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Comments on Codidact's policy regarding posts, user names and profiles with political content

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Codidact's policy regarding posts, user names and profiles with political content

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Does Codidact have any policy against using political content in posts, user names or user profiles?

I'm not talking about questions about political content, which should obviously be fine given that it's on-topic at the site where it's posted.

But I'm rather referring to the promotional kind, such as speaking for or against a certain candidate or party, or naming your user after a well-known politician, or posting political propaganda in your user profile.

This has been something of a hot potato Someplace Else, so it will eventually pop up here too. Some examples:

  • There was an example of the CEO posting a long blong-like post on SO.meta propagating against Donald Trump.
  • There are examples of users (and spammers) using their profile to express various political views, including criticism against dictatorships (possibly leading to a network ban of the site in that country).
  • There is always the case where someone decides to pick a tasteless user name from some well-known dictator, past or present.

The current Code of Conduct and "be nice" doesn't seem very helpful here. Expressing political opinions isn't necessarily rude. Is there a policy for what user names or user profiles can contain and does it cover situations like these?

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1 comment thread

SE relevant example (2 comments)
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+5
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Important note: this is my personal perspective, but it is the basis for my moderation activity on Software Codidact

Political content in posts

Unless we are talking about Politics Codidact or similar, I consider that political content is offtopic in posts.

Political content in the user profile

This is a more personal space and I think that users should have more freedom to post what they like provided they do not violate the Code of Conduct.

For the specific case of political content, I would not allow blatant symbols like [Nazi symbols] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bans_on_Nazi_symbols), Holocaust denial or communist symbols since they are illegal in quite a few countries.

For other content, I would judge on the individual level and most likely consult with fellow moderators or staff members, since what is OK and what is not might depend on a context that I do not understand.

Shortly put, except for blatant stuff mentioned above, I would favor "laissez-faire" + handle flags from the community.

Political content in the username / avatar

Unless using a userscript to block them, users are basically forced into reading/seeing other usernames and avatars. That means that I would be more restrictive about what one can write as a username or use as a picture.

Besides what violates the CoC, I would not allow the usage of highly controversial figure names like Hitler, Stalin and also non-English texts that can easily be translated to CoC violations.

Moderation actions

For moderation, if the content is not blatantly illegal or violates CoC, I would start with a warning to let the user fix the text and then proceed to fix a short ban.

Of course, flagging by the community should be an important driver in fixing profile texts.

As a side note, I would discourage political activism. For example, this user has a political message in their profile and this created an issue while standing in elections for being a moderator (see the first comment from here).

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1 comment thread

We don’t have our rights to restrict user from using their own name (2 comments)
We don’t have our rights to restrict user from using their own name
deleted user wrote almost 3 years ago

I would not allow the usage of highly controversial figure names like Hitler,

Suppose there is someone whose name is "hilter" so he can use it if he wants. So why will you stop him to use that? One can use name as they want (if they don't say anything negative to others). We don't have our rights to restrict them.

Alexei‭ wrote almost 3 years ago

deleted user Real names are an exception, but as mentioned in another comment thread on this question, I would nudge the user to consider making a (slight) change to avoid the name "collision".