"Proper" use of mod powers to steer a thread in GD?

[Marley23]

Quoting from two posts in the GD thread:

@Airman_Doors_USAF

It is the job of a moderator to moderate, is it not? If you start blowing off nonsense in class, is the professor to let you continue at the expense of everybody else, or is it their job to tell you to back up your assertion or stop asserting it?

@DianaG

You mean to steer the debate toward being a debate, and not just a series of foot stomps?

This sums up my intentions. It’s steering the debate, yes, but I’m trying to improve it and I think that’s a fair use of the mod hat. I don’t think I have “required” a cite before and if it doesn’t work then I won’t keep doing it, but I think it’s valid.

There are plenty of quality posts in the thread, but after KLR 650 asserted for the sixth time that “the left wants to consolidate power” I felt it was fair to say he needed to back it up with a cite. Otherwise it turns into Monty Python with the two sides just contradicting each other. Keeping in mind what KLR 650 said about an antagonistic audience, I told him provide more facts because otherwise the posts are nothing but antagonism.

I may as well point out that he has since repeated this argument a few more times but hasn’t produced a cite other than naming one book.

@Shodan

I will take mods asking for cites seriously when a mod forces someone like Der Trihs to cite some of his rants.

This isn’t a request for a cite, but I’m not much for low-content partisanship of any sort. I’m not going to pretend I can weed this out of Great Debates but I’d like to cut it down.