Moderation Questions and General Chat Thread

What are the rules for OTs in threads? i find myself talking about very off-topic things in most threads, with people going along (or starting the OT) all the times. In some other places that's very frowned upon but here that doesn't seem to be the case so i am playing along with it.

Is that ok, or is having content-specific threads preferable, and if so, should i start opening threads when we get very OT or should i search for and dig up old threads on that topic?

Threads should generally stay on topic, but it's natural for any conversation to drift at times. If it's just going off topic for a few posts, I'd want to let that go as that's normal and easy to read. If the new topic starts to take over, then it should definitely be in its own thread, but at that point moving that is quite disruptive and a lot of work. So I find this very difficult.

Best, in my mind, would be that if you expect a short drift off topic to become a big thing, at that point post that you're taking it to a new thread and then do so. You can also request for mods to excise the conversation to a new or other existing thread.

Trump thread derailing into a gun/2A discussion lasting more than 50 posts seems a bit much. Too bad the regulars can't self regulate.....

This is exactly what a shill trying to promote some new "prodigy" called "hole in wan" would say.

You are exactly right. Make a post in that thread to fix the problem.

Especially now, since very few people are posting regularly and even fewer still are putting in any effort (myself included) it's going to be more natural for threads to drift. The same handful people are not going to generate. The point of moderators is to make the forum readable for regular posters.....so unless you're getting complaints don't expend effort. In the past mods would just change thread titles even if the off topic parts were more interesting.

This is a moderation related post.

I think that moderators should not only have their own opinions, but be forced to tell us what they are, which is something Browser is refusing to do in the Ukraine thread.

Browser, you seem to see moderating this forum the same as refereeing a soccer game. It is not. As DonkJr tried in vain to point out to you, this is a community. You are not a referee, but even if you were, we could just all go to ATF, as you suggest, and get your incompetent ass fired. So, why don't you try to work with us, instead of against us?

Keep confusing kindness with weakness, bro. If I wanted to starrt a mutiny, I'd probably have every single reg here on board. Maybe with the exception of the only one you haven't banned yet. Wait, there aren't any of those.

You are not special. I get that enforcing incosequential rules gets your little dick harder than usual, but that doesn't do it for the rest of us, yeah? You are not the capo di tutti capi. You are someone someone we have begrudgingly accepted gets to delete spam. Wind your ****ing neck in.

In a stunning example of consistency, everything you state in this post is wrong. There, you have my own opinion. 😂

Given your recent willingness to die on the hill that "all posters are educated, just misunderstood", or whatever flavour of horseshit you were pushing there, I don't think you are really in a position to make blanket statements about how wrong I might be about anything.

Sigh. I tried and tried to prevent this, but you seem dead set on playing this out. See you in a week.

You asked for my personal opinion, not my mod position.

If there is a bright side to this, it is that maybe you can see just how necessary d2 is to the health of this dying forum. We know you won't ever acknowledge it publicly, as you are incapable of ever admitting that you are wrong about anything, but maybe there will be a pang of realization in the back of your mind that some of the regs here are much more important than you are. Maybe you can come to the secret realization that banning top contributors for something as innocuous as what you just banned d2 for is a bad idea. That is unless it is your goal to just kill this forum yourself, which is a very real possibility.

Have a nice day!

I have had an unusually busy few weeks, so I haven't been able to address this, nor was I planning to until you banned d2, but I have a couple of minutes before another nightmarish few weeks of trial work.

(1) You absolutely did not answer any question I asked. All you did was deflect. "Why are you so outraged about posters who refuse to stop personally attacking other posters getting posts deleted or temp banned?" Not only did I not suggest that was my issue, but I know you are smart enough to know that was not was I was saying.

You were complaining about how much work and how much of a burden it is to mod this forum. That the thought of you doing it because you like to assert power over us is completely absurd. I can assure you that every single reg looks at those statements and chuckles a little bit at how insane it is given your moderation philosophy.

(2) I refuse to believe that you, a person that never participated in this forum, got the mod position for any other reason other than being somebody's cousin or uncle. I REFUSE TO BELIEVE IT.

(3) You will be happy to hear that I did indeed win in court last week. 😀

You should go back to the old mod thread and you will, in fact, find examples of where I admitted I was wrong, and reversed policies. You probably won't, though because you won't want to wade through hundreds of nonmod related posts to find the actual mod related posts.

really shocked that led to a ban for d2, huge over reach imo

Well in a sense he is a referee that oversees the game and calls out violations some are minor and some yellow cards and some are red cards. As I always told the players I coached that referees may make 50 calls a game and if they get a few wrong they are batting 96% which is an A+ . Yes they get the odd ones wrong and I personally do not think you should be suspended for the next comment . It still baffles me some individuals can constantly insult folks with zero repercussions

Oh there are many that have not been suspended that should be but I am not the Mod .

If your so confident that everyone would vote him out as mod maybe you should start a poll. You may be shocked by the result

I did answer your question specifically. And an admin told you I had no contact or relationship with anyone up the management chain. So I told you that there was no clearer way I could think of for me to answer your question, so there was no purpose in discussing it with you any more.

Is it really your position that instead of answering it like that, that the rules should permit me to say, "i answered your question perfectly. You are just too stupid a ****ing moron to grasp it" ? Do you think that would create a better forum? If so, then by all means go to ATF and make that case. I certainly don't have the authority to change that rule.

I like to go through the old mod threads all the time exactly because of that. A lot of the most memorable and entertaining posts were in the old mod thread, were way off-topic, and WERE NOT DELETED.

Reading Lozen's reply above, I think there are probably two camps within this forum:

(1) People that only really participate in this forum to talk politics and tend to avoid (or at least want to avoid) the general drama between users. I don't think those users would have a problem with your modding style.

(2) People that participate in this forum because they like to be part of the community, rather than only to discuss politics. People that not only like the banter between the regs, but think that is more the point of this forum than to just talk politics. Even when it is combative, such as having Trolly call me illiterate or Victor call me a fascist, and then taking shots back, it is more interesting to me than to discuss the same five political topics over and over again. This kind of poster, which includes posters like d2 and Victor, are always going to have a big problem with your moderation style.

I guess I can concede that if what you want is a forum where we are strictly limited to posting about politics, your philosophy is fine. I personally think that we can talk politics on dozens of other sites with higher traffic than this one, but the reason we come here is because of the community aspect.

This guy^^^^gets it.

I'm mostly fine with Browser's attempts to clean up the insults and ****-talking. Some of it when it's lighthearted can be fun and fine, but too much does I think bring the forum down.

Demanding that everything stay on topic or that the mod thread be squeaky clean is problematic because it kills organic discussion.

Ive posted this several times, including just recently. There is no policy that is being enforced by any mods that says you cant veer off topic at times within a given thread, with the single exception of the new mod thread. And the reason for the mod thread exception has also been explained many times. However there does reach a point when a derail becomes so extensive, as I think it was in the Trump thread with gun control, where it needs to get cleaned up. But I think movement of large numbers of posts from a topic thread has only happened once in many months.

So it doesnt appear to me that organic discussion or banter is being cut off any where but the mod thread. As for community, I get that. But I also see that a huge percentage of post reports I get are from long standing members of the community telling me that they take offense at personal insults directed at them, and want mods to take action to punish offenders and get them to stop. So I dont know how widespread the desire for allowing more personal attacks is or how many posters feel insulting people is required to feel like part of the community. The feedback I get privately suggests most dont want to see more personal insults permitted.

Ah, the old "I've had PMs".