# Modding for content **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [January 11, 2011, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modding-for-content/567187 "2011-01-11T03:22:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Doctor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Doctor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2011, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modding-for-content/567187/161 "2011-01-14T01:08:10Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > The fact that someone else had written an article about 50 great inventions doesn’t alter the fact that the poll on inventions was essentially the same concept as the one closed by czarcasm. Which also did not go much of anywhere, probably because it was too broad as well. So, by all the logic I have seen in this thread, we should DEMAND that Czarcasm rush to that thread and close it as well. :rolleyes: Anyhow, reading the thread has been amusing. I understand why Czarcasm did what he did. Those of you arguing against it are quite amusing in your misinterpretations of what he tells you. But, go ahead, carry on, have yourselves a good time. Just don’t expect him to change his mind. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2011, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modding-for-content/567187/162 "2011-01-14T01:44:16Z")
\ ---
**Author:** ![Doctor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Doctor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2011, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modding-for-content/567187/163 "2011-01-14T01:53:46Z")
never mind ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2011, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modding-for-content/567187/164 "2011-01-14T02:47:43Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > In this case, I would argue, there isn’t much. The poll was essentially a random collection of thoughts and ideas with no connection. It could have been a reasonable poll with some significant work by the OP, IMO, but it wasn’t. I’m not sure I would have closed the thread if I were moderator, but I certainly approve of the moderators being tasked with killing threads “too diffuse to live”. > > Since the moderators have had that task since the early days of the forum I think we’re just arguing about whether this mod drew the line in the right place on this thread. I don’t have a strong feeling either way, but I’m pretty sure the thread would be another one of Curtis’ semi-random ideas that don’t pan out. If it was the first time he ever did this I wouldn’t mind, but he does post a lot of threads with similar results. > > The mods are thesis advisers (or traffic cops) on some level. They are tasked with keeping the level of discourse above a minimum threshold. I see closing threads like this as performing that duty. I could also see the argument that this particular thread did in fact meet the minimum threshold, but it’s a judgment call, not an abuse of power. You’re missing the point. It’s not an issue of how much that post was worth. It’s an issue of who should be deciding worth. If the thread was worthless and wouldn’t have generated any responses, then it would have disappeared. In that case, Czarcasm didn’t need to close it. If the thread had more worth than was apparent it might have gotten some responses and started an interesting discussion. In that case, Czarcasm shouldn’t have closed it. So, Czarcasm’s action was either unnecessary or wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2011, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modding-for-content/567187/165 "2011-01-14T03:05:33Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > So, Czarcasm’s action was either unnecessary or wrong. You could say the same about the QQQQQ thread, yet there seems to be some consensus that it should be closed. Do the mods have the ability to interpret what meets the minimum threshold for a thread? Traditionally, they have had that responsibility. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2011, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modding-for-content/567187/166 "2011-01-14T04:05:11Z")
I won’t claim that Qin’s thread was great but it was not the equivalent of a line of Q’s. Anyone who lacks the ability to tell the difference shouldn’t be closing any posts. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2011, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modding-for-content/567187/167 "2011-01-14T04:32:51Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > If you can’t see the infeasibility of “Let’s discuss 75 different unrelated points throughout all of history in the same thread”, then there isn’t anything else I can say to you. I relied on my many years of experience on this board(experience that some of you are dismissing as useless) to make my decision, and I stand by it. You just don’t get it. I do see the infeasibility. I just think that you should have done nothing about it when you saw the infeasibility. Having an infeasible thread in existence is not some blight on the pristine perfectness that is the SDMB. If the other posters also judge it to be infeasible, then it will drop like a stone (and thereby no longer pollute the perfectness that is the SDMB, which is bestowed on us unworthies through pure moderator beneficence). The whole idea of closing a thread just because you think it’s infeasible is completely ridiculous. Why can’t you just ban spammers, close QQQQ threads, warn/ban posters for rules violations, and just leave everything else alone? ---
**Author:** ![BlankSlate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blankslate/32/80_2.png) [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2011, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modding-for-content/567187/168 "2011-01-14T06:42:07Z")
I think I would have voted for “Adolf Hitler Is Killed in the Beer Hall Putsch” but Curtis (or someone else?) voted for “Theodore Roosevelt Is Elected President in 1912”, which seems a very strange choice, given all the options. Yeah, I think the thread should have lived or died on it’s own merits, but I can’t really get upset about it. **Czarcasm** , did you encourage the OP to repost the poll with fewer choices? The thread had some potential, perhaps if the OP had limited it to the major wars and plagues/diseases throughout human history. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2011, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modding-for-content/567187/169 "2011-01-14T08:17:59Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I won’t claim that Qin’s thread was great but it was not the equivalent of a line of Q’s. Anyone who lacks the ability to tell the difference shouldn’t be closing any posts. > [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > The whole idea of closing a thread just because you think it’s infeasible is completely ridiculous. Why can’t you just ban spammers, close QQQQ threads, warn/ban posters for rules violations, and just leave everything else alone? Have to agree with these folks. I don’t know which kind of poll it was (single or multi-option). If it was single option, it would be difficult to keep track of all the choices to pick a single one. But someone could still post without voting if they just wanted to defend their favorites. And a multichoice poll would have worked great, because you could pick more than one, without having to keep track of the ones you already looked at. Then the most popular ones could be debated and defended. The examples given really don’t compare to this at all. An indecipherable OP (incomplete question) or gibberish OP (series of Qs) are easy to close because they are clearly either a mistake, or malicious - behavior that intentionally breaks stated rules. This OP was clearly neither. The mod disliked the content or the style, without being able to demonstrate which rule it breaks. This creates a really confusing and inconsistent modding policy that cannot be easily understood or followed by either posters or enforced consistently and appropriately by mods. It also insults the intelligence of Dopers. We dumb things couldn’t possibly handle thinking about a list with 75 items! Better save us from thinking too much! It’s not like we were forced to compare and contrast each items with every other item in turn ad infinitum. The intent was to pick the one or few each poster felt worth defending or debating. ---
**Author:** ![iamnotbatman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/858c86/32.png) [@iamnotbatman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamnotbatman)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2011, 9:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modding-for-content/567187/170 "2011-01-14T09:11:25Z")
As far as I can tell, the mods are just people. People who are doing their best to try to control quality. They face an enormous number of subjective, endlessly debatable decisions, in which they must attempt to draw a line and maintain it. The thread in question was in the fuzzy region. The mod said that he would welcome a “re-do”, a more coherent version of the thread, and did nothing to suggest an attempt to suppress or bias the thread’s content other than the generic recommendation “narrow the time frame involved and/or the number of events”. The mod has merely exerted some inert, positive organizational pressure on **Qin Shi Huangdi** ’s drive-by thread-shotgun-vomit, hopefully forcing him to put a little bit more thought into his subsequent threads. This is an especially reasonable action given **Qin Shi Huangdi** ’s somewhat eye-brow raising history of posting disorganized threads and then not returning to them to show any sort of personal investment in them. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2011, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modding-for-content/567187/171 "2011-01-14T14:26:45Z")
> [@Fenris](#): > > Thinking about this specific issue for a moment, what about a “What was the worst/best movie to win the Oscar” thread? That’d certainly be ok–there have been similar threads if not that one in particular…there were 83 Oscars and yet such a thread would clearly be appropriate. Putting a poll at the beginning wouldn’t change the appropriateness of the thread. > > So why is this one out of bounds? His points of divergence were interesting–he didn’t just pick the obvious ones–and the question “Which change would make the best world today” made the focus pretty narrow. > > Heh–I just remembered this one. Started with a list of 100+ choices…and was just fine for over 100 posts. [QUOTE=Little Nemo] I won’t claim that Qin’s thread was great but it was not the equivalent of a line of Q’s. Anyone who lacks the ability to tell the difference shouldn’t be closing any posts. [/QUOTE] These two posts pretty much say everything that needs to be said. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2011, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modding-for-content/567187/172 "2011-01-14T16:18:51Z")
I’m afraid I can’t escape the suspicion that the thread was closed because **Czarcazm** just plain doesn’t like **Qin**. It’s not a suspicion I’m happy to have. ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2011, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modding-for-content/567187/173 "2011-01-14T16:41:17Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > In this case, I would argue, there isn’t much. The poll was essentially a random collection of thoughts and ideas with no connection. It could have been a reasonable poll with some significant work by the OP, IMO, but it wasn’t. And how is this 51 poll option thread not “a random collection of thoughts and ideas”? Is it just because the OP took the ideas from someone else instead of making them up on their own? [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=13342899#post13342899](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=13342899#post13342899) It’s a thread of what is the worlds greatest idea. In the options are bread, sewerage, romance, Qi and refrigeration. Also note the OP did no “significant work” to flesh out the options. They just basically said, “Hey looky what I found. What do you think?”. ---
**Author:** ![Polerius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d78d45/32.png) [@Polerius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polerius)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2011, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modding-for-content/567187/174 "2011-01-14T17:18:25Z")
> [@Larry\_Borgia](#): > > I’m afraid I can’t escape the suspicion that the thread was closed because **Czarcazm** just plain doesn’t like **Qin**. It’s not a suspicion I’m happy to have. I agree that it does seem to have played a part in his decision. As far as the idiotic claims made by some that an OP with only Q’s is in the same league as the OP we are discussing, how many people would have come to a thread to complain about the closing of an OP with Q’s in it? ---
**Author:** ![srzss05](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/898d66/32.png) [@srzss05](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/srzss05)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2011, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modding-for-content/567187/175 "2011-01-14T17:58:16Z")
> [@Polerius](#): > > how many people would have come to a thread to complain about the closing of an OP with Q’s in it? [At least 17.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=561569) Not about a thread with all Qs, but it shows that some people complain about anything. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2011, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modding-for-content/567187/176 "2011-01-14T18:09:58Z")
> [@srzss05](#): > > [At least 17.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=561569) Not about a thread with all Qs, but it shows that some people complain about anything. Did you even read that thread? The only person to complain was the OP; everyone else in the thread basically said, “Well, it was a stupid, drunken thread and it deserved to be closed.” Even the OP came back at the end and said that starting the thread was tongue-in-cheek. Thanks for playing anyway, though. ---
**Author:** ![srzss05](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/898d66/32.png) [@srzss05](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/srzss05)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2011, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modding-for-content/567187/177 "2011-01-14T18:14:55Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > Thanks for playing anyway, though. Sarcasm is wasted on some people. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2011, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modding-for-content/567187/178 "2011-01-14T18:21:18Z")
> [@srzss05](#): > > Sarcasm is wasted on some people. Sorry, but there was nothing to indicate sarcasm in your post. You realize, i assume, that i cannot see the wry smile on your face while you’re typing? If you’re going to use sarcasm in a text medium, you need to be smart enough to do it so that it’s recognizable, otherwise you risk being taken seriously. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modding-for-content/567187/179 "2011-01-15T03:02:57Z")
In “modding for content” news, at least one mod thinks [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=592936) thread on suicide (which within 15 posts drew two posters who discussed their contemplations of imminent suicide) is OK to let stick around. Interesting to see the divergent mod views. And to see the mods insist that we have rules here (except when it becomes inconvenient to so insist, where they fall back on “hey, I make subjective calls, I have to, deal with it”). ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modding-for-content/567187/180 "2011-01-15T11:58:15Z")
Suicide threads on the internet always get people agitated. They should be ignored since, a/ usually people do not follow through, and b/ it doesn’t matter in the least if they do. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modding-for-content/567187.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/modding-for-content/567187.md?page=10)