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On May 24 2019 15:02 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On May 24 2019 13:50 Sermokala wrote:
You can just say who you want to be banned from the thread. This thread was made for that after all. Whether people need to be banned is up to the mods. But what I will say is that there are a few members who were heavily moderated for about a month. Eventually, the mods seemed to have simply lost the will. And I don't blame them. I've been a moderator on a busy forum before and it is quite taxing. My impression is that the mods plain and simply lost the war of attrition. There are so many posts in the thread right now with absolutely no moderation. Shortly after GH's thread was closed and people returned to the thread, those same posts would have been warned in a heartbeat. But it just kind of stopped eventually. They would need to be sending out so many warnings that they clearly finally just said "fuck it" and gave up. They will step in when the thread gets reallllllly bad, but they otherwise let the thread be notably less moderated than other threads on TL. But as I said: I don't blame them. Many of the people who need the most moderation also post an absolute shit ton. There's only so much you can do. To me, if I was a mod, I would ask myself a few questions: 1. What standards for the US politics thread do I want to be maintained? 2. Am I able to sustain these standards by regularly ***and quickly*** dealing with posts that need moderation? 3. If the answer to (2) is "no", then the question is how else the quality of the thread can be maintained. When moderators ban members, it is not always because they are literal nazis. There are some posters who are simply always going to need heavy moderation and it is appropriate to just ban them. Mods are not paid. Mods are the only people who are able to keep a forum clean, dignified and appropriate. If the mods lose their motivation, no one else can pick up their slack. They serve a very important purpose. When they decide that they simply have too much moderating to do to keep up, it means people need to be banned. Not because those posters are nazis or something, but because the forum quality is not being maintained. When mods are not able to keep up with moderation, the whole forum suffers.
Again you can name the people who you want to be banned from the thread. The guy who made this thread made it to express his greviences with people he wanted to be banned.
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The guy who misrepresented posts and declared he wouldn’t read or believe one person he mentioned earned a temp ban. I think it was for editing a mod warning. I’m sorry for how long I went on with people that thought it was a good foundation for inquiry. It was pretty clear that no minds would be changed from early on, and the only active posters are people I should generally ignore until their posting improves.
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On May 25 2019 00:30 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On May 25 2019 00:06 Mohdoo wrote:On May 25 2019 00:03 Excludos wrote:On May 24 2019 23:43 xDaunt wrote:On May 24 2019 22:20 Seeker wrote:On May 24 2019 20:27 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:
Assuming we're all adults to some.degree, just state your fucking position on topics if directly asked. Otherwise state, in writing, you have no comment.
Stop the damn games and get this shit moving. Danglars, XDaunt to some extent. GH, NewSunshine, Serm, JC, IgNe, Introvert.
Are these the general names people have issues with? Am I missing anyone? Those I've named. Step up or shut up. People come here for discussion, not to banter with ignorance that has no want to. Thank you. I will take a closer look at the posters you’ve listed. And we may have to consider locking the thread if things don’t get better. The problem is, and always has been, that the mods don't look at the posters not named Danglars, xDaunt, Sermokala, Igne, GH, Introvert, and the other similarly-situated, outside the leftist mainstream posters who have been banned over the years. The mods have systematically eliminated through either permabans or simple attrition many of the most interesting and smartest posters, regardless of where they lie on the political spectrum. The result is that the thread has been turned over to a class of poster that is decidedly uncurious and uninterested in engaging people with different ideas. If you go back and look at the original politics thread, you'll find some truly vibrant and at times, quite nasty debates on contentious topics. But what you won't find there is a chorus of fools repeatedly calling for the censorship of certain posters and their ideas. Such a notion would have been ridiculed by posters across the political spectrum in the old thread. In fact, you can even find instances where it was. Paralleluniverse, a very smart poster with whom I disagreed on damned near everything, made this point explicitly on multiple occasions and other leading posters in the thread agreed with him. The reason why GH's blog worked -- notwithstanding its greater intellectual and political diversity than the main thread -- is because the participants there share these "old school" political thread values. There is now a sizable group of posters in the politics thread who do not share these values and actively look to censor the people they disagree with politically. The mods have failed the political thread by indulging these calls for censorship. So now we get these multi-page group rants about which Mohdoo is complaining in which multiple posters call for a given poster to be actioned or censored. If the mods want to fix the thread, they should start by actioning anyone who makes such posts. How much tinfoil do you go through pr year if I may ask? Maybe instead of taking on the victim status, you could look at exactly why the posters you named here keeps getting regulated more than the others? Victim complex is typical in communities where 1 group hugely outnumber the others. That's why forum conservatives on many sites, not just TL, have an overwhelming victim complex. They have been like a 1:10 minority for basically the entire existence of the internet. This makes them always feel isolated and attacked. The same is true of democrats living in Alabama. It is just a natural psychological effect of being extremely outnumbered in opinionated discussions for a long period of time. xDaunt is just another example of something that has already been characterized. I wouldn't say I blame him for it, since it is something normal for humans to feel in his situation. But it doesn't mean his feelings are legitimate, its just how psychology works. It is normal to get really bitter when a large majority of people don't think your ideas are good. The human brain will naturally find explanations that reinforce the existing idea that we as people have good, true ideas that are ethical and justifiable. When overwhelming majority of people tell someone that isn't true, that person uses other mechanisms to still think that. While I don't expect better of Excludos, I do expect better of you. You've been around long enough to know exactly what I was talking about in my post. It has nothing to do with persecution of those with conservative viewpoints. In fact, the post itself makes it quite clear that I'm talking about something very different.
Lets not try to start any elitism based on how long we've been around (And I've been here as long as you).
The "vibrant times" stopped with Trump. The majority of us understand what he is, while a minority "bravely" defends his every action with a bright lack of evidence or a grounded realism. He created a "us vs them" mentality, that migrated to the thread. The minority in there who defends him sees everyone else as opponents. Instead of discussing good and bad policies, his constant indefensible actions have become the focus point. And with the minority in this particular thread defending him, the victim complex described above starts to hit home.
There have been little to no actions taken that I haven't agreed with, even when they were towards myself. The rules are clear (Even the ones I don't agree with, I try to respect them), and moderators aren't discriminating just because a small subset gets hit more often.
edit: I forgot to mention, but this post of yours proves something I've repeatedly been saying: You use way too many fallacies when you argue, starting off with ad hominem and appeal to pity. You're also a big fan of slippery slope, causal fallacy, and circular arguments. It's extremely tiring to listen to, and it does nothing but muddy up the thread as a whole, even if they're not strictly against the rules.
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United States43633 Posts
On May 25 2019 00:06 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On May 25 2019 00:03 Excludos wrote:On May 24 2019 23:43 xDaunt wrote:On May 24 2019 22:20 Seeker wrote:On May 24 2019 20:27 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:
Assuming we're all adults to some.degree, just state your fucking position on topics if directly asked. Otherwise state, in writing, you have no comment.
Stop the damn games and get this shit moving. Danglars, XDaunt to some extent. GH, NewSunshine, Serm, JC, IgNe, Introvert.
Are these the general names people have issues with? Am I missing anyone? Those I've named. Step up or shut up. People come here for discussion, not to banter with ignorance that has no want to. Thank you. I will take a closer look at the posters you’ve listed. And we may have to consider locking the thread if things don’t get better. The problem is, and always has been, that the mods don't look at the posters not named Danglars, xDaunt, Sermokala, Igne, GH, Introvert, and the other similarly-situated, outside the leftist mainstream posters who have been banned over the years. The mods have systematically eliminated through either permabans or simple attrition many of the most interesting and smartest posters, regardless of where they lie on the political spectrum. The result is that the thread has been turned over to a class of poster that is decidedly uncurious and uninterested in engaging people with different ideas. If you go back and look at the original politics thread, you'll find some truly vibrant and at times, quite nasty debates on contentious topics. But what you won't find there is a chorus of fools repeatedly calling for the censorship of certain posters and their ideas. Such a notion would have been ridiculed by posters across the political spectrum in the old thread. In fact, you can even find instances where it was. Paralleluniverse, a very smart poster with whom I disagreed on damned near everything, made this point explicitly on multiple occasions and other leading posters in the thread agreed with him. The reason why GH's blog worked -- notwithstanding its greater intellectual and political diversity than the main thread -- is because the participants there share these "old school" political thread values. There is now a sizable group of posters in the politics thread who do not share these values and actively look to censor the people they disagree with politically. The mods have failed the political thread by indulging these calls for censorship. So now we get these multi-page group rants about which Mohdoo is complaining in which multiple posters call for a given poster to be actioned or censored. If the mods want to fix the thread, they should start by actioning anyone who makes such posts. How much tinfoil do you go through pr year if I may ask? Maybe instead of taking on the victim status, you could look at exactly why the posters you named here keeps getting regulated more than the others? Victim complex is typical in communities where 1 group hugely outnumber the others. That's why forum conservatives on many sites, not just TL, have an overwhelming victim complex. They have been like a 1:10 minority for basically the entire existence of the internet. This makes them always feel isolated and attacked. The same is true of democrats living in Alabama. It is just a natural psychological effect of being extremely outnumbered in opinionated discussions for a long period of time. xDaunt is just another example of something that has already been characterized. I wouldn't say I blame him for it, since it is something normal for humans to feel in his situation. But it doesn't mean his feelings are legitimate, its just how psychology works. It is normal to get really bitter when a large majority of people don't think your ideas are good. The human brain will naturally find explanations that reinforce the existing idea that we as people have good, true ideas that are ethical and justifiable. When overwhelming majority of people tell someone that isn't true, that person uses other mechanisms to still think that.
Bizarrely conservatives seem to be certain that they’re the victims even when they’re the majority. Oppression against Christians, for example, by acknowledging that other religions exist. Or Danglars insisting that the SCOTUS is attacking conservatives while they control it.
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xdaunt makes far fewer logical errors than the average poster in the thread. most arguments there are not exercises in logical deduction anyway, so i assume most people conflate having the wrong opinion with logical error.
@mohdoo can you provide a link to a starting post for me that shows for a page or two the degeneration you are talking about?
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I'm not saying that the posters I listed should be banned. Just that they seem to be the majority of issues plaguing the thread every so often. I'll admit I get emotionally invested some times, but there are times where the conversation just stagnates and we're going in circles.
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i agree going in circles is a drag, and based on my reading of xdaunt’s two recent posts in this thread he agrees with that as well.
one way to fix that is if some posters practiced restraint in jumping in on attacks against certain posters. just let people state their opinion (or not) and stop contributing to situations where ten posters attack danglars for some stupid thing he says and we have a whole page of danglars responding to ten people saying roughly the same thing
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I also think, and correct me if I'm wrong, mods can jump in and try to get posters to move to PM. While I enjoy reading the beginning and middle of topics, 5 pages on abortion or whatever gets us nowhere for the most part. Especially if it is on my two posters going back and forth.
I appreciate everyone's input and candor about this. If we can all agree on steps towards solutions in here and then try to implement them on a personal level of responsibility, I'm sure we can get this thread back.
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Only five pages on a wide topic like abortion (Personhood? Weighting of rights? Rape/Incest/Life of mother? Past legislation? Present legislation? Extremism? Activism groups?) could be totally fine. I personally observed new voices coming in with different views, and questions, that don't post in high volume. I was mostly a reader not a participant in the last one that occurred. Sometimes 10 pages on the same topic is vibrant, and a different 10 pages could be stale -- same users, same basic arguments.
Those are usefully separated from the dogpiles. Cf. IgnE's example.
(previous)
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On May 25 2019 02:04 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:
I'm not saying that the posters I listed should be banned. Just that they seem to be the majority of issues plaguing the thread every so often. I'll admit I get emotionally invested some times, but there are times where the conversation just stagnates and we're going in circles.
If a number of people in the thread think I've been part of the problem lately, I want to know. I've been part of a lot of... hot? Discussions lately, or at least stuff I get impassioned over. I'm trying to bring it back around to a point where I can bring something productive to discussions more reliably, even if that means just lurking more for a bit going forward. I want to focus more on discussions that result in understanding, or at least communication, rather than debate that's focused on winning. I tell myself that's what I want, but holding to it is tough.
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For what my perspective is worth, you are not a part of the problem, NewSunshine.
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Well, he clearly is. Igne covered it well.
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On May 25 2019 04:05 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On May 24 2019 20:39 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Much like on other political issues, it's hard to find a consensus on who is a good or bad poster. Three of the posters you mentioned there are from my perspective excellent posters, and there are several not-mentioned posters that I think are worse than any of them.
I think it's a bigger problem that a lot of people, when confronted with a somewhat vague statement, decide to infer a bad interpretation rather than a good one, than that some people make vague statements. Not that I never have a problem with the latter, it certainly does happen. But then people, rather than ask 'hey, is this what you mean?', instead go 'oh, so this is what you mean. That's stupid as hell'. And that pretty much never ends up being productive in any way. The trouble I run into is person makes a vaugeish statement or uses a term with multiple definitions, I'll respond based on my interpretation. I will get told that interpretation is wrong, not how just that it is. I will ask a follow up question and told to read the original post again. I will ask more questions, no answers and frustration ensues.
I wanted to say that this is my major source of frustration in the thread, too. People who state something vague, refuse to clarify under any circumstances, but violently attack any attempt to answer to the vague statement because they feel that the interpretation of the responding person doesn't fit their own interpretation of their vague statement.
This mean that you are only left with two options. Either you can simply ignore the vague statement and let it stand as true consensus with all of its possible meanings, because none of them were challenged. Or you deal with that annoying frustration of debating unclear shadow arguments that constantly shift in meaning.
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On May 25 2019 05:15 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On May 25 2019 04:05 JimmiC wrote:On May 24 2019 20:39 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Much like on other political issues, it's hard to find a consensus on who is a good or bad poster. Three of the posters you mentioned there are from my perspective excellent posters, and there are several not-mentioned posters that I think are worse than any of them.
I think it's a bigger problem that a lot of people, when confronted with a somewhat vague statement, decide to infer a bad interpretation rather than a good one, than that some people make vague statements. Not that I never have a problem with the latter, it certainly does happen. But then people, rather than ask 'hey, is this what you mean?', instead go 'oh, so this is what you mean. That's stupid as hell'. And that pretty much never ends up being productive in any way. The trouble I run into is person makes a vaugeish statement or uses a term with multiple definitions, I'll respond based on my interpretation. I will get told that interpretation is wrong, not how just that it is. I will ask a follow up question and told to read the original post again. I will ask more questions, no answers and frustration ensues. I wanted to say that this is my major source of frustration in the thread, too. People who state something vague, refuse to clarify under any circumstances, but violently attack any attempt to answer to the vague statement because they feel that the interpretation of the responding person doesn't fit their own interpretation of their vague statement. This mean that you are only left with two options. Either you can simply ignore the vague statement and let it stand as true consensus with all of its possible meanings, because none of them were challenged. Or you deal with that annoying frustration of debating unclear shadow arguments that constantly shift in meaning.
I agree that this is the single most annoying type of argument to have.
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It's ok, GH has found an out, where you wait till someone explains for you what you mean and then claim that you meant what that someone wrote, even if that has nothing with what was previously written before.
Hard to tell what is more annoying, for to make vague statements but to never clarify, but only attack the other person for trying to clarify what that persone had written; or claiming not to have written something when in fact they did, or not implied something, when that is the only inference from what they have written.
It's like as if this isn't an online forum and you can just dig up a previous post from the last page or something.
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An example of something that is more annoying is when you made an awful characterization of GH's position on abolishing the police, I went back in the thread to dig up like 20 posts to show that you were wrong, got the agreement of ChristianS and Aquanim and a few others, and then you proceeded to completely ignore that and acted as if everyone agreed with your characterization of GH's position on abolishing the police, which you recently brought up again, unchanged, in the thread. I thought that was slightly more annoying than people having different definitions for words. But hey, ymmv.
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Are you talking to me? I do not recall. Can you point to the post? I don't post as frequently as some of you guys do. Often I would not continue posting if something interesting has happened and/or there are multiple posts in between when I read the board.
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On May 25 2019 06:03 Nebuchad wrote:
An example of something that is more annoying is when you made an awful characterization of GH's position on abolishing the police, I went back in the thread to dig up like 20 posts to show that you were wrong, got the agreement of ChristianS and Aquanim and a few others, and then you proceeded to completely ignore that and acted as if everyone agreed with your characterization of GH's position on abolishing the police, which you recently brought up again, unchanged, in the thread. I thought that was slightly more annoying than people having different definitions for words. But hey, ymmv.
This is exactly the problem. There's a large class of posters who do not properly follow or even understand the arguments being made in the thread. They think they do, but they don't. And then based upon their misreadings of what other people are posting, they proceed to shit up the thread with poor and frequently needlessly aggressive posts. This obviously is a bad enough problem by itself, but it gets compounded when other similarly situated posters join in and start agreeing with those poor posts. There's a pretty easy test to see whether you're a member of this class of posters or not. Just look at Igne's review of NewSunshine's posts directed at me that resulted in my latest ban. If you don't understand why Igne is correct, then you're in that class.
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EPT
