In this thread, two people including me have been moderated for so-called off topic" remarks that look completely on topic to me. How can anyone discuss the political reactions to prices without being allowed to discuss political reaction to prices? All I see is people getting slapped down totally arbitrarily. If we aren’t allowed to talk about the topic just say so.
You mean your rant about people living under overpasses and cooking squirrels?
A paraphrase of a quote, not a “rant”. One making the important point that the country is full of people who prioritize hatred over self interest. An important thing to consider in a thread about politics.
Thank you, that’s the quote I was trying to (badly) remember.
That thread is specifically about gas prices; there’s plenty to discuss specifically on that topic without bringing in adjacent examples of MAGA insanity. I believe that’s where What_Exit is drawing the line. I don’t see an issue with that; it will otherwise turn into another Trump complaint thread, no different from the others. And I say this as someone who thinks What_Exit is sometimes too heavy-handed with moderation.
I agree with the OP, Mighty_Mouse’s post was talking about the political attitudes of their coworkers on economic issues, if that’s off-topic in a thread called “What happens politically if gas prices go through the roof?” what is on-topic?
Moreover, I think the mods efforts to keep threads “on-topic” is getting too extreme these days, we should relax a bit and let topics wander a bit, nobody is going to die or worse stop reading/posting in the SDMB because a thread was not strictly on-topic for a post or five.
I don’t think that “off topic” is the mot juste for those posts, more that they do not conform to the usual seriousness that some people at least expect in P&E. They were, if I may so put it, too hyperbolic to contribute much to a serious discussion. Are MAGA voters willing to follow Trump, open-eyed, off the edge of a cliff? That’s a valid question, one that deserves a serious-minded discussion, more than cheap caricature.
This is just my opinion, of course, and I have not generally seen mods modding on the basis of style, at least not much.
Cheap caricature? The irony burns.
- The mod note explicitly said “Please, no replies that take us further off the topic of the OP”
- Since when is a mod’s job to police “the tone” of a post? unless the poster is being a jerk (which is not the case in this thread).
Quoting this to upvote the sentiment. If that post was off-topic, then just close the thread as the subject is unsuitable for discussion on SDMB. But that’s a ridiculous conclusion, you say? Well yes, that is ridiculous; that’s the point we’re making.
I don’t feel I was policing tone, not even sure what you mean by that here.
He’s replying to a poster who tried to justify you moderation by saying that my post was not off topic, but a cheap caricature, and that you were moderating for tone, not for being off topic. Your argument is with Roderick-Femm’s characterization of your moderation, not Frodo.
I wasn’t policing tone, I was moderating that replies to your post could easily go off topic into discussion about minimum wage and such.
I didn’t even hide yours in fact.
Right. Not a bad call, and it was only a Note. If it had been a warning then the OP would have had a more valid complaint.
I’m just going to weigh in here with a general comment. I agree with this sentiment, but don’t blame the mods. There have been a bunch of complaints about moderation in recent months that all have one thing in common – it’s not about any particular mod, it’s about a policy about strict moderation for staying on topic in P&E which the mods are all trying to follow.
It was first stated by the late Colibri as follows:
Hijacks. This is, perhaps, the single largest and most important change to the rules in Great Debates and Politics and Elections made in 2020. Staying on topic is a strong goal of Great Debates and Politics and Elections moving forward.
I don’t know if this came just from Colibri or directly from Ed, but while it expresses a valid goal, I do think it’s being taken to extremes and that the policy should be revisited and loosened up just a bit, because it seems to be causing more grief for posters than any problem it actually solves.
Again, not the fault of anyone, but I think loosening the rule just a tad would make the board a happier place with less grumbling in ATMB, and fewer instances of posters so concerned about being sanctioned for something deemed not exactly on topic that they don’t post at all.
All the people that made the current policies for P&E are dead and have been for years.
I did not say anyone was policing for tone, I said that modding for “off-topic” seemed off-base to me, and that the parts of those posts that struck me badly were the hyperbole.
I was wrong about that part. I now think they were in fact veering off topic. Here’s the sequence as I see it:
What will happen if gas prices skyrocket?
Some answers: Trump voters will at some point become disgruntled with it. Some reasons provided.
Other answers: Trump voters will not become disgruntled. Some reasons provided, including some about the nature of Trump voters. Why are Trump voters like that? (and this is where the veering starts) Because they hate certain people so much they don’t care about their own interests, etc. etc.
What I conclude from this is that discussions of “why are Trump voters like that?” is a well-traveled road and not strictly relevant to this thread. At least according to the moderation applied.
I note that there’s now been several posts about whether oil prices will go up, which have not been modded despite being definitely “off topic” by any strict standard. Not that I want them to be, but I can’t help but note the inconsistency.
I agree, but Roderick-Femm post advanced the theory that you were.