I admit I'm biased (big believer in capitalism), but I think a lot of the anti-capitalist CMVs have been pretty lazy recently. Things like, "there just shouldn't be billionaires" could in theory be a reasonable position to argue for, but so often, they're emotionally filled rants about anything and everything.

Maybe they Don't need to be banned, but we could require some more effort put into them. Something like: required to list out definitions, required to list out what would change their view.

I'm open to ideas, just wanted to voice this

People should not be allowed to propose a “civics test” as a precondition of voting in the USA, unless they explicitly address the fact that they were used to disenfranchise African-Americans after the Civil War.

If you have done so little research then you’re wasting everyone’s time.

So many such proposals on CMV.

This may be the hill I end up dying on. I've mentioned it several times (under various usernames) in the bi-monthly suggestions thread. First time I'm bringing it here.

There is a post at this moment with 50 comments in the first hours with the topic of "CMV: Abortion law exceptions for Rape and Incest make no sense".

Clearly, that is a very common topic (and I suspect it will eventually be deleted as a duplicate post violation). I'm confident there is a post with virtually that same title at least weekly on the subreddit.

Sometimes I'll be inspired to participate in this popular topics. Other times, I'm not in the mood for those topics. Today was one of the those not-in-the-mood days. So you know what I did? I passed by that topic without clicking on it!

Wild, right? It wasn't a topic I was personally interested in, so I skipped it. No need for that post to be deleted. No reason to silence the 50+ people who were interested in that post. Just me, making a personal decision, that I wasn't interested.

Seems to me that that's the solution to complaints about common topics. If it's not of interest to you, skip it! And if people did that, then there'd be no need for Fresh Topic Friday or the 24 hour rule. And the people who are interested in those topics when they're posted still get to enjoy them.

So my suggestion would be to eliminate, in their entirety, both FTF and the 24 hour rule. Then, if/when you get complaints from people about common topics, you could just tell them that they should skip topics that are not of interest to them.

If you want to take it a step further, you could even create a rule: "If a topic does not interest you, skip it." Then, if you get a complaint from someone about frequent topics, you could point to that rule, slap them with a rule violation penalty, and be done with it.

Eventually the chronic complainers will get banned for too many violations of the new rules, and the mods will never have to hear complaints about common topics again.

This is happening more and more, people will make thoughtful posts and because it's comprehensive they dismiss it as AI out of hand.

This is absolutely a form of poisoning the well, and it is in of itself a bad faith accusation without using the words "bad faith."

The reason I think it needs an explicit citation is that as time goes on and AI becomes more robust, we are going to a point where the distinction is irrelevant, and furthermore there are no rules pertaining to CMV that even begin to disallow the utilization of tools to write posts anyway. Even if the subreddit's current stance is "No AI" that gets to a point of meaninglessness when you factor in the fact that even things like spelling and grammar tools are now AI powered.

If the argument has merit it shouldn't matter that an AI added verbosity if the person's intent is captured, but accusing people of using AI is already a rule violation and strictly unproductive. Arguably more unproductive than AI rules because a person can be accused without even using AI.

I know what I mean is obvious, but let's just say "CMV: It is going to rain tomorrow", whatever comments won't change the fact that tomorrow will happen and the weather will happen. It seems like this theme is related to if not exactly soapboxing.

It generates a back and forth more throwaway than most of what gets posted because X days from the event it's just noise after the fact.

A significant subcategory of CMV posts are primarily about the views, arguments, speech, or texts of some third-party. They don't violate Rule B because the OP does hold a view of their own—a view about this third-party view. This happens often enough that it's easy to find examples on the front page:

• CMV: A treatment/"cure" for autism would actually be a good thing for people who want it is primarily about the arguments of people the OP calls "autism influencers."

• CMV: "Piracy isn't stealing" and "AI art is stealing" are logically contradictory views to hold. is about viewpoints of people the OP saw on their twitter feed.

• CMV: it is not a convincing argument that ghosting makes the ghoster feel safe is about some third-party's argument in favor of the position that ghosting makes the ghoster feel safe.

• CMV: Saying Whites or Europeans are responsible for colonialism as a whole and should apologize for it is blatantly ignorant. is about the views of people who say whites/Europeans are responsible for colonialism.

I feel like—when there is no link to the third parties' texts—these discussions almost always go badly, because people end up ignoring the actual arguments/views of the third parties, and focusing instead on whatever strawman (intentional or otherwise) the OP has set up. And in my experience these posts tend to go one of the following ways:

• The OP eventually posts a link to the third-party text, and it turns out they didn't say anything like what was described. But anyone who comes by and reads the CMV post and top comments will think that the third-parties said what the OP describes.

• The OP never links to anything at all, and it's totally unclear whether anybody actually believes the thing the OP is arguing against. But now there's a bunch of people arguing in favor of it on CMV.

• People who do hold the view eventually show up, but their views are drowned out by a bunch of other people arguing as "devil's advocates" (which is not against the rules as a commenter). The sense of the arguments people in favor of the position is distorted. (You can see this on the "piracy isn't stealing" post.)

• The OP does eventually post some text of the view they are arguing against, and it immediately resolves their concern. (Sometimes this is because the OP's source is some guy who is blatantly lying about the third parties.) Changing the OP's view is reduced to an exercise in reading comprehension.

I am not entirely sure what can be done about this. One thing that would fix the problem would be to adjust Rule A or B to add a requirement to post sources when your post is about a third party's views. But that seems like it might be too harsh. And an AutoModerator warning sounds like a lot of work—and might be ineffectual. Maybe you guys have a better sense of what is going on. Or maybe my feelings here are just wrong!

This has been mildly bothering me for some time, so I apologize if this is a duplicate of some other post I've made in the past.

Hello all!

This subreddit is an extension of r/changemyview that we set up specifically to help us get ideas on how to make the main sub better. We welcome and encourage everyone to make suggestions on how we can improve. We may not always be able to implement a change, but we are always open to listening to how to be better.

We do ask that you do couple of things first:

• Read the Changemyview rules. We go into a lot of detail about why we have the rules (alongside what the rules are) so there may be a reason that the rule is how it is.

• Read the moderation standards too. They talk about how the rules are enforced and they too talk about why we do things the way we do. Between the two docs, you'll get a pretty solid foundation of our thinking behind moderation.

• Keep in mind that CMV is a very mission-driven subreddit and many of our rules are foundational to that mission. Suggestions that would undermine that mission (e.g. eliminate rules B or 3) won't be considered. We are open to making those rules better, though.

• Make sure your idea is a suggestion. We are open to criticism and we are pretty thick skinned, but complaints without actionable feedback just aren't helpful. Most of the time we agree that our rules aren't perfect, but without a suggestion on how they can be improved we are stuck with the best we can think of.

• Make sure this isn't about a specific moderation decision. This forum isn't a place to litegate removals or bans that you disagree with - that is what the appeals process is for.

Beyond that, we just ask that you keep things civil.

Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

So many times in replies I see "Can you provide evidence for this?" as the entire comment. I feel like these should be removed as adding nothing to the discussion. They should be required to make a statement on their position relative, because too many people use "source?" as an argument, which it is not. Many times I see obviously true claims implicitly denied, but not outright, by asking for a source. I believe allowing these comments permits (intentionally or otherwise) refusing to engage with the topic, but just handwaving it due to "lack of evidence" - while the positive claim they would have to make would have no evidence or basis in reality. In my opinion, refusing to engage with what is said or handwaving really goes against the spirit of the sub.

Example:

Claim: "Most people living in Australia are white"

No: "Do you have a source?"

Yes: "I think they are actually mostly native, do you have a source?:

Yes: "I don't have an opinion on the matter but I haven't heard about this before, can you provide a source?"

Yes: "Here is my source contradicting what you said, do have evidence to compare?"

In these "Yes" examples the reply is either stating their own claim that is contradictory, or identifying the request for a source as "not a disagreement"

The vast majority of the posts to this forum in the last month have been regarding CMV's prohibition on transgender related topics. While we accept that many users do not agree with this prohibition, the moderation team has made every good faith effort to address why we felt this rule was necessary in those previous threads, listed here for your reference:

https://old.reddit.com/r/ideasforcmv/comments/1fp7jg4/is_it_the_official_stance_of_the_mod_team_that/

https://old.reddit.com/r/ideasforcmv/comments/1fjkr9x/idea_change_automod_message_for_trans_rule/

https://old.reddit.com/r/ideasforcmv/comments/1fibqih/a_concrete_proposal_for_improving_the_trans_rule/

https://old.reddit.com/r/ideasforcmv/comments/1ff6v82/rule_d_needs_to_be_reworked_as_it_is_overzealous/

https://old.reddit.com/r/ideasforcmv/comments/1epv5rv/are_trans_people_effectively_banned_from_posting/

There is simply nothing to be gained by rehashing the same criticisms over and over again. Going forward, if you want to make a suggestion regarding the prohibition you will need to:

• Read our responses in those previous threads

• Propose a change to the rule that has not already been discussed and rejected in those previous threads.

If you post a thread that does not adhere to the two requirements above, it will be removed.

I was initially annoyed with the trans rule because I had various ongoing theories and questions about the issue of trans people which would be completely impossible to post in subreddits like r/asktransgender because they’re quite stringent on what they consider transphobic. They‘re probably right in taking this attitude because of the large number of trans people who make up the sub who likely don’t want to see their identity invalidated, but it does make things difficult for somebody like me who‘s trying to get to the bottom of the issue. I feel like I’m in a sort of permanent quandary where, in practice, of course I’m in favour of trans rights, but in theory I still have all sorts of doubts about the issue that I’d like to see resolved, but this seems impossible without the sort of open discussion that r/cmv provides.

Ironically considering my initial issue with the rule might lead some people to consider me transphobic, I find that this initial problem I had has been superseded by a completely different concern, which is that trans people apparently aren’t allowed to discuss their experiences in relation to gender. I didn’t realise this until coming to this sub, whereupon I saw people complaining about this. If I’m not mistaken, if a CMV is about gender, a trans person is essentially banned from talking about their experiences openly and fully. If somebody tells a trans man they’ve never experienced what it’s like to be a woman, and so don’t know what it’s like being treated in a specific way by society, the trans person is literally unable to honestly refute this point.

My own personal doubts about the trans movement aside, this seems completely horrifying. It seems frankly the more moral thing to do would be to simply get rid of the sub altogether (perhaps not the more moral choice from a utilitarian perspective, but, at least, the more honourable one) rather than to allow such a disaster to continue. I remember asking reddit a few years ago how the don’t ask, don’t tell policy was accepted by so many people for so long. Surely it was obviously unethical? I’m honestly confused as to how this policy has even been allowed by Reddit, or even whether it’s considered legal in real life. If there are laws against online hate speech, taking actual literal measures to discriminate would surely necessitate legal action. This is not me being hyperbolic, as far as I know, on r/CMV, a cisgender person is allowed to talk about what it is like to be their AGAB, a trans person cannot without outing themselves and therefore breaking the rules.

Imagine if CMV had existed back in the 1980s, at the height of the AIDS epidemic, and had taken the same stance on gay people - straight people would have been allowed to mention in threads their wife or their girlfriend, their mother and father, two fictional characters in a heterosexual romantic relationship; but gay people would literally be barred from discussing their own relationships, kids with two dads would be unable to mention the two men who raised them even in passing, in discussions of great literature people would tactfully avoid Oscar Wilde altogether. This would have reinforced a culture of heteronormativity, where everybody on the internet, or at least in this subreddit, was assumed to be straight, and essentially forced into the closet.

Any argument that in banning this, or any topic, the mods are applying the same standard to both cis and trans people (and therefore not discriminating) is ridiculous - as it is demonstrably not the case. Cis people are allowed to discuss their life experiences, trans people are not. Saying, “well they’re allowed to talk about their experiences in other areas, just not any area where being trans might be relevant” is simply not good enough. There is a double standard - it’s like if you said, “anything about women is banned because there are too many misogynists. We’re applying the same rule indiscriminately to men and women”. The rule would still be discriminate, because men would be allowed to talk about being a man, women would not be allowed to talk about being women.

To return to the hypothetical of if gay topics were banned in the 1980s—would anybody *now* at r/cmv be looking back at that period of time with any pride? Whatever the rationale provided for the original policy, it would doubtless be a lifelong regret for members of the moderation team who made that decision. I urge the mod team to forget about whatever other reasons they have for enforcing this rule as it exists in its current form, as I’m sure these reasons are all very good - and simply acknowledge that, if discrimination of this sort is wrong, this rule must be considered morally untenable, and must either be gotten rid of or changed. Any other argument is irrelevant, as far as I can see.

I saw a post just now regarding Drag Queens, but removed for rule D.

I'm not sure if I missed something in the content, but broadly Drag Queens are their own thing, not really anything to do with Transsexuality, it's it's own performance form separate from Gender topics even though some try and conflate them.

Do the mods consider drag queens to be trans?

Is the culture of drag queen part of transsexuality as far as CMV is concerned?

Not really an "idea" more a clarifying question for that rule I guess.

I just made the #10 rank for the year.

I know there are others with a tied score. Delta boards should show ties at #10. I think at #10 is sufficient and it isn’t necessary to show ties at higher ranks. I think there must be a programmed recency bias on the board, or I would not have been able to bump the previous #10.

This just seems fair to me.

The current message when someone violates the “don’t say trans” rule is that discussion of trans issues “is no longer” allowed on this sub. It has been a minute, and the reference to historical rules only invites a lot of questions about what drove the decision. I think people would be better off hearing a firm “no” instead of “well, it used to be different, but NOT ANY MORE.” And I actually think “no,” is more honest and transparent because it doesn’t seem likely a more elegant solution will be found any time soon. Therefore, I think instead of “is no longer,” the auto-mod message should just say “is not.”

Introduction

I have been a very long time lurker on the CMV sub, and have always deeply admired what that sub tries to do. Furthermore, it was often very refreshing and downright fascinating to see the discussion in the sub and how they were managed. But I have been deeply saddened each time I am confronted with the results of rule D Transgender Posts implementation. This has gotten to the point where I had to unsubscribe from the subreddit to improve my mental health, regardless of how much I wished to keep reading the fascinating interactions that the sub is filled with.

However, it still stuck with me and I did occasionally venture into the ideasforcmv sub to see if any improvements were on the horizon. Sadly, the discussion here about it was generally unproductive. On the one hand there were concerned users making posts explaining the failings of the rule's implementation but unable to provide concrete alternatives. On the other hand were moderators that seemed frustrated by having to constantly explain their position while not being presented with workable alternatives. The result was a discussion with two sides just talking to a wall that won't move, with no sign of consensus or compromise ever being within sight.

For those reasons I will now attempt to present in detail the situation that lead to the rule and its implementation, the damage and problems that the rule and its implementation is causing to the quality of the subreddit and finally a few concrete steps that could be taken to mitigate these problems.

Important to note here is that I will try to refrain as much as possible from ethical objections to the decision to implement this rule and will mainly be focused on how it negatively influences the goals of the sub. Should there be any interest from the mods to hear the ethical arguments against the rules, then I will gladly provide those, but this post will focus as much as possible on the practical issues. Finally I may add a comment underneath with some notes that pertain to this rule and its implementation, but which did not clearly fit anywhere in this text.

The problems the rule attempts to solve

The original problem that caused the rule to come into effect was an overflow of posts about trans people. These posts were dominating the subreddit, and due to mods not being able to keep up with the sheer number of them, were filled to the brim with bad faith arguments and unproductive arguments. This problem was not always there as initially trans people were not considered as controversial of a topic, but around the time of the Trump election there was a large influx of these posts from transphobic individuals that had no intention of changing their mind. Furthermore, the admins became quite active in curbing the rampant transphobia on the entire platform, which meant that people on CMV using transphobic language were often caught in the Admin's crosshairs. (though of course with the very typical non-existent reddit consistency)

This brings us to the problems as they are presented in the rules document: 1a) Moderators were unable to uphold their promise that users won't be punished for views they post on CMV so long as they follow the rules. Essentially indicating a desire to protect users from the unreliable wrath of the Admins.

1b) The moderators couldn't craft any guidance on what types of transgender posts/comments would be acceptable, as there was no consistency to what was removed.

1c) Any guidance the moderators might have been able to cobble together would have been overwhelmingly pro-transgender, which would be them putting a massive thumb on the scale for the issue, which would kind of defeat the purpose CMV for those posts.

An important thing to note here is that this isn't the whole story as can be seen in the many comments of moderators on this issue. An even more prominent reason seems to be the inability for the current mod team to see and moderate sufficiently to deal with the sudden influx of these posts. Of course this is in no way a criticism of the moderator team's abilities. The subreddit is huge and the moderator team is both limited in number and time. It would frankly be unreasonable to expect them to be able to spend as much time as would be needed to moderate against that storm when each moderator also has a life of their own and is doing this as unpaid work on the side.

To deal with all these issues, the current rule and its implementation were implemented. To paraphrase the mods themselves, it is a bad rule but it is the best they could come up with. In the following sections I will present why this rule and implementation is more damaging than it might seem and what might be done to improve upon it.

The rule, its implementation and the problems that the rule creates

The current implementation of the rule is not actually as it would seem from the rules wiki. In the rules wiki it is described as a ban on transgender posts. This is incorrect. The current implementation means that any discussion of trans people, any reference to trans people, and even any mention of trans people or a trans person is banned in both posts and comments. This is being implemented with an automod that has been programmed to remove any potential reference to trans people without any human action needed at any point in the process. One mod aptly described it as a "don't ask don't tell" policy for trans people.

The intended effect of this policy is that there are no visible trans people on the subreddit. In this way the problem has been solved with a lack of visible trans people meaning that there aren't any posts and comments containing transphobia. At least, that seems to be the impression the moderators have of the rule working as intended. From the comments made by moderators about this rule, at least part of the moderators seems to consider this a neutral solution. I strongly disagree that it is and it would appear there is also a part of the moderators that thinks so, but they appear to consider it an unfortunate but necessary part of it.

If we ignore any moral arguments and objections to the rule, then we are left with four main problems that the rule and its implementation creates:

2a) Discussion about trans topics is not possible:

This one if very obvious and the intended consequence of the rule. Topics about trans people can no longer be discussed and people can no longer have their views about trans people changed. Though unfortunate, this has obviously been taken into consideration and was considered a worthwhile sacrifice to improve how well the subreddit can be moderated.

2b) Trans users feel less welcome on the sub and will stop using it.

Having a "don't ask don't tell" policy will obviously make the people that are no longer allowed to mention a major characteristic of themselves feel unwelcome. From the comments on this issue it would seem that moderators are significantly underestimating how severely unwelcome trans people are on the subreddit now. I've seen moderators argue that this is not the case because trans people can have opinions that don't rely on them being trans, but I think that argument completely misses the point of the atmosphere a blanket ban of your identity creates and though well intentioned comes off as tonedeaf to a failing of the implementation of the rule.

2c) Any active trans user still present will be unable to properly participate in the sub.

Elaborating on the argument mentioned before, being trans in modern society influences a significant part of a person's life. It completely changes the people you can interact with, the way strangers treat you and the events and organisations you can participate in. Because of this, the fact someone is trans can have large and sometimes unexpected effects on the arguments they can offer up in a discussion. With the current rule implementation, any trans person still on the sub will be severely neutered in how they can interact with posts and other users.

2d) Any subject that could profit from either the perspective of a trans person or the mention of trans people has the quality of the discussion significantly degraded.

Aside from this ruling influencing trans people, it also significantly influences the quality of discussion that can be had about other subjects. Any discussion involving sexual education, sexuality, gender norms and other topics that are only tangentially related to gender, will be lacking significant parts of their discussion due to the rule's implementation. This won't just affect the contribution of trans users, but of any user who interacts with trans people or is knowledgeable about trans people and wants to share views that could be valuable in a discussion.

To summarize, all 4 of these reasons go directly against the subreddit goal of providing an open platform for civil discussion. Point 2a bans certain discussions from taking place. Point 2b reduces the number of perspectives that will participate in the discussion due to the subreddit creating a hostile environment. Point 2c means that certain users will be more limited than others in which arguments and experiences they are allowed to bring into a discussion. Point 2d shows that the ruling also reduces the value of the subreddit for far more subjects that just subjects directly involving what has been banned.

Potential improvements to the current rule and its implementation

In a perfect world the solution would be having a moderator review every post and comment and manually check whether these abide by the letter and spirit of the subreddit rules. Of course this is not feasible, so let's look at some points that another moderator mentioned a solution needs to take into account:

3a) "The solution must be implementable with our current small moderation team. When we do moderation drives, we usually get about 3-10 applications, and most of them are people who are interested in pushing an agenda or are blatantly unqualified. We don't have a way of getting more moderators. Any solution that requires more moderation work is impossible to implement."

3b) "The solution must make trans folks feel welcome without harming our credibility as a neutral subreddit. If we are seen as taking a side on an issue, our entire mission and reason for existence is null and void."

3c) "If the solution involves lifting the ban, then there must be a way to productively discuss the topic and allow transphobic people who might be questioning their views to air their problematic positions without fear of reprisal from either us or Reddit administration. Otherwise, what is the point of allowing the topic at all?"

3a is a very clear and reasonable requirement that from moderator comments also seems to be the main reason that the rule exists in the form it does right now.

3b I think is significantly weaker as it seem to assume that making trans people feel so unwelcome that they stop interacting with the subreddit is a neutral position. However, it does touch upon the fact that the moderators do not consider banning transphobia to be a solution as it would be more actively taking a side, rather than more passively removing one side from the equation.

3c synergises beautifully with the first to create a very difficult problem. This point also highlights way more rationally and clearly why the moderators consider banning transphobia to be against the spirit of the subreddit. Unlike the previous point which tries to convey the same message but instead comes of as trying to take a moral high ground over any critics of the rule as it is.

So taking these things into consideration, I would propose the following improvements which can be combined, but also implemented separately.

Solution 1 (easy and realistic):

Having moderated a very controversial subreddit, I have noticed a kind of shock therapy effect on a reddit community when strict rules are implemented and very strictly enforced. The effect is that if the rules are relaxed somewhat afterwards, most problematic users have left and won't return unless something draws their attention back to the community.

Additionally, most of the problems created by the current rule and implementation are not actually cause by the rule itself, but by the automod and the implementation of the rule on comments as well as posts.

For these two reasons I believe it might be beneficial to remove the automoderation of trans related comments to see if the problematic behavior has calmed down since the point it started and if the "shock therapy" has worked. After all, the behavior started suddenly so it is not unreasonable to consider the possibility of it dying down again. Just by implementing this change it would satisfy requirements 3b, while solving problems 1b, 1c, 2b, 2c and 2d. If the shock therapy worked and the behavior has died down, then it would also satisfy point 3a and thus solve problem 1a.

This solution is not a replacement of the current rule and would require almost no adjustments. The downside is that this would still make posts about trans people banned, but it would do so with far less collateral damage than it is doing now.

Solution 2 (harder follow-up to 1 and risky):

This would be an ideal scenario where the previous solution works exactly as intended. If the moderators want to take a large risk, they could at that point consider very slowly removing the rule and seeing if CMV posts about transgender topics work again like they used to before the problematic times.

This solution would however be high risk as it could undo any gains made by the previous solution if it goes wrong.

Solution 3 (more difficult to implement but complete):

The final solution I will propose is to designate a single day each week, or a few days each month, where trans related topics are allowed alongside other topics. This could even be done without a regular interval, but just on certain days when the moderators have time and feel like it to reduce brigading and have mainly regular users participate.

This could be combined with solution one to solve all problems I presented, or it could be done with the current system which would partially solve most of the problem.

( Not really a solution, but a bandaid (trivial to implement but only solves one issue partially): Have automod send mod mails rather than place mod comments when removing a comment for breaking the "don't say trans" rule. This doesn't actually solve anything, but it very slightly improves how hostile the sub feels for trans users by not having constant mod comments reminding them that they are not welcome. )

Conclusion

First I would like to sincerely apologise for the length of this post and the fact that it is ANOTHER post about the don't say trans rule. However, I believe what I included might help non moderators and myself get a more complete picture of the situation, the problems and what needs to be addressed.

To summarise, I have presented the problem that the current rule seeks to solve and the ways in which it either fails to do so or conflicts directly with the stated subreddit goals. I have presented 3 solutions that I believe could be an improvement over the current status quo with limited extra effort on the moderation team's part.

I would like to invite other users as well to share their thoughts about how to improve the current ruling if the solutions I presented here do not work. I strongly believe that the current rule implementation conflicts sufficiently with the stated goals of the subreddit that it should be considered unacceptable as the status quo. Comments and question are of course very welcome and I will gladly elaborate on any of the points I have made in this text.

The rule that posts are able to be deleted if two moderators agree that the poster's not flexible about having his/her view changed is too draconian.

I have had two posts deleted on important subjects that had dozens of comments to which I had responded. I was involved in active and productive dialogue with some of these commenters and then went to sleep, with the post being deleted.

A two-moderator consensus isn't a reliable one. Many famous academic breakthroughs have first been rejected by dozens of editors (let alone two).

It's very arbitrary deciding whether a poster's open to having his/her view changed. There are no clear guidelines. And when the post gets deleted, there are no examples given of infractions in the comments.

While I can absolutely understand not wanting to debate about trans people due to topic fatigue, instead it is far overreaching in that you cannot even state that trans people exist, or reference them in any ways even when they are relevant to the topic at hand.

I particularly would like to point out the ridiculousness of the statement in point 3:

3. Any guidance we might have been able to cobble together would have been overwhelmingly pro-transgender. That would be us putting a massive thumb on the scale for the issue, which is pretty counter to the purpose of CMV and our role as mods.

By wanting to avoid the appearance of being pro-transgender in your policy you instead take on an appearance of being overwhelmingly anti-transgender by removing any and all reference to people's existence from the sub no matter how relevant it might be to the discussion.

This policy should only be applied to original posts and not to comments as it removes the ability for people to even attempt to sway people's minds if their argument involves trans people in any way at all.

This does incredible harm and makes the community one that I am no longer proud to be a part of since learning of this. Not being able to even speak about experiences or the facts of the current political climate makes these discussions meaningless as it is impossible to debate properly when large portions of personal experience are against the rules simply for existing.

I've had two popular posts removed this week for Rule E violation. I answered a lot of people's arguments within the first three hours but, a lot of the time, the arguments were complex or challenging and I didn't have an immediate response.

At the very least, word count or number of replies would be useful.

I want to contribute meaningfully but, without time to think, that just can't happen.

I'll paste at the end the exact same text that was deleted due to breaking the Rule D.

I don't think I refered the sub directly and even if I need refer the sub it doesn't necessarily breaks the Rule D. My main topic was about the users and their arguments, and how cheap or easy is to blame the phrase construction in detriment of trying to effectively change someone's view. A lot of answer are just pointing errors and trying to nitpick some error from OP's answers to try to invalidate the question and I think this is not the purpose of the sub. It's easy to catch lots of answer like this and I think it's cheap argumentation, but I'm talking about the people and their answers and not about the sub itself. It we can't refer the sub to make a point then a lot of themes can be deleted by mistake.

I understand it's hard for the mods to moderate topics about the sub or themselves, self judging isn't easy. But the question/critic wasn't aiming the sub.

"""I am here again trying to bring a different topic to discuss. Lately I'm seeing a lot of people using a similar strategy to "win" the argumentation here: attack the way to question was written. And not touching the subject at all.

At first this seems a good strategy, I could pick a word OP used incorrectly and argue that this usage invalidates the question, or is semantically wrong and whatever. But seems like a pretty cheap way to win the argument. This isn't a jury trial, we are not necessarily trying to break the OP's point, but sometimes trying to bring other points to the table. To change someone's view, you gotta, well... change the view!! Invalidating the question doesn't even touch the main topic itself, why so many people uses this strategy and thinks it is valid to change someone's view?

Invalidating the question is kinda childish too, like a kid that keeps asking "why?" after every answer you give until you give up and they think they won. In my view, this sub doesn't work this way and I'm seeing this A LOT. Cherry picking words and correcting the true meaning of some word or expression even tho there are lot of non-native English speakers here is, at least, gatekeeping too. If the question is written well enough to be understood, then the answer must relate to the topic, and not the choices of word or semantics.

Idk if I'm on the wrong here and interpreted this sub wrongly but I really think this isn't the way to change someone's view. But I see so many arguments using this strategy that I genuinily think that maybe I need someone to explain it to me and CMV."""

It's annoying when my comment gets removed because I mentioned the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

I've seen quite a few post that are pro-suicide, and its always someone contemplating ending their own life. While that's terrible, and they need help r/cmv is not the appropriate place for these kinds of post.

I've come to realize that every conversation even with the rule following people is a toxic one that serves as nothing but bait for me. Every reply I've gotten has been nothing but a stereotype of a smugly controversial gender war debate bro dragging in made up statistics quoted from youtube or a stereotype of the worst kind of sophist online debate kid. "[Um ackshully] your cited sources are just anecdotes. men (correctly) aren't wary of strangers, unlike women" ... when the entire point of the thread was the op claiming there never has been any evidence of women murdered for turning down a man.

The blind way rules are enforced to platform commenters to harass every single good faith commenter with thinly veiled collection of misinformation and demeaning "opinions", regardless of how consistently bad faith, empowers the worst kind of people who just say things to rile people up under every single seriously thought out response.

I don't feel empowered to do anything except get baited into "logical debates" with people who feel empowered to be illogical no matter how many times they use their facade of engaging fairly to launder in misinformation. Pointing out their behavior is unfathomable but them implying serious issues that lose lives aren't real is protected and commented as a reply to every single person trying to be reasonable. It's a worthless and exhausting endeavor and endless stream of rage-bait in my feed, with the engagement being those least likely to change their minds of any similar sub: Every time I put in effort to put forward a comprehensive proof of why their misinformation is wrong, there's no actual engagement. That much is clear when I've gotten just tagged in other subs where they went because they weren't happy with being unable to smugly write off my reasoning. The majority of engagement on the sub is people outright undermining every conversation with attempts at misinformation or just outright demeaning "opinions." That much is clear when I got misinformation reply + blocked on a post I spent an hour putting together the statistics for. Commenters engaging in bad faith under every single good meaning reply has driven me out of wanting to engage evenly or at all.

There's nothing here for me except an oversized proportion of smug debate culture people who enjoy frustrating others into breaking rules and laundering their selfish and hateful misinformation and opinions. I've changed more minds outright flaming the same fake debate bros mid evidence on more toxic websites. So for my sanity, I'm just going to stop commenting. I'd hate to waste my life engaging with posters and commenters who hide behind rules to be empowered in their hate.

After the topic ban i feel like trans people are effectively banned from posting? Most people's views are shaped by their lived experiences, including trans people.

A woman might have different views regarding street harassment for example.

Examples:

A trans man posts :CMV men have it hard at (thing) these days

Women comment: you don't know what it's like for women.

How is this person supposed to respond in good faith? "I know what it's like though". That of coarse that requires explanation, "well because i used to live it" banned for mentioning they are trans, "i can't say because of the sub rules" alludes to the topic so banned, so he can't respond which means he isn't engaging with responses in good faith, banned again for breaking rules. Are they supposed to lie and make something up?

This bleeds into almost every topic making it impossible for trans people to post.

Another example:

CMV: Women's (commodity) better than men's (commodity)

Comment asks: How would you know? Either you get your post gets removed for not engaging in good faith or you get removed for responding with your lived experience in good faith on why you do know. The majority of non-hypothetical and philosophical CMV's i could come up with effectively ban trans people from posting and participating.

How are trans people supposed to participate, especially make posts, in good faith and according to the rules? Atm it feels like simply existing as a trans person with a view you want to be changed already breaks the rules which feels ridiculous. I'd like some clarification.

kind of a re-iteration of another recent thread of here but i think its a seperate discussion

im mostly a reader and not a poster but its become pretty clear that theres a pattern of reactionaries using cmv to air their (often at least borderline hateful) views. this is technically against the rules but the way that rule B is inherently reactive means that a post needs to sit for an extended period of time and get a not-insignificant amount of engagement to be removed.

likewise, you can accrue a decent number of rule b removals before actually catching a ban. you can basically spew a bunch of bile about women all being evil or whatever, people are forced to respond in good faith and hundreds of people will have read it before its gone.

cmv staff need to weigh up the harm theyre doing by facilitating this kind of behaviour with the value of taking an absolutist stance on the sub's values (that have already been compromised, for better or worse, with the trans ban).

i dont have a specific take on how this should be addressed. realistically i think its best to expand the banned topics list to include a broader variety of regressive views, especially the ones that are posted on cooldown that are routinely rule B removed. id suggest collecting data on the delta/ruleb rate of certain common topics and considering what value is being brought by them.

I wondering when a post gets removed for rules violations when, if at all, it's allowed to be reposted?

I know there's an appeal process but does that change the circumstances of reposting?

And does a post being removed contribute to the 24 hour topic limitation rule? Hypothetically, if the a thread about the best type of sail boat gets removed, does the topic of sail boats then open again for that day or not?

I recently had an unsatisfying interaction with the CMV mods. I believe the interactions shows that Rule 3 is too broad and vague for mods to apply fairly and consistently. The background:

1. User posts an unhinged conspiratorial rant to CMV that falls short of guidelines.

2. Multiple users point to the post's shortcomings.

3. Mods issue Rule 3 strikes against multiple users.

4. Mods agree with critics that post doesn't comply and removes it.

5. Appeals to revoke the strikes are fruitless, per the following comment to appellant:

"The rules wiki - which you were asked to read prior to starting this appeal - specifically says that being right is not an excuse for breaking our rules."

This mod comment sheds light on the need to revise Rule 3. An honest criticism of a post that violates CMV guidelines cannot be judged as "rude" by any reasonable person. For example, a comment to the effect of "the most is simply a rant, not a CMV" is not rude, it's insightful. The fact that such comments lead mods to remove the post is confirmation that user criticisms are constructive rather than simply rude.

President Biden gave a poor performance in the recent presidential debate. A number of people pointed out that the performance was weak and bad, and members of his party have asked him to step down. These criticisms are not rude, they're constructive.

It appears that mods have a hard time distinguishing constructive criticism from rudeness. To help them reach a correct analysis, it would be wise to revise the rule such that "Being right is a defense against the charge of rudeness in the case where subsequent moderation actions align with the criticism levied in comments judged rude."

You have to ask yourself what's more important, preserving an atmosphere of lively and generally constructive debate or empowering mods to make rash, self-aggrandizing decisions in matters of no consequence. The offending post and all of the comments made to it have been removed from CMV. The strikes - whether legitimate or erroneous - also need to be removed.

This is simple consistency.

I don't know about any of y'all, but I enjoy reading through CMV posts that have deltas so I can see how someone's mind has been changed and the discussion(s) that led to said change. I often use r/deltalog to quickly find comments that received deltas so that I don't have to manually search for them, the convenience is really nice. So you can imagine how frustrating it is to visit r/deltalog, find a topic that piques my interest, only to discover that the entire post has been deleted. The comments reference points that I can't see, so it renders the conversation confusing and ultimately pointless to read through. I know r/AITA copy-pastes the text of posts in the comments so that people can read the story even if the op deletes their account/gets banned/what have you. Maybe a similar system could be implemented here? Either that or delete the corresponding r/deltalog post whenever the op is no longer available. That way the posts that ARE there can be read in full with all the context required. Hope this doesn't come off as too ranty or demanding, I really don't intend it to be, I just wanted to share an idea I've had for a while now

this was taken down from r/cmv, so im copy pasting it here

tl;dr: I'm open to this view changing

I try not to open my mouth if I don't know what I'm talking about, and I will research everything I say. Admittedly I'll say something I only half remember, and then research it only after having said something. However, if my own research has proved me wrong, I will return to that person (ive even done this months later) and tell them that I am wrong.

I do not come by my stances half-heartedly. I also have a bachelors of science degree (okay, technically ill have it at my graduation ceremony in october, but ive got credits), and so I have spent the last half of the decade learning how to falsify and test information for accuracy and precision.

I made an offhand comment on a post on tumblr, and someone replied with [citation needed]. I spent the next five hours writing an essay citing a half dozen journals backing up my claims. It was a fun afternoon; everything I claimed was also true.

I don't want to post here because I genuinely think the most likely outcome of any post will result in never awarding any delta's because if I'm confident enough to share my view, then im confident enough to defend it. More to the point, I think this will cause people to think I am being a poor sport, and will think I am acting in bad faith/will not interact with me because they dont want to "lose" (i dont see it that way, but I know that others do). The only outcomes I can really see is people either arguing against me as a person rather than my view, or accusing me of acting in bad faith because I know what I'm talking about, and they dont.

So, change my view: this place is only an echochamber of people who think its impossible to actually be right on something

I was on this thread yesterday which was completely chatGPT generated. It got taken down quickly, originally for Rule B, but then a mod added this note:

We have restricted the use of LLMs/ChatGPT on the CMV Subreddit. This post has been removed as a result. We typically use detectors but in this case it was unnecessary.

A lot of folks who regularly post in the sub have expressed frustration with the growing use of chatGPT and similar LLMs as we come to interact with other people. I think it just generates spam and degrades the quality of the sub as people are lazily relying on a machine to do their thinking for them.

What is the sub's policy moving forward for posts AND comments that use it?

Personally, I think it should be banned almost entirely with incredibly small exceptions.

It seems like every CMV I have recently participated in has been removed by the OP. A bunch of people, myself included, type up detailed replies—and the OP just quietly wipes their entire thread. Sometimes the OP defends their view across a few replies and then, when it's become obvious that their view is unsustainable, deletes the thread. It's not a big deal, but it seems to defeat the purpose of the sub, on top of being mildly annoying and somewhat discouraging.

It feels like posting on a debate sub rather than one about people practicing open-mindedness—not so much "change my view" as "this is what I believe, fight me!"

Everyone has the right to the privacy of their posts, but doesn't quietly removing threads go against the spirit of CMV—and, if so, shouldn't it be penalized on CMV? A ban (perhaps temporary) seems like an appropriate penalty for someone who posts a CMV, reads the replies, realizes their view was wrong all along—and just deletes the thread.

Has this been discussed before? Is there a reason there is no rule against this?

On r/changemyview, there is a pattern of people taking individual statements from the title or some part of the body and interpreting it in a way that quite clearly was not what the OP intended, but "technically" means what they interpreted. I don't like this trend, but at this point, I've accepted it as a social norm.

The issue I'm discussing in this post is a symptom of said norm. Subjective views posted on the community are misinterpreted almost every time, and it's unclear if they're even allowed.

Imagine someone posts "CMV: Apples are Delicious" with the intention that they want their food tastes changed for some reason (maybe this isn't plausible, but I think it illustrates my point well). A commenter interprets this as a statement that apples are objectively good tasting, which is obviously wrong, as some people don't like apples. Therefore, they engage with the subjectivity of the view instead of the OP's reasonings for holding it. They might say, "Not everyone likes apples, so the true view here is 'I think apples are delicious.'."

Now imagine a post titled "CMV: I Think Apples are Delicious" with the same intention. In this case, the poster explicitly states that their view is subjective, but another problem arises. A commenter might interpret a request to change this view as "Gaslight me. Convince me I don't actually think this, and you, a complete stranger, know my thoughts better than I do." This task is effectively impossible, so the commenter replies, "I can't do that. What's the purpose of this post?"

In both cases, the OP's reasoning—what actually led them to hold the view—is inconsequential because both of these arguments attack the viewpoint's premise instead of the details of why it is held. It's as if every viewer forces themselves to interpret stated viewpoints as objective statements, like subjective statements aren't allowed.

Yet, nothing I see in the rules indicates this kind of post isn't allowed. The title "Change my View" suggests that any viewpoint should be acceptable as long as it's genuinely held, subjective or not.

I feel that the official position on this needs to be made. If it's not allowed, create a rule that users can use to report violations. If it is permitted, create some kind of announcement informing people of this kind of post and its purpose or add a tag (maybe by prefixing your title with "[Subjective]") that causes the automoderator or some other bot to reply with a statement that advises people not to interpret the post as an objective statement as I previously demonstrated.