You don’t recall correctly. I protested the warning the day I got it.
“But it’s the truth!” has never been accepted as an excuse for calling a poster “deceptive” outside The BBQ Pit, as far as I can remember.
I was the first (and, so far as I can recall, the only) poster ever warned for calling anything deceptive, be it poster or cite.
Which means the rest of us figured out before the fact that it would be wrong to do so.
Not a point in your favor, I’m afraid.
There was nothing about this moderation that suggested unfairness. There was given a good reason for why the post was not moderated: it was made after the question was answered, and largely stayed on topic. If it had led to a hijack, then it would’ve been moderated.
Nothing about that suggests that if the post had been pro-voter-ID that it would have been moderated differently. Thus, if you wanted to bring that up, you needed to bring up a counterexample that contradicted what the mod said. You didn’t.
You decided to whine. You didn’t even try to present it in a neutral tone. No, you decided to attack, with absolutely no evidence. That makes you come off badly.
I don’t doubt that, on occasion, the political leanings of the culture of this board lead to bad moderation. And, when that happens, it’s fair to bring it up, since the mods are trying not to be unfair in that manner.
But this is not that. It is just whining and accusations without substance. You have not in any way shown that what engineer_comp_geek said is incorrect, and that there is actually a liberal bias at work instead of what he claimed.
And what you don’t seem to get that attacking this particular situation, where a good reason was given for the moderation, makes you seem like all your other complaints are just as petty and invalid. It only hurts your case in the future if you do encounter actual unfairness.
Ah. Not publicly. Here’s the thread I can find that you started on the subject, wherein you stated:
Is this what you’re talking about?
Correct. I’m afraid to make any posts that might serve as a counter-example, for fear I’ll draw a warning. A counter-example would also violate Rule #2 of the forum, just as this one did. For this reason, I am unable to offer counter-examples.
Bricker, if I were you I wouldn’t be so worried about getting warnings. I don’t think you’re remotely close to being banned. So you may as well go ahead and do your thing, and if you start piling up the warnings you can become more circumspect then.
I’m pretty conservative myself and while I make a good faith effort to keep the rules, I don’t go about worrying that perhaps I might be in violation in some semi-ambiguous circumstance, if it seems to me that I’m in the clear. So far so good. 
Emphasis mine.
The bolded part is just utter nonsense that doesn’t follow from anything prior. You’re just continuing to claim that moderators are biased in favor of liberals. That seems to be your whole schtick, and no one is buying it.
This very example disproves your point. The first mention of voter suppression was one that made Democrats look bad. The response to it was a criticism of modern Republicans. Both were substantially factual, but the second was starting to veer into modern politics. It could easily have been the other way around, with a liberal-favoring comment countered by a conservative-favoring one. The moderator quite reasonably stated he would have eventually intervened if the back-and-forth was hijacking the thread. Do you have a problem with that? Your argument about allegations of racial animus being allowed and denying it being likely to be modded is inexplicable fantasy, stated without basis.
Furthermore, this whole “racial animus” thing is your own invention. Hari didn’t say anything about racial animus; he said “depriving blacks of the right to vote is still ongoing and it is no longer confined to the south. That’s what all the voter ID laws are about”. He didn’t impute more specific motives. Do you doubt that if blacks tended to vote Republican, all the sanctimonious voter-ID types would be doing everything possible to help them vote instead of making it as hard as possible for them to do so? I sure don’t doubt it.
Thank you for making the effort to speak for everyone on these boards. :dubious:
So you contend (as do others) that voter ID being used to prevent Blacks from voting is a fact and not a political opinion?
By “no one,” do you mean “no liberal poster,” or “no one at all?”
Yes, but that was referring to prior century behavior that doesn’t give rise to any political dispute today. Even the most fevered of Democrats on the board today admit that Democrats of those days deserved harsh criticism. So that so-called “first mention,” is not relevant to a list of potentially politically divisive comments.
Could it? I won’t risk making such comments in GQ, because the rule against them is clear. So in addition to having fewer possible sources for the conservative counter (because there are fewer conservative posters) there are still fewer conservative posters who are willing to risk a violation of GQ rules.
My problem is that this scheme, applied to this board, means that liberal-favoring comments are more likely to survive, unrebutted, than conservative-favoring comments.
I have explained the basis a number of times, most recently in my immediately preceding paragraph. If moderation is triggered by dispute, then a liberal who says, “Voter ID laws are racially biased,” is less likely to be modded than a conservative who says, “Voter ID laws are not racially biased.”
The reason is that on the SDMB, more people are likely to object to the conservative’s post and respond.
In what specific way do you imagine that “depriving blacks of the right to vote,” is NOT an accusation of racial animus?
To your final question: I think that the purpose of Voter ID laws is to ensure voter confidence in the outcome of close elections. If poor people voted Republican, I think the “sanctimonious” people would be just as eager for Voter ID, but also be eager to provide more funding to ensure it was easier for people to get one. This would happen regardless of whether the people were black or white, because the supposed barriers imposed by Voter ID are economic, not racial.
Bricker’s said previously that he wants to stack the moderator team with more conservatives. Knorf had a thread about it a few years ago (in which I participated.)
The subject arose because Terr had been banned but Brainglutten had only been suspended, even though Glutten had more warnings overall.
Presumably, Brainglutten’s eventual banning is further evidence of the moderator’s War on Conservatives, or something.
From that thread:
I’m certainly not saying you were deceptive, Merneith. But perhaps that quote, in which I have bolded a portion that’s relevant, may have refreshed your recollection a bit and will allow you to make an even more accurate summary.
Cut Merneith some slack. Given that you don’t seem to remember declaring that your warning “was not the result of bias,” others may be forgiven for misremembering your posts :).
I did. I explained, carefully, that I was sure Merneith was NOT being deceptive, but that a review of the posts might help to refresh recollection and allow an even more accurate summary.
Interestingly enough, later in that thread Merneith again repeats the charge, prompting me in response to the second repetition to say:
Not what you said, different in a key way. However, this is pretty far afield at this point.
I don’t know why you’d interpret Bricker’s statement this way because I can think of no way that your interpretation follows from what you are responding to. It’s quite clear what Bricker is asking - He’s asking that should a post be reported, the standard of pulling a thread off topic shouldn’t be used as a basis for whether or not to moderate. We can agree or disagree about that, but I think it’s appropriate to give it a fair summary so at least people are discussing the same things.
I think a challenge is that a chilling effect however real it may be, is difficult to demonstrate. One reason it may be difficult to demonstrate is because it may not exist. You have stated that you feel you experience this chilling effect however do you think another disinterested observer would feel the same? I think I align with you politically more often than not and I can’t remember ever experiencing a chilling effect. Though reading back through that historical thread I may now be the token mod 
I think this thread is a good example of each person approaching from their own perspective and viewing the matter at hand from that lens.
It seems pretty simple to me. Why not just moderate political statements in GQ? If we want to keep politics out of GQ, it serves no purpose to use a filter unless moderating those posts places some undo burden on the moderators. A rule that isn’t enforced isn’t much of a rule. And the more people get away with politicizing GQ, the more it’s going to feel normal to do so. Put on top of that the issue that has been raised in this thread, I don’t understand why there is a push-back from the moderators on enforcing this rule more rigorously.
No need to be harsh and draconian*, just some mild reminders that politics doesn’t belong in GQ.
*unless certain posters just don’t get the message
I don’t have to summarize anything, Bricker. All I have to do is point to the specific post in which you state that you’re trying to get conservative mods on the team.
Here’s a direct link to it:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18752090&postcount=342
And here, let me quote it.
In fact, pointing to your own words in which you explicitly state that you’re trying to get more conservative mods on the panel is the exact response I made to you two years ago.
As I said at the time, I’m not really interested in swapping verbiage with you. I just want people to see what you’re doing.