There is a board rule against political commentary in FQ threads. If, for instance, a question was asked about clown make-up, and someone made a comment about Trump’s fake tan, it would be a warnable offence. Reason: Trump isn’t a clown, in the literal cirus performer meaning, comments about his make up is off topic for a discussion about clowns.
But some FQ threads are directly about politics, and comments about specific politicians are on topic.
Case in point.
Various contributors to this thread have received mod notes or warnings for making on-topic factual statements that were directly relevant to the subject.
I’l start by saying the crack by Burpo was off-topic, and deserved a note.
DPRK made a statement that a President who spent all day playing video games would be booted. Horatius and Solost responded by pointing out that Trump spent a large part of his working day watching TV. This is factual and relevant and made as a correction to a possibly incorrect statement. They shouldn’t have been modded for it.
A point was raised about the Emoluments Clause restricting a President’s outside income. Horatius pointed out that Trump showed that the clause has no teeth. Again, a factual statement that was on-topic and directly relevant. The mod note for this was inappropriate.
Finally, DPRK’s remark as follows
This is borderline. Somewhat too snarky, but still directly relevant to the question of whether a president can be removed for playing games/ watching TV. You might consider downgrading it to a note instead of a warning.
The initial moderation was a note. I think that moderation was wrong – that is, the comments were factual and on topic.
The follow-up comments ignored that note. So, they were warnable for ignoring moderator instructions.
So, if @Chronos were to reconsider his note, then I could see downgrading later moderation to a note, but you can’t ignore moderator instructions, even if it’s wrong.
JMHO- when the comments go way off track, rather than watching slow death by a thousand mod comments, I’d rather a mod move the thread somewhere else, probably IMHO.
Just saw this. It was not my intention to annoy other posters or moderators by sneaking in political comments, so I am not going to now insist it was OK, even though my post was honestly not meant to be a political comment. The bare factual answer that Congress can remove a President was in any case already established in the thread and did not need to be recapitulated a second or third time. I apologize, and hope we can return to our regularly scheduled programming.
The instruction was to refrain from political jabs. The comment by Solost for which he was warned wasn’t a political jab. It was a factual, on-topic statement.
Thanks, I appreciate the support, though I don’t dispute the warning.
My biggest mistake, and regret there, was that I was responding to a post that had been made early on in a longish thread without having read all of it. As luck would have it, my post appeared right after Chronos’ caution to stop with the politics, making it look like I was thumbing my nose at him (which I most definitely was not).
So my takeaway, other than a reminder to avoid all mention of politics in non-political forums, is to read the whole damn thread before posting in it! Or at least skim it if it’s long. Or, if it’s very long, at least read the most recent comments to see if things have gone at all sideways. Read the room, right? I usually do do that, but I guess I was being impulsive that day.
So If someone had posted that trump could keep doing his “you’re fired” TV show, that would be on topic. But watching TV all day is not a second job. It was indeed a political jab, true or not.
Perhaps some of the warnings could be Notes, sure, but that Mod Note was pretty damn clear.
Now that Solost has clarified he responded before reading the Mod note, I think his warning could be simply a Note, and I hope the Mods will consider that. They have said that a apology of that sort will be considered.
You are missing a big point here. It was a reply top the following post.
Which is an on-topic point. Can the President legally spend his time doing things other than his Presidential duties?
Solost disagreed with the point and responded that Trump watched TV all day, and didn’t get booted. This is a valid reply, disagreeing with a previously made claim, and not a pot shot.
