I will start off by saying this is not an attempt to smear RationalMadman's character, or to hurt/ dig at him in the slightest. This is purely an argument, a very compelling one mind you, about why I think his campaign is damaging to the website as whole.
First, what is the exact role of the president? What are we trying to accomplish here? Let's take it straight from the horses mouth shall we?
"While not a moderating role, the President does retain limited powers with their position, including:
- The ability to communicate within a moderation team chat (via Discord) in order to give input on all forms of daily decision-making. Except when completely untenable, the mod team will strive to ensure the President’s viewpoint is heard and honored.
- The ability to approve or veto permanent ban propositions. Moderation will be required to submit permanent ban propositions to the President for review unless the user in question is a bot or advertising account, the situation is uniquely urgent or severe, the President is absent and/or unreasonably tardy, or the permanent ban proposition targets the President themselves. Vetos may be overridden by a simple majority vote among the moderation team.
- The ability to envision and execute community events, pending the approval and assistance of moderation."
A role that directly impacts how moderators function is pretty important. The first bullet point here talks about just a general ability to communicate with the mods. I suppose you have that same avenue through messages so no big whoop. But that second bullet point there, that's where this gets real. Having the ability to say "yes or no" to a ban is an absolutely insane thing to allow a member like rationalmadman to do, especially when given his statements in his campaign thread.
"As somebody who both personally and, by observing others, has both felt and seen the impacts of harassment, I would use any sway I had as president to push the mods to respect and notice interactions that drive people off of the website or alternatively drive them to act more hostile.
There is this idea that 'special snowflakes' should just suck it up and toughen up but this is a website we use to pass the time with many intellectuals on it who have unique sensitivities and often were bullied IRL and teased for their odd ways. It's not an ordinary person who comes to a debate website, that just isn't the niche market this goes for."
RationalMadman has a mentality towards "bullies" that is absolutely insane by the way. I tried having a discussion with rationalmadman some months back about the movie "Borat" where I was told by RM that the actor who played Borat (Sacha Baron Cohen) was a bully, and a horrible person because he pulls public pranks at others expenses and doesn't inform them of the prank (obviously that would undermine the very idea of the prank). In having a conversation with him about this and trying to get him to see how absurd the idea that this guy is the anti-christ because of a prank, RationalMadman proceeded to lump me into the same "evil person" category and subsequenty blocked me and left the discord. I was flabbergasted by this. I was honestly attempting to debate and discuss an issue with him, and was called a bully and blocked.
This is just one example of many on this website where RationalMadman gets carried away with the use of the term "bully".
Here is an example of RM being bullied because someone dislikes an anime character he likes.
But it's important to understand his worldview of bullying. If he views something as offensive, and you dis-agree with him that said thing is offensive, you are automatically to be silenced, or cancelled. He is cancel culture personified. Cancel culture and people who view the world through a "right to be offended by everything lens" is the problem with society. Comedians can't tell a joke without offending someone. You can't make a star wars or ghost buster movie with out a strong powerful female lead or you are a misogynist. The same rhetoric we see every day is caused by people with the same world view as RationalMadman.
This all becomes extremely important when you realize how much this role actually has to do with moderation. Overt moderation has already been a problem on this site from the beginning of this websites birth. I've made multiple threads explaining why this is so over the past few years, and its really the only issue I see that prevents this site from growing. Now wylted is also someone I actively campaigned against on DDO when he ran last, however DDO has very different circumstances than DART has with moderation. Moderation of DDO (Airmax) was very laissez faire style. Moderation was not DDO's issue at the time. Moderation is however DART's only issue. How can we have an active thriving community when our most vocal members that encourage debate and discourse are constantly being banned or in fear of being banned because someone else has the right to feel offended by something that was said?
If we never discuss or debate controversial issues, ingorance will remain and persist. The only way to triumph over inorance is to prove ignorance wrong. You may not change the mind of the ignoramus themselves, but by wining a debate against them you are proving to the world that you provided the better argument. People who may be leaning on the side of the ignorant party are more likely to look upon your debate or discussion and be convinced by your side if you debated well. Silencing people does not do this. Silencing people and over punishing people for offensive opinions is the EXACT opposite of what should be encouraged on a website that brags to be about debate.
Now if you feel offended by something, you have a very nifty block tool. Personally speaking, blocking is a weak move for a "debater" but in circumstances where you feel someone is going out of there way to harass you in a real way, blocking is the perfect tool to combat that. Why should we need any more moderation than involved than that? Can we simply choose not to avoid interacting with or viewing a persons posts we find distasteful?
My point is this: The risk to voting rationalmadman is that he can veto moderation decisions even in cases where more leniency could be an option. And you can bet your ass that he will, because RM has actively advocated heavier bans and punishments from the mods in almost every situation excluding the ban of himself. Call it narccissistic if you want. Call it what it is.
But the harm to voting wylted? Virtually doesn't exist. Wylted is all about freedom of speech. The dude has said some of the more controversial things on the site. Whether his motives are secretly to "stir the pot" or to actually cause discussion or discourse are not for us to decide. We should be encouraging people however to respond the things like that logically if we are to call this a debate site. We have our own tools to block those that offend us and ignore them.
So in the end, there is massive harm potential from RationalMadman as president VS wylted in regards to the position and its pull on moderation. Anyone can host a debate tournament of their own time. I am all for community engangement, but at the cost of freedom of speech it's simply not worth having RM as president for a little debate tournament. I have theories that this move for president has more narcissistic motivators for both parties than it does for actual community development, so if this is a "pick a lesser of two evils situation" than voting for Wylted is definitely the move here based on the actual harm RationalMadman can actually cause to this community and people who take this website serious enough past the age of 16.
