Because he didn’t go straight to plan D. “I’m temporarily closing this thread while the mods confer” is not “thread is closed.” Nor is it “thread is closed. Whoops, we’re going to reopen it after all.” Everyone knew it was under discussion for a day. A WHOLE DAY. And now we are back at plan A, inform posters of the rule and tell them which lines not to cross.
You are not entitled to all the thoughts involved, but it was not a kneejerk reaction.
I still believe everything was done correctly.
You are seriously overreacting.
Much as you seem to feel it should be, moderating is not a Paint By Numbers operation.
Different mods approach the task in different ways. Newer mods may want the benefit of more experienced mods’ opinions before proceeding. There may be multiple concerns at issue, requiring different responses.
That was true in this case, as part of the thread was productive discussion, and part of it had edged into rules violation territory.
I would think you’d be appreciative of our approach to try for consistency and a measured response to all concerns. The more mods who enter into the discussion, the more we’re able to meet those goals.
Sometimes it takes awhile, and letting a thread go further off the rails while we accommodate varying private schedules of mods is not a good way to deal. I’m glad for the option to close a thread while soliciting opinions of other mods.
- Your plans require mods to make an on-the-spot decision. There can be no conferencing to see what is the best option.
- Plan D confuses delaying to make a decision with permanent closing of the thread. It basically says that conferring out of caution and the nuclear option are basically the same thing, which they are clearly not.
You need to accept that there is a concept called temporarily closing a thread. This is not the nuclear option, and we do it on occasion. It’s definitely not a new concept. We do it when we want to confer with other mods. We do it when we think a thread has gone off the rails and the mods for that particular forum are not available. We do it for quite a few reasons. It’s never used as the nuclear option.
The actual nuclear option (closing the thread because it’s too far gone to save) is done on occasion, but that’s not what was done here, and it was very clearly stated from the outset that this was not being done.
I agree.
If the thread was just summarily closed, you might have a point, but this a severe overreaction to a fairly common type of moderation.
In Before: The mods are accused of invoking Order 66 Plan E: Circle the Wagons.
This moderation is most uncommon.
Poster 1: Abortion should be legal in all circumstances.
Mod Review: This is fine.
Poster 2: Abortion should be illegal in all circumstances except to save the mother’s life.
Mod Review: This is fine.
Poster 1: And the father should be on the hook for child support if the woman chooses to keep the baby.
Mod Review: This is fine.
Poster 2: Well, I’m not so sure about that.
Mod Review: *Lurking near the warning button.
Poster 1: If you don’t want to pay child support, then keep it in your pants.
Mod Review: This is fine.
Poster 2: Doesn’t the choice go both ways?
Mod Review: BZZZZZZZZZZ. warning!
I mean, why keep calling it Great Debates? Just call it Great Liberal Echo Chamber.
Do the mods really have a consensus agreement on this point? It is ridiculous.
You keep ignoring the fact that this is not the only subject in thethrice-told-tales / banned debate topics. If it had touched on or started to move on any of those it would also have gotten a long, hard look: scientific racism, holocaust denial, etc etc etc. The fact that you want to debate a topic that touches toxic boundries doesn’t mean everyone else wants to.
The fact that again you feel only your interpretation is valid is also unsettling. That everyone is against you for some agenda, rather than your thread touched on banned topics and was reviewed and re-started with some minor modding.
If you’re right, why do you keep coming back? I obviously think what you’re saying is nonsense, but if I believed it, I’d be out of here.
Seriously, quit doing this to yourself.
Here you start edging into MRA territory, which was made toxic by the MRA movement. It’s not the fault of the moderators that the MRA movement is so toxic and starts to take over certain subjects.
There are probably interesting discussions to have about why some minorities and immigrants do well on some tests and others do poorly, but that subject has been made toxic by the “race realists”.
None of this is ideal, but it’s reality. This board doesn’t want anything to do with MRAs and “race realists”, and for good reason – they drive out much better and more valuable posters.
Anyway, had the thread been left open and gone further into MRA territory, it would have just been shut down permanently the next day, rather than re-opened after a short hiatus. I assume you’ll thank the mods for rescuing that thread from oblivion.
Heck, there are interesting conversations to be had about the patriotism of Nazis, too. But yes, some topics tend to become toxic.
No discussions of Nazis either.
I thought this could have been a potentially interesting thread. Had no idea it was related to holocaust denial. I was a bit curious when I saw the OP though.
well cecils column pretty much answered the question and wow was there some morons in the comments section I see why a lot of the historical videos turn off comments these days
Obviously untrue.
Now you know.
Wait… seriously? The question has been used as Holocaust denial, so the thread is closed?
I just can’t.
I’m out. Peace, y’all.
It’s an FQ with the closest possible factual answer given by Cecil himself. Why even keep it open if it’s only going to invite some deniers in? The question is answered.
Yeah, we’re not going to become a forum for Holocaust denial.
See ya.
So mod them, not all of us.
Should we also not be able to discuss crisis actors because we might become a forum for Sandy Hook deniers?
Is the subject of crisis actors tightly coupled to Sandy Hook? I wasn’t aware that it was. I also wasn’t aware that Sandy Hook was on our list of Tired Topics. Is it?
You can choose to ignore it, but one of the instigating factors for the whole THREAD was that W_E wanted fellow-mod input on salvaging the questionable thread. And needed 24 hours because, gasp the mods have lives and getting a number, especially on a holiday weekend was hard!
To have more ‘pin-point’ moderation means we would need more mods, and considering how they’re treated, who would volunteer for the shiny jackboots when all they get is grief? I mean, personally, I think several posters would be more than able to do the work, but all of them have repeatedly said they wouldn’t do it even if paid a living wage, much less for free.
And even then, we’d be generating another metric ton of THESE threads, as each pin-point moderation spawned it’s own thread on how the mods don’t know the rules, or the rules are unfair, or well, wait, but my thread is different, and anyway these are new rules, or wait, maybe not but they weren’t enforced in the past so why are you enforcing it on me?!
If Sandy Hook denying became as pervasive as Holocaust denial, and any time discussion of crisis actors came up, you had people jumping in to talk about how Sandy Hook was faked, yeah, I could see a ban on discussion of crisis actors. In this timeline, that hasn’t happened.
In fact, you can’t discuss 9/11 Truther things here either, because we had so many threads on that crap.
Sandy Hook denial isn’t all that widespread – Alex Jones just doesn’t have that many listeners.