I think the necessity for moderators to curate the experience for the members of the community is overrated.

I’ve seen very selected cases where that kind of thing is done to good effect. /r/AskHistorians is the most obvious example. I’ve seen a whole lot of cases where there are moderators who are abusing their ability to control the conversation, going well beyond just keeping everything on the rails, and deciding for themselves what people in the comments are and aren’t allowed to say.

Personally, I think merging the comments threads from multiple communities would be a clear benefit, in part specifically because it would eliminate that ability for moderators to decide how they want to shape the comments to look like.

It is a common task to figure out who should be directly pipelined for the central education pathway and who needs to be isolated from it lest they become pointlessly disruptive to others’ learning, as they have demonstrated that they will interrupt with silly ideas

And all of a sudden, it all snapped into focus.

I’ve been involved in education for almost all my adult life. The number of times I can remember having to do something like this is once, for one person, in all of that time.

Way up at the beginning, I said “In non-authoritarian contexts” certain modes of interaction are common, and you asked, “What on earth are you talking about.” This is what I’m talking about. It’s very strange and inhuman, to me, for the teacher to say that someone’s ideas are silly, and for that reason they need to be removed from the class before they disrupt everyone else’s “learning.” One of the most important parts of teaching is understanding where people are coming from, actually truly coming from, so you can address their current perceptions directly, so they can understand. They might be right or partially right, they might be wrong, or they might be silly. It’s fine. Another critical early stage of the process is to earn their respect, demonstrate that you know what you’re talking about, so that in a genuine sense they’ll want to learn from you. That can be incredibly hard, because there’s not really a system for it. It has to be a human thing. If you can do that, though, everything after is easy. The students are coming to you because their current understanding isn’t there, presumably, and because they want to fix that. If you can show them you’re qualified to improve their understanding, then of course they will listen to you instead of being “silly” as you say it.

If you say something, and they don’t understand it or don’t agree with it, and then you abandon them and say they have to be separated before someone else hears what they have to say, that’s a massive red flag to me. It might be for reasons of time or organization, you don’t necessarily need to hear out completely every beginner idea that every single student has to say. But also… presumably, they’re there because they have some interest in what you’re teaching. Hopefully. If during the course of the interaction, they’re espousing ideas you think are wrong, they’re probably not the only person in the class that thinks that way. Some other people just might not be saying it. If you can address things in a productive way, then you give everyone else in the class the chance to hear out the exchange of ideas. That’s hugely instructive. That’s actual education. Hopefully, your ideas are solid enough and you have the skill to address it in a way where overall it’s pretty clear that your ideas are the “right” ones. To everyone else, if not to the “silly” student, or not to them right away.

I don’t truly know anything at all about your method of teaching. But like I say, this makes it all come clearly to me. You’ve been sort of giving me orders about how I am required to engage with you. You’re trying to “instruct” me, which is a fine thing to do obviously, but you clearly haven’t earned the right to do that, in my eyes. I was confused about why you kept approaching the interaction as if you had, and I needed to “get with the program” and treat you that way, but again, now it makes sense. You’re treating me like one of your students.

Most people work in this way that I’m describing. If you want genuine respect from your students, you need to engage with them as human beings, and not become so aggrieved if they’re not taking part in the process with completely correct ideas already formed, or with “correct” behavior already in place. Most people operate by respect, not by obedience, although certain types of coercion will cause them to obediently fake it. All you’ll do by demanding obedience whether or not the respect is there, though, is produce insincere students, which is a terrible thing. And you’ll also miss the chance to actually educate someone, if their inner ideas don’t match the things you’re trying to teach them.

My guy: You raised an issue with how I was participating. I explained why I was doing it, but also offered to correct it, admitting that you kind of had a point. You said you weren’t going to count that as good faith, but that I was “free to try again.”

I don’t know what sort of person you are trying to engage with, but it is some sort of obedient robot or sniveling quisling. I wish you luck in finding that person. They would probably also respond well to being told that it’s not your job to find sources for your statement, but their job to find sources for your statements. I think you will have difficulty in finding such a person but like I said I wish you luck.

I’m not going to count this as a good faith response

I’ll have to try to find a way to carry on regardless. Best of luck.

You have a valid point that I’ve been ignoring things you’ve said or questions you ask. Are there any of the unanswered questions that you want me to take some real time and answer for you? Part of my not “getting with the program” so to speak, it seems, is like I say that I simply don’t believe you based on my little bit of investigations so far, so I’m focusing my attention on seeing if you’re trustworthy before taking anything of the very large and varied number of claims you’re making seriously.

I don’t really consider myself obligated to chase down each and every new thing you bring up in each message, investing hours of time absorbing your sources in detail while you airily discard any of my sources claiming that they are propaganda. But, like I say, it’s not an unreasonable complaint, and if you want to bring up a couple of the unanswered questions now, I’m happy to spend a quick moment addressing them if you want.

This is seemingly in response to me repeatedly noting your selective responses, but it doesn’t address it at all.

It absolutely addresses it. It explains why I’m doing it. You just don’t like my explanation.

Edit: PS I’m not reading the rest of what you wrote until you can demonstrate basic good faith.

Okey dokey.

Didn’t you say you were done with this conversation and then said goodbye?

Yeah, but then I got interested again.

I will note again that you ignored nearly everything I said

Really ask yourself what the the basis of these incredibly selective responses is.

I began by simply sharing information, but you started trying to argue combatively about it and treat this like a debate

You are welcome for having been provided with context to help you understand this topic and investigate it critically. As a curious skeptic, surely you appreciate this kind of information and won’t search for a way to whine about my audacity.

Yes. Like I said before, if I have no particular reason to trust you, then I’m not going to accept the information that you give me. I’m not sure why that’s so persistently difficult to understand, or why you keep framing things in terms of you providing information that I am required to accept, and me making things difficult by examining it skeptically first.

What basic facts have I gotten wrong?

• The special treatment of Uyghurs for family planning quotas ended in 2017: https://web.archive.org/web/20170908140929/https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1058905.shtml (or in section 105 of the report you sent me)
• You claimed the OHCHR made no claim of wide-scale destruction of mosques. You then tried to claim that “wide scale” and “a large number” are two totally different things, and you sort of hinted that if I read the underlying sources, I would find something damning. I spot-checked the underlying sources, and I found confirmation for the idea that mosques are being destroyed at a wide scale, or a large number, or whatever you want to call it.
• You claimed “Though it should be noted that Han have the most restrictive control over reproduction,” when the numbers cited by the OHCHR report indicate about an order of magnitude greater sterilizations among the Uyghurs (section 108).

You don’t have to trust the OHCHR report, of course. Let me ask this: What sources would you trust? What can I refer to that you consider as a trustworthy source of information? That’s why I specifically referred to globaltimes.cn above. But then, I have no idea if you trust them.

It is actually your onus to investigate all of this.

I just got tired of the conversation again.

You seem to be interested in talking about this, to some extent, but I’m not going to respond to general hints about what I might want to look at, or retreats into “do your own research”-type non-answers. If I’m making a claim, it’s my duty to be willing to back it up instead of just sort of hinting.

You have a valid point that I’ve been ignoring things you’ve said or questions you ask. Are there any of the unanswered questions that you want me to take some real time and answer for you? Part of my not “getting with the program” so to speak, it seems, is like I say that I simply don’t believe you based on my little bit of investigations so far, so I’m focusing my attention on seeing if you’re trustworthy before taking anything of the very large and varied number of claims you’re making seriously.

That’s my process: Test some things that people say, before you believe them on the wider narrative.

That’s an irrational process. You need to actually read critically and inform yourself.

In your world, what does “read critically” mean? If testing some of the things from a particular source before you start to take it seriously isn’t that?

I generally trust the OHCHR report, not because I automatically trust everything from the UN, but because it doesn’t have any obvious inconsistencies with its sources and seems to draw on things that broadly match with what’s broadly accepted by human rights NGOs, Wikipedia, news sources with a variety of allegiances, and so on. I went through some version of the process with it that I’m trying to do with you, and it didn’t have sudden changes in its story, factual inconsistencies with other things that were trustworthy, suspect logical patterns, and so on.

Like I say, I think we’re just at an impasse, because you’re absolutely convinced that you’ve already done the critical reading, and I just need to get with that program and accept what you’re saying. I don’t think your reading of sources is as critically minded as you think it is. I think you’ve absorbed, and are trying to relay to me, a particular way of analyzing sources that I’m just fundamentally not on board for.

There’s a very particular failure mode that the human brain can get into when “it’s all propaganda” or “all their sources are biased” or corrupted by money, or whatever, start to become how you analyze sources. It starts to become very easy to just discard anything that doesn’t match the picture that’s already in your mind, and accept anything that matches the picture that’s already in your mind, because you’re defining the trustworthiness of the source in that sort of self-referential way. The way you talk about needing to “contextualize,” and the way you allocate trust to different sources, makes me think you’re unintentionally using that type of maladaptive pattern. Part of the reason I’m spending this length of time talking with you is that you do seem passionate about the truth, willing to invest energy into getting to the bottom of things, and so on. But I really think that you could benefit from some self-reflection about objectively, “Is this statement I am making true? Is this source trusthworthy?” before starting to go HAM with it, or uncritically accept other things from adjacent sources.

Does that make sense? Just my two cents, good luck with everything.

Ah, there was eventually a thank you!

There was immediately a thank you. It was in the message you were replying to, where you accused me of not saying thank you. You actually quoted it back to me at one point, in one of your sections after you said it.

It can’t just be that I have knowledge and information and suggested readings and pointers for where to criticize media. You have to be honestly interested in investigation and learning. Technically I don’t think my part should even be necessary: a curious skeptic would be asking themselves the same questions I’ve asked you before taking the genocide claim seriously in the first place. And a curious skeptic might appreciate being told to read more deeply because there is intrigue. But clearly that’s not happening on its own. You are either new to critical readings and investigating sources and think tanks and funding and seeking out criticisms or you just aren’t interested in doing that on this topic. I think it’s probably both and connected to the antagonism to basic things like giving you a source or treating me criticizing that source as something inherently wrong.

You’re coming at this from the perspective that you are right, and I am wrong, and you need to educate me. That’s fine, but it’s coming in conjunction with getting some basic facts wrong, which is why I’m so unreceptive. That’s my process: Test some things that people say, before you believe them on the wider narrative. You keep trying to do the educating and making much broader claims, without doing the proving piece in detail first.

Let me show you how it works:

Because it is relevant to the basics of this propaganda push, one pillar of which is premised on a handful of testimonies where every time the person is named it turns out they are tied to funding and usually very inconsistent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Uyghurs_in_China#Compulsory_sterilizations_and_contraception

Let’s test your assertion. How are Zumrat Dwut and Sayragul Sauytbay tied to funding? Can you send me the source which indicates that they are? Also, do you know of inconsistencies in their story?

You want me to be open to being led to conclusions and doing investigations prompted by you, so let’s see if it goes both ways.

As a multi-ethnic country that embraces and protects its ethnic minorities, China implements affirmative action for them. One example of this is that ethnic minorities, including Uyghurs, are permitted to have more children, with the numbers being dictated, in part, by lifestyle (urban vs rural).

This hasn’t been true since 2017.

That is not a curious person, that is a person using irrational attacks instead of doing the work of reading the source material and becoming educated. And again, zero thanks for me going out of my way to provide this information for you and no apology for your poor behavior in response to it. That is not what curious people do.

Here’s what I said at the time: “I really did read the report. I don’t know all that much about Xinjiang, so it was informative for me to see it, so thank you.”

I also quoted some sections from the report which directly addressed things we were talking about.

I think you’re unhappy that I didn’t reach your conclusions by reading the report, and are trying to tell me that my conclusions are incorrect and lecture me on what the correct ones are. That’s not really how it works. Someone you’re talking to could be right or wrong, but if you take the mode of just lecturing, I can’t really see it ever convincing someone to take on your conclusions.

Sorry if I gave offense about the Gish Gallop. You started talking all kinds of things about terrorism in Syria, this story about a woman who fled with no money, World Uyghur Congress, NED-funded organizations, and so on. I can see maybe you’re trying to communicate the context or a broader scope, but coming in rapid-fire to someone who has absolutely no context, it comes across very differently.

I looked up quickly how many mosques in Xinjiang have been destroyed. https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/11/22/china-mosques-shuttered-razed-altered-muslim-areas says two-thirds of them have been damaged or destroyed. I actually already thought about your point about sterilization being a thing that happens in China anyway, so are they genociding the Han? That was one part of the report I read in detail, and they do talk about it and give some points of comparison and arguments and other explanations for the numbers, and I can see some points to be able to disagree on.

That’s about as much as I want to look into it. I wasn’t intending this to be a long debate, I was just struck by some of the claims from the other person and was interested to see what backing there was behind them and unintentionally went down a rabbit-hole. But I’m not interested in the debate anymore. Have a good one.

I asked, “Can you link me to the UN report where they found there was no genocide, and the so-called victims were millionaires?” You sent me a report. It doesn’t say there was no genocide, and it doesn’t say the so-called victims were millionaires. I realize you’re saying that a reasonable person can read the report and conclude that obviously there is no genocide at all, but I don’t completely agree with that. I’m allowed to not agree with you. That’s not “fighting.”

I’m really not trying to be hard to talk to or get you riled up. What you describe as “fighting” or refusing to absorb the information you are providing, I view as just healthy skepticism. If you run way, way ahead of your sources by painting a huge picture, you are completely correct that I’m going to refuse to become passive and let you educate me and believe everything you say. I’m going to take a step back and say, “Well, okay, I get what you’re saying, but what is your backing?” I can do that even if I’m not that familiar with the topic. The fact that you’re so upset that I’m not just believing everything you say is weird to me.

A few detail points:

That is why the accusers use language like “forced sterilization” to describe the insertion of IUDs

This is not accurate. Forced sterilizations, forced insertion of IUDs, and forced abortions are measured as separate things, although they’re sometimes talked about as the related issues that they are. It’s in section 108 which I already quoted.

It is important to critically interrogate this claim. What did the OHCHR report provide as evidence? What are they specifically referring to as sterilization?

Why are you so skeptical, now, of the source that you provided? It’s either trustworthy, when it says that women are being sterilized against their will, or it isn’t. I generally trust the UN, and it seems well-sourced, and you were the one that provided it in the first place, so I see no reason to assume that “sterilization” means something other than sterilization.

and wide-scale destruction of mosques,

This did not happen and the OHCHR repory does not make this claim. Take note of the limited examples provided and follow the rabbit hole of sourcing. It will be revealing.

Yes it does. It’s in sections 85 and 86. I picked one of the rabbit-holes of sourcing, and found https://uhrp.org/report/demolishing-faith-the-destruction-and-desecration-of-uyghur-mosques-and-shrines/, which said “The Chinese government’s current crackdown in the Uyghur region is aimed at eliminating Uyghur ethnocultural identity and assimilating them into an undifferentiated “Chinese” identity. As one of the cornerstones of their identity, Uyghurs’ Islamic faith has been a major target of this campaign, resulting in many Uyghurs being sent to the network of concentration camps. This campaign has also taken the form of eradicating tangible signs of the region’s Islamic identity from the physical landscape. This has involved the whole or partial demolition of an unprecedented number of mosques, including several historically significant buildings.”

It is not the destruction of a people in whole or in part as described by the UN definition, which is obvious by simply comparing it to the report. There are not mass graves, there is no forced migration, children are not stolen, there is no substantial diaspora.

The UN definition of genocide is “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:”

1. Killing members of the group;
2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

I already said this: I’m not convinced either way. I read parts of the report, and took it seriously. It talks about forced sterilization and family separation, deaths in custody and executions, and other things that very clearly meet the numbered criteria. But is that being committed with intent to destroy the group as such? I don’t really know. But I don’t think that the UN putting together a report which describes it, but stops short of calling it genocide, means that it’s conclusively proven that it is not genocide.

I’m losing my patience with this conversation, to be honest. It seems like your model is that you say things and I accept them, and I’m “fighting” if I don’t. My model is going to be that I’m going to compare the things you say with things I can source, and see if the claims change or if the backing is solid, and then if after a couple rounds of that it seems like you’re well in accordance with things outside of you that I can find, then okay, I become more trusting. If you’re going to get offended by that, I think you’re going to keep being offended by the conversation, and I think maybe this isn’t going to be productive.

I was responding, originally, to this statement:

genocide that the UN investigated and found wasn’t a genocide where all the ‘victims’ that were touted are now millionaires in other countries after selling a story the UN specifically found didn’t happen

I asked because I didn’t know of anything that backs up either of those claims. I still haven’t seen anything that does.

In non-authoritarian contexts, it’s actually pretty normal to ask “Why are you saying this, what is the evidence,” instead of just accepting a browbeating message as, in itself, proof of what’s being claimed. And usually, if someone’s asked for proof and then their proof doesn’t match the thing claimed when you examine it, or they’re hostile to the idea of needing to provide proof in the first place because that’s “sealioning” or whatever, that’s a huge red flag. Likewise it is a red flag if someone makes a claim, and then when asked for evidence they pivot instead into a whole bunch of new claims.

It doesn’t look like you or the other speaker are interested in backing up this stuff. I don’t want to play the Gish Gallop game of indefinitely checking out all these new claims. I really did read the report. I don’t know all that much about Xinjiang, so it was informative for me to see it, so thank you. I didn’t see a strong indication, one way or another, that what’s happening either is or isn’t a genocide. It’s definitely not on the same scale as Gaza or Nazi Germany, but it still does sound to me like they’re aiming to eradicate the culture of these people and replace it Chinese culture, alongside a lot of other human rights abuses. The forced sterilization and wide-scale destruction of mosques, in particular, sounds exactly like eradication.

I would need to refresh my memory and look into specific cases because some people have recanted accounts like this or otherwise given very inconsistent stories.

Okay, so you’re not sure whether the report you sent me was accurate. You’re just interested in using it to back up something that it doesn’t actually back up, but at the same time throwing shade at any part of it that says something you don’t want to hear.

That fact that it doesn’t use the word “genocide” is not, to me, a specific finding that there is not a genocide. They seem like they’re just focused on what the facts of the matter are, instead of the question of whether it fits into some specific value judgement or not.

I’m done here. I was just curious, that’s all. Have a good day.

How does this report find there was no genocide, if they didn’t mention the word genocide?

I also searched for “million” to try to find the story about all the victims being millionaires now, and I didn’t find that either. Can you or the other person who talked about that tell me more about where I can find it?

I did skim some of the report.

70. Former detainees interviewed by OHCHR had spent periods of time, generally ranging from two months to 18 months, in facilities in eight different geographic locations across XUAR, including in Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, Aksu, Bayingol, Hotan, Karamay and Urumqi prefectures.Two-thirds of the twenty-six former detainees interviewed, reported having been subjected to treatment that would amount to torture and/or other forms of ill-treatment, either in VETC facilities themselves or in the context of processes of referral to VETC facilities. These claims of mistreatment took place either during interrogations or as a form of punishment for (alleged) wrongdoing. Their accounts included being beaten with batons, including electric batons while strapped in a so- called “tiger chair”; being subjected to interrogation with water being poured in their faces; prolonged solitary confinement; and being forced to sit motionless on small stools for prolonged periods of time. Persons reporting beatings for confessions described being taken to interrogation rooms that were separate to the cells or dormitory spaces where people were staying. Over two-thirds of the individuals also reported that, prior to their transfer to a VETC facility, they were held in police stations, where they described similar instances of being beaten while also immobilised in a “tiger chair” in those facilities.

73. Some also spoke of various forms of sexual violence, including some instances of rape, affecting mainly women. These accounts included having been forced by guards to perform oral sex in the context of an interrogation and various forms of sexual humiliation, including forced nudity. The accounts similarly described the way in which rapes took place outside the dormitories, in separate rooms without cameras. In addition, several women recounted being subject to invasive gynaecological examinations, including one woman who described this taking place in a group setting which “made old women ashamed and young girls cry”, because they did not understand what was happening. The Government has firmly denied these claims, often through personal or gendered attacks against the women who have publicly reported these allegations.

108. Uyghur-majority areas represented the bulk of this decline, with two of the largest Uyghur prefectures especially affected by it. In Hotan, which is 96 per cent Uyghur, birth rates went from 20.94 per cent in 2016 to 8.58 per cent per thousand births in 2018. Similarly, the birth rate in Kashgar, which is approximately 92.6 per cent Uyghur, dropped from 18.19 per cent in 2016249 to 7.94 per cent per thousand births in 2018. Even taking into account the overall decline in birth rates in China, these figures remain unusual and stark. The same applies to the figures regarding sterilisations and IUD placements in XUAR, with official data indicating an unusually sharp rise in both forms of procedures in the region during 2017 and 2018, in comparison with the rest of China. For example, in 2018, sterilisations in XUAR stood at 243 per 100,000 inhabitants, whereas the overall figure for China was a fraction thereof at only 32.1 per 100,000 inhabitants.

Leaving aside the question of whether to draw the conclusion that there is a genocide, do you think that information like the stuff I just quoted from the report you just sent me is accurate?

Can you link me to the UN report where they found there was no genocide, and the so-called victims were millionaires?

And here we reach the crux of the matter.

If I think there’s been a genocide in Xinjiang, I should be able to say so. Someone else might think that’s objectively not true, and we can talk about it. That’s actually a really healthy thing, it is an exchange of ideas. Almost no one has a monopoly on understanding the world completely, and so it’s necessary to be able to talk it back and forth. Deciding that we’re going to delete one side of that conversation is good for no one.

I think the model that’s crept into the modern internet where discordant ideas are “enemy” ideas that everyone needs to be protected against, and there’s no point in talking with anyone you disagree with because all the two of you will do is attack each other, is poison.

I’m happy to hear what you have to say, maybe I am wrong about this instance. When did the UN say there wasn’t a genocide and all the victims are millionaires? If you link me to the report, I would like to read it.

Edit: Instead of pointing me to information so I can read for myself and upend my whole worldview, he chose to go back through my history downvoting a bunch of stuff including when I was talking about how to set up RSS feeds. Lol.

The point isn’t that they received some wild type of “punishment” they can’t come back from. The point is that having what you’re allowed to say policed in this fashion is offensive to the vast majority of people, whatever mechanism “gentle” or not is being used to enforce the policing.

Moderation started out as a way to remove racism, spam and similar blatant abuse. Somehow, it’s grown to the point that people feel they have to hover over the shoulders of the commenters dictating what are the allowed and disallowed types of statements. Most people feel that if they think China has an oppressive government, they should be allowed to say it. And that if they think the US has an oppressive government, they should be allowed to say it. Lemmy.ml is a silly place because one of those statements is “allowed” and the other is not, which is absurd behavior that belongs better on a Fox News comment section or a US State Department web site than it does on the flagship instance of a supposedly FOSS-and-freedom friendly software project.

Authoritarians gonna authoritarian.

Also, especially with young people, calling them out for bad behavior like this usually leads to them just doubling down on the bad behavior because they’ll feel that their honor is insulted by the criticism and so they have to reject it. Something like that. I definitely wouldn’t hold your breath for a change.

!yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com

Also I would not recommend having an account on lemmy.ml if this is your concern, the moderators here are rather famous for doing this at the drop of a hat. I guess you could have your account on .ml and mostly interact with communities on other instances, but why?

Looks to me like it’s in the “main” branch but not in 0.19.7. Maybe the release branch was forked before it went in? Maybe there’s active development on a 0.20-targeted line, with some fixes getting backported to 0.19 as they’re needed? I don’t know. But I think it’s in the development branch, but hasn’t made it to production quite yet.

$ git checkout main
Switched to branch 'main'
Your branch is up to date with 'origin/main'.
$ grep 'Rewrite markdown' api_tests/src/post.spec.ts
test("Rewrite markdown links", async () => {
$ git checkout 0.19.7
HEAD is now at fc8280a9b Version 0.19.7
$ grep 'Rewrite markdown' api_tests/src/post.spec.ts
$ 

Looks like it’s brand new. The fix was only committed in September, and maybe not even on the main branch? I’m not completely sure, but it looks like it’s coming, as opposed to something that’s already here.