What are the alternatives to s/debatealtright?

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[–]send_nasty_stuffNational Socialist 8 insightful - 3 fun8 insightful - 2 fun9 insightful - 3 fun -  (10 children)

Pol, gamer uprising and some telegram communities.

The problem is that if DAR becomes some type of alt right newsfeed/memefeed it might drop the quality of discussion. It's not always good to just post everything that arises in the dissident space.

Regardless, the main problem isn't DAR it's the falling star that is saidit. The site itself is stagnating. We need another platform but I'm not really sure there is anything big enough that wouldn't ban us within a few days or weeks.

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (5 children)

What about voat.xyz? Maybe you guys are the site and need your own platform.

[–]send_nasty_stuffNational Socialist 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun -  (4 children)

Voat is bad for a lot of reasons.

-It seems to be crippled in it's functions when it changed domains.

-really inferior layout compared to reddit or saidit

-not a lot of traffic

-I don't even see a search feature?

Maybe you guys are the site and need your own platform.

DAR really isn't meant to be a dissident safe space. The entire purpose from the start (when /u/MortalSisyphus set the sub up as r/altright was about to be banned) was to be a place that allowed people with differing political ideologies to ask questions, talk and debate. When reddit was relatively free is was common for most political groups to set up a main sub and a debate sub so that those types of 'in the weeds' debates could get directed away from the inner circle discussions.

The only reason DAR seems so insular is because there are fewer and fewer alt right exclusive places on the open internet. Thus driving many alt right people that like moderated discussion over here. Our open discussion groups are constantly censored, derailed, subverted, sabotaged or just outright banned and blocked.

We do appreciate your input though. If you have any other site suggestions I will look into them and bounce them off my fellow mods. The other big issues is that because we started on reddit many of our users prefer reddit style ranked choice websites of which there aren't many viable alternatives with large readership. If voat fixed it's issued and grew or ruqqus got bigger we'd probably consider a move. As of this moment ruqqus is still the main backup site.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Yeah good points about nuVoat. The code/platform did completely change when they switched domain names. I don't have any other suggestions. I do have concerns though, that once TPTB come back to this site, they will make you guys hide from /s/all again. It's terribly ironic seeing as how this sub literally has 'debate' in its name. I hope Ruqqus can still serve your purpose, their new rule changes are pretty concerning. Maybe it'll end up more censored than here.

[–]JasonCarswellVoluntaryist 1 insightful - 3 fun1 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 3 fun -  (2 children)

Would you consider rebranding?

Instead of "Debate Alt Right" perhaps "Debate Ideas". Or "Debate Extremists" so folks could debate the Alt Right and the Far Left or whatever kind of "extremists" folks may imagine. Obviously I'm limited in my understanding of your group and where you want to lead it, but perhaps the label itself is alienating. Another reason to drop the "Alt Right" is for the imbalance. For balance, if someone created /s/DebateFarLeft I suspect it might be stillborn as few would care to debate them. Maybe you don't care about balance. I'm just offering food for thought.

[–]send_nasty_stuffNational Socialist 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

Would you consider rebranding?

No, but an expansion sub that uses a different name and has a different focus isn't a bad idea (maybe 2 genuine dissident mods and 2 genuine lefty mods if they exist). It's not the name that keeps us off of reddit or other sites. Once 9/11, holohoax, or JQ is brought up on ANY forum for almost ANY reason it will be banned. So a name change does nothing but make it harder to find people that have our ideas. Where are people suppose to go that have genuine questions about the alt right? On reddit every couple of months we'd actually get a reporter or research type person that brought us very specific questions. That person probably would have struggled to find us if we didn't have a moniker that correctly identified our ideas.

Or "Debate Extremists

We don't consider ourselves 'extremists' at all but I see where you're trying to come from. The issue I see is we created a sub for 'all' marginalized views it would just be an excuse for shills to come in and promote ridiculous distracting political and philosophical ideas in the hopes to poison the well. It would be difficult to mod. Many of the users would not be 'genuine' in their beliefs. Say what you will about the 'radical' ideas of dissidents they are genuine.

Another reason to drop the "Alt Right" is for the imbalance.

People are welcome to create s/debate 'insert far left idea'. I don't have any issue with that.

Maybe you don't care about balance.

You're thinking from a site admin perspective. I am not a site admin. I don't really have a stake in saidit's future. DAR would be fine if more leftists joined saidit and 'balanced' out the convo. You know as well as I do though that leftists don't like to share digital spaces with dissidents though. They seek to monopolize the marketplace of ideas. They don't really want to debate. They quickly take over a platform and then sell the site to a oligarch controlled company that quietly removes 'imbalences' aka dissident ideas. If the left doesn't want 'balance' I don't know why we would seek it either.

[–]JasonCarswellVoluntaryist 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Once 9/11, holohoax, or JQ is brought up on ANY forum for almost ANY reason it will be banned.

IMO those are truth-seeker "conspiracy" topics, that are often incorrectly labelled and lumped in with the "legitimately" censored Alt-Right.

Where are people suppose to go that have genuine questions about the alt right?

IMO it might be worth defining what Alt-Right means to you as a group - and to ONLY discuss those issues in that sub. Discuss the other things in their topical subs so that 1) SaidIt is not dominated by DAR, 2) whatever "Alt-Right" means becomes clear, 3) people can search for those topics or Alt-Right content without having either unduly influence each other, and I'd guess there might be other benefits.

/s/Debate exists. Maybe create /s/DebateConspiracy, /s/DebatePolitics, /s/DebateRace, /s/DebateGender, etc. etc. etc. so that these issues need not be tied to Alt-Right yet still provide good debates.

In September I'm going to ask SaidIt to help develop a system for our uncensored Lemmy communities (subs). I will not allow them to be created by users, but intend to have a clear way of organizing them, and have our community come to an agreement on them.

We don't consider ourselves 'extremists' at all but I see where you're trying to come from.

Good. It wasn't meant to offend. Few "extremists" think their extreme. I'm a conspiracy voluntaryist "extremist" to most of the world. It was meant to be inclusive of any/all fringe ideas. If I could have come up with a better title I would have.

it would just be an excuse for shills to come in and promote ridiculous distracting political and philosophical ideas in the hopes to poison the well.

Possibly. Or maybe the "poison" they offer might unlock some minds. I suspect you'd find a bit of both, and importantly, you'd be exposed to other ideas that would either make you more capable to debate them, find understanding about their viewpoints, or you may even change your mind on some things.

It would be difficult to mod.

Big issue. We need to work the rules and guides for maximum clarity and minimal subjective arbitrariness. We can discuss this further in September.

You're thinking from a site admin perspective. I am not a site admin. I don't really have a stake in saidit's future. DAR would be fine if more leftists joined saidit and 'balanced' out the convo.

DAR will al does better when the host site is better, whether that's SaidIt, Cassy, DebateAltRight.win, or whatever.

You know as well as I do though that leftists don't like to share digital spaces with dissidents though. They seek to monopolize the marketplace of ideas. They don't really want to debate.

Yes, currently. In the 80s and 90s it was the Right who were like that. IMO we need to transcend time and ideology. Part of that is keeping it open, with clear topics, and avoiding ambiguous and weaponized labels if possible. People can debate the Alt-Right without knowing they are debating people from the Alt-Right on all the other issues that are not specifically Alt-Right.

They quickly take over a platform and then sell the site

That's why decentralization and transparency are critical, among other FOTPACH things (find on this page) that would help resist subversion.

If the left doesn't want 'balance' I don't know why we would seek it either.

Yes, perhaps "balance" is not the right word. So much of the Left is insane in their extreme imbalance and certainly not wanted here or on Cassy projects. Further, with the rampant censorship, there will never be balance for decades, if ever. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to aim for even fairness in our presentation to attract visitors, wherever they come from, so that we may compel them with fresh ideas. Even if this is initially illusory rather than practically, there's zero chance of actually building up an even field if we don't even start by presenting an even field.

[–]Nombre27 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

What about riot/element?

[–]send_nasty_stuffNational Socialist 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

They aren't really open platforms where a normie could stumble into the group and debate. They are also not reddit/saidit ranked choice style sites.

[–]Nombre27 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

Good point

[–]send_nasty_stuffNational Socialist 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

I do support both those sites though just not for what DAR is trying to do.

[–]Girondin 6 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

I think 4chan /pol/ is the most active dissident community online, though its become cancer [bait rarely punished, low effort abounds, schizo posters too common]. I've noticed a massive drop in quality there over the years that I do not go there anymore.

You still have the old forums like stormfront and vnnforum still around (though you might feel like your in 2005), their is also dailystormers forum (gameruprising, ive never really browsed it and never been a fan of Anglin's content so I don't know much about it). I think there might be some invite only places and private chats that are popular but I wouldn't know.

radical leftist / gommies have hexbear.net (pretty nicely design IMO) and leftypol (similar to the defunct 8chan /pol/). I wish we had similar options.

[–]radicalcentristNational Centrism 4 insightful - 3 fun4 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

I think 4chan /pol/ is the most active dissident community online, though its become cancer [bait rarely punished,

I never got this impression from /pol/. Even though normies will scream "racist" when they see it, /pol/ has content from all over the world, that even a few days ago, I saw a National Socialist thread being pushed by a Brazilian. LOL. It feels more like early 2000s internet when content was left unfiltered and it was Teens trying to out edge each other, but there actually wasn't a political slant to it.

[–]JasonCarswellVoluntaryist 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Hexbear is a Lemmy fork.

We're working on another uncensored Lemmy instance.

[–]DisgustResponse 5 insightful - 2 fun5 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

Twitter. The platform sucks ass, but this is the most populated platform for serious dissident right conversation remaining, as far I can tell.

I'd love to find out that all the communities and friends that have been swallowed by the digital void are still out there, but I ain't getting my hopes up.

[–]Richard_Parker 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

No, twitter sucks. Constant banning, deboosting tweets. And the format that limits characters has a lot of the same propensities as newspeak in limiting language.

[–]DisgustResponse 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

I don't disagree... but what's the alternative?

[–]send_nasty_stuffNational Socialist 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

We use to have a strong alt right group on twitter but everytime a few leaders emerged twitter would ban them and it would mess up the node and 'network' effect that makes Twitter useful. Twitter has shown it will harass and be hostile to alt right users so I'm not really sure why we would use it. I also don't like the set up of sites like twitter, gab and minds. It feel to much like an old facebook status post. I feel like a narcissist posting, "Everyone should follow me and like all my stuff!" It drives people to post catchy one liners and not long form effort posts.

[–]asterias 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

Poal.co is very active.

[–]Node 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

But the admin 'AOC' is a petulant child who strikes and disables accounts for disagreement. This makes the site unusable.

[–]Node 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (4 children)

The alternatives are all inferior, for various reasons.

Poal has 'AOC' as an admin, who is a petulant child. Good content and decent numbers, but the admin runs the site like her personal fiefdom.

Ruqqus has an unpleasant UI, censorship issues, and low user numbers. Having "guilds" instead of 'subs' seems to reflect a weird or 'off-brand' mindset of the people running the place.

Voat users are like what's left after skimming off the intelligent. Most of old voat users went to poal, then further split when new voat was created. The UI is horrible, with white text on a black background. (someone gave me a link to a tolerable color scheme, that brings it up to about ruqqus tier)

Saidit is the best alternative to reddit, which, btw, used to be good up until around 2015. Best UI of any commenting site. Decent cross section of opinions and political positions. Plenty of people to disagree with, while only a handful are actual trolls or assholes.

Saidit's main problem is censorship and some fiefdom issues, both of which are on temporary hold. (d3rr FTW) The secondary effect of those issues is the low numbers, as the platform is widely known for censorship, and now being unable to stay online. That trend was broken last month, and hopefully continues.

Really, the ideal solution would be to find a competent and reliable person to take over responsibility for saidit, now that m7 seems ready to move on. Monthly costs are about $90, which is incredibly cheap for this kind of site. Old voat, for example, cost in the thousands every month, due in large part to 'software rental'.

Is m7 really ready to move on? And what would he want to hand off saidit?

How would we, the users, find that competent and reliable person to take over, assuming m7 is willing?

[–]JasonCarswellVoluntaryist 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

After 9/11 I'll be sharing some Cassy updates and regular posts on many related issues to invite folks to help re-imagine the next forum and how it could be run.

[–]Node 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

Can it physically look exactly like this? Maybe with the RES features included?

Possibly because I was on reddit for the first 10, but this UI is what I consider the gold standard for a commenting site.

I'd almost consider running for president of saidit, but all I really want is for it to continue running well, and to shed its reputation as a censorship site. Then we'd have more users dropping in and staying.

[–]JasonCarswellVoluntaryist 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

Can it physically look exactly like this? Maybe with the RES features included?

The Cassandra Team is not currently creating a old-Reddit/SaidIt instance. The top priority is decentralization for most of us. I (and likely we all) would not object to anyone joining the team and starting an instance or few or whatever with the SaidIt code.

We've got a phpBB and Lemmy forum running. The phpBB is a powerful forum in a different style without decentralization, and the decentralized Lemmy is a much simpler Reddit-clone than SaidIt. We're hoping that Lemmy can be the framework upon which people can write custom widgets and browser addons, and in time if popular they can be folded into Lemmy. Our Lemmy will have the censorship limitation removed and we're hesitant to call it a fork without anything else changed. I think. I need to get more clear on this stuff.

To the point: Rather than petitioning M7D3 to make changes to SaidIt, we hope folks will make it happen themselves - organize the goals, raise funds if necessary, and code it.

_Possibly because I was on reddit for the first 10, but this UI is what I consider the gold standard for a commenting site.

Besides the default chronologically old at the bottom and new at the top (confusing for little benefit), I've become accustomed to the SaidIt (I'd rather it all read downward chronologically). Perhaps this is worth a vote on /s/AskSaidIt or /s/SaidItSurveys. I used to prefer "normal" forums, limited as my experience was. I haven't hung out on any since joining SaidIt a few years ago.

I'd almost consider running for president of saidit,

THIS is a fantastic idea worth discussing more!

I like the idea of a triumverate better. 3 people instead of one. Or 5, or 12, or whatever.

I don't know how we'd do it yet, but I like the idea of having a Trusted-Team in charge to self-regulate the community openly. They would self manage themselves and of course people would be able to watch and address them too, openly. I don't know if voting and/or elections are a good idea to integrate into this idea or not, but the idea of having 3 or 5 folks as the main go-to people at any one time might be good, especially if there are a couple dozen on the Trusted-Team which may dilute their overall efficacy. Perhaps a rotating schedule where the small handful are "in charge" for a week to deal with minor issues. Of course the Trusted-Team with the user-base should deal with big issues together.

and to shed its reputation as a censorship site.

I'm not aware of that being a general reputation for SaidIt. Yes there have been issues, but IMO the real issue has been the closed and arbitrary social management system - not the censorship. If I'm wrong about this I/we all need to recognize and know about it so that we can address it with solutions.

September I aim to spend more time drafting up the infrastructure, manifestos, etc for the Cassy projects. Yes it's bureaucracy but we have big goals:

FOTPACH : Fair, Open, Transparent, Peaceful, Accountable, Consistent, Honest

I think clarity, decentralized, voluntarist, and voluntaryist can be implied, and I'd add self-regulating, flexible, resilient, and sustainable if it could make a nice word that wasn't too long.

[–]Node 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

I'm not aware of that being a general reputation for SaidIt.

That was the main pushback I got when trying to bring people here from old voat and poal. Of course, reddit users would complain not enough censorship.