Thanks for that, Saim Sam. Anyone else?
I too thought it was a pretty funny joke. I didn’t see it as particularly off topic either. And, it was really in MPSIMS? Wow…
“Captain Ronald Reagan saved half the crew of the submarine Chappaquiddick.”
Hey, maybe that’s why the joke was about Ted Kennedy.
I suppose he could have used a joke about one of the hundreds of other well known people who have been in incidents involving submerged cars?
As others have already said, those types of posts can have a nasty way of creating hijacks and arguments in threads not even about them, because of a mention of some previous event that a political figure did or didn’t do. It was more of a preemptive note to curb possible hijacks like that.
FTR, samclem has absolutely modded similar posts that were aimed at conservatives.
Got some links to where he’s done it in MPSIMS? Where there is no rule against such posts, and thus no way to predict arbitrary and capricious mod action?
It was funny. Pretty witty. Mod note is no big deal, because they are just heading off a possible hijack. It’s not like he got a warning.
ETA: The idea that someone would think a joke is only funny if it about the other side of the political aisle is embarrassingly pathetic. To even ask, “Would you think it was funny if it were Reagan?” or “Would you think it is funny if it were Obama?” or stuff like that just reveals the thinking of the questioner. How childish to consider only laughing at jokes that aren’t aimed at you or your sacred cows.
After John Hinckley Jr., the second time would be a farce.
If the point of the note was to head off a possible hijack, then that’s all it should have said. Of course it said to save political jabs for GD or The Pit, which has never been enforced in MPSIMS that I know of.
It was a terrible mod note if the point was to just head off a hijack, in my opinion.
Not only that, but it wasn’t even off topic or a hijack of the thread. It was an on-topic joke about someone who managed to escape a sinking car (and one who didn’t). And that’s what the thread was about, people not being able to escape from sinking cars.
Really bad call, IMHO.
No one actually did that in this thread. I asked samclem if he would moderate a shot at Reagan the same as he said he would a shot at Ted Kennedy.
He claims he would. I do not believe him. Especially not in MPSIMS, where there is no rule against such things.
On a different note–does anybody ever wonder why we almost never see a thread like this about liberals getting unjustly modded? A disinterested observer might well conclude that conservatives are modded more frequently, more harshly, and on more suspicious grounds that liberals are. That observer would be correct.
You are correct. My mistake. I blame the scotch I’m sipping.
I don’t know. This board definitely is liberal as all hell. But I haven’t paid much attention to how the mods deal with that.
Not Reagan, of course, but perhaps it’s similar enough to prove the point.
Nope, not even close. I asked for an example in MPSIMS, which does not have the rule against political jabs, and which samclem does not even moderate. You provided a link to a thread in GQ, which does have that rule, and samclem, unfortunately, moderates.
Note what samclem claims as regards the post that prompted this thread:
In a later post, he claims he would do the same for a shot at Reagan. In a forum he doesn’t moderate. Which does not have the rule he claims he’d enforce fairly.
But that was GQ. not MPSIMS. I don’t think there is any doubt that political jabs are modded very strictly in GQ regardless of their being from left or right wing posters.
I don’t post much in MPSIMS, but it seems like the post in question was mundane enough. I think the mods should relax about this type of stuff in the non-GQ forums unless an actual hijack ensues.
I’m not samclem, but to answer your question from my POV, I would have given it a note, just like I did this one (but not a warning).
I’m not affiliated with any political party, however, so I don’t think I have a bias*
*Of course, I’m talking about myself, so I’m probably biased.
In GQ, I’m sure both **samclem **or **Colibri **would note a political jab from either side of the aisle.
A long time ago **Colibri **gave me a mod note in GQ for a perceived political jab against GW Bush. The question was “What would a human/chimpanzee hybrid look like?” The photos of Bush that I linked are really a very good hypothesis about what such a Chimp-manzee might look like. There was nothing political intended or implied by the comment. The best example of a person that looks like a chimp I could find just happened to be a political figure.
I’m pretty sure **Colibri **isn’t a Bush fan, and probably agrees he looks very chimp-like, but he even-handedly asked me to cut it out with the political commentary nevertheless. (and I still maintain that it wasn’t!)
In GQ, you’re right. There’s an explicit rule against it, and both of them will enforce it. Samclem says he would have issued a warning in MPSIMS for the post that prompted this thread. Even though he does not moderate that forum, and there is no comparable rule. I think he probably would do that, but I do not think he would do the same for a liberal taking shots at a conservative in MPSIMS.
I’m looking at it this way: samclem said he would have modded the post. You said he wouldn’t have. I showed that he has modded posts like that. The circumstances are different because he mods another forum, but that’s the best comparison I can provide. Mods in other forums do head off political hijacks when they feel it’s necessary regardless of partisanship; I know I’ve done that myself in MPSIMS and Cafe Society.
To your credit, you have done that in instances where I’ve reported the offending post.
I just really hate the “potential hijack” doctrine. In my view, it seems to be applied against conservatives more often than against liberals. I think a better way to handle it would be to wait and see if an actual hijack develops, and if one does, to issue a general “knock it off” to all participants. Then if someone ignores the instruction to knock it off, you can deal with it as needed, without the partisanship issue coming into it.
Well, we don’t want the smoking gun of a potential hijack to be the mushroom cloud of an actual hijack!