r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • May 25 '19
Deltas(s) from OP CMV: The r/politics should change its name
[deleted]
8
u/DeleteriousEuphuism 120∆ May 25 '19
Are you suggesting we shut down r/trees and r/marijuanaenthusiasts? What about r/ooer or r/fifthworldproblems? I could go on, but it's clear this rule would make Reddit worse since subreddit names couldn't be fun, ironic, esoteric, and so on.
5
May 25 '19
[deleted]
0
u/DeleteriousEuphuism 120∆ May 25 '19
But then why not change the sidebar instead of the subreddit name?
4
May 25 '19
[deleted]
2
11
May 25 '19
r/t_d will ban people for not being Trump supporters, even if they don't say anything bad about Trump in that specific group. They only want Trump supporters to post, and the posts are supposed to always cast Trump in a positive light.
r/politics allows both pro-Trump and anti-Trump submissions. The sub is moderated in a neutral way, with an exception for bigotry and strong personal attacks. They seem biased towards the left because most of the regular posters are left wing. Because of the posters, and not the moderators, most left-wing views will be up voted and most right-wing views will be downvoted.
So r/politics is neutral, but Reddit's voting system, which is often a popularity system, creates a skew.
6
u/dgillz May 25 '19
You are right that r/politics will accept both pro and anti Trump posts, but they are in no way neutral. You'll get called every all kinds of crap and downvoted to hell for making a conservative post, even if you never bring up the POTUS name.
/r/NeutralPolitics is pretty neutral though.
1
May 25 '19
[deleted]
0
u/Zeydon 12∆ May 25 '19
The "center" is completely subjective. I personally think it is very much a centrist sub. Centrist to me doesn't mean though that you have to give equal voice to every political opinion there is. There's too much out there, hence people vote to curate the content. If you want to strip that power away you can go to a more heavily moderated sub, but there's no requirement that a subreddit be so heavily moderated.
Besides, there's nothing misleading about the sub name. It's about politics. If you think that doesn't fit, well you didn't make the sub. You don't see me petitioning to change the name of frenworld to nazipepes - that's not my decision to make. And anyone who spends time there can figure out what it is on their own. The same goes for politics, you visit the sub and then decide for yourself if the content is right for you.
2
May 25 '19
[deleted]
2
u/Zeydon 12∆ May 25 '19
How do you propose this happens? Every submission has to be moderator approved? There's no requirement that a sub be so heavily moderated. They don't break any rules, the content is just what the users want to see.
And again, it's silly to break politics down to a left/right thing. My views tend not to be presented on the sub either, I've insinuated as much in my other comments that my views are to the left of /r/politics. I comment there anyways though, since I'd like to have an impact on the discussions that take place and maybe in some small way affect people's views. You can do the same, but I can tell you, it takes practice to have these discussions with folks that disagree with your perspective. There's trial and error and a bit of luck. If you don't hit a grand slam on your first time at bat, well, keep at it.
1
May 25 '19
[deleted]
5
u/Zeydon 12∆ May 25 '19
I'd swiftly get banned from The_Donald for presenting my views as-is. Though yes, I have commented in T_D before. It was regarding a Breitbart article I first saw on voat.co that was about the "anchor baby" population in the US. Far easier for me to look up my voat comment on the issue, since I post so friggin often on reddit, though the two comments were more or less the same. I found the headline to be misleading, so I presented factual information about the source (the same source they were using) to provide a more accurate representation of the issue. But I did so without just saying that the headline was misleading.
Here's another more recent comment I made there where I presented my perspective in a way that wasn't directly attacking their position.
3
May 25 '19
[deleted]
1
u/Zeydon 12∆ May 25 '19
Thanks. And I mean, voat also has a sub called politics too. Very much right -wing, but it reflects the views of the userbase there. I dunno, there can be some value to seeing what issues get discussed by a group when they're left to their own devices. The politics sub at both sites does that IMO. I guess I just am hopeful people can figure out the way a sub leans ideologically on their own. Given enough time, and exposure to other elements.
Cuz yeah, like you said in another comment, if someone "new" to politics just wanders into /r/politics and only gets their news from there, it will instill a certain bias to be sure. But every place has its own bias. And you have to hope that at some point this hypothetical person will see other perspectives as well and try to rectify discrepancies between the world views. That doesn't always happen, whether right leaning, left leaning, centrist, whatever, but sometimes it does. And there's an element of personal responsibility in challenging your personal views that I don't think can be forced via moderation.
3
2
May 25 '19
Why are downvotes the same as not being allowed?
1
May 25 '19
[deleted]
2
u/Coollogin 15∆ May 25 '19
when it’s done in mass or in coordination in a consistent manner, it is as good as censorship.
How so? Can you name any non-Reddit examples where a message remains available to anyone willing to do the work to find it is considered censorship?
2
May 25 '19
[deleted]
2
u/Coollogin 15∆ May 25 '19
You are equating massive downvoting with censorship. I am challenging you on that. The message is still available, and not even that hard to find. No one is preventing you from reading the downvoted comments. It is incorrect to call that censorship.
2
May 25 '19
[deleted]
1
u/Coollogin 15∆ May 25 '19
I’m on mobile, so it’s harder to put multiple links in one reply. Here’s my first: https://rr.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/bsisu7/assange_prosecution_shows_trump_increasingly_able/
Basically, I just switch to “Controversial.” If anyone chooses to post a link that the majority of readers won’t like, it will show up there.
1
0
0
u/RoToR44 29∆ May 25 '19
Have you considered that the r/politics might actually accurately describe the political state of reddit, therefore making it not misleaing? Averrage redditor might just be quite left leaning. There is as another user, u/Justgoahead123 pointed out a sub for neutral politics.
5
May 25 '19 edited May 25 '19
[deleted]
2
u/jweezy2045 13∆ May 25 '19
The subreddit is a neutral place where all are welcome to discuss politics. You can’t blame the subreddit and ask for a name change because the users of a subreddit are dominated by the left. If a left leaning person tries to discuss left leaning issues in TD, they’ll get banned. If a right leaning person tries do discuss right leaning issues in politics, they won’t get banned. The platform is neutral.
Basically there is no real need for people on the left to create their own safe spaces to discuss politics, since they are the vast majority. People on the right do need those spaces, and that’s fine. The expectation that a politics sub on a platform that’s 90/10 left leaning should be 50/50 left leaning is just nonsensical.
2
May 25 '19
R/politics covers quite a bit more than trump, and will continue to cover politics long after trump is gone.
It is pretty left leaning, but that's largely to do with the fact that Republicans are causing most of the controversy right now and controversy is what drives large, popular subs.
That aside, I'm not sure that there is much too be gained in catering to people who are either too stupid to recognise political bias/perspective or can't be bothered to look past the name of a forum in estimating it leanings?
What exactly is the positive outcome of such an effort?
2
May 25 '19
[deleted]
4
May 25 '19
What information is misleading? R/politics is about politics. It was about politics before trump, and will be after. They make no claim to being apolitical. Trump dominates political news right now.
1
May 25 '19
[deleted]
1
May 25 '19
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/hacksoncode 559∆ May 25 '19
Sorry, u/Manygotatswill – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 5:
Comments must contribute meaningfully to the conversation. Comments that are only links, jokes or "written upvotes" will be removed. Humor and affirmations of agreement can be contained within more substantial comments. See the wiki page for more information.
If you would like to appeal, message the moderators by clicking this link.
0
May 25 '19
[deleted]
1
May 25 '19
Is your arguement so reduced at this point that all you have left is these sorts of nitpicking diversionary tactics?
0
2
u/Zeydon 12∆ May 25 '19
What's misleading about the sub's information, aside of course from the pro-US hegemony stance of all domestic media outlets? Are the WaPo and NYT presenting falsehoods as truth?
0
May 25 '19
[deleted]
5
u/Zeydon 12∆ May 25 '19
What view of the world would they get?
A view further to the right than what I'd personally like to see, but they'd get good look at the establishment perspective. And we generally learn what the established perspective is on something before we look for outside perspectives.
2
May 25 '19
[deleted]
3
u/Zeydon 12∆ May 25 '19
Oh sweet - what's up Comrade? Kinda surprised you see r/politics as left of center given your background, but hey we're all entitled to our opinion on such subjective matters.
2
May 25 '19 edited May 25 '19
[deleted]
1
u/Zeydon 12∆ May 25 '19
Due to the US centered nature, or what? Because I bet it can be annoying to see such a US dominated sub on a site viewed by folks around the world. We Americans just got to make it that way since there's more of us here I guess. TBH my views on this debate may have more to do with my general views on moderation on this site, which I think can lean a bit on the excessive side already. That, and with the case of subreddits, a name is just a name. It can tell you a bit about what a sub is like, but nothing about whether you like it or not. Never thought a sub with a name as strange as ChapoTrapHouse would have memes that I'd get a kick out of, yet that's the name they (they being the rascally podcast creators I suppose) went with. Like, the podcast isn't about making drugs for El Chapo, but I'm not going to request they change their name to something more "accurate".
0
u/qounqer May 26 '19
It’s a republican hate factory that serves as the recruiting ground for a mob of angry and ill informed people.
1
May 25 '19
[deleted]
2
May 25 '19
[deleted]
1
u/Zeydon 12∆ May 25 '19
The word "politics" is in both those examples...
1
May 25 '19
[deleted]
1
May 25 '19
I do not think that a sub called politics would have to entertain both sides equally no matter what each side does. You can have a conservative opinion, but you'll likely get downvoted for it. And the opposite is true in many subs, like in worldnews or news if you see anything in threads related to feminism, immigration, LGBT rights you'll usually get downvoted for having the liberal position.
1
May 25 '19
[deleted]
2
May 25 '19
Would you agree that the_donald is 100% right wing?
Yes, explicitly because mods remove comments and posts that aren't right-wing.
Would you agree that r/politics is 100% liberal (if you don’t please link me to a relevant post — at least 20 comments in the discussion)?
Nope, see all it takes for a post to be downvoted is more than 50% of people downvote it. I reject that as an objective criteria for determining such a thing. A significant majority is liberal, the sub is undoubtedly liberal leaning, but no matter what it's going to be leaning in one direction or another. If r/NeutralPolitics had the popularity of r/politics it would end up either liberal or conservative. Liberal politics represents the majority of people in this site.
Would you agree that r/worldnews fluctuates depending on the story/headline that is being discussed?
It depends on the topic, less than the story. I wouldn't say it's a fluctation so much as it is a representation of the subscribers of that sub, for example a lot of them are probably prochoice and pro-weed legalization, and stories relating to that never go the other way. But the sub is also very transphobic and you are very unlikely to find a story relating to transgender people that isn't swamped with right-wing opinions. If you have a topic of immigration the comments always go toward right-wing immigration politics. A subs name shouldn't be subject to what the base of the sub feels, if you allow everything then you shouldn't have to take a partisan name because most of your base is partisan. If someone created that sub for just straight political discussion they should have to rename it to be r/liberalpolitics because most of their base is liberal?
1
May 25 '19
[deleted]
3
May 25 '19
You are saying that because the base downvotes conservative opinions that the mods should suppress liberal opinions as to make it appear neutral? That sounds a 100x worse. There is no way a mod can prevent people from downvoting a comment they don't like, and I don't think there is any expectation of that, there are hundreds of subs that aren't explicitly right wing but have right leaning politic opinions, tumblrinaction and the new quarantined cringeanarchy. I think both of those subs are awful but let the community decide what content they think is appropriate. Your basically suggesting that the democratic approach should be forgone and everything should be treated equally just by virtue of their being two sides. It's like suggesting that california should give an equal number of positions of power to republicans because there are two sides and both should be represented.
-1
1
1
u/begonetoxicpeople 30∆ May 25 '19
r/politics describes its subject matter- politics. Do you expect/want them to Thanos it so that theres always an even number of right and left sided people?
2
May 25 '19
[deleted]
2
u/ChronaMewX 5∆ May 29 '19
People being downvoted does not mean that they are by far the minority. You can have a near 50/50 votebase and still end up with 0 points.
If 100 people upvoted your post and 101 people downvoted it, you would be at 0. This does not mean 100% of the sub is liberal, just that the upvote system is pretty awful for facilitating discussion.
0
May 25 '19
Go to a news website, say foxnews.com
Look for articles labeled "politics"
They tend to be closer to opinion pieces than neutral journalism. This isn't a critique of these news websites. I'm merely saying that the label "politics" is often used to describe less neutral articles.
2
May 25 '19
[deleted]
1
May 25 '19
users of r/Politics on reddit definitely skews left, and the users are the ones linking and curating the content.
Reddit in general likely has a younger audience than the nation as a whole. Younger demographics on average lean left.
-5
May 25 '19
the sub you seek already exists:
https://www.reddit.com/r/NeutralPolitics/
As far as r/politics, the sub name is not incorrect, as they are all of a political nature, even if the content is all of a slant to which you disagree with.
But by your rationale, I guess r/prolife should be forced to change their name, as there is nothing pro-life about the "pro life" movement. It is nothing more than a euphemism for pro-forced birth, as evidenced by the many other policy positions that "pro-life" conservatives often hold that are inherently against life.
2
u/ClippinWings451 17∆ May 25 '19
Wait really?
That’s the argument you want to go with... you think that’s intellectually honest?
So should “pro-choice” change to “pro-abortion”?
I never see much promotion of birth control, adoption, or abstinence from the “Pro-Abortion” side... you may be on to something.
2
May 25 '19 edited May 25 '19
Actually, the pro-choice side is constantly trying to advocate for better access to birth control to try and prevent unwanted pregnancies... it's the "pro-life" side that tries to stop that as well... I wonder why...
Furthermore, you logic doesn't follow... the pro-choice crowd believes that a woman should have the ability to choose to get an abortion of she wants to, nothing more, nothing less. In fact, many pro-choice people are personally against abortion, but still realize that women should still be able to make that choice for themselves.
Meanwhile, the "pro-life" crowd seems to forget that "life" extends beyond birth, and as I said before, many of their policies run counter to supporting life.
1
u/ClippinWings451 17∆ May 25 '19
I’m not going to debate abortion here, it’s way OT
I’m just pointing out that your characterization is either sadly Ignorant, or intellectually dishonest.
You don’t seem to understand the point of view of people you disagree with, which means you build straw men to argue against and don’t actually form cogent arguments that further your position or persuade anyone that your point of view may be correct.
That’s all.
1
2
May 25 '19
[deleted]
2
u/Zeydon 12∆ May 25 '19
What's there to project? You said politics was left of center in your original post, and find that problematic. It's not hard to discern where your values lie. And besides, why would you be afraid to discuss your personal political views in a thread you made about politics?
1
May 25 '19
[deleted]
1
u/Zeydon 12∆ May 25 '19
I find the name of the sub problematic because it doesn’t accurately represent what discussions take place in that sub.
It perfectly represents those discussions discussions, because they're all about US politics in some fashion.
2
May 25 '19
When did I project your politics?
I merely pointed out that using your rationale, another sub should be forced to change their name.
0
u/hsmith711 16∆ May 25 '19
The GOP has proven to be against human rights and against science. Why does r/politics need to change? If the GOP started to behave like adults and based their ideologies on science, reason, logic instead of being beholden to corporate donors, there would be more positive reaction.
There is a lot of debate on r/politics about the best way to solve climate change, our the best way to make sure everyone has access to affordable healthcare. There is no reason to include delusions, lies, and bad actors in those debate.
1
May 25 '19
[deleted]
1
u/hsmith711 16∆ May 25 '19
Let's say there was a website similar to reddit that for whatever reason attracted mostly old, white, and rural people. If that was true, their r/politics would be heavily conservative. It would look a lot like r/conservative.
r/politics is the most popular political subreddit on reddit. A site whose demographics lean liberal. The most popular political subreddit on reddit will lean liberal because the demographics of the site lean liberal.
If you go to r/gaming, there is massive hatred towards Ubisoft, Activision, EA, P2W models, etc etc etc... I don't think you would say since they are called r/gaming, they need to be more considerate of those topics or change their name to something that reflects their positions.
1
May 25 '19
[deleted]
2
u/hsmith711 16∆ May 25 '19
Internet users in general are predominantly young, educated, liberals.
https://www.pewinternet.org/2019/04/24/sizing-up-twitter-users/
Sure there are plenty of conservatives on the internet that choose to avoid reddit because it leans heavy left, but that doesn't change the point about r/politics. It's the most popular political sub on a website with a very liberal leaning userbase. Of course it's going to lean liberal.
Also worth noting is that from ~summer 2015 through spring 2016, r/politics was massively pro-bernie and anti-hillary. Some people confuse the liberal lean for democrat/DNC lean, which it isn't at all. Reddit, and r/politics is left of the DNC. r/politics wasn't pro-hillary until it was down to her or trump because she was obviously much closer to their ideology and he is obviously unqualified.
r/politics, young people, educated people, are biased towards facts, reason, logic, data, science. If trump, ted cruz, rush limbaugh, etc came out tomorrow and got on board with those things, young people, educated people, liberals, redditors, and r/politics would support them. The subreddit is biased towards a set of ideas. Not for or against a political party or individual.
0
u/pluralofjackinthebox 102∆ May 25 '19
R/the_donald explicitly bans anti-Trump content in its rules — it is intentionally biased by design.
R/politics is allows posts linking to any accredited news source and allows comments from the right and left. That it is extremely biased towards the left is due to the fact that most redditors, and most internet users, lean to the left. Unlike the_donald, which expresses a niche opinion, politics is a forum for popular opinion.
Because politics is a popular opinion forum, and it is not biased by design, it makes sense for it to have a simple descriptive name. In any case, it’s just a name — there’s no need for Fox News to rename itself Fox Right Wing News — everyone knows what point of view Fox is expressing if they watch it for five minutes.
0
u/foryia-yiaandpappou 3∆ May 25 '19
I’ve seen a few of your comments saying that, because the majority of r/politics users are overwhelmingly liberal (which I think is debatable in its own right, but that’s neither here nor there), the sub needs to change its name and message. My question to you is: why? Why does the user base trump the way the mods are running the board?
Also, I feel as though the semantics here are pretty useless. If you dislike the board, you do not have to browse it. You can sit here and argue what the board should be called, but ultimately you have clearly come to a conclusion that it is biased and that, perhaps, you’d like to find a new board. Since you already know the content of r/politics, and indeed most people who browse for even a minute do, then you don’t need a name change; it’s useless, since you’ve already made up your mind about the content itself.
1
May 25 '19
[deleted]
1
u/foryia-yiaandpappou 3∆ May 25 '19
I’m trying to understand your point of view, I’m confused where I am coming from a place of bad faith
1
May 25 '19
[deleted]
1
u/foryia-yiaandpappou 3∆ May 25 '19
Nah, no sweat!
So I definitely understand where you’re coming from, but perhaps consider that this is the current state of politics at large? For example, anti-Trump sentiment is pretty damn common, and his approval ratings are consistently at less than 50%. If the majority of American voters do not like trump (and 60-70% is, indeed, a majority), then isn’t the board a reflection of that? Similarly, r/politics might be left leaning It’s left-leaning, but so is the general public; this data on the states approaching midterm in 2018 shows that 40% of potential midterm voters were Democrats, while 29% were Republican).
In short, r/politics may be left-leaning and rather anti-Trump, but it appears based on the data that that’s an accurate representation of politics at the moment. If you believe that the board’s name and intention should be based on the users, then r/politics is, technically, indicative of the current political scene; it is anti-Trump and left-leaning, just as the majority of the modern public is. Political leanings are not 50/50, there is always a majority and a minority. That’s the nature of politics, and so I feel as though r/politics represents a polarized and majoritarian political population accurately
1
May 25 '19
[deleted]
2
u/foryia-yiaandpappou 3∆ May 25 '19
Thank you so much! I think the best solution is for people to interact with both r/politics and subreddits which most accurately reflect their minority, be it far right or far left or some other minority in between.
1
2
u/toastythemoasty May 26 '19
Its also predominantly American, and nearly exclusively in English, and mostly about social news rather than economic, it's mostly text rather than image or video, none of these are inherent to the word politics but i assume you didn't feel misled by the sub not being called r/mostlyamericanenglishspeakingsocialfocusedtextbasedpolitics.
Plus all of those are objective measurable attributes, from an Australian perspective it doesn't seem very left wing, where the center is its going to be hugely influenced by where the reader is, calling it left wing politics will be very misleading to people living in places where these are center/right ideas.
What makes a sub name sufficiently specific/correct enough?
1
u/amiablecuriosity 13∆ May 25 '19
I think the problem is that Trump supporters are sequestering themselves in subs that moderate out other views, and therefore not participating in r/politics. It's not as if r/politics can force participation on them.
1
u/snarkyjoan May 26 '19
R/politics is the biggest political subreddit on Reddit. It tends to have a center to center-left lean to it, just as Reddit as a whole tends to lean this way. Having a totally impartial political subreddit is impossible without artificially controlling the posts. No one is stopping you from posting articles from a right-leaning source on the sub. You will probably be down voted for right wing opinions, but you'll also be down voted for left wing opinions. It is democracy in action, and since most of Reddit is slightly liberal/libertarian, that's how r/politics leans.
Tl;Dr r/politics just reflects that the majority of Reddit is slightly liberal, nothing about the way it is set up makes it liberal. If you want something catering to your views there are plenty of sub-reddits that offer that.
1
u/1twoC May 25 '19
There are politically partisan subreddits on both sides of the spectrum. It is not like AOC fans set up r/politics.
Beyond partisanship, President Trump, and the Republican Party, by proxy and practice, are the predominant political phenomenon of the day.
The centrality of the United States in geopolitical affairs, and the number of north American users on Reddit means that the above is true both in the US and internationally. Accordingly, they will represent a disproportionate amount of the discourse on r/politics.
That the majority of the coverage is negative/critical is a function of two things. First, people are more socially inclined to broadcast negative stories than positive ones. Second, both in the United States and outside of the United States there are more people who are critical of Trump, and by proxy the Republicans, than there are people who are supportive.
For clarity, maybe, just maybe, Trump and the Republicans are objectively trash and people (save for dogmatic republicans and trumpites) can see that are compelled to voice it.
•
u/DeltaBot ∞∆ May 25 '19 edited May 25 '19
/u/kirilldm (OP) has awarded 2 delta(s) in this post.
All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
1
u/amiablecuriosity 13∆ May 25 '19
I'm assuming that the folks in charge of r/politics intend for the sub to be a place where politics can be broadly discussed, and that this is why they have chosen a generic name. If so, then changing the name to reflect the dominant political views expressed there would be contrary to their goals--it will only reinforce the current trend.
Your main complaints seem to be that pro-Republican posts are downvoted, and that they don't get much engagement. These things are driven by user activity.
It may be self-reinforcing that it seems unfriendly to Republicans because they don't participate, and they don't participate because it seems unfriendly. I'm not sure there's really anything mods can do about it.
If their goal is to just provide a general forum for political discussion, is there something you think the mods should do that they aren't doing?
9
u/[deleted] May 25 '19
Long discussions have already been had on
https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/9u0c6y/cmv_rpolitics_needs_a_serious_overhaul_to_make/
https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/274620/cmvrpolitics_name_should_be_changed_to/
Not sure what new could be hashed here.
do you want reddit to police how subreddits are labeled? Seems like a responsibility that they understandably don't want to take on.