Mods, OP, why should Afghanistan discussion be disallowed in the Biden Administration thread?

[ThelmaLou]

Upon reflection… when you give birth to start a thread around here, you really don’t know where it’s going to end up when it develops a life of its own. What I had in mind with the Biden thread was tracking the general direction of his administration, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Sort of an index or table of contents. Accomplishments, blunders, milestones, kudos, rotten tomatoes-- stuff like that.

Introducing Afghanistan into that would take over the thread (I think) and shove off the table other less important, but still important day-to-day things like COVID, evictions (or not), unemployment, the economy, border issues, international relations-- dear God, what a mess that other guy left behind even before Afghanistan withdrawal.

You mentioned that a thread on LBJ would have to address Viet Nam, but civil rights and the Great Society were also massive issues in his administration. Because of the two-dimensional nature of discussions here, I don’t think it would have been possible to cover any of those well in a single thread on the Johnson administration. BUT it would have worked to have separate threads on “LBJ and Civil Rights,” “LBJ and Viet Nam,” “LBJ and the Great Society,” in order to do those topics justice. Similarly, Nixon might have had separate discussions (threads) on Watergate, China, and maybe his personal racism.

So even though there are already threads on Afghanistan, ISTM that a thread specifically focused on Biden’s approach to that country/situation, past and present, might address your desire for that discussion.

I don’t claim to be right, and frankly, I was surprised that @What_Exit even wanted to know my wishes. I’ve been slapped on the hand for junior modding in the past, so now I (mostly) keep my opinions to myself on what I think other Dopers should be doing.

Now I need to have some coffee!

[What_Exit]

I’ve been trying to slow down and work with the flaggers more and from the start I’ve tended to check with Ops on thread direction and intent. Doesn’t mean I do what they want, but I try to include it in my decision making.

Also collectively, a lot of us mods are checking with each other more and more to see if our reading of something is a reasonable reading.

@Bullitt

Okay, you made a judgment call, and I disagreed. But, okay, I can live with it. We’ll agree to disagree. No problem and thanks again for explaining (without, and with coffee!).

Cool.

[mordecaiB]

@What_Exit

I’ve been trying to slow down and work with the flaggers more and from the start I’ve tended to check with Ops on thread direction and intent. Doesn’t mean I do what they want, but I try to include it in my decision making.

Is this just you and the threads you mod or is this everywhere by all mods? Because it seems like a big change. Before, except for GQ and to a lesser extent GD, we were told time after time that the OP had no control over the direction that a thread takes. Thread drift seemed to only be modded if it was a couple of people arguing back and forth with each other. If everyone was talking about the same thing, no harm no foul.

[puzzlegal]

@Velocity

I think Afghanistan discussion should have been allowed in the Biden thread as long as it was specific to Biden - not a discussion of casualties, ISIS-K, etc. in general, but specifically, about Biden’s actions, Biden’s upcoming strategy, Biden’s speeches addressing the issue, etc.

If it had been my thread, or my forum to moderate, this would have been my first impulse. And i still think it would have been one okay way to moderate. Moving the Afghanistan content to other threads ALSO seems like a valid choice. So long as it’s clear what goes where, and there’s a place for all the stuff people want to discuss, i don’t see that it’s hugely important which choice is made.

[engineer_comp_geek]

@mordecaiB

Thread drift seemed to only be modded if it was a couple of people arguing back and forth with each other.

I wouldn’t call this a case of thread drift. This was an event whose discussion threatened to completely overwhelm an existing thread. When that type of thing happens, we usually force the new discussion off to a different thread. Sometimes we will tell people to start a new thread, or in cases like this where multiple threads already exist, we will tell everyone to use those existing threads instead.

It’s definitely nothing new and definitely not a change.

[mordecaiB]

I know it’s pointless to argue since it has been decided, but I don’t see how less than two days of conversation about the top news story in the US and a big chunk of the rest of the world is overwhelming a thread that’s been running for months. Especially since the topic was on point in regards to the thread title.

It seems to defeat the purpose of a discussion board if only the good side of a topic can be discussed. What about the next time, and there will be a next time, something bad or that appears to be bad happens while Biden is president? Will that be off limits in that thread also?

This just seems to be an arbitrary carved out safe spot, like the much maligned and laughed at Positive Gun News thread.

[Heffalump_and_Roo]

@mordecaiB

This just seems to be an arbitrary carved out safe spot, like the much maligned and laughed at Positive Gun News thread.

I left the thread when progressives were getting bashed. It’s a very narrow thread.

[Max_S]

@mordecaiB

It seems to defeat the purpose of a discussion board if only the good side of a topic can be discussed. What about the next time, and there will be a next time, something bad or that appears to be bad happens while Biden is president? Will that be off limits in that thread also?

IMO a single thread for an entire presidency is an “omnibus” topic and therefore bad form.

~Max

[mordecaiB]

@Heffalump_and_Roo

I left the thread when progressives were getting bashed. It’s a very narrow thread.

I didn’t realize the thread had a history of narrow focus. I tend to avoid most omnibus threads because, in my experience, eventually a group of posters seem to stop reading the thread and just post links without checking to see if they had been posted before. Often the same link gets posted 3 or 4 times, sometimes days apart.