Well-Kept Gardens Die by Pacifism (2009)
I failed to get through the entire article. It repeats memes I have seen before that I see as an incomplete grasp of the situation at best.<p>I have been a moderator. I also was a full time parent for a long time. These two things have a lot in common.<p>It isn&#x27;t true that your choices are either censorship or just letting some fool ruin everything. You can engage fools, welcome them, be kind, educate them and help them start fitting into the culture.<p>It helps to assume they are intelligent, but don&#x27;t know everything. This is a rubric I learned by raising kids. Children aren&#x27;t stupid, but they have a great deal to learn. A lot of the eye roll worthy stuff they do is just naivete, not intentionally bad behavior.<p>You can just explain stuff to people without being ugly, angry or condescending. You can just assume they haven&#x27;t yet learned all the rules, they were distracted, their dog just died.<p>It helps to give people the benefit of the doubt the first several times and give them time to learn the ropes. People need to be clued that,  hey, that doesn&#x27;t work around here. If you don&#x27;t tell them this isn&#x27;t something we welcome here, don&#x27;t be shocked when they keep doing it, oblivious to the fact that other people aren&#x27;t cool with it. But you can tell them without being ugly about it.<p>A healthy community needs some tolerance for friction, mistakes and dust ups. No one should be expected to be perfect and occasionally defending yourself should be acceptable.<p>At the same time, it needs mechanisms to lubricate the social friction. An expectation of baseline respect is the best lubricant.<p>Respect is distinct from polite catch phrases and learning all the rules. Some of the most awful people are good at using polite catch phrases and memorizing the rules so they can politely shit all over everyone else. This is toxic behavior.<p>Yes, it&#x27;s work to keep a community healthy. But, no, evaporative cooling is not inevitable.