This is somewhat tongue in cheek, but somewhat serious as well.
First lets put a separate sub forum in the Politics & Elections forum as the BBQ Pit for politics. Any political Pit threads would go there. Normal pit threads about other posters or just rants in general would stay in the regular Pit forum.
Any political comments made in any other forums get whisked to an omnibus political thread in the Politics & Elections forum, no warnings, they just get whisked away. Eventually posters will figure out that that’s where political commentary goes.
It’s similar to what we went through when the original Pit forum was created here. Prior to that, flames against other posters, topics etc. were spread throughout the board. Over time, people learned that there was a special place for flaming each other. It made the rest of the board much more civil. It seems that the politicizing of almost everything has infiltrated itself across the board here. So whisking the political commentary to a forum which already exists for such discussion makes sense
So is this because you believe that political jabs in the Pit are a problem? I am not arguing against that, I’m just curious what problem is caused by allowing political speech in the Pit that will be resolved by segregating it.
If the Pit was being dominated by politics I would see the utility, but on a glance it seems 50/50 between threads devoted to ranting about political issues, and other threads (about posters or general things that irritate people).
This I have a huge problem with, and I’m surprised it is a serious suggestion. Firstly, omnibus threads are a bit controversial for various reasons, one being that it is daunting to participate in a thread in progress, where you might be worried that you’ll make a point in post #5,068 that was already covered in post #2,347 and people jump on you for it.
Also, if you are taking single posts and sticking them in that thread it will be confusing to both the poster and anyone who reads that thread. I see absolutely no productivity in that at all. The current practice of warning people directly when they inject politics onto a board where it’s not allowed is a thousand times better.
I’ve seen it many times, if it’s not happening then I assume it’s because people aren’t reporting it. We recently had a thread in the Games Room be closed because it got too political. It’s definitely enforced if it’s reported enough.
Now moderators injecting politics into moderation decisions, I wish I could say that’s fantasy but I have seen that before, and I’ve seen it called out on ATMB so it’s not a secret. I hope that’s not the norm.
C’mon. Mods are human. Their biases are gonna creep in. It has always been thus. Bone would be more vigilant on gun issues. The male mods have a blind spot to misogyny. Etc etc. There’s no way to completely eliminate this.
But I have to give kudos to them because they are willing to listen to complaints about their biases and more often than not alter their approach. It’s not a perfect system, they don’t always amend their behaviors, but there are checks in place.
There’s a difference between a bias creeping in, and a moderator blatantly saying in a mod note that they avoided upgrading it to a warning because they agree with the post politically. I only remember that being so blatant once and it was remarked on so it’s not like this is an issue running rampant and being accepted by the community. It was definitely shocking when it happened. But because of that I can’t say that Omar_Little is totally wrong.
I don’t think it’s enough of a problem that it needs to be fixed, but that’s just my opinion.
