Politics and Society Moderation Discussion Only Fans Thread

Politics and Society Moderation Discussion Only Fans Thread

Hello everyone. I've closed the previous mod thread, and opened this to capture all issues related to moderation policies and actions going forward. I'll kick it off by reposting my intro post from the other thread. Again, I'm happy to be here and look forward to hearing from you.

Browser


Hello everyone.

I'm very pleased to have the opportunity to serve as a moderator in Politics and Society. I asked for this position because I believe we are experiencing a polarization in our politics and society unseen since the 1960s. We may well be at a juncture from which we will either make great progress or suffer great setbacks in regards to our democratic foundations and civil rights over the next few years. So I believe it is important to maintain a forum for discussing these important topics. When the other mods had to step back a bit due to their real life time obligations, I asked to join the mod team to help keep the forum going.

I have not followed this forum in the past, though I have been reading through threads the last few days and made a few posts. This has allowed me to get a sense of the initial impression the forum likely makes on new readers who are deciding if our forum is a place they would like to visit regularly and participate in. While I see some familiar names from the live poker forum, many of you I have not had any interaction with to date. I have no preconceived notions of anyone's posting behavior and will essentially start from a clean slate.

I will shortly post more about my modding approach and give my initial impressions of the forum based on my observations over the last several days. I will be soliciting your input on things you like about the forum that you want to remain, and things you don't like that you would like me to change. Your candid input and feedback is very important to me. Especially, please don't hesitate to let me know if you think a policy or a proposal is a bad idea. I'd rather hear it before it goes into effect than after.

My overall modding principle is simple: Be Nice. Disagreement need not be disrespectful, and everyone must be treated with respect. Calling a poster derogatory names or hurling snarky insults never usefully advances a discussion. It just bogs things down and turns off many would be participants. And it's not nice. Don't do it.

My goal is to have a forum where people with a wide variety of opinions along the political spectrum enjoy expressing and debating their views in a spirited manner, free from insults, bigotry and denigrating comments. If you enjoy discussing these important and often polarizing issues in a passionate, yet respectful manner, I look forward to getting to know you and working with you to create a forum people will enjoy visiting and contributing to. You can be as committed, determined and relentless as you like in advocating for your position. Be persuasive, thought provoking and challenging. But be nice.

I want to thank tame_deuces and King Spew for their support in bringing me onboard and for all the time and effort they have put into making the forum better. While I am taking over most of the day to day modding responsibilities, both are retaining their mod status and superpowers, and will be supporting the forum as their availability permits. And I personally welcome their continued advice and feedback.

Again, I am happy to be here and look forward to getting to know you.

Browser

24 December 2022 at 02:15 AM
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1077 Replies

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by d2_e4 P

Right, so you have a hard on for exercising power in a position of minor authority. Got it.

You live in ****ing Thailand, you can get that hard on taken care of in other ways. Why you gotta **** with us?

You should prob also stop posting on this topic.


by browser2920 P


Your apparent obsession with whether a post (not even one of yours) was deleted is very odd. Do you think anyone at all will care a week from now if a post was deleted? A day from now? Will most people even remember most posts a few hours from now?

By this very logic, we might as well pack up the whole forum and go home, which is what it seems you want done.


Look, regardless of our differences, and clowning on each other, Trolly is my buddy, You ban him, you made an enemy with me.


by browser2920 P

You don't got ****. I've had to exercise the power of life and death decisions several times in my life during my Army career. Modding a website is not exercising power. Mods have no power. In the end, this is a meaningless little corner of a meaningless internet forum where meaningless discussions take place for meaningless diversion or entertainment. If you think moderating such a place gets anyone hard about the power, then this site mus

You gotta love this. You came back after six months of stepping down and have taken more moderation actions in the last few weeks than all the mods combined for the entire time you were gone. Somebody criticizes you for it. Your response? "You can't criticize me; I was in the army!"

Maybe this forum doesn't mean a damn thing to you, but it does to the rest of us. I can say that this forum had a huge effect on me in various stages of my life, and I am positive that most of the few remaining regs that we have here would say the same. If you don't care about what happens to this place, why are you even modding it? I might be wrong, but it seems to me that this "I don't care what happens to this meaningless little corner of the Internet" attitude stems from the fact that you were not a politics poster. You had not made even one post in the politics subforum when you were made a mod of this place. Is really shouldn't be a surprise to anybody that you don't seem to care about what happens here.

I don't remember any time in politics forum history where we have had such heavy handed moderation, and that includes your first stint as a moderator. I am not sure what happened, but at this rate, this will be a dead forum in three months. Maybe you don't care, but the rest of us surely do.


by DonkJr P

Maybe this forum doesn't mean a damn thing to you, but it does to the rest of us. I can say that this forum had a huge effect on me in various stages of my life, and I am positive that most of the few remaining regs that we have here would say the same. If you don't care about what happens to this place, why are you even modding it?

Absolutely. For me I was either posting at a previous politics forum or this one for, geeze, almost 25 years. That makes me sound old, but maybe most of us are now. Lots of forum posting was silly faux drama and taking the piss or whatever, but somehow in between that it is also the case that most of my political development ultimately happened on one of the two politics forums. This is mostly fond memories from the past - this forum like most forums have been declining for a long time before and after browser - and it isn't particularly crucial to my political viewpoints today, but they are still there at the core that yes the forum does actually mean something to me and kind of sad in a way to see it decline.


Moderator here is like being the GOP leader of the House 😀


In congress the speaker has to be a member of congress first and then congress votes them in😉


by uke_master P

In congress the speaker has to be a member of congress first and then congress votes them in😉

Really?


You guys are way overreacting


Oh right, there was that bit where people were saying Trump should be speaker. Canadian ftl


by uke_master P

lol oh really? Wtf kind of rules do you americans have, please become a sensible democracy like canada.

Every speaker ever has been a representative, but it's not technically required eh


Nice edit knob


I dont think its unreasonable for Browser to ask people not to just drop into this thread to just talk a bunch of **** about other posters out nowhere.


by metsandfinsfan P

Nice edit knob

Yeah he had to remove sensible democracy as he knows that ain't true

I don't see Joe Biden arresting Peter Ducey because he doesn't like the question He may want to


by uke_master P

Absolutely. For me I was either posting at a previous politics forum or this one for, geeze, almost 25 years. That makes me sound old, but maybe most of us are now. Lots of forum posting was silly faux drama and taking the piss or whatever, but somehow in between that it is also the case that most of my political development ultimately happened on one of the two politics forums. This is mostly fond memories from the past - this forum like m


I'm abit confused by this because P in it's heyday was heavily moderated. Personal attacks were against the rules. Then many set their own forum up - I only see some of the public stuff but it's been a moderation cluster****

If you just mean that browser doens't care about the forum then I dont think that's the case.


Let me explain my meaningless comment. I see I worded it poorly and so I gave some of you a different impression than I was going for. Obviously I care about the forum and think it is worthwhile or I would never spend the amount of time that I do on it. So in that regard, as in being useful, entertaining, enjoyable, etc I would say sure, it has meaning. And if, as Uke stated, post on this forum shaped his political beliefs then that is even more meaningful. So seeing things in that light, I would agree that meaningless was a poor choice of words on my part.

The connotation of meaningless I was referring to was in the context of the types of posts I regularly deal with with either deletions or bans. Specifically, the post that was the point of contention, trolly. getting a temp ban for calling another poster a racist clown in the mod thread hours after I had reiterated in that same thread that such comments violated the personal attack rule of the site. I was surprised at the level of pushback over such a clear cut case. And frankly couldnt (and still dont) understand why such a trivial action generates such outrage. The world will not long remember whether a poster called another poster a racist clown, or whether a mod deleted it. So in that regard I saw it as meaningless. Perhaps a better phrasing would be " much ado about nothing".

But let me be clear on something. Personal attacks are against sitewide rules. Its rule number 1. There is no exception for the politics forum. If you cant participate in a spirited political discussion without resorting to name calling and personal insults, that is most likely due to either the weakness of your position or the weakness of your vocabulary. In both cases the poster runs out of things to say, so is left with only insults to use to keep the discussion going.

Probably 50% of the post reports and PMs I receive involve users wanting me to stop someone from calling them a racist, fascist, transphobe, antisemite, nazi or other such label. They sincerely believe that label is false, that their opinion is valid, and they find it offensive and hurtful to be falsely and publicly accused of this. The other 50% of reports and PMs are complaining that I havent deleted posts or banned those very same posters because they are racist, etc. Almost every day I get multiple post reports from multiple users demanding mod action. If you look back in the mod thread (skimming over the 90% of posts that have nothing to do with modding) you will see that most posts ask about why DIDN'T I ban this poster or that or delete this post or that, rather than the other way around.

The number of users pushing for more mod action far outweighs the number demanding less. There seems to be a very vocal but minority group of posters who believe the forum should go back to an essentially unmodded mode. That would undoubtedly make some happy. But it's not going to happen.

So, those who feel strongly that the sitewide personal attacks rule should not be enforced in Politics should go to the ATF forum and make your case to TPTB. There you can explain in detail why being able to call someone a ****ing ******* or a racist clown, or call all transgender people mentally ill is so integral to the discussion of politics that without it they should just shut the forum down. If TBTB agree then I will support that decision. But until that happens the sitewide rules will continue to be enforced.


I'm one of those who thinks there should be moderation of those who find name calling to be a valid rebuttal of an argument, but it needs to be equally applied to everyone which it has never seemed to be. A few posters seem to have free reign to do whatever they want and never even get a temp ban or even a public warning.


by chillrob P

I'm one of those who thinks there should be moderation of those who find name calling to be a valid rebuttal of an argument, but it needs to be equally applied to everyone which it has never seemed to be. A few posters seem to have free reign to do whatever they want and never even get a temp ban or even a public warning.

I actually browser or the mods the last month have done a pretty good job at that. It used to be the lefties could say anything they wanted . Trolly used to be the worst but I just blocked him my only block so no clue what he does now

I have never seen any merit in personally insulting folks that seems to be a lefty thing here as it pertains to the forum but our politics has been reduced to that as well


by lozen P

I actually browser or the mods the last month have done a pretty good job at that. It used to be the lefties could say anything they wanted . Trolly used to be the worst but I just blocked him my only block so no clue what he does now

I have never seen any merit in personally insulting folks that seems to be a lefty thing here as it pertains to the forum but our politics has been reduced to that as well

The most left leftie can still say anything he wants.


by chillrob P

The most left leftie can still say anything he wants.

I am not sure whom that is?


This may surprise some of you, but if I were given a list of the top 15 regular posters in this forum and had to say whether they were left or right, pro or anti one position or another I pretty much couldn't do it. I might get a few stances on a particular issue right, if there were a modding action involved. But otherwise I couldn't because it just isn't a factor in how I mod, so there has never been a need for me to remember that stuff.


by browser2920 P

This may surprise some of you, but if I were given a list of the top 15 regular posters in this forum and had to say whether they were left or right, pro or anti one position or another I pretty much couldn't do it. I might get a few stances on a particular issue right, if there were a modding action involved. But otherwise I couldn't because it just isn't a factor in how I mod, so there has never been a need for me to remember that stuff.

I don't think you mod based on left or right, but it is clear that at least one poster in particular has always been given free reign, as has been mentioned many times in this thread.

Maybe he has dirt on the owners of the forum? 🤔


by browser2920 P

This may surprise some of you, but if I were given a list of the top 15 regular posters in this forum and had to say whether they were left or right, pro or anti one position or another I pretty much couldn't do it. I might get a few stances on a particular issue right, if there were a modding action involved. But otherwise I couldn't because it just isn't a factor in how I mod, so there has never been a need for me to remember that stuff.

It's not your job to do it. You should clean up spam, and at most, steer conversation in a certain direction. You have ideas way, way, above your station. You seem to be trying to mold the forum into some vision you have, using "plata o pomo" rules.


That was certainly not the role of P mods in the past


by d2_e4 P

While I have not at all been involved in this recent chat, this is a resounding endorsement if I've ever seen one. Didn't you at some point vouch for renowned pedo Sklansky, owing to the fact that you knew him personally?

I only ever vouched for the parrots, but they could have been pedos too. I really don’t know.


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