Self Moderation of the On-Topic Forum

There are also centre-right people, even in the US. I find it very telling that you deliberately left those out.

If you want a concrete example, the suggestion, for instance, that not every Republican voter is a fascist, and that some of them may have valid reasons to not vote Democrat can set people off. And I have seen this happen plenty of times, but you'll excuse me if I don't go dig through half a million posts to find specifics.

Edited by Redmess on Dec 10th 2023 at 11:36:43 AM

I'd say even center right in the US at this point still fits within the democratic tent and tends not to attract that much hostility (so long as they aren't far right trying to pass off as center right).

agreed

See I have not left them out. To echo you, I find it very telling that you immediately accuse me of leaving someone deliberately. I will note that I generally have a great dislike to be accused of bad faith.

Edited by Risa123 on Dec 10th 2023 at 11:41:40 AM

Sorry Risa, I just misread your post, my apologies.

Well, it's been a few years, but back when I frequented the thread, people were still very hostile to centrists.

Edited by Redmess on Dec 10th 2023 at 11:44:07 AM

Comments criticising someone's actions and legacy are fine. In Kissinger's case, comments expressing regret that he was never prosecuted were also within the rules.

And there have been a few comments (on US Politics and RIP thread) that we considered borderline on gravedancing but are still there because they had enough of those elements.

The ones that were the clearest thumps were the blatantly over-the-line "hooray he's dead" / "woke up to find X is finally in hell - great day" / "hope he dies of his wounds" ones with no other content, not even trying to discuss the legacy or person.

Edited by Mrph1 on Dec 10th 2023 at 11:01:29 AM

Fine. I should note US pol tends to use label "centrist" to call people who are "both sides bad" not people who are actual centrist politically. Those as noted are actually actively part of the Democratic Party and have chosen a side. Frankly, your seeming lack of knowledge here is not helping your case. Honestly, I'm not sure if we should even continue, because I do in fact think that there is no valid reason to vote Republican. Now, I would not say fascist because that assumes an intent to install (fascist) dictatorship. I do not think that is universally true, but I do not think their motivations are anyhow good either.

Edited by Risa123 on Dec 10th 2023 at 11:58:26 AM

Are there any large blobs of things that end up in the US politics thread and don't have such a habit of turning uncivil? Again, just for sake of reducing thread scope, because it doesn't seem like it's "anything related to current events in the US at all" that's such an issue, although of course I might be wrong.

I'm not entirely convinced there's a time-spent-moderating-a-less-important-thread issue.

I'd need to know more about exactly what kind of burden this is actually placing, because as far as I can tell, moderation doesn't seem to be struggling for time to do anything important that only moderators can handle, especially with the existence of engineers who took a lot of the specific "button that needs a trusted person to push it" tasks over.

Is there actually an issue at all? Perhaps the time spent moderating the thread is disproportionate to its (perceived) value, but is the time spent moderating it a significant chunk of time that would otherwise be devoted to other things? Because there's the very real possibility from where I stand that the moderation time spent on the thread would not go into other tasks, and also the possibility that it may not even be that much time at all in a real sense, merely in a relative sense.

Edited by Florien on Dec 10th 2023 at 3:33:22 AM

Is it that offenders generally have thosue characteristics or that offenders are specific know individuals?

Because the later seems solvable with just OTC banning said individuals. While the former is a harder solve.

Engineers can't...

• See hollers
• Thump posts
• Modpost
• See or annotate a troper's thump/notifier/suspension history
• Access the mod/admin-only discussion threads
• Add or amend suspensions and subforum blocks

For what it's worth, the typical flow of an OTC report is:

• Holler received
• Mod visits the thread, thumps any blatant breaches, then reads the page for context on borderline cases.
• Mod checks the relevant troper profile/history to see if we have recurring problems
• Suspensions or blocks are applied if need be. Notes are added (so that a different mod can handle any EB appeal).
• A modpost is added if appropriate - e.g. a "keep it civil" or "keep it on-topic", or an explanation as to why something broke forum rules.
• If something's borderline, if it's a recurring problem from a familiar name, or if it's a major issue on the thread, it probably gets flagged in mod discussions too (either for second opinions / consensus on next steps, or as a "keep an eye on this rather than waiting for hollers").

Once all that's done:

• There may be "why was I thumped?" appeals via PM
• There may be EB appeals from anyone who's been suspended. For grey areas and 'last chance' appeals, these may also need agreement from multiple mods.

Edited by Mrph1 on Dec 10th 2023 at 12:13:58 PM

Also, moderation is a volunteer job. There is no expectation that any of us must moderate a particular part of the website and there never will be such an expectation.

So, if nobody is willing to babysit a certain OTC thread then nobody is going to. If it becomes too much of a problem it is then liable to be closed rather than babysat. Moreover, as was noted in the FAQ moderation thread, most people are not going to volunteer OTC moderation.

And to add to that, the mods who are most active on OTC also tend to recuse themselves from some of these decisions (rightly, imo) because they've been part of the conversation on those threads.

It's not a hard rule, and I know there are cases where we're comfortable thumping or modposting because we're 'first to the scene' and it's a clear breach of forum rules. But generally, I think we all prefer not to.

(This also extends to things like EB appeals after forum bans - certain mods have recused themselves because of interactions with those users)

Repeating my question since it was ignored. Will the US Politics Thread stay closed until slow mode functionality is capable for it, is there another criteria for when it'll be reopened, or is it just permanently banned?

Your assumption from my comment was correct, It won’t be open until we have slow mode. We don’t know currently when that will be because we are pushing a lot of big changes to the wiki at the moment and don’t have time currently for extra forum functionality.

Maybe what's needed instead is a total thread restart?If I've learnt anything about long threads is that they pick up baggage over time,what's needed is firmer foundations from start,as in additional guidelines for the topic

Edited by Ultimatum on Dec 18th 2023 at 12:53:01 PM

I don't see how that would help. The page count is not the problem here. The baggage will not suddenly be gone just because we delete the thread and start over.

Edited by Redmess on Dec 18th 2023 at 2:07:19 PM

No is talking about deleting the old topic though?

Edited by Ultimatum on Dec 18th 2023 at 1:09:13 PM

The issues is the no matter the thread, if the topic is US politics it will attract the same regulars (rises hand).

I thought that was what you meant, but again, I don't see how starting an entirely new thread will solve things. The baggage is not in the thread, it is in the people who post there.

Has there been a decision on how slow mode will be implemented into the U.S Politics Thread? Some people have proposed it being on full time but I have to disagree with that approach, it hampers the ability to have a discussion on any topic if you have to wait 2 hours between posting.

I definitely would have it turned on 24 hours or so before election day.

My understanding is that the intention is to have the tool be deployable at moderation discretion with time limits set by the enabling moderator.

That’s why changes need to be done for it to be implemented, as at present each activation of slow mode needs the admins to set it up and do any alterations.

Ignore

Edited by JHD0919 on Jan 1st 2024 at 10:45:10 AM

I'll parrot prinzessinnen-und-raben's question.

On the list of banned OTC posts, "Justifications for piracy" can mean either literal piracy and digital piracy. Maybe it's not that important, but I think it wouldn't hurt to have the latter or both specified.

I think the literal piracy already falls under the "don't advocate for crime" rule.