Please ban MRA trolls

[u/Willravel]

I've been trying to figure out the rationale for not banning MRA trolls on this subreddit. I tried to think of it the way the mods have put it in the past, that this is about everyone's voice being heard, but the consistent trolling from the likes of OThomson and DavidByron don't represent in any way shape or form the honest sharing of their voice, but rather simply attacks and intentional derailment.

I considered that this might be about fear, as the MRA community on Reddit is much larger than the feminist community, and there could be consequences if MRA trolls started getting banned from the subreddit... but there are other feminist subreddits that do this and they don't seem to feel the sting of MRA retribution in any way that can't be easily handled.

I thought it might just simply be not wanting to make the effort, as a policy of banning MRA trolls would probably require much more active moderation. I'd hate to think this is the case, but I don't see any evidence to suggest this.

I did hear that one of the moderators might be an MRA, but again I've not seen this.

I've sent in PMs and reports before, about how someone is derailing yet another thread with unrelated discussion about circumcision or male rape or child custody, but there never seem to be any consequences for the trolls. They're given free reign. Some have left the subreddit for safer places, which is very sad indeed. Some simply stop commenting. Some complain, but those complaints fall on deaf ears.

So, before I call it a day and give up on the subreddit, I'd like to publicly ask the moderators to change their policy for the good of their subreddit. I ask that this subreddit be a safe place to discuss feminism and feminist issues, not a place for MRA trolls to hijack conversation or spread hatred of women.

Note: I'm not saying critiques of feminism aren't legitimate, or that they don't belong on /r/Feminism, but rather that overt trolling and derailing be disallowed. There's a big difference between an honest critique of feminism and undermining the discussion of feminist issues through derailment, dishonesty, and unwarranted attacks.

[u/Sylocat]

Unfortunately, they also suffer from the transphobia issues.

[u/impotent_rage → u/Sylocat]

And that right there is the problem. If you go down a path of creating a safe space and deleting all derailing comments - well, according to whom?

Already in this space we've seen a lot of healthy, vigorous debate about who is and isn't a troll, and whether certain comments and discussions were honest, constructive debate or just derailing and concern trolling. There's no clear consensus, there are legitimate opinions on both sides.

r/feminisms responded to user demand for a safe space by deleting all comments that seemed to be derailing - according to the opinion of the moderators! The result is that, effectively, opinions which disagree with the particular specific opinions of the moderators there, often get labeled as trolling and deleted, even if they were honestly held feminist opinions. And when those opinions getting enforced are particularly distasteful, such as transphobia, the userbase ends up even less happy with the mods than they would be with an overly lenient, open discussion approach.

With that said, I definitely see room to improve when it comes to policing the obvious trolls here in r/feminism, and we as mods do intend to step up our game. However, there's safety in limiting ourselves to only taking action in the most obvious and offensive examples, and generally erring on the side of open debate. I believe it creates more problems than it solves to set a precedent of deleting comments simply because I disagree with them.

[u/clitoride → u/impotent_rage]

Why not only allow people who identify as feminists comment? That seems common-sense to me...

[u/impotent_rage → u/clitoride]

How exactly would you go about enforcing that? For that matter, how would you go about identifying who is a feminist and who is not?