Continuing the discussion from Non-binary player on the Canadian Women’s National Soccer Team:
This modding in this thread seems overly strict to me. It’s impossible to address the OP at all if we aren’t allowed to state the reasoning behind our views, even in a general way. Nothing I said was remotely off topic; in fact I see other people expressed very similar opinions without getting a note. So what’s going on?
We occasionally have overly strict threads. This one was very clearly mark as such. It is one of the exceptions and not the norms.
Notes are just notes unless you persist. Don’t worry about notes, just follow them.
We have threads that are strictly moderated, and that’s fine. It’s obvious why some of the posts that have been hidden were off topic.
But I still don’t see that I said anything off topic, so I don’t know how to follow the note other than not to post at all. Is that the intention?
@puzzlegal should probably answer this. I can’t speak for her.
I was honestly responding to the title and not the specific post and modnote.
I was actually wondering if it’s time to close the thread, as the OP seems satisfied.
This thread was started with the express intention of avoiding the broader issues. The OP ran it by the mods, asking for advice on how to avoid rehashing the “transwomen in sports” question. It’s a hard line to keep.
I agree that your post was directly responsive to the OP, but it also threatened to broaden the discussion. That’s why i mod-noted it, to try to keep the discussion narrow.
But yes, perhaps there’s not much more that can be said within those bounds. Another reason to close it.
Okay. Last time I got a mod note where I wasn’t sure of the meaning I didn’t ask to clarify, and ended up getting a warning because I misinterpreted it. So I wanted to be sure this time.
My goal as a mod is to communicate clearly and avoid issuing warnings. So I apologize for the confusion.
My post was one of those (the first, in fact) spoilered (not deleted) in that thread.
I’m not arguing the mod decision, I didn’t take it personally, and in any event the post was just a click away, for those who wanted to read it.
But I’m somewhat confused about what “on-topic” means here at SDMB, and I have a few questions.
I get that the OP said he’d like to keep the discussion “on topic.”
I posted about a very similar (nearly identical) situation arising in a different environment. It seems to me that if the situation has come up before, we can learn something from how it was dealt with then.
Sort of like common law – if there’s precedent, let’s see what it says.
But my post was spoilered as “off topic,” while other posts about gender identity in, for example, bridge (the card game, and this is in a thread about soccer) were not.
Another poster posted (and others responded) about gender identity issues in other sports (not even card games – actual sports, in the Olympics). Those posts were spoilered (while, oddly, the post about bridge was not). Another posted comparing non-binary or transgendered people to bisexuals, which is really getting out there. And yet that wasn’t spoilered or mod-noted.
So it seems that the mods imposed a pretty idiosyncratic idea of staying on topic in this thread. And imposed it pretty hard. 35 posts in the thread, and seven or eight of them were either from mods or spoilered by mods (and I’m not counting the posts by people who are mods but were posting as just plain posters in a thread they were moderating)? And then closed the thread when they (mods, not the OP), felt it had run what they thought was its course.
So, first of all, are OPs allowed to determine the parameters of discussion here at SDMB? Seems to me that’s one thing in General Questions, and another altogether in the more free-form fora.
And second, mod intervention in this thread seemed to me not to keep the discussion on topic, but to actually strangle it and then dispose of the body.
Very weird.
I get that the OP wanted to avoid “broader issues.” Fine, I get it, although I don’t understand how anyone is supposed to understand a particular situation without a discussion of the general issues.
Actually I’m pretty sure the OP did feel it ran the course. They had said as much in a PM to the mods IIRC.
That thread was a specifically narrow one. It was spelled out as such.
Your post was off-topic, I thought pretty clearly so. The topic was about sports and you were immediately expanding it to something outside of sports. So I hid it. Simple tool for the problem.
I do agree the conversation got strangled. I’m not happy with the results of that thread at all.
BTW: To all, remember this is ATMB. Not a place for discussion of Trans issues.
The OP approached the mods prior to posting, and requested help creating a narrow thread. The mods agreed to do it. That’s why the thread was so tightly moderated, and why the thread was flagged as tightly moderated up-front.
My interpretation of the topic was that it was about non-binary people, not about the broader issue of all trans people. And also that it was about the Olympics, and not about every case of every sport. It’s possible I overstepped in restricting it to that tight a focus, but the OP seemed happy with the result (as per thanks in the DM that requested the creation of the thread.)
With permission and with it made clear up front, yes.
The bridge post was not off-topic. Nor was the elbows post that mentioned bisexual.
Sure. I mean, I’m not feeing all personally butt-hurt about this.
But that’s just an assertion, without any explanation. OK, posts about bridge are on topic in a thread about soccer.
But saying, hey, here’s a situation in which participants also “moved away from identifying as a woman,” and yet remained in that situation, even though biological sex was (and sometimes still is) is considered a sine qua non qualifier for that situation, is off-topic?
Seems to me that how that situation was handled in the past might shed some light on how a very much related situation could or should be handled in the present is indeed on topic.
And saying that bisexuality is “equally simple,” or in any way comparable to being “fluid,” or non-binary, seems not especially on topic (and also wrong, but that’s a whole 'nother thread for which I don’t have the energy).
But the mods certainly imposed a personal and idiosyncratic idea of what’s on or off topic on the thread.
I get that we’re all bending over backwards to be careful around certain topics here at SDMB, and that those topics unfortunately lend themselves to all kinds of nastiness.
But this kind of moderation will eventually turn everything into a poll. Yes, no or undecided checkboxes will replace actual discussion.
I mean, that’s a reductio ad absurdum, but it’s a fair point.
Very few threads are specified up-front as narrowly modded. I expect that will continue to be the case.
Sure. And that’s fine. And it’s fine with me if more posts are specified up front as narrowly modded in the future.
But in this case, I think it was overdone. As I said, this isn’t personal to me, I have no stake in this, I wasn’t offended by the spoilering of my post.
But it’s weird. The OP posted, with a request that the thread be restricted to dealing with the specific question he was asking. That’s fine. I guess it’s even fine in a forum quite specifically created for opinions.
But the strongest element in the thread, the real “personality” of the thread (sorry, can’t think of a better way to put what I’m thinking), was that of the mods imposing their idea of what was on or off topic. It actually obscured the real topic of the thread.
And, just to add flavor, I’m not sure WE? and I had exactly the same idea of what was on-topic. 
Absolutely, I got that. That just intensified the (my) perception that the “personality” of the thread was completely overpowered by the mod participation (as mods).
Valid feedback.
I don’t think it was terrible to agree to moderate an intentionally narrow thread, but I think it would have been helpful if we had been explicit up-front as to what the boundaries would be. That might have led to fewer interventions (and fewer posts, but that’s okay) and more consistency.
Hi! OP of that thread here.
First, I was about to ask the mods to close it, then I noticed it had already been closed. So, I was fine with it getting closed when it did.
Second, I was hoping to avoid the usual rehash of transwomen in sports – I think that subject has been done to death and usually brings about warnings and pit threads, which I wanted to avoid. I really wanted to keep it focused on non-binary players in women’s sports, especially the case of people like Quinn who had identified as a woman (I believe) and no longer does.
I want to thank the mods for keeping moderation tight on that thread, and I found the discussion very interesting and, in fact, changed my mind on the subject.
I agree that, nearly all the time, topics should be more free-flowing (outside of GQ), but some subjects often lead to hijacks and anger. I was concerned this was one of those topics, so I checked with the mods in advance.
It’s good that @RitterSport is happy with the moderation, but in general the thread could have been kept off the problem topic without immediately stamping on posts bringing up other, fairly relevant issues and comparisons.
Sure, but I’d argue that’s largely because a lot of posters didn’t follow the instructions. The question then becomes was that because people didn’t want to, or because the instructions were unclear.
I would tend toward the latter. I don’t think most of the posters who were modded were trying to ignore the instructions. Granted, part of it might be that we aren’t used to dealing with restrictions of this level, too.
Still I do think it would be good if @What_Exit would explain exactly why, for example, your post was off topic, but the “bridge” related post was not. That way posters can get a better idea.
I personally think restricting the topic was a good idea, because the topic was very likely to go off topic. But I also did think the mod intervention was a big much, suggesting the restrictions could have been made more clear. We don’t normally have that many posts which violate the instructions.