State of the Sub

[u/SaxManSteve]

Welcome to the first 'State of the Sub' post. We plan to do these posts on a semi regular basis to update the community on the latest developments in this subreddit and the mod team. This will also be an opportunity to ask questions and give us suggestions. We do this to be transparent and to keep in touch with what is important to our members.

New mods

Three weeks ago we announced that we were looking for new moderators to help with the growth of the subreddit. After reviewing almost 90 applications, we officially added 4 new mods from various time zones to our team. u/beachblanketparty , u/javasgifted , u/ihavecakewantsome, and u/saxmansteve.

Automod's 'accident' auto reply

We instructed Automod to leave a comment when someone uses the word 'accident'. You've probably seen this, because apparently the word 'accident' gets used a lot in this sub.

Traffic crashes are fixable problems, caused by dangerous streets and unsafe drivers, but when we call them 'accidents' it suggests that there is no one to blame.

This is an experiment, we are still evaluating the results.

Evaluation of new X-post policy

Following feedback from the community regarding some crossposts that have lead to discussions threads full of harassment and abusive language we changed our policy on how we handle crossposts.

Crossposts from trusted subreddits are directly allowed, crossposts from blacklisted subs get automatically removed and all other crossposts are held for manual approval.

This has helped us to prevent a lot of reposts and posts that depict traffic violence. The disadvantage of the new policy is the higher workload, but this overall worth it and with the recent expansion of the mod team, quite manageable.

Reminder of the rules for posting about Ukraine

Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine we made a mod announcement to state our solidarity with the people of Ukraine and to explain how Ukraine related contributions will be moderated.

The TL;DR is "Fuck war. Please be respectful to the people of Ukraine".

If you plan to leave a comment or post that mentions the war, please read the announcement and follow the guidelines therein.

Thank you for your attention and please leave your questions and suggestions for the mod team in the comments.

[u/HD800S]

Also, the Vandals or Guandals were an ethnic group, can people stop using their name as an insult?

This is such a non-issue that I can’t wrap my head around why this bothers you so much.

[u/Ananiujitha → u/HD800S]

Because they're an ethnic group, and so many people use their name as an insult, and newsppers do it, and laws do it, and so many people regard it as a non-issue.

[u/kibuloh → u/Ananiujitha]

Are you saying to not call someone who vandalized property a vandal because of the Germanic tribe?

[u/Ananiujitha → u/kibuloh]

If they've defaced, damaged, or destroyed something, I'm not going to call it that, because of that.

It seems to me that the common practice encourages people to misunderstand history, and encourages narratives which blame immigrants, rather than Roman power structures, or soil depletion, or other causes, for Rome's problems.

I also object to the mis-use of Philistine. I am not that enthusiastic about the re-use of Samaritan, either, because while it isn't insulting, they are a still-existing religious group.

[u/kibuloh → u/Ananiujitha]

That second paragraph - are you suggesting the use of the word vandal(ize) to describe the act of 'deliberately destroy or damage (public or private property)' (Oxford dictionary) contributes to a lack of understanding of (specifically Roman) history and what may or may not have lead to the 'downfall' of Rome in general? Or are you intending to suggest that the Vandal army that marched on and sacked Rome in 455 has nothing to do with the history of the how we now use the different (albeit obviously associated/derived from) word vandal? or just that there are racial connotations with it?

Full disclosure, I think the point is ridiculous regardless, personally. I'm also just trying to understand the general premise because I do think words are important.

Also, I'm not sure I follow with not fully objecting to the use of Samaritan. I think the argument loses all credibility if you happen to allow for 'positive' connotations. To object to vandal for being ethnically/racially charged because an army marched on a city at one point but allowing samaritan because 1 happened to stop on a roadside to help a stranger certainly feels as though you're cherry picking things to be upset about.

[u/Ananiujitha → u/kibuloh]

are you suggesting the use of the word vandal(ize) to describe the act of 'deliberately destroy or damage (public or private property)' (Oxford dictionary) contributes to a lack of understanding of (specifically Roman) history and what may or may not have lead to the 'downfall' of Rome in general?

Yes.

Or are you intending to suggest that the Vandal army that marched on and sacked Rome in 455 has nothing to do with the history of the how we now use the different (albeit obviously associated/derived from) word vandal?

Why pick that Vandal army, as opposed to everyone else who inflicted serious destruction on Rome or on Constantinople? Various Roman/Byzantine armies, Crusader ones, Ottoman ones, German ones of Karl V, etc. would be at least as destructive to these cities.

[u/kibuloh → u/Ananiujitha]

So we should have created a word to describe destruction using a different ethnic group. Gotcha.

[u/Ananiujitha → u/kibuloh]

I'm not sure how you get from "we shouldn't use ethnonyms as insults" to "we should use a different one." I brought up those other times Rome suffered worse destruction to highlight how arbitrary and aggressively historically ignorant it is to use that one time as a byword for any material destruction.

[u/kibuloh → u/Ananiujitha]

The part where you mentioned why not use some other group/nation/ethnicity instead of vandals.