Conservative

Honestly, I think that if your objective is to have a community based on a particular belief, you cannot have honest discussions, as you already know what you would like to talk about and it seems like you are not ready to challenge your ideas.

Let's take a look at one example from your post

Well, what about those who defend baby murder? I know lefties genuinely believe it isn't, but I do

I'm assuming you are referring to abortion rights. That is a hard take to take as a universal truth, there are many many countries where that is a guaranteed right, and you are not even considering discussing your belief. How would a honest discussion be held about this topic if you are already calling baby murderers your contestants?

Props to you for wanting to be a better moderator, but a discussion topic requires the other part to be able to freely express their opinions even if you don't like them. That would happen in a discussion community called "politics" or "United States politics", but if your community is called "conservatives", every discussion will be in the form of "conservatives are correct, leftists are murderers and terrorists" (and vice versa in a community called "leftists", what I'm talking about is not limited to conservatives) and as you notice, this polarity and fanatism attracts the worst of both parts, ready to fight and be toxic.

Right now, there’s a lot of toxicity, some straight up telling people to kill themselves. My whole moderation policy was basically “So long as it isn’t a straight up slur, you could comment it”.

You’d think it’d be simple, just ban those who do that. Well, what about those who defend baby murder? I know lefties genuinely believe it isn’t, but I do. How do you tell what is horrible shit, when lefties act like horror movie monsters?

What's the purpose of telling people to kill themselves versus discussing abortion? In the case of the latter, you might see me argue in favor of abortion because it preserves a woman's autonomy by denying her abusive partner yet another means of control. But in making that argument, I'm trying to demonstrate why I support abortion over banning it. It contributes to the discussion.

Getting told to put a gun in my mouth won't hurt my feelings, but it's purely toxic. It adds absolutely no value to the discussion.

What about those who I’m like 90% sure are arguing in bad faith? I want to encourage discussions and arguments, and if I’m wrong, what then?

I'm 90% certain you're talking about me and at least one other person that I know of. Frankly, I think we add to the argument half of discussions/arguments. I do not agree with conservative policies at all, but I'm still interested in how conservatives square the circle between reality and their beliefs. At best, with conservatives actually interested in arguing, we help them work out the weaknesses in their argument. I will readily admit a good point, even one I disagree with. At worst, it looks like we're trolling because some conservative members don't bother actually thinking through their beliefs and would rather resort to telling people to kill themselves.

I don't have any concrete recommendations, for you, honestly. If it were me, I'd focus on generating discussions and arguments about conservative news. I don't think it's enough to say "Don't do X, Y, Z". They have their place certainly, but wanting to talk about news content doesn't automatically follow. Maybe if posters had to like...quote something from the article, or add their opinion as a comment or whatever. Idk, but actively encouraging what you want out of the community is better than merely discouraging what you don't want, imho.

I look forward to how you resolve the issue of upholding free speech while wanting to facilitate discussions and arguments.

Hey Elon: Let Me Help You Speed Run The Content Moderation Learning Curve This is a great article that explains why every website has a draconian amount of rules and moderation, even if they start out claiming they're about freedom of speech. It's the same reason why countries that are free and democratic have lots of police and lawyers and judges and courts.

If you actually want debate and discussion, you essentially have it already. Sorry to point it out, but your ideology is not popular here. Fox News and Not The Bee articles will be downvoted, and comments in opposition to them will be upvoted. That is open debate and discussion. You can remove the comments that are overly aggressive, but the community will still be downvote central for anyone who actually supports what is being posted.

If you want a safe space for people who like Fox News and Not The Bee, then you can do the whitelist thing and only allow you and people who agree with you to post. Though I'd imagine the community would be incredibly small.

In the end, it's your community! I won't be offended no matter what you do, but if there is a whitelist or the rules are such that having an opinion is going to get my comments removed, I'd just block the community from my feed. No sense seeing posts I can't interact with!

The others have already said most of what needs to be said. But one thing to note is that some bans need to be stronger. TJD got banned, what, 3 times at this point for using slurs? The people who do that sort of thing clearly don't learn, nor care.

They'll always just see it as hurting the people who deserve to get hurt, and continue to do so.

Short, temp bans just don't cut it.

And the other thing is that at a fundamental level, conservatism is neck deep in individualism. As a result, the conservatives around here are quick to jump to "kys" type stuff. An ideology that has lack of empathy as one of its core foundations is going to contain people with no empathy. Progressives aren't immune to this, but just look at the count of who's been saying "kys" more.

A conservative community will always, innately, be like this.

I think any discussion of moderation on the internet should come with an acknowledgement that its a very difficult thing to take on. People are going to be mad at you no matter what decisions you make. Someone will say you are weak and ineffective while someone else is saying you are a pathological control freak. People will always find ways to circumvent any barriers to behaviors you want to discourage.

I think your best bet is to decide where the line is that doesn't get crossed on your watch and be as consistent as you can about it. Be as relaxed or as strict as you want, but the main thing is to be consistent. Of course people will constantly find fault with your decisions and actions, but don't let that sway you. They are perfectly free to make their own communities and their own rules. Good luck.

If you don't want people to brigade your community, make your own instance and defederate.

You can't have a lemmy community and not expect people sorting by local to come in. I would fully support a ban of this community if it just blindly nabbed most people on the instance for their political beliefs.