To be clear, not talking about this community, obviously 😛.
What’s the point of writing down rules, if mods just do what they want? But I suppose that’s the risk you take when you call someone a liar in a small community; they might be a mod.
Edit: I’m not trying to say that mods suck, they perform a useful and often thankless job. Just that it can be difficult for small communities to get a healthy number of good mods, which can become a problem.
I’ve never seen “be respectable” rules that haven’t been in service of protecting nazis, so I always go out of my way to be as thorny as possible.
EVERY single ban i’ve caught so far has always been the result of going against the mods/admins (usually calling them out on their contradictions) or, more often, for being openly antifascist. They’re going to look for an excuse to ban me anyway and if they don’t find one they’ll just make something up, so why bother being nice?
I don’t expend effort trying to be rude, but I rarely bend over backwards to reign in my default blunt tone. Not that gentle honesty seems to matter. I will argue the ethics and efficacy of well-meaning censorship with randos and moderators alike. Some of them are definitely Nazis in disguise. Some of them are not in disguise.
But most simply do not know what trolling is.
It’s like the Twitter generation thinks it means harassment, or vulgarity, or just being mean to people. No: trolling is fucking with people to get an emotional reaction. Sometimes that emotional reaction is extremely justified. Think of any “just a prank, bro” bullshit. That is trolling. That is violating the social contract to laugh at people for having sane responses to your inexcusable behavior. It is being an asshole, as bait, so you can pretend to be shocked, shocked!, and then play the victim while continuing to be an infuriating asshole.
Any moderator who expects polite discourse, and does not create an environment where words matter, is actively making the internet worse. You want an easy time pruning a worthwhile forum? Aim for a cocktail-party atmosphere. Screaming rants no, casual banter yes, tell people to take five if they’re starting shit. But if someone lays out why another user is completely full of shit - you had damn well better come down against being full of shit.