Announcements

Last edited Tue Nov 15, 2016, 05:51 PM - Edit history (1)

Consistent with your last paragraph - as well as the postmortem, would it be possible to formally (via MIRT) and informally (via admin pronouncement) discourage the "concern troll" hunters?

This election felt to me like the Kerry-Bush election. when my marriage was used to drive bigots to the polls. I kept hoping I was wrong - but I was "concerned." It was not just my marriage being used this time, but every otherbit of bigotry ever dreamed up was welcomed to drive Trump voters to the polls. I never said anything here - because of the concern-shaming that was heaped on anyone who dared express concern about the outcome.

I don't have a clue about whether it would have made a difference if we had been able to openly discuss concerns about the outcome among friendly liberal people who support Democrats. Would we have been able to do anything about it had those concerns been taken seriously? Don't know - but obviously those of us who were concerned had reason to be AND should not have been shamed here for expressing them.

I alerted on quite a few concern-troll attacks - none (so far as I can tell) were hidden. But they should have been as a divisive group attack: "Do not imply that they are fake Democrats, fake progressives, conservatives, right-wingers, Republicans, or the like."

The overall alert doesn't quite fit (since the attacks were generally against a person rather than a group), but that sentence was exactly what was going on as to anyone who gave voice to the concerns that I (and I'm sure I'm not alone) felt - concerns that we now know were clearly justified.

As to MIRT when I was on it years ago, this same label was used to PPR anyone with fewer than 100 posts who expressed concerns about a variety of subjects.