Is Science Fiction and Fantasy SE the proper place to debate the severity of Nazi Germany's atrocities?

Question

I'm sort of at a loss here.

An answer was deleted by users because it was deemed offensive.

A moderator undeleted and "improved the grammar" of it and locked it as undeleted.

All the while, a debate has been brewing in the relevant meta about whether or not some user's decision to use their earned privileges to delete the offensive content (which has not once been edited to be less offensive), including discussions about whether or not Hitler's actions were being defended or minimized.

I'm trying to figure out exactly why this should matter? Is our site, whether Main or Meta, really the place to debate and rank the atrocities committed by our political leaders. Especially when it's not being used in any way to do a meaningful analysis of fictional work. What's the point of this ranking? To establish a level where we can say "making light of this genocide is okay because here's a different set of atrocities"?

Why is this happening on our stack at all?

(Just to clarify, the debating was happening in comments. I'm not sure the existing answers really address that, as they're hung up on an answer with politics in it. The ensuing debates in something like 3-4 comment threads on posts was always more what I was concerned about.)

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Here's a log of some of the discussion:
https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/66202/discussion-on-answer-by-rand-althor-why-was-my-answer-deleted

and the meta where it took place:
Why was my answer deleted?

Answer 1

Generally no. Atrocities committed by Nazi Germany and other powers are history and are generally not on-topic here.

However, works of science fiction and fantasy often draw from political history; a discussion of history may be on-topic if it is necessary "to do a meaningful analysis of fictional work". For example, an alternate history in which the Axis won World War II might inspire someone to ask why a particular Nazi character in that work supported the Nazi regime despite the regime's atrocities -- and the correct answer might be that the character viewed the Nazis' atrocities as less severe than atrocities committed by the Allies during World War II.¹ A blanket ban on political discussions would prevent such a question from receiving the correct answer. A post may discuss politics if such a political discussion is necessary for the analysis of an on-topic work of science fiction or fantasy.

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¹ An example that springs to mind is The Man in the High Castle. One could ask why the character Obergruppenführer Smith (an American who joined the SS after the war) joined the Nazis despite the Nazis' atrocities. An answer, which may or may not be correct, could be that Smith viewed the Americans, British, etc. as just as evil as the Nazis based on the Allies' real-world actions which also occurred in-universe. Such an answer would have to explain why Smith thought the Allies were just as evil in his mind (regardless of whether or not the Allies were just as evil).

Answer 2

No, this is not the place for these discussions.

This site is about the works of science fiction and fantasy, and while works do draw from real world examples of politics, this is not the place to discuss the merits of those views.

Sometimes answers do draw parallels to real life history, but typically this is supported in the work or by interviews with the author/director. Stack Exchange as a whole likes to deal with facts not opinions and political views are largely opinionated. To place your own political views in an answer on this site is not acceptable.

Answer 3

I'd like to propose an addendum to Null's position: discussing political issues should be OK if it's necessary to analyse a SFF work, like Null says, but I want to add a constraint to that to better define the territory.

• Discussing politics is acceptable when it's necessary to analyse a SFF work, to the extent it remains well-connected and justified by citing clearly relevant canonical evidence, and clearly used as a vessel for analysing the SFF text, and no further than that.

The idea here is that this is good:

1. Here is a possible political view. This passage from this page of this book suggests this particular character very probably resonates with that specific political view.

   I'll now discuss that political view a bit further, to the extent that it remains fully connected to what we've just established that character believes, because it will help me better explain that character. As I mention new stuff that doesn't correlate to what we've already established, I'll take care to provide new strong evidence it's actually relevant to the character.

This is not good:

2. Here's a deeply controversial political view. It's maybe vaguely possible a character might share it. [no citation]

This is also not good:

3. Here's a political view. This character probably resonates with that view (book + page evidence).

   Now I'm going to go on a lengthier ramble about that political view, and most or all of what I'm saying won't be linked back to any evidence it's got anything to do with what we know the character believes.

Scenario 1 here is going into a political view while maintaining throughout relevance to explaining the character and/or story. At no point is a political view being discussed without clear relevance to that. Everything there is a clear means to an end of explaining the story itself.

Scenario 2 is a major problem. It explains a political view, but most or all of it is not established as being relevant to explaining the character. We should expect strong evidence that the character definitely is connected to those political views: quotes, book names, page numbers, chapter titles, etc, whatever's helpful for a citation. In this case no evidence has been provided, just a brief acknowledgement that it's maybe possible (maybe just because there wasn't clear evidence to the contrary) — this isn't anywhere near our quality standards. The political view is not a means of exploring the character; rather, the pretense of exploring the character is effectively an excuse to explore a political view.

Scenario 2 doesn't meet our quality bars, and is more or less a thinly described political statement or ramble or rant. It should be removed or heavily revised.

Scenario 3 is a bit of both. Some politics is clearly linked back to the character, and can stay. Some politics is described without linking it back to the story, however, and it's not clear it's necessary or relevant to analysing the SFF work. That portion of political dialog should be deleted, since it's not actually explaining or analysing SFF text — it's just espousing politics, apparently for its own sake.

Answer 4

Meta is absolutely an appropriate place to discuss whether or not something meets a site's critea for offensive content (and thus needs to be deleted), and inasmuch as discussing real-life Truth is necessary for that, it should be allowed. For example, the belief that genocide is wrong is a real-life belief that might seem out-of-place here, but it's actually a rather crucial element of why we might consider making light of horrible atrocities offensive, and thus grounds for deletion. Of course, meta discussions on such things should be limited to topics that are actually relevant to site process! "Is anti-semitism grounds for deletion?", for example (answer: yes, by network-wide policy), rather than "Is communism stupid?"; the former is clearly tied into discussing how our site works and the latter is clearly not (whether or not something is stupid has no bearing on whether or not it's allowed to be expressed on this site).

Main is not an appropriate place for discussions of any kind. Chat is a fine place, but main is not, and comments are not to be used for that purpose anyhow.

So, basically, yes, but only in the context of discussing the extent to which an answer or question can fail to appropriately condemn Nazism before it is deleted, provided there are users that think the "the severity of Nazi Germany's atrocities" plays some role in how enforcement of that line should be carried out. Outside of that context, no, of course, random unnecessary and possibly offensive history discussions should happen in private chat, not main or meta.