Take down manhattan's "politics in GQ" sticky.

Don’t post in GQ then.

::d&r::

Really, we get Pitted either way, both for too much enforcement or for not enough (as in this case). So it’s a bit of a wash.

Incidentally, my own first Pitting was for warning a newbie for anti-Bush political commentary in GQ. He was upset that I didn’t say “please” when telling him to desist.

Personally, I would prefer to see fewer WAGs, hijacks, trite jokes and so on in GQ. But trying to eliminate these would be an absolutely Sisyphean task, especially given the number of new guests that come onto the boards all the time. And if we are too Draconian, we risk scaring off people who may know something about a subject but aren’t entirely sure.

For a week or so until people got it.

Not all of them, just a darker shade of gray is all.

They wouldn’t disappear because all threads would be equally moderated so all of them would have fewer posts and not be pushing each other off of the front page.

100% policing just ain’t gonna happen, folks. And as much as political swipes bug me in GQ, I’m more irritated by people who post factually incorrect information, and then insist on defending it even after they’ve been proven wrong. To me, the most important thing about GQ is to keep factually incorrect information out.

Augean, surely?

ETA: Did you see Cosmic Relief’s post at the (current ) end of that thread?

I’m going to go report it right now!

joke

Right on.

Like I said above, we get enough new guests that this is going to be a never-ending task. It will only get worse when we go to free posting.

It would also require us to read and evaluate every post in every thread. This would involve far more time than it does now. I’m not kidding, we would need 20 moderators in GQ alone.

Well, then, we just differ in where to draw the line.

See above. We are not going to be able to moderate all threads equally.

That term occurred to me as well. :slight_smile:

Point of order- I don’t think this counts officially as “yours” for two reasons:

  1. Your name does not appear in the title

  2. Although you appear in the example, the OP complains about GQ as a whole, so at best, you need to share with the other GQ mods.

A bit of a wash? GQ is meant to be kept factual; getting pitted for enforcing that doesn’t “equal” being pitted for not doing it. Sorry. And don’t you guys take your pittings as cute little marks on a scorecards anyway?

When the threads are full of garbage you run the risk of people who ACTUALLY know something not bothering to try and fight the hilariously stupid tide.

Also when a bona fide legitimate post gets buried amidst the noise that has become GQ all too often, it makes the provider of decent info (or at least this provider and a handful of others I know) decide not to bother anymore.

Oh, and I’ll add that the “Sisyphean” task of deleting sock started threads thereby “discouraging” them has yet to be abandoned. Ditto the Dopers asking about disappeared threads, despite all your stickies on the subject.

Of course you are never going to get everyone acting perfect in every forum, that’s why moderators are permanent fixtures. Gardeners have to weed and moderators have to kill inappropriate content. Saying it’s a never ending task is true but it completely misses the point.

eta: Q the M, that was pretty much what I was trying to say. Thanks for being the good example.

Which of the following 3 things is most likely:
A) I have an all night sex marathon with Scarlett Johansson
B) Dennis Kucinich gets elected President
C) Any mod on these boards find the balls, self confidence and integrity to say “Hey, you know what? I was wrong, thanks for pointing that out, I’ll try and do better”.

I hope for A, but of the 3, I suspect B is the most likely. What do you think?

Yes, you do. My point (poorly made) was not to criticize the GQ Moderators. No doubt, you don’t have time to read every post.

However, I expect more from the rank and file than I’ve seen recently in GQ. I sincerely doubt it’s a question of political spectrum, either. I’m noticing more often that jokes, political commentary, inaccurate information, and thread hijacks in GQ are not reported or pitted if the flavor of the post lines up with the popular opinion or if the poster is a popular poster. Such behavior from a newbie would be called out.

Here’s a fresh, hot-off-the-presses, shining example in a GQ thread.

I chalk it up to human nature, but it is something Moderators should be vigilant regarding. Keep up the good work. :slight_smile:

Just this week I suggested a Pit thread shouldn’t have been closed, and the mod admitted he reacted too quickly. I’ve seen them re-open threads that had been closed and admit they were wrong. But a lot of what they do is just a judgement call, so it’s a matter of personal opinion who is “right” on the matter.

Preach it.

Clearly, but if an actual MD with loads of good information has become discouraged from answering GQs, then we have a problem.

Frankly, **Qadgop, ** I’ve seen you say this before, and I personally am very sorry you feel that way. You’re someone we obviously highly value in GQ. But I don’t see how we can do much about the problem without becoming overly oppressive. And as I said above, really straightening things up would require much more time and a lot more moderators.

And I don’t think your answers get “buried in the noise.” People in general do recognize your posts as being the real deal.

We do to a certain extent have to trust people to sort information out for themselves. We are not experts ourselves on everything, so we can’t easily judge the correctness of every post. I mean, I could become the Wrath of Colibri in threads on biology, but I can’t evaluate the correctness of information on medicine or law nearly as well. We have to rely on knowledgeable posters themselves to correct bad information. And that’s generally what we do. I personally only step in in really bad cases.

One thing I disagree with you on is that it is much worse now than before. I think that is selective memory on your part. Just as much bullshit was posted eight years ago as now. Surely you remember handy?

There have been 64 GQ threads active within the past 24 hours, with a combined total of 1001 posts. Not all of these posts of course have been made in the last 24 hours, but I think it is safe to say that we get over 500 posts per day in GQ. We don’t of course get remotely that number of socks, and “disappeared threads” questions come up only every week or two. There really isn’t any comparison in the size of these tasks.

I agree wholeheartedly with that sentiment. It was the “pure” bit that made me splutter. I mean, yeah, GQ is valuable, possibly even the heart and soul of the Boards, but to speak of it like it was our precious bodily fluids or something…

IMO the Moderation in GQ is much better than it was for a long time. Things went downhill a bit, but for a couple of years now are pretty good. It may simply be that older Members are just more tired and worn out, and that even if the same amount of bullshit is posted as in the past, some of us just have less tolerance for it.

And Qadgop’s correct in this thread. I wish I could say more. Doesn’t matter anyhow.