> I haven't found it particularly wortwhile to distinguish people who are saying terrible things to troll, or because they believe them. They're very often the same group, because reasonable, emphatic people are going to neither say nor believe those terrible things.
> If you cannot carry a conversation with consideration for the other people in it, I do not want you in my community.
Okay, you can want whatever you want, and I understand why you want that. I also have the gut reaction to someone saying something bigoted where I to avoid the person so I don't have to see it, or respond with vitriol and ostracization, because that's what feels good in the moment. But if people continue to insist on putting their head in the sand and take actions that feel good rather than actions that actually address the problem, these problems are only going to get worse.
> I perceive Reddit as a very good example of the kind of community I _don't_ want, because any deep, complex, or otherwise not aligned with the popular discussion is impossible there, so I'm afraid we're at an impasse.
I have had fairly in-depth conversations and said plenty of unpopular stuff on Reddit all the time, so I'm not sure what you're basing this.
> Luckily, I haven't proposed an alternative, so it's rather interesting what imagined alternative you're making that statement about...
You said, "If your community is ignoring trolls instead of banning them, it's effectively sending the message that the trolls are very welcome."
> But if people continue to insist on putting their head in the sand and take actions that feel good...
I'm not sure how you go from "I don't want trolls in my community" to "it just feels good, you're putting head in the sand". I'm not putting anything anywhere, I know exactly what I am doing. I don't want trolls in my community.
> these problems are only going to get worse
Not in my community they won't.
> I have had fairly in-depth conversations and said plenty of unpopular stuff on Reddit all the time, so I'm not sure what you're basing this.
This is a subjective thing obviously but it's not like it's some new sentiment I made up, plenty of people find Reddit terrible to have interesting conversations on. Particularly a thing you'll see mentioned often is that shorter, less complex posts are often more liked than longer, more complex posts requiring a lot of effort to write.
> You said, "If your community is ignoring trolls instead of banning them, it's effectively sending the message that the trolls are very welcome."
Which is not a proposal. It's a statement on consequences. A proposal looks like this: "To have a well functioning community, you need to have this, this, and this, and not that". I've said nothing of the sort. Communities are complicated and require design, and there's a lot of variety within communities besides just "free for all" and "echo chamber".
You have a conversational style which seems to like to presume that the person you're speaking to is doing something they never claimed they're doing (keeping their head in the sand, or suggesting an echo chamber), which might be why you find Reddit tolerable, because this is very much the kind of interaction I find really annoying and could do without. It's always easy to feel right about everything if you just put words in the other person's mouth.
> If you cannot carry a conversation with consideration for the other people in it, I do not want you in my community.
Okay, you can want whatever you want, and I understand why you want that. I also have the gut reaction to someone saying something bigoted where I to avoid the person so I don't have to see it, or respond with vitriol and ostracization, because that's what feels good in the moment. But if people continue to insist on putting their head in the sand and take actions that feel good rather than actions that actually address the problem, these problems are only going to get worse.
> I perceive Reddit as a very good example of the kind of community I _don't_ want, because any deep, complex, or otherwise not aligned with the popular discussion is impossible there, so I'm afraid we're at an impasse.
I have had fairly in-depth conversations and said plenty of unpopular stuff on Reddit all the time, so I'm not sure what you're basing this.
> Luckily, I haven't proposed an alternative, so it's rather interesting what imagined alternative you're making that statement about...
You said, "If your community is ignoring trolls instead of banning them, it's effectively sending the message that the trolls are very welcome."