Why is revleft so authoritarian?

[Tim Cornelis]

Why is revleft so authoritarian*?

If you go to an old thread, sometimes even half the members are banned. If you say something that might, with some mental gymnastics, be interpreted as offensive, you are immediately banned or restricted. If you make a number of somewhat humurous posts, you are banned for trolling.

Restrictions ought to serve to prevent each and every discussion derailing into a "socialism vs. capitalism" discussion, not to show that certain opinions are wrong (as it is used now on revleft).

The last "purge"--when intelligent and/or undoubtedly revolutionary leftist members were banned--it was due to them criticising revleft (or rather the Board Administration) on another forum. Rather than rebut these criticisms, these people were banned, thereby exactly raising suspicion that these criticisms were accurate (criticism included using restrictions and banning people you personally don't like).

Since this is an internet forum, and not a social institution, I don't really care that much but still I want to point out: BA, you're doing a terrible job.

*By authoritarian, here, I mean something like 'strict enforcement of obedience'.

[Sasha]

we ban people for sexism, racism, homphobia and repeated trolling, hardly something suprising on a rev-leftist message board.
its a sad matter of fact though (not only here but on every part of the internets) that the most fanatic users always find it very hard to leave on their own when they grow bored, so a lot of users get banned on request (which is fine by me) but even more perform "suicide by admin" (which is really pathetic if you ask me).
in general i would say we have a pretty relaxed BA team, sure we are only human and once i a while when the constant moaning by those who feel 100% entitled but in general do jack shit to keep this board running gets to much someone flips out an gets a bit trigger happy but again, i know message boards that fare a lot worse. My 3 year epic troll account on strormfront is for one still not banned... :D

[Tim Cornelis]

we ban people for sexism, racism, homphobia and repeated trolling, hardly something suprising on a rev-leftist message board.
its a sad matter of fact though (not only here but on every part of the internets) that the most fanatic users always find it very hard to leave on their own when they grow bored, so a lot of users get banned on request (which is fine by me) but even more perform "suicide by admin" (which is really pathetic if you ask me).
in general i would say we have a pretty relaxed BA team, sure we are only human and once i a while when the constant moaning by those who feel 100% entitled but in general do jack shit to keep this board running gets to much someone flips out an gets a bit trigger happy but again, i know message boards that fare a lot worse. My 3 year epic troll account on strormfront is for one still not banned... :D

So it's completely coincidental that all members who criticised relveft and its BA on another forum were almost immediately banned after they did so? And it's also completely coincidental that when a member of revleft started a thread where he confusingly inquired why these long-time members were banned, that this was the last thing he did on this forum as he was immediately banned afterwards? (And also the thread being closed without any answer or reply).

http://www.revleft.com/vb/why-were-broletariat-t165902/index.html?p=2321415#post2321415

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

You are criticizing them right now, but you aren't banned.
Although I do agree that some people have been banned for ,in my opinion, bad reasons.

[Karabin]

Nobody was banned, they were just sent on temporary vacation.

[Sasha]

So it's completely coincidental that all members who criticised relveft and its BA on another forum were almost immediately banned after they did so? And it's also completely coincidental that when a member of revleft started a thread where he confusingly inquired why these long-time members were banned, that this was the last thing he did on this forum as he was immediately banned afterwards? (And also the thread being closed without any answer or reply).

http://www.revleft.com/vb/why-were-broletariat-t165902/index.html?p=2321415#post2321415

i'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are not familair with the facts of that there was this thing with outing the irl info of other members here, attemps to hack the board, knowingly facilitate the pressence of fascists here and other quite serious breaches of security culture, attempts at blackmail with said personal info etc etc..
again, once in a while individuals or groups (who in general never lifted a finger for this board) throw hysteric fits about "ze evil adminz" and go on a "make me a martyr" rampage, where people start rampages there might be some regretable colleteral dammage, if so we in general try to fix it.
but you know, we have lives outside this board to, we are active IRL, we might prefer to devate our limited time and energy to keeping this board running for those who want to learn and discuss about revolutionary pollitics and not those who at the minimum see this as a personal "anything goes" playground and at the worst as a substitude for real life..

[Book O'Dead]

Evident sexism, racism and homophobia are sound reason for banning people from a forum like this but I have a problem with some mods using what I think is the loosely defined accusation of trolling to silence posters.

For example, a day or two ago I was accused by one moderator of trolling and threatened with a verbal warning, all because I stated my objections to a specific Marxian doctrine and was trying to advance an alternative idea.

I think that sometimes people use this vague accusation when they're offended or confused by someone's contrasting political opinion. In the short time that I've been here I've seen this happen more than once.

You have to admit though, that finding and selecting moderators is not an easy thing, especially for a website that invites a multiplicity of controversial viewpoints. And because of that they select moderators who turn out to be either ignorant, intolerant or have become egotistic as a result of their new status.

I just wish that the question of trolling were better defined so as to avoid throwing people out simply because they don't know how to better express their opinions.

One last thing. I really feel that gratuitous sectarian attacks are tolerated here when they ought not to be. After all, I presume that the point of Revleft is to create a viable internet space in which to bring communists together for the purpose of overthrowing our common enemy: Capitalism.

[Ocean Seal]

One thing which I am unwilling to get past is the fact that so many people were involved in some sort of conspiracy against the board during the great purge.

[milkmiku]

Don't forget the restrictions for crossing some invisible social line, that false accusations and out of context quotes can be used to silence some one. I've seen quite a few people here restricted for vague reason, myself withstanding, "not a revolutionary leftist" hehe.

A simply, defined rule set could fix this, but then you'd not be able to ban or restrict people you disagree with.

Hey at least there isn't a "do not criticize the site staff or guidelines" rule some sites have.

[milkmiku]

You have to admit though, that finding and selecting moderators is not an easy thing, especially for a website that invites a multiplicity of controversial viewpoints. And because of that they select moderators who turn out to be either ignorant, intolerant or have become egotistic as a result of their new status.


Most IBBS and freesites I visit have very strict moderator guidelines. I.E. you're only task is to enforce the rules, nothing more, nothing less.

[Hit The North]

Why is this discussion taking place in OI?

[The Cheshire Cat]

What I have always wondered, is why we don't vote about our admin's. Kind of Spanish Civil War militia style :). They chose their militia captains, because it is more fair. The morst fair would be voting about everything, but that would ofcourse be way too much trouble. We would be voting here all day long.

But I do not understand why we do not choose our admin's. As soon there is need for one more admin, the other admins could send a message to everyone. The people with certain qualities, like a reputation over 500 or whatever, could then volunteer for being an admin. Then the other admins could send a second message, or just start a new thread, with a poll with the names of the candidates. That way everyone could just click on their names, watch their posts etc. and decide who they want as an admin. And the one with the most votes wins. It seems fair to me this way.

There should also be a way to vote an admin away. This way, a new admin that appears to be a troll or extremely anti-Stalin, anti-Trotsky, anti-Anarchist etc., is not able to censor everything.

Just an idea though. I am not sure if this is even possible, but I think we could give it a try.

[Red Rabbit]

Why is this discussion taking place in OI?

I'm sure a few members that were unfairly restricted may have something to say.


What I have always wondered, is why we don't vote about our admin's. Kind of Spanish Civil War militia style :). They chose their militia captains, because it is more fair. The morst fair would be voting about everything, but that would ofcourse be way too much trouble. We would be voting here all day long.

But I do not understand why we do not choose our admin's. As soon there is need for one more admin, the other admins could send a message to everyone. The people with certain qualities, like a reputation over 500 or whatever, could then volunteer for being an admin. Then the other admins could send a second message, or just start a new thread, with a poll with the names of the candidates. That way everyone could just click on their names, watch their posts etc. and decide who they want as an admin. And the one with the most votes wins. It seems fair to me this way.

There should also be a way to vote an admin away. This way, a new admin that appears to be a troll or extremely anti-Stalin, anti-Trotsky, anti-Anarchist etc., is not able to censor everything.

Just an idea though. I am not sure if this is even possible, but I think we could give it a try.

I'm pretty sure the admins are happy with their oligarchy. Voting them in and out may ruin that. ;)

[Revolution starts with U]

I think this can be answered in 4 short words; this is private property.


And isn't this exactly what we would expect to happen in a private property environment? :lol:

(half joking)

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

As revolutionaries, I think we should overthrow the BA!



Jk (sort of), I do think a leftist forum should be run more in a leftist (Marxist-Leninist, of course) way. All power to the forum-soviets or something.

[Lynx]

It would be more authoritarian if admins were paid by commission.

[Art Vandelay]

While I am not as harsh on the BA as some people; the whole "fascist conspiracy" which happened before I joined (but I have heard about through other members) is frankly laughable. Anyone in the BA who uses that as an excuse is slashing their own credibility. I mean I don't know all the details, but I have a tough time believing that revolutionary leftists were knowingly inviting fascists on to revleft and such an accusation (if unsubstantiated) is a pretty low blow from the BA. Calling a leftist a fash is about as low as it gets and in my opinion should be a banable offence.

[Sasha]

What I have always wondered, is why we don't vote about our admin's. Kind of Spanish Civil War militia style :). They chose their militia captains, because it is more fair. The morst fair would be voting about everything, but that would ofcourse be way too much trouble. We would be voting here all day long.

But I do not understand why we do not choose our admin's. As soon there is need for one more admin, the other admins could send a message to everyone. The people with certain qualities, like a reputation over 500 or whatever, could then volunteer for being an admin. Then the other admins could send a second message, or just start a new thread, with a poll with the names of the candidates. That way everyone could just click on their names, watch their posts etc. and decide who they want as an admin. And the one with the most votes wins. It seems fair to me this way.

There should also be a way to vote an admin away. This way, a new admin that appears to be a troll or extremely anti-Stalin, anti-Trotsky, anti-Anarchist etc., is not able to censor everything.

Just an idea though. I am not sure if this is even possible, but I think we could give it a try.


As revolutionaries, I think we should overthrow the BA!



Jk (sort of), I do think a leftist forum should be run more in a leftist (Marxist-Leninist, of course) way. All power to the forum-soviets or something.

we used to have the CC, it was a bit like the CU but with actually descision making ability, they could vote on the mods and the mods in turn could repeal admins etc etc.
it was all a very intresting experiment but also a complete nightmare, users spend instead on the general board all their time in the CC trying to get their idealogical opponents banned, bickering over infractions they wanted overturned, plotting coups against the/certain mods/admins and if they ran them out refused to pick up the slack etc etc
in short, it was almost a real political organisations and enough to loose all hope for the revolution for eternity. :p

and it suck to have to say it but, if you dont like it, enough room on the internet to start your own forum and proof us wrong, but the fate of all "split" fora until now should be an indication its all very easy to know it better when your shouting from the sidelines, when you activily have to do it yourself reality catches up rather quickly. i guess our biggest "compatitor" is libcom who have a lot less trafic, a lot less users, who are a lot more idealogical homogenous and who (correct me if i'm wrong) have at least as little "board democracy" as we do.

now dont get me wrong, if you all chip in and pay me a fair salary i will gladly jump through all the hoops you place in front of me but i and everyone else are doing this completely volunteerly (in fact, the exploitation costs of running this site often exceed the revenue the ads provide which mean a few older admins/mods/CU's with steady jobs need to rerguarly chip in to keep the board affloat) so we have to pick how we spend our time and energy, we decided we want to be a accesable place where political n00bs can come and learn about revolutionary politics, news and history and a place for experienced people to network and hangout, but we also decided not be a experiment in revolutionary leftist online comunity pollitics, tried that, it was awsome for a while and then it went down in spectacular flames.

[PC LOAD LETTER]

While I am not as harsh on the BA as some people; the whole "fascist conspiracy" which happened before I joined (but I have heard about through other members) is frankly laughable. Anyone in the BA who uses that as an excuse is slashing their own credibility. I mean I don't know all the details, but I have a tough time believing that revolutionary leftists were knowingly inviting fascists on to revleft and such an accusation (if unsubstantiated) is a pretty low blow from the BA. Calling a leftist a fash is about as low as it gets and in my opinion should be a banable offence.
Also, the DDoS, whoever said there was a DDoS doesn't know what that is. There was no DDoS. The forum being "closed" is not a DDoS, the forum would have been completely inaccessible for days on end and receiving loads of traffic from, at the very least, thousands of PCs. Add that RevLeft is hosted in a datacenter owned by one of the oldest and most high-profile hosting companies in the US who are renowned for their ability to deal with DDoSes, makes it seem even more absurd. And yes, everything I just said is public information and is not in any way revealing something that someone cannot find out on their own in roughly 3.2 seconds.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

we used to have the CC, it was a bit like the CU but with actually descision making ability, they could vote on the mods and the mods in turn could repeal admins etc etc.
it was all a very intresting experiment but also a complete nightmare, users spend instead on the general board all their time in the CC trying to get their idealogical opponents banned, bickering over infractions they wanted overturned, plotting coups against the/certain mods/admins and if they ran them out refused to pick up the slack etc etc
in short, it was almost a real political organisations and enough to loose all hope for the revolution for eternity. :p

and it suck to have to say it but, if you dont like it, enough room on the internet to start your own forum and proof us wrong, but the fate of all "split" fora until now should be an indication its all very easy to know it better when your shouting from the sidelines, when you activily have to do it yourself reality catches up rather quickly. i guess our biggest "compatitor" is libcom who have a lot less trafic, a lot less users, who are a lot more idealogical homogenous and who (correct me if i'm wrong) have at least as little "board democracy" as we do.

now dont get me wrong, if you all chip in and pay me a fair salary i will gladly jump through all the hoops you place in front of me but i and everyone else are doing this completely volunteerly (in fact, the exploitation costs of running this site often exceed the revenue the ads provide which mean a few older admins/mods/CU's with steady jobs need to rerguarly chip in to keep the board affloat) so we have to pick how we spend our time and energy, we decided we want to be a accesable place where political n00bs can come and learn about revolutionary politics, news and history and a place for experienced people to network and hangout, but we also decided not be a experiment in revolutionary leftist online comunity pollitics, tried that, it was awsome for a while and then it went down in spectacular flames.

Already done for MLs, check my signature.
Shameless Self-Promotion.:lol:

Whatever it mistakes may be, this forum is really helpful for newer leftists to learn and for us commies to have debate, so I do think we got to give this forum a bit more credit.

[Sasha]

Also, the DDoS, whoever said there was a DDoS doesn't know what that is. There was no DDoS. The forum being "closed" is not a DDoS, the forum would have been completely inaccessible for days on end and receiving loads of traffic from, at the very least, thousands of PCs. Add that RevLeft is hosted in a datacenter owned by one of the oldest and most high-profile hosting companies in the US who are renowned for their ability to deal with DDoSes, makes it seem even more absurd. And yes, everything I just said is public information and is not in any way revealing something that someone cannot find out on their own in roughly 3.2 seconds.

then you should also know that the client has to foot the bill for the increased trafic, even if gets ddos'd, sure we /our host could deal technically with the ddos attack, we did so for several hours. we couldnt afford to financially though so we closed down the board and used the downtime to increase security.
but don't let me confuse you with the facts when your mind is all made up.

[Hit The North]

So from psycho's post above, I gather that RevLeft is meant to exist within a capitalist paradigm where democracy is too much of a hassle and accountability is a money relation.

Given that this is only a discussion site on the internet, but one based on a community of extreme democrats (communists and anarchists, baby), it is disappointing that it cannot be a site of prefigurative political relations where we experiment in forms of democratic accountability and free association.

[Sasha]

You might be.shocked to hear it but I and most BA members completly agree...
The conclusions one does draw from that are up to everyone themselves.
It didnt work our here.
It will not work out anywhere..
Powerhungry admins.
Take your pick...

[PC LOAD LETTER]

then you should also know that the client has to foot the bill for the increased trafic, even if gets ddos'd, sure we /our host could deal technically with the ddos attack, we did so for several hours. we couldnt afford to financially though so we closed down the board and used the downtime to increase security.
but don't let me confuse you with the facts when your mind is all made up.
Except simply closing the board still allows a DDoS to continue - it was publicly available on the internet, just with a "closed" message.

If bandwidth bills were a concern (and if there was, in fact, a DDoS) the server would have been taken offline completely until the attack stopped (which is one effect of a DDoS in the first place)

[Sasha]

hey, im not the tech monkey here, site was slow as fuck, we had a huge increase of traffic, host said we were getting ddos'd and needed to scale up or shut-down, good enough for me, maybe it was a very poor ddos attack maybe it was something else that the host for me being a idiot called a ddos so i would understand, who gives a fuck. people tried to take down the site and suceeded for a few days, thats a dick thing to do no matter how unjustly you feel your ban was (and very un-revolutionary leftists may i add)

[PC LOAD LETTER]

hey, im not the tech monkey here, site was slow as fuck, we had a huge increase of traffic, host said we were getting ddos'd and needed to scale up or shut-down, good enough for me, maybe it was a very poor ddos attack maybe it was something else that the host for me being a idiot called a ddos so i would understand, who gives a fuck. people tried to take down the site and suceeded for a few days, thats a dick thing to do no matter how unjustly you feel your ban was (and very un-revolutionary leftists may i add)
If there were some kind of DDoS (it sounds like if there was it was an extremely weak DDoS) there's no way to determine who was at the root of it without a huge investigation. The way it works is a network of computers are all directed at the same server at the same time ... determining A) who is legitimate traffic from who is a 'zombie' and B) who controls the zombie is extremely difficult. There are also non-zombie DDoSes ... like the Slashdot Effect
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slashdot_effect)
It could just as easily have been Vladimir Putin initiating a DDoS as a pimply-faced kid living in a tent in a cornfield who eats birds for sustenance while using a cantenna to access his neighbor's wireless network.

[Ostrinski]

Death to the treacherous enemies of the BA.

[Hit The North]

You might be.shocked to hear it but I and most BA members completly agree...
The conclusions one does draw from that are up to everyone themselves.
It didnt work our here.
It will not work out anywhere..
Powerhungry admins.
Take your pick...

But this is what we preach to the real world! If it can't be organised on a discussion forum in hyper space, then don't we come to a dire and pessimistic conclusion about the validity of our politics?

[Sasha]

If there were some kind of DDoS (it sounds like if there was it was an extremely weak DDoS) there's no way to determine who was at the root of it without a huge investigation. The way it works is a network of computers are all directed at the same server at the same time ... determining A) who is legitimate traffic from who is a 'zombie' and B) who controls the zombie is extremely difficult. There are also non-zombie DDoSes ... like the Slashdot Effect
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slashdot_effect)
It could just as easily have been Vladimir Putin initiating a DDoS as a pimply-faced kid living in a tent in a cornfield who eats birds for sustenance while using a cantenna to access his neighbor's wireless network.

sure, yet as far as i know neither putin nor "pimply-faced kid living in a tent in a cornfield who eats birds for sustenance while using a cantenna to access his neighbor's wireless network" threathend to take down the site in the days before the attacks happend, i assume it isnt very unreasonable to not hold putin nor pimply kid responsible for it...

[MEGAMANTROTSKY]

You might be.shocked to hear it but I and most BA members completly agree...
I apologize, but I doubt the truth of that statement. The unpleasant experience that I personally had with one of those mods some weeks ago, as well as seeing the terrible behavior of others towards dissenting posters in other threads says otherwise. Some of the staff, for instance, has a very warped concept of what "rape apologism" is, as well as erroneously determining who supports patriarchy and male privilege. Apparently it was such a problem that Hindsight had himself banned.

[Raúl Duke]

In the end realize, it's just the internet.

Sure, there's a dark side to the whole BA or whatever we're calling it.
All this talk of "more democracy, accountability" was tried and it was called the CC. They voted for the admins/mods and stuff.
It kinda worked...but had its own petty nature to it. It worked imperfectly, but as far as I remember things were running.
Ironically, the admins/mods at the time had it closed in some part of the petty nature of the CC but they themselves are not beyond pettiness and in fact part of the reason why that little experiment ended also included some pettiness on their side. I think most of it arose because people where taking the board way too seriously.

In the end, it's just the internet. Not serious business.

[Art Vandelay]

In the end realize, it's just the internet.

Sure, there's a dark side to the whole BA or whatever we're calling it.
All this talk of "more democracy, accountability" was tried and it was called the CC. They voted for the admins/mods and stuff.
It kinda worked...but had its own petty nature to it. It worked imperfectly, but as far as I remember things were running.
Ironically, the admins/mods at the time had it closed in some part of the petty nature of the CC but they themselves are not beyond pettiness and in fact part of the reason why that little experiment ended also included some pettiness on their side. I think most of it arose because people where taking the board way too seriously.

In the end, it's just the internet. Not serious business.

This, which is why I don't really give a shit; So far I have used revleft to talk to and meet some pretty cool people and to have some interesting chats (mostly off of the boards). But the whole fascist infiltration thing just seems....I don't know...a tad bit....ridiculous. (Hopes to not get banned.....jk BA).

[Conflict]

Most forums i have been a member of have been strict. The most liberal and fair when it comes to applying the rules is the politicalbuddies forum. It's a decent forum if you can put up with a few conservatives among the lefties.:D

[Positivist]

I think this can be answered in 4 short words; this is private property.


And isn't this exactly what we would expect to happen in a private property environment? :lol:

(half joking)

Does anyone else find it ironic when "revolutionary leftists" use the private property argument?

[hatzel]

Well yeah there might be one or two people (I'd never name names) who seem to handle things in a totally different way than I personally would. I think that whenever an obvious n00b leftist says something more in ignorance than malice and, rather than explaining to them why their comments (which may seem pretty innocuous to the general populace) are offensive, or suggesting that they take more care with their choice of words in future, they're just straight-up banned. It's stupid when that happens because it deprives people of the opportunity to learn why exactly seemingly harmless statements are in fact troublesome, and most would probably be perfectly receptive of this if it was explained to them, rather than expecting every kid who signs up to come equipped with an already infallible understanding of the smallest little details of every single mode of oppression (despite this site often being their first real opportunity to learn about this)

But there's no point in complaining because most people on here know to be cautious and step back from the line if they have any doubt whatsoever...and I'm not entirely sure I want more kids still in the process of learning the basics running around the boards saying the silly stuff they say. But that probably just means I'm an elitist scumbag with no sympathy whatsoever for the fledglings. Ah well, not to worry! Down with teenage boys...

[Martin Blank]

Personally, I think RevLeft is one of the least authoritarian forums on the Internet -- and I'm not saying that because I'm an admin.

As one person pointed out above, a lot of forums have a policy of banning people who disagree with the decisions of the Board Administration (admins and mods). I've been on those kinds of forums and I've seen good people knocked off of them for that reason. I've also seen people auto-banned on other forums for much less than it takes to get banned from here, and I don't know of many forums that have something like OI for people who disagree with the general political leanings of the forum to continue to interact with members.

As for the spinoff forums from RevLeft, I've actually found them to be more authoritarian than here. For example, I had been a member of R3dMarx for several months before its founding members were banned from here for various reasons. After they were banned, I was banned from R3dMarx for no reason except that I was an admin here. And it wasn't long after r3dMarx became the refuge for those who were banned from RevLeft that they began banning people at will for no good reasons. They followed the same path that the previous splinters from here did; all that really held them together was a shared hatred of the RevLeft BA, and once that was removed from the equation, they turned on each other.

As for the DDoS attack, we knew it was that because the people who did it announced their intentions to do it on another forum in advance! Since RevLeft runs on a cloud server, and scaling up, even for a short period of time, was going to be costly, we chose to close down and use that downtime to plug up some of the security holes in the forum software. That's why, when the forum went online again, everyone had to renew their passwords, why guest posting was finally eliminated, why moderation for new members was set, and why the content of certain administrative forums were shuffled around. All of this was explained in the BA statement posted when the forum went online again.

(And, for the record, the issue of the DDoS attack is separate from the whole R3dMarx thing. That they happened at the same time was more or less coincidental.)

As for the whole "member democracy" argument, as psycho pointed out, when we tried it in the past, it was tragicomic. By the time the CC ended up being permanently closed, it had devolved into virtual tribalism, with each political tendency looking for reasons to ban or restrict their political opponents. It wasn't democracy; it was "demockery". It was factionalism of the worst kind: petty personalism, whisper campaigns, juvenile cliquism, etc. Personally, I think a lot of it stemmed from a lot of immaturity, both political and personal. The CC, and Chit-Chat, were almost indistinguishable from the spider monkey cage at the zoo, with members flinging poo at each other just for the lulz. Thus, Malte, who set up RevLeft and was paying for its existence, decided to close down the CC. It was, in the end, a failed experiment. There may come a point when it looks like it could be tried again, but it won't be done without a lot of changes to the culture of RevLeft.

As psycho rightly put it, if you think you can make "forum democracy" actually work, then set up a new forum and test it out. But if you're going to do it, do it right: allow all political tendencies to be a part of the forum, including the ones who are hostile to your politics but also see themselves as part of the "revolutionary left"; let them decide which of you get to be mods and admins; let the specific forum where these issues are decided become the receptacle for everyone's complaints and drama, and take every issue raised seriously; finally, let people dismiss any of their socially-backward views as "just a joke" or "it's the Internet, don't take it seriously". If you can keep that going for five or six years without wanting to shut it down, then come back and tell us about your success.

[Raúl Duke]

As for the spinoff forums from RevLeft

I've been invited/seen 2 spin-off ones...
they tended to try and be more democratic.

but they died over-time due to weak numbers/mass.

[Manic Impressive]

all that really held them together was a shared hatred of the RevLeft BA, and once that was removed from the equation, they turned on each other.
your analysis is incorrect here at least in my case it was much more to do with the ideological hegemony with no Trotskyists and Stalinists to argue against it got pretty boring. So it was actual cases of sectarianism rather than arguing against state capitalists and reformists. For me as well there were irl reasons for why I stopped posting on the internet entirely.

What really pisses me off about the BA is the smug superiority complex which is sometimes exhibited. It seems as though you lot really think you're infallible. When it's clear that some bans are clearly due to personal issues and differences. There's also cases of double standards which are never addressed.

And before you say I'm wrong I am telling you this is how the BA comes across so I think it's worth taking the criticism on board and finding ways of changing how you are perceived rather than the usual tactic of outright dismissal on the grounds of thinking you are being victimized for taking on a hierarchical role.

[Hit The North]

I agree with Manic. Whatever the shortcomings of previous arrangements, what we have right now is rubbish. There is no accountability for decisions even though there are sometimes instances of admins or mods banning posters without presenting the proper evidence to support the action. So recently, comrade trollface has been banned for trolling on the basis that he was an "obvious troll" without showing evidence in his posts and my request for the evidence has been ignored; and some other poster has been banned (absurdly) for the "sexism" of using the word 'tits', except now I'm being told it was for other nefarious reasons that the mod in question cannot be arsed to link to, or even state in his justification for the ban.

[Devrim]

i guess our biggest "compatitor" is libcom who have a lot less trafic, a lot less users, who are a lot more idealogical homogenous and who (correct me if i'm wrong) have at least as little "board democracy" as we do.

I think that it is very different. There is no "board democracy" at all on Libcom, yet you almost never hear people there calling for it. This is probably because, in my opinion, Libcom is pretty well administered whereas RevLeft administration weaves a fine line between absurdity and farce.

I guess it has something to do with the evolution of both of the boards. Libcom was set up by a bunch of people who were involved together politically, and many of its posters are involved in the same sort of politics, and I would imagine that a fair proportion know them personally.

The current RevLeft administration evolved through the 'natural selection' process of the CC. The admins after they closed down the CC were the people who were interested enough to involve themselves in all of the infighting that went on their and rise to the top of it, people who had graduated, as it were, from the school of Internet bickering, clique forming, and banning. That taken into consideration, I think it is not surprising at all that the Board Administration behaves in the manner it does.

Devrim

[Jimmie Higgins]

But this is what we preach to the real world! If it can't be organised on a discussion forum in hyper space, then don't we come to a dire and pessimistic conclusion about the validity of our politics?We have no common interests other than a general political outlook and so the board is all just "ideas" and so "ideas" are the only thing to gain or loose and so reality is easily lost in the shuffle - the CC is a good example because if people are only arguing over ideas abstractly, then some will see the way to "win" this battle of ideas is to try and discredit or ban people they disagree with personally. I think it says more about the internet in capitalism than revolutionary ideology. What it says about revolutionary ideology? Maybe that we're small in number and many of us have little outlet for real activism or ways to engage in the class struggle. No big news there.


In the end, it's just the internet. Not serious business.Seriously, comrade! People need to chill out - I'm amazed the amount of time people will put into trolling and whatnot. This site is a means to discussion, not some kernel of a future world or even the kernel of some new organization or organizational method.

[The Cheshire Cat]

If you can keep that going for five or six years without wanting to shut it down, then come back and tell us about your success.

No

[Hit The North]

Seriously, comrade! People need to chill out - I'm amazed the amount of time people will put into trolling and whatnot. This site is a means to discussion, not some kernel of a future world or even the kernel of some new organization or organizational method.

More precisely, RevLeft is a means of organizing discussion among revolutionaries, therefore how it is moderated and the relationship between those moderating and those being moderated is a central issue. As someone who is committed to the potential of revleft for facilitating such a discussion, it matters to me that this is done as well as possible. If we have a situation where leftists are being banned from discussing here because, to cite one recent absurd example, they used the word "tits", then this means RevLeft is not adequately serving its purpose.

Even the best mods and admins can get it wrong sometimes. All I'm asking for is some reasonable and open means of challenging decisions because at the moment there is none.

Yes, Revleft is not a party, it is insignificant in its relationship to the material class struggle, it is merely a means of organising discussion. But discussion can only take place within a democratic framework.

[Manic Impressive]

We have no common interests other than a general political outlook and so the board is all just "ideas" and so "ideas" are the only thing to gain or loose and so reality is easily lost in the shuffle - the CC is a good example because if people are only arguing over ideas abstractly, then some will see the way to "win" this battle of ideas is to try and discredit or ban people they disagree with personally. I think it says more about the internet in capitalism than revolutionary ideology. What it says about revolutionary ideology? Maybe that we're small in number and many of us have little outlet for real activism or ways to engage in the class struggle. No big news there.

Seriously, comrade! People need to chill out - I'm amazed the amount of time people will put into trolling and whatnot. This site is a means to discussion, not some kernel of a future world or even the kernel of some new organization or organizational method.
I disagree I feel exactly the same as I did about the behavior of the Revleft BA when I wasn't politically active as I do now when I'm very busy with party business. This seems like a cheap insult to make people feel small or as if they are not "real revolutionaries" unless they are in a political party. This is exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about in regards to the BA's superiority complex and general smug attitude.

Also trolling? either this has a definition I'm unaware of or you consider trolling with any position you cannot personally comprehend. What does trolling have to do with the discussion anyway?

[Jimmie Higgins]

This seems like a cheap insult to make people feel small or as if they are not "real revolutionaries" unless they are in a political party. This is exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about in regards to the BA's superiority complex and general smug attitude.

Also trolling? either this has a definition I'm unaware of or you consider trolling with any position you cannot personally comprehend. What does trolling have to do with the discussion anyway?

Wow, I wasn't talking about you comrade.

1. Wasn't making some kind of comment on "party" or "no party". I asked what does in-fighting say about the left: that WE'RE insular. WE have little access to real struggle. And I don't just mean the people on this website.

2. My smugness and superiority complex predate both this website and the internet itself.

3. Trolling? Again, why did you think this was directed at you? I can see how what I said could be interpreted as meaning "these threads" are trolling, but that wasn't my intent. Specifically I was thinking about the ACTUAL trolls who were banned last week and who put a lot of effort and time into misrepresenting themselves for no good reason - but really I was just speaking generally about internet beefs and all that.

[hatzel]

Maybe RevLeft isn't authoritarian enough. We've all seen people (I'm taking a specific example from a few weeks ago without actually naming it) take obviously racist positions, be called out on it by everybody else in the thread, have the issue brought up with the BA, and...nothing. Nothing happens...no infraction, no warning, no nothing (IIRC). Which might have been okay, of course, if the full force of the banhammer didn't fall on those committing faaar lesser offences in other domains...

What do we want? More authoritarianism! When do we want it? Now!!!

...or never, whatever...

[Martin Blank]

What really pisses me off about the BA is the smug superiority complex which is sometimes exhibited. It seems as though you lot really think you're infallible. When it's clear that some bans are clearly due to personal issues and differences. There's also cases of double standards which are never addressed.

And before you say I'm wrong I am telling you this is how the BA comes across so I think it's worth taking the criticism on board and finding ways of changing how you are perceived rather than the usual tactic of outright dismissal on the grounds of thinking you are being victimized for taking on a hierarchical role.

I certainly don't think we're infallible. We're human; we make mistakes. Even when we act as a collective, I think we make mistakes a lot. I know I've made my share of mistakes on here in the past, and I've been trying to moderate my own actions on here so that I avoid making more mistakes. Moreover, I don't doubt that there are some issues that come up where personal conflicts, personal vendetta, etc., are the real motivating factors. We try our best to do what we need to do within the confines of the rules and guidelines. But we sure as hell ain't perfect.

While I agree that we as members of the BA should listen more to the members when it comes to understanding how things are perceived, I would also say that member should be equally willing to listen to members of the BA when it comes to how we perceive members' actions and comments. We are human, after all, and when legitimate criticism crosses the line into personal attacks and petty insults, it does tend to provoke very human responses.


I agree with Manic. Whatever the shortcomings of previous arrangements, what we have right now is rubbish. There is no accountability for decisions even though there are sometimes instances of admins or mods banning posters without presenting the proper evidence to support the action.

It's all rubbish, to be honest. There is no ideal system, especially for RevLeft. The problem is not that the BA is rubbish any more than the members are rubbish. The problem is the culture of this forum. RevLeft is not a political organization. RevLeft is not an all-inclusive collective. This forum is a virtual discussion hall. The relationship between those who participate and those who administer is necessarily unequal.

At the same time, for those of us who are administrators or moderators, our rights and privileges are predicated on greater responsibility -- not just responsibility when it comes to making sure threads and posts are running according to Hoyle, but also responsibility for making sure this forum does not descend into a chaotic mess of trolling, dick jokes and poo flinging. As a former moderator, you know all of this PAT.

As for the two people you mention who were banned recently, I had no involvement with either decision.

[Rafiq]

Libcom is a boring shithole. I swear every time I go there I could almost hear crickets chirping.

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