It was a ridiculous example, then.
Not at all. I have pointed out why your odd claim of “modding for content” has no connection with reality in regards to the use of the word “torture” to describe waterboarding. (You have not even made a serious effort to describe why you would make such an absurd claim.) I have commented on the fact that your attempt to hijack the other thread with a spurious accusation was baseless. I have noted that your motivation seems to be one of self-aggrandizement. At no time have I posted anything that would derail this thread or hijack it with a comment that was unrelated to the discussion.
The point, dear tomndeb, is that discussing ideas generally held by those on the left is on-topic and not a threadshit and does not get commented on by the mods, whereas discussing ideas generally held by those on the right is off-topic and a threadshit and gets the mods on your ass.
In the Africa thread, a mod decided that discussing race/IQ studies and the potential genetic differences in intelligence among populations was an off-topic threadshit in a thread about why Africa is lagging developmentally.
In the waterboarding thread, the mods are perfectly fine with people using the term “torture” in a thread discussing whether waterboarding KSM helped find OBL.
It seems to me that the race/IQ discussion is on-topic for the Africa thread (because a genetic difference in intelligence could be part of an explanation of why Africa lags developmentally), but a torture discussion is not on-topic for the waterboarding thread (because whther waterboarding gleaned useful info does not depend on whether or not it is torture).
Unfortunately for your claim, there was no “discussion” of waterboarding as torture. The issue was whether waterboarding or “enhanced interrogation methods” had led to the capture and whether that factoid changed anyone’s opinion regarding the use of such techniques. That the majority of posters simply chose to substitute the shorter word “torture” for the longer euphemism “enhanced interrogation method” was never a point of contention or discussion in the thread until your attempt to hijack the thread for your personal cause.
From the OP of that thread:
In other words, the whole point of the thread was to discuss exactly what you are pretending we should not discuss, even though the only change is the substitution of a short word–one that appeared regularly in all previous discussions–for a longer phrase.
You are failing to make any case, here, and your interruption, there, remains a case of threadshitting.
If you start a thread on “automobiles,” would you expect a mod to intervene when some participants started referring to them as “cars”?
If you start a thread on “African-Americans,” would you expect a mod to intervene when some participants started referring to them as “niggers”?
Yes. See how they’re different?
Pretending that there’s some kind of moral controversy about the equivalence of waterboarding and torture similar to the terms African-American and nigger is an artificially generated partisan position. No person arguing sincerely or honestly believes that any such thing. In effect, you’re demanding that the mods pretend to be “neutral” on a non-issue, the same way that Republicans are constantly harassing the media. It’s a partisan trick, and, to a large extent, it works, forcing the media to accept the skewed terminology of the partisan right. It’s the realm of “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.” To the extent that it is not working on the mods here, I am grateful.
Would you?
Seriously, what do you think the appropriate moderation strategy should be in the different examples you’ve outlined? Should a moderator intervene if:
a) People post studies about inherent IQ differences between the races in a thread about Africa.
b) People refer to waterboarding as “torture” in a thread about the capture of Osama bin Laden.
c) People refer to African-Americans as niggers in a thread about African-Americans in the U.S.
My guess from the tone of your posts is that your answers are (a) no, (b) no and (c) yes, i.e. you agree that some line has to be drawn between “modding for content” and keeping discussions from getting taken over by the most inflammatory and extreme viewpoints, you just disagree about where to draw it.
Yep, agree with your guess. Here’s what I said in the OP (typo preserved):
I am (fruitlessly) trying to get the mods to see that they’ve currently drawn the line near political boundaries. But hey don’t see it that way.
That may be the way that YOU want the board to be run. It is not, however, how the owners and mod staff want to run it. A lot of posters are also happy with the way things are run, as evidenced by the fact that we do get asked to moderate for content quite frequently.
Now, there have been other people who have felt the way you do. For the most part, they either live with it or find another board more to their liking. Some of them bitch(ed) about it constantly, but that doesn’t change the way things are run.
I choose the third option–provide a thread in which to discuss the issue and examples of biased content-based mod action. If you don’t want to discuss the issue, you don’t have to read or post in this thread.
Actually, yes, I do have to read this thread, as I am still somewhat active on the moderation team. I probably would not do so if I wasn’t active. I certainly don’t read similar threads on other message boards, even if the other message boards allow such threads. A great many don’t.
I was reading that thread and was honestly shocked to see Marley23 don his Mod hat. I thought, “Holy shit”, did he really just do that? Basically out of the blue. So I reread what preceded it and saw, yup, he did.
Horrible call. One more attempt to get the conservatives to knuckle under and not spout anything that is accepted as liberal doctrine.
As to (b), the only “moderator” who attempted to intervene was Rand Rover, by declaring the term “torture” off-topic. He was dinged for it, didn’t like it, and here we are.
As to “content-based modding,” I note that no mod has prohibited **Rand Rover **from using the government-sanctioned euphemism within his own posts, which any true cabal of liberal jackboots would surely do.
Horrible call. One more attempt to get the conservatives to knuckle under and not spout anything that is accepted as liberal doctrine.
The line is my last post should have read:
Horrible call. One more attempt to get the conservatives to knuckle under and not spout anything that is not accepted as liberal doctrine.
Just so we’re clear, what exactly is the liberal doctrine being referenced? It looks like you’re saying “waterboarding=torture” is a liberal doctrine, but maybe you meant something else.
I think he’s talking about the race/IQ thing (but I could be wrong).
Yes, that is what I meant. One shall not deviate from that.
That would be another example.