https://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/1ln7e0/notice_a_stronger_policy_of_removing_subpar/
created by drinka40tonight on 03/09/2013 at 14:23 UTC*
124 upvotes, 20 top-level comments (showing 20)
As /r/askphilosophy grows, the number of poor comments has ballooned. In an effort to retain a good ratio of high-quality comments, the mods are going to be more strict in enforcing commenting standards.
In general, we're looking for informed, patient, detailed answers from people who have some familiarity with the issues and relevant literature. If this is you, then by all means comment and request flair.
If you lack sufficient familiarity with the relevant issues, you should not be answering. At no point should a comment begin, "Well, I don't know much about academic philosophy but...." In the same vein, r/askphilosophy is not a place for dismissive answers, sweeping generalizations, memes, or tired jokes.
I'd like to reiterate that sincere, philosophical, *questions* are most welcome in this subreddit. You don't need to have formal training to have an interest in philosophy. But it is the *answers* to such questions that we want to hold to higher standards.
Comment by chewingofthecud at 06/09/2013 at 16:40 UTC
11 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Fair enough. If my un-flaired comments are looked upon with suspicion and evaluated solely according to their merits, then that's OK. Not a bad idea for all comments, really.
r/askphilosophy is not a place for dismissive answers, sweeping generalizations...
I have seen more than a few dismissive answers as of late. To me, if there is a point on which this sub could improve, it is in ridding itself of answers which cause posters to never want to post again due to being scolded, rather than inaccurate and unsubstantive comments, which will be handled appropriately by the upvote/downvote system.
I don't think many posters avoid this sub with the thought that it is too populated by uninformed laymen.
Comment by [deleted] at 03/09/2013 at 19:34 UTC
7 upvotes, 1 direct replies
But what if I have a question about Aristotle and abortion and stuff... Like, fish are people too. Man. Seriously, this is probably a good idea.
Comment by FluidChameleon at 03/09/2013 at 14:53 UTC
19 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Glad to see this change — I think it will really elevate the level of discussion. You should consider stickying this post to the top for a while.
Comment by [deleted] at 22/09/2013 at 22:42 UTC
5 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Ever since understanding Plato's *Republic* I am a huge fan of benevolent dictatorships, on the proviso that the dictators act from wisdom and a genuine desire to benefit the community.
Thus I am wholly in favour of the stronger policy. Also, thank you to the mods for caring enough about the standard of this sub to agree to give even more of your time policing this policy.
Comment by [deleted] at 24/10/2013 at 02:14 UTC
5 upvotes, 2 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by Katallaxis at 05/09/2013 at 03:36 UTC
6 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Well, I don't know much about academic philosophy, but I'm going to try and stick to what I do know about from here out. Sometimes I barely stop to notice which subreddit I'm in before answering, so I need to pay more attention.
Comment by Moontouch at 03/09/2013 at 20:18 UTC
8 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Just commenting to voice my support for the change. Many questions posted to this sub are by complete laypeople, and it's discouraging to see completely inaccurate or uninformed answers to them.
Comment by HaggarShoes at 03/09/2013 at 15:42 UTC
16 upvotes, 3 direct replies
I sincerely disagree with the use of banning. I think one of the things to remember about this sub is how it gets used rather than how it should get used. In the best of all possible worlds--according to this sub's own logic rather than the best of all possible rule sets--this would be an exchange of good questions and academically oriented responses. However, much of the time the questions being posed are so broad as to require standing a bit to close to the flames of what calls for a ban to either get a discussion going or make it appear that we haven't simply ignored someone who asked a question.
Moreover, we should remember that this is a thread for practicing philosophy as much as it is explaining it. By that I mean that the act of explaining what one knows to another requires one to relearn what they know. I often times look up essays and dates whenever responding to someone to check out the details I either never learned or have forgotten. What I mean to say by this understanding of how this thread operates is that we may end up doing a disservice to those trying to participate in the discussion. We may accidentally turn someone off to philosophy when this sub bans them and essentially calls them dumb on the subject--or forces a dumbness onto to them. I find this community a much better resource for practicing the ways I unfold ideas than /r/philosophy as it never appears to be a kind place. There be monsters.
This is all not to mention that some of the most interesting and enlightening posts in this sub tend to be those that have a nest 15 comments deep. They usually stem from an under-experienced redditor who puts forward a common misconception, alternative argument, or ideologically-laden worldview. The back and forth, much like a Platonic dialogue, is a bit longer than a condensed response, but I learn much more from it since my ability to imagine strong counter-arguments to every claim often gets weary as the years trudge on.
Here's the upshot: If you are qualified to answer, you should comment and request flair. Poor comments posted by those without flair will be removed with prejudice.
While I think that most of the submitters here are or were once involved in academia, I've only rarely been shocked by which tag belongs to which comments as the manner of engagement and the use of listing resources tends to reflect this quite obviously. So, then, why mandate flair? I, for one, would qualify for flair, but I prefer not to as I hope that my comments are taken at the level of their argument/demonstration rather than the color of my user name; it also simply reveals more personal information about me that otherwise might be more difficult for others to find out.
Not to mention that we're essentially giving cover to those with flair (it seems like you're saying that flaired users get more chances to answer improperly). I feel like I get your argument. Those willing to share more about themselves have more invested in this community than those that don't, and with that gesture the community is in debt. But I think that, as it stands, there tend to be fewer than twenty responses to any given thread (half of which are usually response nests) and so why demand from us that we have to give away personal information to get protection from a drunken comment we leave that simply isn't up to snuff? If it isn't that way now, I don't feel like it should become like that, especially since the problem seems so miniscule in nature. If we think of ourselves as philosophers, I think we should trust ourselves capable of democratically judging the content. The joke comments are usually downvoted into a Kantian minority, attached with a decent counter argument, and obviously for entertainment. Of course, sometimes the joke comments raise a valid point, and banning them because it isn't 'proper' stifles the wide-variety of discussions and discussion methods that this subreddit has come to be really good at.
I, frankly, also get bored or intimidated by long detailed responses. Irony. Oh no. Anyways, sometimes the quick off-the-cuff responses are more suited to the needs of the questioner. If someone says it's their first time and someone writes a 3 page essay, with bibliography, it can actually be to the detriment of the questioner... it takes a while to get used to the idea that philosophy is long and requires patience... no need to scare anyone off on that matter. Not everyone identifies themselves as a novice, so having a multiplicity of styles of comments allows OP to find an answer that matches his level of understanding of philosophy.
At no point should a comment begin, "Well, I don't know much about academic philosophy but...."
I often use this phrase in many ways. I think I understand your meaning in context. Sometimes, when no one has answered in several hours, these types of comments appear and often spark discussion. Either by engaging OP to follow up, or even for them to disagree or clarify their original question.
I'll leave my TL;DR at the bottom, but the main point I have to say is that this feels like we're in the middle of a voter ID issue and I have to say that the arguments feel the same. Those who have nothing to hide get your flair, and those who are interested in philosophy but not necessarily rigid academic philosophy are going to wind up banned for not conforming to a set of rules that favor academic philosophers at the expense of de-legitimatizing them.
TL;DR: 1) Banning diminishes the variety of ways of discussing any given question.
2. Giving an answer on this subreddit is as useful a practice for learning about philosophy as getting an answer is... those just starting out, or in their first few years of training, don't have a magical ability to answer questions with the ease of a professor, and they won't get any better unless they practice.
3. The weaker comments appear, currently, to be democratically dealt with anyways.
4. Mandating flair is a violation of privacy and an unfair standard for enforcing what appears to be a two-strike system. Anyone who peruses this sub under the influence knows that sometimes their comments can't be held against them in anything other than argument or individual memories.
5. This clearly represents a bias towards academic philosophy. Those who have trained differently will respond differently, and they get fewer chances to explain why their approach may be more valid on a given subject than citing sources and intellectual histories.
6)Long responses aren't always the best responses as different questioners have personally specific needs and not everyone always identifies themselves as a novice.
7. Sometimes I feel like answering a question in a non-academic way, for one of any number of reasons including but not limited to: making sure a question at least gets some recognition of attention, providing a rhetorical response in order to draw out a contradiction, engaging in friendly banter, trying to make it appear that I'm a human rather than a philosophy-robot, etc.
TL;DR the TL;DR: I choose not to have flair. I love commenting and reading things in this thread. My responses in this subreddit make up a meaningful percentage of who this Username is to me and others. I see you saying that the ban hammer is coming and I feel like I won't be able to treat this subreddit with the ease in which I normally do. I don't want to have to be worried about getting banned when I all I want to do is philosophical discussion with some nice people who already self-regulate the small community quite well.
Comment by craneomotor at 03/09/2013 at 17:37 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Would you like us to comment in this thread if we want a flair?
Comment by [deleted] at 03/10/2013 at 07:36 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Just a question to mods, or something to discuss in general: what, if anything, should be done with threads like this[1]? The problem is that the OP asks a straightforward question, yet essentially all the replies are about how he is wrong to ask the question in the first place. But there's plenty of room in philosophy for these sorts of principled arguments, thought experiments, discussions about limit cases, and so on. But currently few replies actually address the question as asked.
Comment by [deleted] at 24/12/2013 at 22:37 UTC
2 upvotes, 2 direct replies
I was thinking about this change to the sub recently. It's definitely important to deal with comments that are sub par, but when I see a comment that was removed I often ask myself: "Why was it removed?"
My question is: Is there another way for moderators to control the negative influx of responses rather than deleting them? Keeping the comments around as examples with a thorough description of *why* the comment is inappropriate might serve as a better tool for avoiding such comments in the future. Perhaps there is a plugin or something that allows mods to anchor a comment to the bottom of the page?
Comment by oyagoya at 31/12/2013 at 23:47 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
I'm not sure if this the right place to bring this up, but one of the things holding me back from commenting here is a confusion about flair. In the sidebar it says:
If you plan to comment regularly, you must request flair. Comments (not questions) posted by users without flair will be looked on with suspicion.
Fair enough. I'm not hugely active on Reddit, but if I were going to contribute anywhere regularly it would probably be here. I have a philosophy background and I like answering questions about my areas of expertise. I'm thinking I should probably get flair.
So I check the flair post[1] linked in the sidebar and it says this:
1: http://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/mext6/flair_revised/
If you'd like to be a panelist (which is the only way to get flair in AskPhilosophy) see this thread[2].
2: http://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/mdane/the_askphilosophy_panel/
Done. I check what's expected of panelists:
Panelists should make sure they're subscribed to AskPhilosophy, and *regularly check the new queue for new questions*. They should *attempt to answer questions that fall within their competency*, and take an active part in voting on both questions and the replies given in answer. In most cases, if you offer an answer to a question, you should also up vote the question.
And this is where I get cold feet. I'm just not sure that I want to spend that much time on Reddit.
I figure this isn't the intention of the policy, that it's probably to ensure quality of discussion, and I'm probably making something out of nothing, but I'm still not sure whether I should request flair.
Comment by Snietzschean at 03/09/2013 at 22:54 UTC
4 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Aw man! Now I can't make sweeping, uninformed generalizations about the value of ethics! No fun!
In all seriousness though, this is well done. The state of Nietzsche comments in this subreddit is in steady decline (though I suppose, if I'm being honest with myself, my perspective on Nietzsche scholarship is idiosyncratic in and of itself). More and more people are disagreeing with me and my fragile ego just can't handle it.
Question though, if I am informed about more than *just* what my flair says, should I just request additions? Otherwise, I fear I might end up in a category of "people without appropriate flair".
Comment by quality_is_god at 11/09/2013 at 10:12 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Quality is GOD people!
Always embody quality
Comment by Infinite_Monkey_bot at 12/02/2014 at 08:27 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Isn't this approach essentially an appeal to authority? By restricting comments to the canon of existing literature, can we actually answer every question?
Can we post rhetorical questions as responses?
Is it ironic that the Socratic method should be banned in a forum pertaining *solely* to Philosophy?
Is the Socratic method dead?
Comment by Snake973 at 04/09/2013 at 03:09 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
So what, exactly is the process for acquiring flair? And what are the specific requirements? I mean, I have an undergraduate degree, and minored in philosophy, and most of my work and my thesis were on phenomenology, but my actual degree was not in philosophy. Am I therefore considered undergraduate or autodidact?
Comment by garblegarble12 at 06/10/2013 at 13:40 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Well, I don't know much about moderating academic philosophy but I suppose this could make sense.
Comment by [deleted] at 12/01/2014 at 13:29 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by [deleted] at 31/12/2013 at 17:45 UTC
-1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Can we please restrict the Nietzsche posts? He's not even relevant in academic philosophy. People should be talking about him in history forums, not philosophy ones.
Comment by scruffychef at 23/11/2013 at 07:48 UTC
-2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
This weirdly fascist, youre denying people who aren't educated in a specific area from commenting, thus removing a massive swath of potentially brilliant conversation starters. You're essentially stating that the views/ understandings of anyone who isnt "qualified" arent valid answers to questions which really have no answers, philosophy is about perception, therefore its amoral of you to categorically dismiss the perceptions and conclusions of people who, having no formal background education, represent fresh and unbiased views. It seems incredibly strange that a philosophy subreddit would be so quick to deny the philosophical views of people who have never been influenced by institutions. Jokes and memes have no place in a serious metting of the minds, but a lack of education does not mean a lack of wisdom.