I generally come down in the same spot as @Stranger_On_A_Train has. Both as to the merits of commercialized collegiate sport in general and the merits of moving the topic thread from GD to GR.
I often find GD problematic because, like FQ it has a certain, well, reputation, to uphold and a style to maintain. Which rigidity is good, up until it isn’t. In FQ, the nature of the issues addressed means threads don’t often go off the rails. In GD that’s inherently less true due to the topics addressed.
My estimate is had @Dinsdale chosen to start his thread in IMHO, and hadn’t included any intro about dithering as to category, it’d still be there now.
Switching gears a bit …
There’s a difference between the rules of a category, and the audience the category attracts. In my personal case I have over the years posted several threads in GQ/FQ not because the question was oh-so-factual, but because in my estimation, the people who could supply what I was looking for and/or have a good discussion, were FQ regulars rarely seen in IMHO.
If every poster here saw every new title in every category there would not be the tension between posting in a category to best fit the rules of engagement of the category versus the expected audience of the category.
I do not have a solution to this dichotomy. I merely point it out for everyone’s consideration.
The topic thread does seem to be thriving now in GR.
If it wouldn’t be a ton of extra work, I think it might smooth things over to ask OPs if they would like the thread to be moved. I had a thread moved in the distant past to a forum that led to a different discussion from what I wanted, and it was a little annoying.
This is a good point. In the case of the thread in question, I think it should not have been moved because it was a discussion that I think would be of interest to people who don’t care about sports. And, in fact, by excluding such people, you might be missing one important side in the debate.
Yes, the thread was about sports, but “from the outside,” in a more “meta” way than the kind of discussions I expect in The Game Room.
My opinion: the OP’s thread could have been a GD or IMHO thread if written a little differently, but as written it is a Game Room thread.
The focus as written was what to do with college sports: keep them in college, or spin them off into a minor league or similar. The debate is centered around sports.
Another thread could be written centered around colleges: should they continue to fund sports? What benefits or downsides come from it? That seems like a non-Game Room topic.
That was very much my thinking. Sure, I coulda posted it in IMHO or The Game Room. Or maybe in MPSIMS or the Pit. But I had hoped for the type of discussion I expected from GD.
I also guess I coulda asked a mod before posting, or asked that it be moved back after. But I don’t see that last option as viable in light of WE’s initial response in this thread.
So what exacty did I “complain about” in the 2 threads I started prior to this one?
Well, the most recent one, asking about a retitled/merged thread started off with:
Ran a whopping 3 posts, including one poster who shared my curiosity, before an explanation was provided and the thread ended.
The one before that asked about nearly identical threads being started less than a month after the prior one. I’m not sure how that was a complaint about mod action. Another poster noted that they had reported the duplicate thread for closure/merger/mod action. And I ended my OP with:
I have repeatedly acknowledged and deferred to mods’ actions. Infrequently (IMO), I have expressed my disagreement with their actions or forum rules, or have asked for explanations. But I have a hard time imagining what I have done - in this thread, in the 3 WE apparently looked up, or over the prior 2 decades to merit WE’s characterization in their initial response to me.