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Should accusations of being a Russian sympathiser be treated as unfriendly or unkind? What is the current moderation policy in this respect?

Here is an example taken from one of the threads that I was scrolling through today:

you must be a Russian sympathizer. That's the only way to not see that the fighting in Serbia was part of the Yugoslav Civil War.

Related: Are accusations of "pro-russian propaganda" allowed by the comunity rules?

2 Answers 2

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"unfriendly and unkind" is always a matter of context, so I am not going to give any absolute judgments about any phrasing being allowed or forbidden per se.

In this particular case it was an unnecessary ad-hominem argument, debative and barely related to the answer. Which is why I deleted the comment and the subsequent debate.

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Accusations such as "you must be a <insert your word here> sympathizer" is unacceptable behavior on this site, because these are personal attacks and unfriendly.

For example, this: "you must be a Russian sympathizer" should be flagged and deleted. This is true even if the person is in fact a sympathizer of Russia, with all its implications. This site is about "objective questions about governments, policies and political processes", and not a place for ad hominem attacks.

References:

No subtle put-downs or unfriendly language.

No name-calling or personal attacks.

Code of Conduct - Politics Stack Exchange


To be more specific, if the comments you flagged were on the level of "you're dumb" that would clearly be an ad hominem attack and should always be deleted if you ask me.

When are comments on this site unfriendly or unkind? - Politics Meta Stack Exchange

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