I think we should try to be more careful, not to automatically assume that everyone who is asking questions here about China/Ukraine etc. is always arguing in bad faith. I’ve seen multiple people who were genuinely trying to ask something here and the only response they got was mockery.
I do understand that a lot of times people who come here are trying to troll or just be annoying, but we still should try to engage in them in good faith as long as there is no reason not to do so. Not everyone who isn’t from Lemmygrad is someone hostile to our ideology, and we should try to be kinder to them.
https://lemmygrad.ml/post/907178
I am not arguing against reactionaries or people who are bigoted, arguing in bad faith etc. But I’ve seen multiple times here people just now knowing something, asking and the only responses they got were too combative. I understand that it is often annoying to deal with these people, but we should at least try to educate them, as long as they are arguing in bad faith or just don’t engage with them. And not being openly hostile to them.
How are you making the distinction between trolls and good faith participation?
Can you share an example from your post history where you’ve patiently educated an account seemingly engaging in bad faith?
Sometimes it is hard to tell, and I do understand that it is easy to make mistakes, but we should still try to assume that not everyone is here just to troll.
Personally, the only example I can give of my post is this https://lemmygrad.ml/comment/438417, but I don’t post here that much. But I think that a much better example of this is: https://lemmygrad.ml/comment/1165246 Here, even if you disagree with the original statement, I would argue that someone was met with too hostile response and seems to have changed his mind after he was shown proof that he was wrong. I do agree that sometimes it is hard to not just make fun of people, especially with Uighurs and China in general, but we shouldn’t automatically assume bad intentions.
Idk if it’s how the link was shared, but there are a few comments that could be relevant. Which one do you mean?
I’m not sure I understand the example. Doesn’t the user in question accept the arguments while being engaged aggressively? It seems to me like this is an example of it working.
I see it kind of like a carrot/stick situation. A quantum troll (someone who you can’t tell if they’re a troll) is more likely to engage sincerely with the kind and thoughtful users precisely because they’re avoiding the interactions with the mean ones.
I personally like to start middling brusque, and ramp up or down depending on the response.
We get a huge volume of bad-faith interaction here. Especially when you sort by “new comments”.
Yes, in this case it did work. But I wanted to use it as an example of someone who was originally met with a more hostile response, even if it wasn’t warranted. Personally, if I was in his place, I would just not want to engage with us anymore. I don’t want to say with this post that we are terrible etc. but at least in my opinion people who actually come here from another instances and are not trolls are prime target for education. That is the reason I think we should try to be more kind to them.
Interesting, I rarely see that, apart from obligatory “China bad”, “Russia putler” etc. under some news articles. But maybe that is just due to the posts I read.
I don’t think I’m seeing what you’re seeing in that interaction.
I’m seeing a smug, somewhat unkind, liberal get smacked right in the face by how little and poorly they understand. They then are directed to resources after the initial shock.
That honestly seems like a model interaction to me.
I think you and I may see different reasons to be here as well. I’m not here to proselytize.
If someone is turned away from the immortal science of Marxism-leninism by having their own energy mirrored back to them, who cares?
* edited to add: the newer comments in this thread are a good example of what comes through pretty often. Many are removed, but only after they get a number of up votes from federated instances:
https://lemmygrad.ml/comment/390784