I disagree. I see moderation as being like the subscription cost - it’s part of the price we pay not part of the value we receive. And I don’t intend this viewpoint as a personal issue. Many of the people who are moderators here contribute quite a lot to this board as posters.
Actually, the quality moderation is entirely intertwined with the quality of posters. Moderation can be strangling and stifle all interesting conversation, or it can be too loose and allow the board to be swamped with garbage threads. Either situation can chase away quality members. Moderation isn’t a cost at all; it’s built in to the structure of the board itself.
How in the world are you confused? You just said you thought there were plenty of other instances where more moderation would be beneficial. I asked for a few of those examples. Stop being obtuse.
I don’t think I’m being obtuse by pointing out that I have no idea what point you are making. We are discussing exactly such a thread. Will providing one or two other examples of such a thread be somehow enlightening? Will it prove something? If so, what? Are you interested in threads only, or also posts? I would rather not waste my time wading through threads looking for some example that I normally happen upon once or twice a week…
And many people disagree that the thread in question needed to be moderated. If you provided a few more similar examples of threads that DID remain open, we could figure out if a) you have terrible judgment, b) there’s rampant idiocy on the board that needs to be eradicated, c) these threads you’re so worked up about actually cause harm to the board as you say.
Once or twice a week? You think that one or two idiotic threads a week contribute significantly to the decay of this board to the extent that they need to be moderated? Holy shit dude. You’ve been here for about 6 months - you ain’t seen NOTHIN’ yet.
c) I never said I was “worked up” about any moderation problems. In fact, given my contribution to this thread, I think it’s clear I’m pretty much the opposite of “worked-up” over this issue. I think the moderation has been just fine, but, I said, if anything I think it should go in the other direction, not looser.
b) There is no way to determine this from one or two examples
a) Fair enough. Here is an example I easily found by browsing for a minute:
You do realize that I don’t read every thread that comes through the board, right? I wade through thread titles, sure, and every once it a while I’ll click on one that looks promising (significantly strong selection bias). But even then, I do run into one or two crap threads a week. I think that is actually pretty high. Whenever I have waded further away from GQ, for example, the fraction of crap threads increases. For this reason I have stayed away from some parts of the board. In other words, to some extent a lack of moderation has affected my behavior, and pushed me away from contribution to the board in some areas.
This is the perfect example. A prolific OP who would post thread after thread of inanity. And the answer isn’t to lock the thread - it’s to ban the ridiculous poster. The thread itself is fine - lots of interesting discussion, interesting links, interesting factoids. The only thing wrong with it is Pierre - and that problem was solved not by locking yet another thread, but by just getting rid of the cancerous poster.
GQ consists of a fairly minor percentage of this board, in terms of number of threads, posts and unique posters. If you feel out of place when you step outside of GQ, maybe The Straight Dope isn’t for you.
As Munch notes, you’ve provided an absolutely perfect example of why simply closing threads is a stupid idea. Despite the rather inane way in which the OP of that thread was framed, it led to an interesting discussion in which a whole bunch of people participated. The question of how and why maps are drawn the way they are has been the subject of debate for a long time, and books have been written on the subject. Sure, the silly “northism = evil” way of wording the question was stupid, but the thread went pretty well despite that fact.
It seems to me that making these subjective calls about a thread being “too stupid to survive” and that sort of thing can be avoided simply by letting each conversation thrive or die in the free market of participation. If people think the thread is stupid, and decide that it doesn’t contribute to their knowledge or their entertainment or their enjoyment of the board, then it will quickly fall off the front page. If people decide that the thread offers them something, and they participate, then it will hang around and continue to grow. Basically, if there’s a demand for what the thread offers, it will prosper; if there isn’t, it will fail.
I could understand the sorts of complaints you’re making if this forum were some sort of hard-copy medium (a magazine, a newspaper, etc.), where space was at a premium and every mediocre piece of content that included meant that something else would have to be left out. But it’s not. The size of the board is, for all intents and purposes, essentially unlimited. The presence of a thread that you think is stupid or pointless does not prevent you from starting or participating in a thread that you think is good or useful. This is not some sort of zero-sum game where “more threads that i don’t like” means “fewer threads that i do like.”
If you really think that the tone of the threads in this place needs lifting, why don’t you take it upon yourself to shoulder some of the load? You clearly have a fairly strong sense of what (you think) constitutes a good thread topic and a shitty one; why not go ahead and start a few good ones? You could, of course, stick with such models of brilliance as Contest: predict how many posts will ultimately be made in this thread, or Anyone else flush before they finish?
uh wow
Well played my friend, well played.
Let’s try to avoid turning this into a personal dispute.
I understand what you’re saying, but if someone is purporting to set and defend a particular standard of thread as a minimum requirement for this message board, then surely the types of threads started by that person are relevant to the discussion.
Admittedly, neither of the threads i linked were started in GD, where the standard for debate has generally been higher, but the whole point of this thread has been to discuss the extent to which content should determine whether or not a thread is viable.
But that’s not the central argument some of us have been making. We’re not saying that this thread or that thread should have been left open because it was good. We’re saying that these threads should be left open even if they aren’t good.
I realize that. If you’d bother to read what i wrote, you know that i’ve been making precisely the same argument. I never argued that iamnotbatman’s threads should be closed.
But if someone makes the argument that some threads should, in fact, be closed because they’re stupid—as iamnotbatman has been doing—then it’s not unreasonable to look at that person’s own threads to see if they live up to the sort of standards that he claims to be setting.
Both of my threads that you chose to pick out for their supposed inanity, I think are obviously not so.
The “Contest: predict how many posts will ultimately be made in this thread” is interesting because it is self-referential. It is also a game, obviously meant for light-hearted play.
The “Anyone else flush before they finish?” is a perfectly useful and interesting personal hygiene question. This is something that I have always wondered.
I think these are actually examples of good threads, thank you very much. Much in contrast with the example I gave, which appears to be a troll.
They are indeed good examples. Good examples of how right the OP is. One thread attracts posts that are mostly no more than a number, or are just a few words long - all the thread is worthy of. The other dies a quick unnnoticed death due to its inanity.
I disagree. The thread should have been immediately rejected for trolling, and asked to re-submit with the question framed in good-faith, ie, “why, historically, are maps oriented the way they are?” There is no down-side to this. Gets rid of the troll, and promotes quality discussion if it is desired.
This is a libertarian, ideological stance. I like the idealism of it, but I don’t think it bears out in practice.
You are jumping on me for “making complaints” when I am not making complaints, other than a very mild one in passing. I find this strange role-reversal bizarre, with very little basis in anything I have said in this thread.
Actually, I don’t. I have repeatedly made this point. The line is blurry and subjective, and I think it is a close call in this case. That is essentially my thesis, which I have made very clear in this thread.
As another pointed out, I think this is unfairly personal, and irrelevant. I also strongly disagree that those threads do not contribute positively to the SDMB, to say nothing of the fact that they were cheery-picked out of many.
They aren’t all that cheery-picked. You have only ever started 6 threads that weren’t just General Questions and one of the other 4 was On the crapper: how many wipes?
To be honest, that’s one of the threads I’m most proud of.
ETA: And again, this is irrelevant, unfairly personal, and tu quoque logical fallacy. A perfect example of where moderators could do more to jump in and help.
Check out the poll results. It’s actually quite interesting and informative.