This is inconsistent moderation, at best. Bricker’s thread offered no premise to debate - just an implicit invitation to other posters to get upset, so he could watch the ensuing chaos.
Your proposition was “Congressional Republicans Are Evil”. If you wanted real debate, how about phrasing the question in a less charged manner? Say, for example, “Resolved: The AHCA is a bad bill”.
Because I wanted to debate the morality of their actions. Great Debates is the forum for religious discussion as well, and that encompasses discussions of morality.
So repost the thread and actually frame the parameters for a debate. Your second post made it pretty clear that you didn’t care if a debate happened. That’s pretty much the definition of a rant.
Demonizing the opposition from the start is not really an appropriate debate strategy. If you want to demonize, post it in the Pit. If you want a debate, then don’t demonize.
There are two items in question. The first is your thread that was moved to the Pit. As noted in the thread move action, it was more of a rant than a debate. Starting with the idea that Republicans are evil and murders and that hunting other humans for sport is equivalent in my view is well into rant territory. The Pit is perfectly suited for that type of discussion, so I moved it there.
The second item in question is the ACHA thread posited as a wise policy move. Note the lack of evil-ness, murderizing, and hunting the most dangerous game. Whether a policy is wise or not, what the criteria for making that evaluation is, etc. is well within the lanes of debate.
Although I think AHCA is a terrible piece of legislation, and many of those who support it do so for very base reasons, I agree with the placement of the two threads.
Do we have Republican Congressmen on this board? If we do, I will gladly reframe the question.
Would you like me to go find examples of Great Debate posts that were allowed to stand despite ‘demonizing the opposition’ by your broad definition? How many examples would you like?
I did. I stated that the congressmen voting for such a thing were evil, and I laid out the underlying facts for the conclusion. We’ve got premise, logic, and conclusion, any one of which might be attacked.
You want something more than that? Then modify the subforum rules to say that original posts in GD aren’t allowed to be inflammatory. And then watch as I find hundreds of examples you’ve let slide before.
I love it. You get told why it was moved, and you then proceed to “debate” that simply because you don’t like that you got sent one place and your political opponent is in another. All you need to do is reframe your initial post in a new thread, as discussed, and you’ll be fine.
Or, you know, you can stay here and tilt at windmills and basically be ignored.
I mean, if you mods will come in here and say “Yes, this moderation is not consistent with some of our previous decisions. We will discuss adding a rule to the sub-forum to define a format which must be followed for GD original posts.” then I will walk away, a hundred percent satisfied here.
Well, if you’ve been paying attention, the main thing I get onto the moderators at this messageboard for is inconsistency. That, and not acknowledging when they’ve made a mistake. I don’t want to post a new version of the thread until I know what hidden, unwritten rules they have in mind when determining the difference between a debate and a rant. Either give it to me in black and white, or don’t enforce rules that don’t exist.
If you think you’ve scored a “gotcha”, think again. Where did I defend not moving Bricker’s thread? But, if you want to know how things work around here, the mods usually don’t move a thread from GD if an actual debate ensues, even if the OP might be weak. Bricker’s OP was week, but a debate did break out, so I suspect that is why it wasn’t moved.
Rants, OTOH, often get moved more quickly. Not saying I agree with the policy, just explaining it. Moral of the story is: Don’t post a rant in GD if you don’t want it moved.
Consistency of moderation is more of an aspirational goal around here, as far as I can tell.