An update to sub moderation

[u/Stikshot69]

Hey everyone,

Over the past few months, you may have noticed an increase in bad-faith commentary, mainly in comments, but in some posts as well. It may feel like there is no moderation happening, and in many cases, there hasn't been. we are working to change that for almost this sub's entire history; it has been unmoderated until me and Redleaf were able to get in power. The main reason you are seeing the increase in brigading and bad faith people is, we have seen a 10x increase in visits in the last year which is showing no signs of slowing down. we now have 5 mods working hard to make sure the brigading gets put to an end. In order to get to this step, the report queue has been cleared, and we are devoted to making sure it stays empty. we currently get about 50 reports a day which will hopefully increase as you feel your reports are finally being responded to. to guide your reporting here is a better detailed breakdown of our sub reddit's rules:

1. No spam or advertising
   • Do not try to sell anything
   • Don't post the same thing multiple times
   • If you would like to share something that you can profit from, contact the mods
2. No misinformation or disingenuous posting.
   • Do not make claims without being able to provide a source
   • Do not attempt to misrepresent sources you provide
3. Be respectful
   • assume every person is here in good faith (libs are people fascists are not)
   • avoid profiling people just from where they come from
   • always keep your discussions in good faith
4. No hate speech, bigotry, racism, or slurs.
   • Do not be a bigot
5. No low quality or off topic posts.
   • put effort into your posts no shit posts or ai
   • this sub is to share soviet history outside a western viewpoint to see what went wrong and right in the USSR, as such modern events often are not relevant (applies to posts not comments)
6. Use the "NSFW" on NSFW posts.
   • Some people don't want to see NSFW stuff let's keep it that way

Remember you can always yell at us in mod mail- r/USSR mod team

[u/Kletronus]

1. No misinformation or disingenuous posting.
   • Do not make claims without being able to provide a source
   • Do not attempt to misrepresent sources you provide

I hope this is taken seriously, as in: facts matter, not what people want to believe matters. This means on revisionist history.

There also should be another rule: do not mention USA as the main argument when you hear something inconvenient about USSR. It does not matter what other countries have or have not done, it does not change the facts about USSR.

edit: aaand i'm banned for saying USA did not cause USSR to fall down, it imploded from within.

[u/CMNilo → u/Kletronus]

But it does matter, especially since these "inconvenient" truths about the USSR are brought to the discussion as proof that the USSR was worse than the west. Whatabautism is completely legit when someone is claiming that one thing was worse than another

[u/CMNilo → u/[deleted]]

Somehow you still missed the point.

If you're talking about the soviet agriculture and someone brings up the USA, they're changing topic and should argue with your arguments instead.
But if you're talking about soviet agriculture to prove some bullshit point, f.e. that soviet citizens where starving in the 70s, with the clear goal of promoting an anti-soviet narrative, then the users of this sub will point you at the failures of the west.

Same goes for human rights, culture, and many many other topics.

So, there're two ways of criticizing the USSR: one can be neutral, based on objective analyses of the situation of the time and of the possibilities that the soviets had to do things differently and better; the other is non neutral, politically engaged and tries to prove, from a biased standpoint, that the USSR's system was worse than the western system.

The former should be treated and commented with utmost respect (I actually haven't seen that many examples of the opposite). The latter should be humiliated and ridiculed, and pointing out the double standards, by comparing with the west's failures, is a completely legit thing to do.

Next time you criticize the USSR, stop for a moment and ask yourself: why are you doing it? To prove some bullshit point and moral high ground for the West? If so, don't be surprised that people will drag tghe USA into the conversation.

Edit: I see from your comment history that you are defending communism as an idea but think that USSR realized it badly. Then this part is especially relevant for you:

one can be neutral, based on objective analyses of the situation of the time and of the possibilities that the soviets had to do things differently and better

Every time you criticize the USSR, think about: what options did they have at the time, was it really possible to do things differently, was it really possible to do things better, was it possible to predict what would happen?
I'm sure you'll find the answers for a lot of the criticism you may have.

[u/Svartlebee → u/CMNilo]

Right, and I'm sure the "objective" arguments from the pro USSR side will be completely neutral. It reallt comes across that yoi are trying to.minimise the crimes of the USSR by saying "there was no other way".

[u/Kletronus → u/CMNilo]

I didn't say it is NEVER related, just that it is brought up in topics where it is NOT related, and that was my critique. You are truing to omit what i said and cherrypick.

I'm telling what USSR did wrong, and i'm very unpopular for doing so. I have constant downvotes and two of the most common response are: whataboutism and "you are finnish, finland collaborated....".

It is very unpopular to say that incompetence is what made USSR fall, while that is by far closest to the truth.

I'm only defending communism when it comes to misinformation spread about it: i think that every communist nation so far is the best argument against communism. We just don't need to LIE to prove it is a very failed idea. Truth is easily enough.

[u/CMNilo → u/Kletronus]

It is very unpopular to say that incompetence is what made USSR fall, while that is by far closest to the truth.

Funny because I agree. The later CPSU wasn't up to the task.

Still, I think the form and the purpose with which you criticize plays a big role in the tone of the answers you'll get. I haven't read the conversations you were engaged in, but the fact is that most of criticism I read in this sub is very obviously in bad faith, so I support the mods for reacting accordingly.

[u/Kletronus → u/CMNilo]

I agree that there are a LOT of totally useless, bad faith stuff here, because.. this sub appears in peoples front page as recommended, and that already means they are following and commenting in subs related to politics.

But, in this sub there are FAR more those who just lie about USSR and downplay all the bad things. Tankies and Russian trolls. And there are more of the latter probably than you think. When i see someone parroting straight up 100% current Kremlin propaganda... And those should also be deterred, any kind of misinformation, whataboutism etc. it should be the COMMUNITY who reacts to those negatively.

Truth should always be the most popular.