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Note: This is not a rule, but a helpful suggestion.
When posting images, you should strive to add alt-text for screen readers to use to describe the image you're posting:
Another helpful thing to do is to provide a transcription of the text in your images, as well as brief descriptions of what's going on. (example)
My fear with banning artists who have made bigoted comics is how that relates to older comics. For example I really enjoy those Jucika strips, but given their age I wouldn't be that surprised if the original artist had some opinions that we wouldn't tolerate today.
Regardless of my fear, I'm more concerned with having a space that's welcoming to all people and I'm well aware of the "Nazi bar" problem. So I would come down on having a ban list of bigoted creators that aren't welcome here.
after removing the artist credit
Oh god, please not. This is a whole different can of worms that does not need to be opened in this particular discussion.
We personally agree in removing their comics, though should never remove credits even to a bigoted artist. We personally would rather not like a comic and it’s from a transphobic bigot -a fellow trans person
I think if we require artist name in the title, people can easily filter it out.
Do not remove artist credit, people have the right to know who made the art. For the question of "can you separate art from the artist", everyone is going to have a different stance on it, and even then it may vary depending on the severity of the artist's action. Removing the artist credit removes people's autonomy in that regard.
It also opens the door for people to claim "Billy made one off hand joke 17 years ago, so now we must crop out all their credit because it's an advertisement".
Consistent rules will be best. Making exceptions and attempting to maintain a blacklist gets messy to manage and can get out of hand.
This is the only workable option. Anything else is just asking for trouble in one form or another.
Anthropologists observe societies, writing about them dispassionately and adopting a non-interference, non-judgement policy.
At some point a group of academics decided they wanted to include moral discussions (particularly about their own society), on how things come to be a certain way, and how they could develop differently. Thus Sociology was born.
Anthropology still exists, Sociology eclipsed it, it didn't kill it. They're aspects of each other, not in competition.
This is the censorship debate in a nutshell. A community picks a side, and the other side is free to branch off. The choices here are: Comics can be anything, even 3D printed gun files, or porn! No limits! We're all here to just observe.
Or; we need to advocate some limits, some values. Some values are better for the world, and some are worse.
I believe the no-limits crowd have the less considered standpoint. No group is free from having standards and values. We already moderate, it's the nature of social groups with implicit rules and ideals.
In my opinion, we're here to do more than just observe the chaos. We adopt a stance. Improving the world as best we can. So we must decide what improves it, and what doesn't.
I don't think totally uncensored free speech improves the world. It still imposes a set of values that impact the world - even if advocates pretend that no choice has been made.
After reading the comments here I have been convinced we should create a list of these artists, and none of their content is welcome in this community.
Main points being:
Nazis, racists, transphobes, homophobes are not welcome here under any context!
There are many comics in the world. Banning a handful of horrible creators won't starve the community for content. It will create space for non-horrible artists.
Allowing the "nice" comics by horrible people just creates a funnel for people to click though and be exposed to hateful ideas.
If in several months the ban list has grown monstrous in size, we could revisit, but that seems unlikely.
It's not book burning or censorship. The horrible creators remain entitled to host their own websites or their own instances.
I support this rule. If I see comics I enjoy I will often go look them up. It’s awful to dive into a new comic and find hateful content that I didn’t expect. Prohibiting comics from known hateful bigots would help avoid that.
I'd rather this place doesn't turn into a Nazi bar, I'm in favor of banning hate
I was at a shitty crustpunk bar once getting an after-work beer. One of those shitholes where the bartenders clearly hate you.
So the bartender and I were ignoring one another when someone sits next to me and he immediately says, “no. get out.”
And the dude next to me says, “hey i’m not doing anything, i’m a paying customer.”
and the bartender reaches under the counter for a bat or something and says, “out. now.” and the dude leaves, kind of yelling. And he was dressed in a punk uniform, I noticed
Anyway, I asked what that was about and the bartender was like, “you didn’t see his vest but it was all nazi shit. Iron crosses and stuff. You get to recognize them.”
And i was like, ohok and he continues. “you have to nip it in the bud immediately. These guys come in and it’s always a nice, polite one. And you serve them because you don’t want to cause a scene. And then they become a regular and after awhile they bring a friend. And that dude is cool too.
And then THEY bring friends and the friends bring friends and they stop being cool and then you realize, oh shit, this is a Nazi bar now. And it’s too late because they’re entrenched and if you try to kick them out, they cause a PROBLEM. So you have to shut them down.”
And i was like, “oh damn.”
and he said “yeah, you have to ignore their reasonable arguments because their end goal is to be terrible, awful people.”
And then he went back to ignoring me. But I haven’t forgotten that at all.
- Michael B Tager
I'll voice in favor of a banlist for bigoted artists. Letting bigots and other hateful people in with "relatable" content just normalizes their hateful material, even playing into possibly intentional "onroading" on their part to their prejudiced platform. It also reinforces the idea that targets of that hate need to "play nice" if they're not being targeted right then and there, and perpetuates the falsehood that these positions are a matter of "opinion" rather than an existential threat to the targeted.
A banlist would present a higher workload on the part of the mods, which is not something I feel can be demanded, but it would be helpful to have if the goal here is to create a welcoming environment.
MissesAutumnRains also brings up a good point (https://lemmy.ca/post/63256113/22736751) - Leaving it up to users to block bad content does nothing for new users who will have no such curation, and who will be left to assume the community is accepting of such content. Platforming hateful creators will silently push away those who find their content distasteful and entice users that agree with it to stay.
That’s the only way for comics or anything else because you can’t really expect users to research the whole ideological history of the author every time they see a funny picture and want to repost it.
I’m not sure I have a strong opinion either way on the censorship vs not supporting bigots debate, but, to the extent the community decides to ban any authors/artists, there needs to be a quick and concise list that posters can consult.
A mod in this thread stated that people already submit a lot of reports on Jago's comics. With a banlist, mods wouldn't need to spend time thinking and debating the issue every time a Jago comic is posted. They can just check if Jago is on the banlist. It might add up to less work overall.
I hate this book burning mentality. It's not because the person is bad that the content is nessarly bad. Like, if war and peas's author turned out to be transphobic, would that automatically turn all of their comics bad?
Although it doesn't mean that hate and bigoted comics shouldn't be banned. That part is the actual offensive part.
And removing credits is actually scummier than posting bigoted comics imo
For reference, this is not to shill those persons. I'm literally trans and bi. I'm actually concerned with what those are artists are against.
This isn't book burning. This is more like we're refusing to print and distribute more copies of their books for them.
You know, the books the Nazis burned were from the library of Magnus Herschfeld, the director of the Berlin Sexology Institute. He was gay, and much of the library was ABOUT queerness, and transgender studies.
The comic strips we're talking about aren't being destroyed. But a lot of trans people in the world are, and they risk themselves simply by being who they are.
That is more worthwhile than access to edgy comics on a public forum like this. Better that far-right stuff gets blocked, than trans people getting burned.
It's okay for a forum to have a political position. I'd prefer it to be left of center.
Bigotry belongs in the bin. Denial of platform is nice too. Banned creator list feels appropriate
no. I have a block button if I don't like how a person submits. why would I want this type of thing done at the community level? Ultimately its the federation so it won't matter as there are other comic communities.
I'm against censorship, but I'm pro for curated content. I would be happy to make a rule in which after reaching a certain amount of downvotes, a post has to be removed. I also think it is reasonable to ban someone if they consistently post content that keeps getting downvoted. This is no different than spamming or trolling.