In General Questions, in response to the question of whether or not there were any (paraphrasing) known revolutionary groups intent on altering the present form of government in the U.S., I responded that you need look no further than the Bush administration, without commenting on whether or not that was a good or bad thing.
Subsequently I was notified that:
"denquixote, I remind you that political comments of this nature are not permitted in General Questions. Since you are a relatively new to the boards, I would recommend that you read the Stickies about this forum, one of which is on this issue. If you wish to make critical comments on the administration, there are plenty of threads about this in the Pit. Do not do this again.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator"
I responded that there was no rule that I could see that banned political discourse from General Questions, that my comment was not political and merely responded in good faith to the OP’s question, which I thought ought to be in Great Debates in any case.
My rant, if you could call it a rant,is with the nature of the warning. I understand the need for categories and order, but what’s with the unduly provocative “do not do this again?” I am not in the third grade and you are not Sister Clare. I understood the gist of your comment from the first sentence.
In any case, it is obvious that if there is a prohibition on political comments, by which it is now apparent that you mean “any comment containing the name of an established politcal party or its most prominent members or proponents,” in General Questions, it is an unwritten one. Rules based on custom and past history that are not in writing are hard to learn. Another poster asks if Dopers are a tolerant group and I would say that the answer, by and large, is yes, but I find the moderators to be … how should I put this … less so.
Had you bothered to read manhattan’s sticky at the top of the GQ Forum, you would understand why there are no politics in GQ. Hardly an unwritten rule, now, is it?
Here’s the sticky. There are only something like 3 in that forum, so you must not have looked very hard if you didn’t see it.
You jumped into that thread and made the claim that Bush had overthrown a democratically elected government. That’s a political opinion, not a fact. GQ is for facts.
As for the “stern warning”, that’s just the way they do it around it here. Don’t like it? Go elsewhere.
Welcome to the Pit. I have a feeling you’ll be spending a lot of time down here, so you might as well pull up a chair and get comfortable.
You presented an opinion, not a fact. You know that, right?
Whether or not the President is, indeed, trying to alter the present form or government, (which, as you must know, would be a controversial claim) I don’t think anyone would consider a duly elected president of any body a “known revolutionary group.” So basically you twisted the intent of the question in order to interject your politics. Bad form.
You didn’t say it was a good thing or a bad thing, but we can read between the lines. And the last thing we need is for every stinking thread to turn into a “I really hate Bush” thread.
The larger issue aside, I’m not sure I can get on board with those saying that the stated is an opinion, not a fact. I see it as an issue of fact/falsehood, not fact/opinion. To me, an opinion is based on a value judgement: “George Bush is bad” is an opinion, because most people don’t apply hard and fast criteria to value adjectives. “George Bush is a mangrove tree” is an untrue fact. “George Bush overthrew a democratically elected government” is, in my view, an alleged fact (either valid or invalid) because it can be proven or disproven by the validity or invalidity of a series of other facts.
I am afraid you are far too sensitive. I initially did not issue a warning to you, just explained the policy to you simply and clearly. I gave you the benefit of the doubt because you are relatively new. I did not want my instructions to be misunderstood.
However, despite the simplicity of my instructions, you evidently did not understand the gist of my comment, because you persisted in arguing the point, despite my instructions. That has gained you an official warning. I see that you have one other already. If you continue to rack them up at this rate you could find your posting privileges in jeopardy.
And yes, I am Sister Clare. (Or, to quote the long-gone manhattan, “I am the hall monitor!”)
My first pitting! I only have 247 to go before I catch up with manhattan.
Well…given that it was a fairly long reply, possibly involving a significant amount of online research–he did claim to have cites, after all–I would not assume that he necessarily saw your warning prior to posting it. It’s at least plausible that all that typing and research took 30 minutes. Just sayin’.
While I get your point, I think the line can blur. How about: “I am of the opinion that George Bush is a mangrove tree.” I’ve said something that is nonfactual, but yet it’s my opinion and I might not be making any factual judgments on it. I mean… not “me” of course, but the narrattor me. My opinion is entirely different…
I thought about that, but decided that 32 minutes was probably enough for him to have seen the initial warning despite the length of his response. (And he should have previewed, anyway.) Also, I had said about 5 hours earlier to keep politics out of GQ. However, if denquixote says that he posted that long reply before seeing my other posts, I could take that into account regarding the official warning.