A&A mods acting contrary to their own charter.

Galvasean

'Sexist connotations' my tailpipe! Seriously, you need to stop looking for stuff to get offended about.

That said, I actually do agree with BB that renaming the thread to something along the lines of "General Hitchens Discussion' would be more helpful for users looking to debate his various merits or lack thereof.

Overheal

Brown Bomber wrote: »

A - You haven't show any evidence at all of the thread going in circles.

In fairness to the Mods (aside from being volunteers) this isn't a court of law or a democracy. No "Proof" is needed, though frequently less trouble to produce than not. In the case of trying to establish if a thread is getting cyclical? How many posts would I have to link to from this thread before you believed me when I said it got retardedly cyclical within only a couple days, yet consumed some 200-400 posts, by the same dozen people, about whether or not bla bla bla notfairtoambushcriminals moralityliberalheart bla thosepoorwouldberapists bla.

next,

B - The two week time period was made redundant by a watershed Mod Note from your co-mod Dades, which you thanked! Which specifically stated that the thread in question was 1) open..."to all Hitchens-related business" 2) was an..."outlet open to all" and 3) we were given the instruction to "knock yourselves out"

This came only 3 days before your warning.

The mods get to decide what gets made redundant, in fairness. You're welcome to ask and critique IMO but I think you're getting yourself into a lot of flak by speaking in a lot of Absolutes about things which are Not and that you have no control over. Just like I can suggest that mods do more to curtail troll-accusations but have in all accounts no authority to force them to do so.

I recommend you be a little more thoughtful about trying to rules-lawyer mods. This is not a court; there is no due process; they make the rules, and they can change them at any time without referendum. If you were here back when Terry modded AH, you'd completely understand.

Sarky

Bloody hell, those were the days.

ed2hands

Galvasean wrote: »

I think your obsession with that forum is getting a tad concerning...

Just saying, no offence intended. rant over

brimal wrote: »

It's not the forum he's obsessed with..

Your suspicions of my political bias are known to many already Brimal. And you're entitled to your opinion.

nozzferrahhtoo

ed2hands wrote: »

Circular thread?
Why is the Creationist thread still open then, if circular threads are supposedly closed?

The Hitchens thread appeared to be about one specific topic, one that does not come up all that often, and one that certainly does not derail other threads that often.... it was created to facilitate the temporary increase in posts on the topic due to Hitchens' death.... and after a time according to the mods was going nowhere.

The Creationist thread, similar to the atheism thread on the Christianity forum, is slightly different in its purpose however and it is advisable not to gloss over that purpose.

The Atheism V Creationism debate.... like the Theism V Atheism debate in the Christianity forum.... pops up A LOT and derails other threads a LOT. Constantly and not just temporarily related to someones recent death.

The function of having a "super thread" as a forum for this therefore is a lot higher than the thread about Hitchens. Both forums benefit greatly from having a thread where the mods can say "Do not derail this thread, if you want to discuss X then go to the super thread which exists solely for that purpose instead".

I have yet to see any threads that would benefit in this way from maintaining the Hitchens thread. Have you? In short there is genuine utility in maintaining a "super thread" on certain issues... a utility that I do not think applies in the case of the thread that this conversation is about. There was utility in such a thread due to the increased interest in Hitchens fueled by his death, but the utility was temporary and now interest will continue to slowly die down. Not so for the creationist debate one fears.

In fact the only useful thing I can get out of your post is the idea that maybe the mods in A&A have been tolerant of J C more than they should for longer than they should... but that's a whole different discussion.

strobe

ed2hands wrote: »

And then you get the likes of this garbage thread. :

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056511392

Which is perfectly acceptable of course.
Bet this one won't be closed too quickly.

Innane self-gratifying trollish back-slapping sometimes trumps intelligent dialogue/criticism it seems.

How could you (or anybody, anywhere, for any reason) possibly find anything whatsoever objectionable about that thread you linked to? I mean did you just pick a thread at random from the forum and blindly hope it supported some vague point you had in mind?

You're silly Ed.

Tigger

later10 wrote: »

There's an atheism forum?

What do they talk about.

I turned atheist when I was about 15. Then I moved on. Literally nothing else happened. That was the end!

they treat it like a religion

My name is URL

Tigger wrote: »

they treat it like a religion

Can open, stamps everywhere

Dades

Brown Bomber wrote: »

Yes, but the could have easily changed it with the stroke of a pen as I did in fact request of Dades. He never responded unfortunately...

Must have missed that one, sorry. It all kicked off around/during Christmas so there were other things afoot. Would have had no problem changing it though obviously there's not much point now.

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

In fact the only useful thing I can get out of your post is the idea that maybe the mods in A&A have been tolerant of J C more than they should for longer than they should... but that's a whole different discussion.

I don't even read that thread - Robin knows my feelings on it! I check reported posts that's about it.

Galvasean

re: The Creationism thread. I inquired about it before and the decision to make a 'superthread' for all things creationism was based on the one they have in the Christianity forum. In every instance in the past where the Christianity mods decided enough was enough and closed their Creationism thread the topic would start popping up all over ('infesting' if you will) the forum. It was deemed the best course of action to keep discussion of Creationism in one thread as other threads were being derailed at an alarming rate.
Similarly, in A&A around Christmas time a certain notorious poster (I don't like naming names on feedback when a poster is not around - but those familiar with the A&A forum will know who) who usually posts exclusively in the Creationism thread started posting forumwide, resulting in multiple thread derailments. Said poster was told to post such things in the creationism thread only or get banned from the forum completely and did so.
Around the same time a new poster arrived in the forum starting new threads on the topic of Creationism. As a result there were no less than 3 threads about Creationism/ID on the A&A front page so the new threads were merged (cue cries of censorship by the OP of the new threads).
I recall asking Robindch why the more notorious Creationism thread poster was tolerated at all and was told that his opinions / views are there to be debated (and perhaps more importantly seen for what they are by those curious enough to read them), just not spread across the entire forum.
I think the phrase commonly used in such situations is, "Give them enough rope to hang themselves with" as opposed to just silencing their opinions which gives them an opportunity to cry oppression which gives their arguments more credit than they deserve IMO.

nozzferrahhtoo

I can certainly give no argument against that given I am the one that goes around the forums here espousing the utility of keeping some people on that side of the fence talking.

With some of the users... and I imagine anyone who knows me will know which users I mean... I go out of my way just to keep them talking. Making a mockery of their own position they then do for me better than if they gave me their password and let me write their posts for them.

So I think this feeds back into my post above. There is genuine utility in maintaining a "super thread" of these types... which answers the accusation previously levelled against the A&A mods for closing one thread that is "going in circles" (the hitchens one) and not another (the creationism one).