four digit number), whether that is in their username, or somewhere else (e.g. their post and/or comment history) that could lead us to unban them.
I talked with another mod, plus he deleted the account months ago.
Yeah well, we trans people like swiping through posts making fun of hetero-silliness without having (often unmarked/unblurred) transphobia slam us in the face, so...
Where is that happening? The only time I see that kind of stuff is going places I know I'm going to see that kind of stuff. I'm legitimately curious. Everything I'm connected to is personalized, so the things that come up are generally things I care about and in a perspective I share. Like if a trans issue comes up in my news feed, it's along the lines of people freaking out about dumb shit and why it's not ok. *Not unimportant shit, shit that is dumb to be upset about. The fact is that even petty things can take on a whole new depth when they impact your life. Just things that make you wonder who's life is so uneventful that they have time to get upset and make these things an issue.
Literally here, all the fucking time before the ban was put in place and even after when I browse by New like I do everywhere. Before, even browsing by Hot didn't provide any protection from it.
If you want to find it, try r/AreTheCisOk. It doesn't belong here anymore, and my mental health has been noticeably better for it without needing to give up on an otherwise entertaining community.
The mods tried flair for a while... which not only didn't get used every time, so viewers could avoid discussions of transphobia, but are useless when swiping in the app. Forking it to a completely different sub was the final and justified response.
Exactly. This "petty shit" affects our lives and we deal with it all the fucking time irl and online, wherever we're out or clocked. You could say our lives are eventful enough already.
I don't want it where I'm coming to laugh, neither did a lot of others of us. And then of course there are the transphobes who like to brigade anywhere which is remotely trans-positive or trans-mentioning, so it's easier to just create a strongly-moderated dedicated area where readers are already on guard and not being suckerpunched before the mods can jump in.
Glad you are so privileged to not have been sensitized by repetitive trauma, but that privilege doesn't give you some entitlement to whine about those who have being granted some peace and quiet in that department.
You want to read and post that stuff? Go to the dedicated sub, that's what it was forked for. 😉 Thx for your understanding.
Fuck, I even went through it again looking for an error or autocorrect or whatever....
Literally- Where does this happen? It's not something I'm seeing in day to day activities. I see it places I know are going to be offensive, but that's expected. For your knowledge/to be fair- my online activities are personalized so sexiest, racist, classist, bigoted shit never shows up anymore. I do see some ignorant stuff in my news sometimes but it's in stories combating that ignorance. You may not be seeing big gaudy signs you can point at, but even the smallest thing can be a big deal if it's tearing you down.
Is that better? I can translate it to my native tongue if my English is the issue. It's my second language, so yeah, maybe it's the English.
Here's a sneak peek of r/AreTheCisOk using the top posts of all time!
#1: sigh | 267 comments
#2: Cis ppl hear "pronouns" and get triggered like a sleeper agent | 85 comments
#3: Transphobe logic basically (not my comment) | 91 comments
^^I'm ^^a ^^bot, ^^beep ^^boop ^^| ^^Downvote ^^to ^^remove ^^| ^^Contact ^^me ^^| ^^Info ^^| ^^Opt-out
Did you read what I said, or just skim it ready to be offended and pissed off?
As I said, even petty things take on a whole new depth when they impact your life. Why does that offend you? Literally- even small things that shouldn't matter become a serious burden when people use them to attack you... The stuff people ignore or take for granted or just shrug off may seem small, but when it's impacting your mental well being and day to day health, it's something that needs to be addressed... In exactly every way I'm supporting you there.
I wanted to know what you were seeing and where it came from because I'm not sitting next to you so I have no idea what it is, obviously.
What entitlement, lol? I'm an immigrant who had to fight 2 wars for America to not get deported, after my mother was murdered and I lived in the streets for a couple until I got swept up in a raid and the group home deported us here. The whitest thing in my life was my green card lmao. I'm not straight if that's what you're upset about? Maybe it's my trans partner that's the issue! No...? Maybe it's the free Slurpee I'm "entitled" to on my birthday... That doesn't cover a couple decades, but it seemed diverse enough.
You know everyone bitches and accuses us of being offended by everything.... Until this, I 100% was with you and looking for this awful shit you're seeing while agreeing with you. Now.... I'm not sure people are wrong in this case. I'm gonna still give you the benefit of the doubt and just assume this isn't normal.
This sub already has next to no variety... it's 85% memes of dudes saying some boomer masculinity shit or dudes saying incel shit now. Which is fine in small doses, but when the whole front page is that stuff every day, it's a little much.