Moderation Questions

This is probably smart. I might do the same as well. Enjoy your break sir!

sorry this doesn’t work for me.

Maybe. But not much fewer.

We didn't do anything out of the ordinary.

Which is certainly a sufficient reason to take a break from this [strike]toxic waste dump[/strike] forum.

#metoo

+1

Come back soon. You're the best poster here.

Even though Rococo and I disagree on most things, I agree with you.

I'm gonna follow Rococo's lead and take a break for awhile myself.

I'm moving a few miles south from my current abode this week.

When I come back hopefully the emotionally-fragile lefties can at least make two posts in a row without frothing at the mouth.

(As an aside, frothing at the mouth is one of the signs of demon-possession btw.)

See y'all in a week or so!

Rocco sorta randomly started posting in volume in the MLB thread in SE sorta recently and it would be a damn shame for him to stop now right before the playoffs because of "politics".

SE is a great forum btw, and their mod is excellent.

Sounds like a good idea.

Without ascribing motivations to your post, I had a hiatus of about a year from online politics, which was nice. Now I find myself taking regular breaks from talking / discussing politics. Not because I actively avoid it, but because it becoming increasingly evident that it is no longer interesting.

I don't think politics is in a healthy place ideologically. Nor do I think it is in a healthy place technologically. Unfortunately, these two unfortunates also intersect through unregulated social media editorializing. Thus, even attempts at being grounded will just end up churned in a dumpster fire of whining and yelling, because it will be served by an algorithm that promotes controversy and enraging people. As a result, it spoonfeds us a seemingly endless supply of idiots, provocateurs and hatemongers.

We're probably at a point where it might be argued that it is unethical to discuss politics, because by doing so you are actively contributing to its downfall. Perhaps less so when done on archaic technology like this forum, but still probably a contributor.

On a less grandiose tangent, I think mainstream politics is dominated by orthodoxy, and it is becoming rarer and rarer to encounter personal opinion. Increasingly what you are faced with is just someone's social media feed, which they have turned into a part of their persona. The ensuing debate is usually neither intelligent, witty, clever or fun.

I'm not really a doomer who thinks we have bought a one-way ticket to hell. I think society has been in far worse scrapes than this one the last 75 years. However, I do think we're at one of the worst periods in modern political history for individual political thought and ideas, and I think people who lean in that direction politically are feeling increasingly disenfranchised and disinterested.

Anyways, thanks for the exchanges we have had over the years. I appreciated them, which is intended as high praise in these times.

lol, the politics cesspit is now actively ruining other subforums.

No, but that does make the subject interesting. Admittedly in the Chinese sense.

For some people, poltical discussion is their drug of choice and like any drug addiction, doses increase over time and i think that leads to those people moving towards the political ends of the spectrum.

But again, i think collectively people are going to start tuning out from politics a little more from here. Not juat here.

This forum was fine with browser/rococco/CN as mod. When bob the slob gets to post whatever and the mods go after luciom it's kinda telling. i'm not gonna place all the blame on one mod but......

one mod is causing the departure of the best poster

If rococo confirms he’s leaving because of me I will happily ask to be de-modded.

As for bobtheslob he has been banned more than any other poster the last couple of months

As for Luciom the official mod group stance is that he would have been permabanned years ago if he regularly posted on any other sub forum

As for moderation, the only consistency from the politics forum since its inception is that there is always someone bitching about the moderation

it's like the bat signal went out

You posted about me in the mod forum (I’m a mod) while I was actively posting, am I supposed to not respond?

I haven't noticed Rococo having a problem with Coordi or any other moderator. Not sure where H his is coming from

Rococo made a few comments about P&S being a free for all that I took as minor swipes at my moderation style but I don't really mind that stuff because he could moderate the forum however he wanted, but ultimately he didn't want to moderate the forum

I would hope that Nate wouldn't just lie about why Rococo left though. That would certainly be inappropriate

source: I made it up

I dont think hes lying. hes probably just wrong.

Coordi was brought in because things were not fine in this forum, and I was completely embittered by the complaining for a good minute.

There are two other active moderators in this forum, myself and King Spew, so it’s totally unfair to blame Coordi for the current state of things. None of us are reading every post in every thread.

Just stop.

Meh. I have never met a dog lover who got upset with a friendly dog jumping on them. If anything, if you are a dog lover you could view the reaction as a compatibility test.

I think these are both good posts. Me saying politics isn't interesting is a poor choice of words, as it obviously interests a lot of people. The allure of dopamine from social media is also undeniably strong.

A better way of putting it is that most of politics is no longer interesting in a healthy manner. There is still some neat engagement to be found where you can become informed or wiser, especially on the individual level. However, butting heads with the orthodoxies of social media is the opposite of that. These views were never really meant to be debated, they were meant to be wielded.

The development is intriguing though. Go back 15 years, and a lot of social media politics actually felt genuine and democratic. Sadly, that was the honeymoon phase when everything was young and beautiful, at least to a naive set of eyes. Now it is it just a sad drunken couple beating the **** out of each-other every weekend.

What I think I’ve noticed on forums is a sort of chance to impersonate the people you see on your feeds, a chance to try it out for yourself. Take for instance the odious “what is a woman?” question. Is prolific on feeds from people like Charlie Kirk and Matt Walsh etc. So sometimes it feels like people on the forum for the first time get to act like what they see and say this in the same style. Or choose any other example if you don’t like that one, but I think this phenomenon explains a bunch of why forums - which are one in level much than feeds because you can discuss and challenge ideas at length - end up looking so much like bad mimics of a change my mind “debate” that goes viral on social media.