Well, we used to, it was a single thread called Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share.
Is it time to remove the breaking-news tag from the Ukraine Invasion thread?
I’m not against it. Then we would only be moderating insults and political stuff like any other thread.
On the other hand, and this is far from scientific, I’ve actually had a lot of thank-yous for keeping that thread on-topic. As I read most of it and more than willing to continue.
Thus far I thread-banned 2 posters and I believe handed out 0 warnings in the pair of threads.
One of those thread bannings was righteous and beyond reproach. I even went so far as to start a thread in ATMB complaining about our resident Russian supporter before he eventually did get threadbanned.
This second thread ban doesn’t appear to be in the same ballpark. Not even playing the same sport.
I agree. I get the feeling that, when a moderator feels the OP has been explored and pretty much exhausted, they allow drift. I think it’s harmless at that point.
I think the best methodology is self-policing. I have a tendency to go off on a tangent, so I have to make an effort to watch that. If someone posts a comment that obviously leads in an off topic direction, I don’t just take off on it like I have a couple of times in the past. If I really want to discuss it, I can always create a spinoff OP.
If you want me out of the Ukraine thread, I’m out - I mean, I was locked out of that thread, so I am, de facto.
I’m not quite sure why that thread is so heavily modded when we allow all kinds of other threads to take on a rather omnibus nature. But again, I won’t - and can’t - post in that Ukraine thread again, so I guess…problem solved?
I haven’t hijacked other threads.
I apologize…is that okay? Won’t hijack again.
Yes, if that’s what’s causing the commotion here. IMHO it doesn’t make sense to have both a Ukraine-invasion “breaking news” thread and a Ukraine-invasion “general discussion” thread because the two would be so similar that it would be totally confusing and I’d never know where to find anything. The one we have has served us well as a general discussion thread. I mean really, is a long-term ongoing event still “breaking news” after a year?
The thread-ban of Kedikat was, however, appropriate in any case, and would remain so, since we don’t want fake-news Russian propaganda. But I do honestly think that interested posters like @Velocity have made useful contributions to the thread and should be allowed to continue doing so in the new understanding that it’s an overall general discussion.
I thought of an example:
this thread
sparked this subdiscussion
which started out being relevant to “Watership Downs”, but that subdiscussion took on a life of its own and I moved it to
Which generated a moderate amount of discussion after the move.
I dunno, when we gave up on the “breaking new-ness” of the “musk buys twitter” thread, and moved it to the pit, I got several complaints about how it was no longer possible to use the SDMB as a news aggregator, and find actual news about twitter.
So I created this thread.
It hasn’t gotten a lot of traction, but it’s up to 175 posts, the most recent a day ago.
I think we want a breaking news thread for the Ukraine war. But maybe it should be a small thread, and we should have a more active thread for general discussion.
I was really upset by the closing of that thread because it was my go-to source of information and entertainment about the Musk/Twitter fiasco. The re-opened thread has thrived in the Pit (currently at 3155 posts) and I’m always interested to see updates. I have no idea what the complaints you got were based on – maybe folks who are allergic to the Pit? The Pit thread remains a great source of news, rumours, and general discussion.
Too hard to find the news among the commentary.
Yes, it is OK. That is why you got no warnings.
All is well otherwise.
Yes, I think so. This isn’t a brand new “breaking” story – this is an ongoing situation that affects most of the world in some way.
I think you’ve done a great job, in general. But I think this particular action is too severe, and removes a mostly-good, contributing poster (IMHO) because he’s, if anything, too enthusiastic about the topic. I think intent matters, and this was, very obviously, not an intent to troll, not an intent to derail, not an intent to do anything other than express strong opinions about a really, really major ongoing event in the world. Those opinions were beyond the bounds of “breaking news”, but that’s really all that was wrong about them. I think the PERMANENT thread-ban should be rescinded, and a lesser penalty put in its place, along with removing the “breaking news” tag from the thread (and subsequent Ukraine threads, unless there is some new, specific event that truly is “breaking news”).
I’ve posted before (and have shared privately with mods) my thoughts that mods tended to be a tad heavy handed WRT hijacks. A good part of my perception is undoubtedly due to my failure to appreciate the very different approaches to the different forums - or even within a single forum. For example, it makes no sense to my brain to have MPSIMS discussions on both the Ukraine invasion (breaking news) and cat avatars - with apparently different mod approaches to threads in the same forum.
I tend to agree with the folk upthread who opine that some degree of digression is common - and , in fact, desirable in most discussions. When a specific hijack gets out of line - with a very small number of posters just going back and forth - it is entirely appropriate for a mod to tell them the shut up or get a different “room.”
But I’m also dubious about the idea that an OP has complete discretion over how discussion proceeds on a thread they started. If you decide to start a discussion, you are taking a risk that that discussion may evolve into something you did not anticipate or may not especially appreciate.
My impression is that modding has been getting progressively stricter in the last couple of years, which I’m not thrilled with. But I’m an old fogey, and was fine with things as they were before - including the toxic Pit.
The modding is far from perfect, but it ain’t at all bad for a group of volunteers. I derive a great deal of pleasure from these boards, but I have a hard time getting too worked up over any single post or mod action I encounter. IMO overall, the modding contributes to and enables a pretty decent level of discourse.
Finally, the mods are very open to public and private discussion of their specific choices, and have admitted when they could have acted differently. And we are able to express our thoughts in threads such as this. I’m not sure what more one might reasonably expect of unpaid staff on a free MB.
Maybe the complainers would be happier just going to cnn.com if all they want is straight news?
The traditional understanding about MPSIMS “breaking news” threads is to avoid political digressions and jabs. But as far as “commentary” is concerned, isn’t commentary what this board is all about in the first place?
I will just say that it is very easy to forget what thread you are in when a conversation drifts. I know I participated in a recent “hi-jack” and didn’t even realize it until after the fact.
Commentary has been allowed, but I have cut off big digressions like talk about nuking the Russians, the capabilities of jets not even involved in the fight and things like that. And of course anything that edges into the political or insults to the other posters.
I have the same problem.
Which is why very few warnings are handed out. But repeat offenders might get a thread-ban or a warning if the intent seems trollish. @Velocity’s did not feel trollish so after at least 8 posts that were modded, I did bring out the thread-ban tool.
I mean, i come here for the commentary, not for the news. I have something like 15 news organizations that send alerts to my phone all day long. But different strokes for different folks.
My sense is that the two general Twitter/Musk threads are both serving a useful purpose.
The flip side is also challenging, when related aspects are spun off into different threads. Often the result is that I step out of the discussion, rather than trying to keep up with multiple threads, or trying to figure out in which of them I out to post what I wish to say.
Nice!