Disappearing threads in the politics cafe?

Alf Stewart.

Recently a thread just simply vanished from the cafe without an explanation as to why it vanished, or who vanished it.

The thread was entitled "apology" (or something) and centred around the.apologies being issued from the state to Sgt McCabe.

Anyone like to shed a light on to why it was deleted (rather than merged or locked) and by whom?

Thanks

Lovely Bloke

carerful now, threads giving feedback about the caf are just being summarily locked.

loads of circled wagons, it's like the Phoeno up in here.

fudge fudge, did you PM the mods(lol) first before coming here?

keep everything nicely behind closed doors like a good chap

dudara

Knock if off LB. Be thankful I don't delete your post for being off-topic and unhelpful.

Alf, I can see that the post has indeed been deleted, but I'll need to check the why

The Hill Billy

I deleted the thread. It had been started by a re-reg troll.

tHB

Alf Stewart.

The Hill Billy wrote: »

I deleted the thread. It had been started by a re-reg troll.

tHB

I see that the OP appears on the banned list alright, probably should have looked there first.

Widdershins

I know this is an oldish thread but so many feedback threads are now closed where are you supposed to comment on the politics-religion issue now? If there's an issue with the above on the Politics forum, people make a thread in this forum to discuss, then that thread is locked, often by a moderator who seems to deem it not worth discussing, rahter than because someone's been offensive or something, and in one case users were advised to go to a different thread that already existed for discussing the issue-but that thread had been closed weeks before!

The bans and thread closures in Politics is shortsighted because politics and religion inevitable do converge when some topics come up-because they are linked in reality, not because some posters want to give out about religion. And closing the query threads in Feedback continually disrupts conversations. It's very oppressive and more than a little weird.

For Reals

As discussed in PM, the EU Immigration thread has had major problems so we have had to be more heavy handed in it. Right now two posters are discussing the power of the Ethiopian military.
Europe and immigrants is a broad topic and religion has it's place.
However news dumping articles on 'the global creep of extreme Islamism' is exactly the kind of thing we'd rather avoid. We've had youtube links to anonymous videos, like some lad having video editing software and a youtube account is a reliable source.
The popularity of which people to vilify changes with the times. It's important we discuss facts pertaining to immigration and politics in a politics forum.
We should be able to say, 'I've no time for Calvinists' and move on, or 'I don't think Scientology will mix well with our culture or way of life', and move on. Nobody disputes ISIS exists. It's been noted some immigrants break the law. We should be capable of discussing EU Immigration without hardcore pro or anti [insert ethnic group or religion] propaganda, which sadly is often what we end up with.

Widdershins

For Reals wrote: »

As discussed in PM, the EU Immigration thread has had major problems so we have had to be more heavy handed in it. Right now two posters are discussing the power of the Ethiopian military.
Europe and immigrants is a broad topic and religion has it's place.
However news dumping articles on 'the global creep of extreme Islamism' is exactly the kind of thing we'd rather avoid. We've had youtube links to anonymous videos, like some lad having video editing software and a youtube account is a reliable source.
The popularity of which people to vilify changes with the times. It's important we discuss facts pertaining to immigration and politics in a politics forum.
We should be able to say, 'I've no time for Calvinists' and move on, or 'I don't think Scientology will mix well with our culture or way of life', and move on. Nobody disputes ISIS exists. It's been noted some immigrants break the law. We should be capable of discussing EU Immigration without hardcore pro or anti [insert ethnic group or religion] propaganda, which sadly is often what we end up with.

I wasn't referring to my own thread ban. What I mean is, there's currently nowhere that I can see on Boards where it is possible to discuss both politics and religion and how they influence each other. Those who are interested in current affairs can usually see the connection, but because of the highly sensitive atmosphere and other peoples apparent past transgressions, it's not possible to discuss it. Using my own ban as an example to illustrate my point about the Feedback threads being closed, though..I was about to post on a few threads and couldn't find one that was still open, but some of the thread participants had moved on to one or two that remained open, and I think that's possibly another reason why the subjects being discussed can mingle a bit. Apart from the fact that some of us believe they are actually interconnected. A similar thing happened when trying to find an open feedback thread.

JRant

Apologies if this is the wrong place to post this and if so please feel free to move/delete as necessary but what is the stance on the garda whistleblowers threads? The last one was closed for review over a week ago and is still in out of action. Is it being closed permanently?

Stheno

Widdershins wrote: »

I wasn't referring to my own thread ban. What I mean is, there's currently nowhere that I can see on Boards where it is possible to discuss both politics and religion and how they influence each other. Those who are interested in current affairs can usually see the connection, but because of the highly sensitive atmosphere and other peoples apparent past transgressions, it's not possible to discuss it. Using my own ban as an example to illustrate my point about the Feedback threads being closed, though..I was about to post on a few threads and couldn't find one that was still open, but some of the thread participants had moved on to one or two that remained open, and I think that's possibly another reason why the subjects being discussed can mingle a bit. Apart from the fact that some of us believe they are actually interconnected. A similar thing happened when trying to find an open feedback thread.

What exactly about religion and politics do you want to discuss? A thread on Eu immigration is hardly the place for that surely?

JRant wrote: »

Apologies if this is the wrong place to post this and if so please feel free to move/delete as necessary but what is the stance on the garda whistleblowers threads? The last one was closed for review over a week ago and is still in out of action. Is it being closed permanently?

A new thread on the inquiry that has started has been opened.
The last thread and the one prior to that were closed as posters were unable to stick to the facts being reported, and there were all sorts of speculative posts in the threads which could not be upheld, and despite multiple warnings people still chose to post in that manner.

Widdershins

Stheno wrote: »

What exactly about religion and politics do you want to discuss? A thread on Eu immigration is hardly the place for that surely?

That's not something anyone can say in advance as these things naturally come up and crossover in such conversations. Religions and the law, and politics, cross over all the time.

Stheno

Widdershins wrote: »

That's not something anyone can say in advance as these things naturally come up and crossover in such conversations. Religions and the law, and politics, cross over all the time.

Hmm well if you can't be more specific then no one can help you really.

There's a world religions forum for discussing religious matters, politics and legal discussion covers politics and the law.

JRant

Stheno wrote: »

What exactly about religion and politics do you want to discuss? A thread on Eu immigration is hardly the place for that surely?



A new thread on the inquiry that has started has been opened.
The last thread and the one prior to that were closed as posters were unable to stick to the facts being reported, and there were all sorts of speculative posts in the threads which could not be upheld, and despite multiple warnings people still chose to post in that manner.

Cheers Stheno, appreciate the update.

Stheno

JRant wrote: »

Cheers Stheno, appreciate the update.

You're welcome.

Widdershins

Stheno wrote: »

Hmm well if you can't be more specific then no one can help you really.

There's a world religions forum for discussing religious matters, politics and legal discussion covers politics and the law.

In an ideal world we could talk about them when they converge, without anyone suspecting we've got an ulterior motive or we're stirring trouble. My point of view is quite a clinical one and I can easily separate my feelings on the many aspects of religions and laws and politics if and when they cross over. I know there are three separate forums but hopefully you see what I mean when I say sometimes elements of the three topics combine.
The rules are the rules though and I accept that.

Stheno

Widdershins wrote: »

In an ideal world we could talk about them when they converge, without anyone suspecting we've got an ulterior motive or we're stirring trouble. My point of view is quite a clinical one and I can easily separate my feelings on the many aspects of religions and laws and politics if and when they cross over. I know there are three separate forums but hopefully you see what I mean when I say sometimes elements of the three topics combine.
The rules are the rules though and I accept that.

I guess you can start a thread in a forum you think is suitable and see how it progresses?

If it's one which descends as the immigration thread has on numerous occasions for reasons For Reals pointed out above, it's certainly not going to survive long in the cafe though.

Lovely Bloke

Stheno wrote: »

A new thread on the inquiry that has started has been opened.
The last thread and the one prior to that were closed as posters were unable to stick to the facts being reported, and there were all sorts of speculative posts in the threads which could not be upheld, and despite multiple warnings people still chose to post in that manner.

On this.

Is it possible that the mods card, ban and delete any posts/users that don't meet the required standard?

This policy of constant closing, opening new threads, threads reviews is silly and disruptive, needlessly so.

If people are breaking the charter, or thread specific rules then sanction them, but please, stop punishing the whole forum for the transgressions of the few, it's unfair.

dudara

LB, as a former mod, you should know how threads can literally "lose the run of themselves". And it can take a lot of effort from the mod team to clean up. Plus posters will have a lot of baggage invested in the thread. Sometimes it's just more effective to start a new thread and have a clean break.

That's my 2c. Every mod will have their own take.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

weisses

That whole "locked for review" is more and more used to steer attention away from the/A thread ... Nothing major was going on in the immigration thread .. And could be reviewed in 5 minutes ... specially considering a mod was in on the discussion as well

dudara

weisses wrote: »

That whole "locked for review" is more and more used to steer attention away from the/A thread ... Nothing major was going on in the immigration thread .. And could be reviewed in 5 minutes ...

A review can take quite a bit longer than 5 minutes, depending on the subject matter.

specially considering a mod was in on the discussion as well

Recently, mods faced criticism for moderating a thread in which they were participating. In fact, it's a general rule of thumb that mods don't moderate threads in which they're involved, unless really fast action is needed.

weisses

dudara wrote: »

A review can take quite a bit longer than 5 minutes, depending on the subject matter.

Ohh I know it can, but not at this instance ... 30 posts is what we are talking about here, Unless things happened days before no one picked up on

dudara wrote: »

Recently, mods faced criticism for moderating a thread in which they were participating. In fact, it's a general rule of thumb that mods don't moderate threads in which they're involved, unless really fast action is needed.

Well if you all of a sudden need to lock a thread again for review in the middle of a discussion I label that as fast action

point still stands that the phrase "thread locked for review" is not always about "a review"

Stheno

Lovely Bloke wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

For the most part we do, but with the recent whistleblower threads, it made sense to close them rather than have people come into a thread where perhaps 500/1000 posts later we've done a major clean up, people don't see that and jump straight into posting the way prior to a clean up. Sometimes a clean break stops that.

Permabear wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

On this note Permabear, there wasn't a single reported post in relation to the thread you reference yesterday until 23:54, after which a mod warning was put on the thread. As you'll know from being a mod, we as mods don't read every single thread, so reporting posts is useful if you are feel users are breaching the charter.

If you've a problem with posts not being actioned, then that's something to take up with the cmods tbh.

weisses wrote: »

That whole "locked for review" is more and more used to steer attention away from the/A thread ... Nothing major was going on in the immigration thread .. And could be reviewed in 5 minutes ... specially considering a mod was in on the discussion as well

dudara wrote: »

A review can take quite a bit longer than 5 minutes, depending on the subject matter.

Recently, mods faced criticism for moderating a thread in which they were participating. In fact, it's a general rule of thumb that mods don't moderate threads in which they're involved, unless really fast action is needed.

weisses wrote: »

Ohh I know it can, but not at this instance ... 30 posts is what we are talking about here, Unless things happened days before no one picked up on

Well if you all of a sudden need to lock a thread again for review in the middle of a discussion I label that as fast action

point still stands that the phrase "thread locked for review" is not always about "a review"

I locked the thread yesterday after there were a slew of reported posts, and after looking at just the last page.

I then spent about an hour reading through the previous 6 or 7 pages or so, trying to check if posts which were potentially actionable had arisen from on topic debate which had skewed off kilter (e.g. I'd no idea why one poster was talking about the arms industry in Ethiopia, and read back to see if there was any previous reference which made it relevant). It's not a case of locking a thread for the sake of it, sometimes it's easier to lock a thread, especially with the likes of yesterday when it appeared to be going completely off topic, to give a mod/s time to go through the thread and check with other mods if there is agreement on what action to take.

The immigration thread/s have been a huge timesink since their inception, and while it's accepted that it is an important discussion that should take place, it's now getting to the point where failure to abide by the charter and the specific rules for that thread, could result in it being shut permanently.

If closing a thread to carefully review it offline, and get it back on track takes a day, then surely that is better than mods getting to the point of spending so much time moderating a discussion online that it's shut permanently?

Additionally, with how the thread was going yesterday, as I'd have gone through the 6 or 7 pages of posts I needed to, if the thread was still open, it's likely that I'd then have had another two or three pages to go through once I was finished with those so it was easier to be able to close it and review it.

It's reopened now, with another reference to the warning in the op, a request to keep on topic, stop with the sniping that went on yesterday, and to report posts if you've a problem with them.

weisses

Stheno wrote: »

I locked the thread yesterday after there were a slew of reported posts, and after looking at just the last page.

I then spent about an hour reading through the previous 6 or 7 pages or so, trying to check if posts which were potentially actionable had arisen from on topic debate which had skewed off kilter (e.g. I'd no idea why one poster was talking about the arms industry in Ethiopia, and read back to see if there was any previous reference which made it relevant). It's not a case of locking a thread for the sake of it, sometimes it's easier to lock a thread, especially with the likes of yesterday when it appeared to be going completely off topic, to give a mod/s time to go through the thread and check with other mods if there is agreement on what action to take.

The immigration thread/s have been a huge timesink since their inception, and while it's accepted that it is an important discussion that should take place, it's now getting to the point where failure to abide by the charter and the specific rules for that thread, could result in it being shut permanently.

If closing a thread to carefully review it offline, and get it back on track takes a day, then surely that is better than mods getting to the point of spending so much time moderating a discussion online that it's shut permanently?

Additionally, with how the thread was going yesterday, as I'd have gone through the 6 or 7 pages of posts I needed to, if the thread was still open, it's likely that I'd then have had another two or three pages to go through once I was finished with those so it was easier to be able to close it and review it.

It's reopened now, with another reference to the warning in the op, a request to keep on topic, stop with the sniping that went on yesterday, and to report posts if you've a problem with them.

I thought it was because of the 30 ish posts from Yesterday .. Didn't know you had to go through the whole Ethiopian debacle as well

Stheno

weisses wrote: »

I thought it was because of the 30 ish posts from Yesterday .. Didn't know you had to go through the whole Ethiopian debacle as well

Yeah, I wasn't just going to look at the posts from yesterday without trying to get some sense of how the whole thing arose, I'd not been following the thread for a few days. Then as I went back, I came across the Ethiopian debacle and had to read back further to see where that came from.

The long and short of it was one person got a day off for not backing up what they said, and I've reopened the thread asking people to keep on topic rather than the rather longwinded diversion we had which lead up to yesterday.

Hopefully that gives you a bit more insight into why these things take time, it's not a case of going in to say just yesterdays posts and doing a slash and ban/burn on them, that would be unfair and could justifiably be queried, if we didn't check back for a bit more context.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Stheno

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

I'm not being smart here, but have you got some examples? I know that's a mod reason a lot in the politics forum, but I'm not sure it would be one that's commonly used in the cafe?

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Quin_Dub

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

I was the one that closed all of those threads , all at least a year ago it has to be said.

Absent creating an entire editorial guideline for posters we have expect that posters have a certain amount of common sense when creating threads.

Boards is a discussion site most especially in fora like Politics or Politics Café, where people can share their opinions and look to elicit responses and counter arguments .

In the examples above -

In the 1st Thread the OP simply said , in effect "Here's some random information I found , discuss" , They offer no opinion , no personal input nothing. In my opinion that was not a post worthy of an OP and was not setting the thread up for any chance at being successful.

The 2nd Thread is just a series of questions , again without any semblance of an opinion from the OP.

In the 3rd example , the OP is clearly a troll and the thread was shut down , having said that I explained why I closed that thread in my note.

Here's a more recent example of a thread I closed for not meeting a minimum standard - I think my closing post gave sufficient detail as to why it was closed.

I take your point that clearer explanations need to be given when we close threads . I'm not sure that "posting guidelines" would really help here as they could never ever hope to cover all the possible scenarios..

As the Charter says :- "Common sense and Mod Discretion will be used, just because we don't ask you not to open the plane's door at 20,000 feet doesn't mean it's OK to do so."

So ,to sum up - We , as Mods need to improve the Mod Notes when closing threads to more explicitly outline the reasons why but equally posters need to use basic common sense about how and what they post to ensure that the forum works.

AlekSmart

Stheno wrote: »

I locked the thread yesterday after there were a slew of reported posts, and after looking at just the last page.

I then spent about an hour reading through the previous 6 or 7 pages or so, trying to check if posts which were potentially actionable had arisen from on topic debate which had skewed off kilter (e.g. I'd no idea why one poster was talking about the arms industry in Ethiopia, and read back to see if there was any previous reference which made it relevant). It's not a case of locking a thread for the sake of it, sometimes it's easier to lock a thread, especially with the likes of yesterday when it appeared to be going completely off topic, to give a mod/s time to go through the thread and check with other mods if there is agreement on what action to take.

The immigration thread/s have been a huge timesink since their inception, and while it's accepted that it is an important discussion that should take place, it's now getting to the point where failure to abide by the charter and the specific rules for that thread, could result in it being shut permanently.

If closing a thread to carefully review it offline, and get it back on track takes a day, then surely that is better than mods getting to the point of spending so much time moderating a discussion online that it's shut permanently?

Additionally, with how the thread was going yesterday, as I'd have gone through the 6 or 7 pages of posts I needed to, if the thread was still open, it's likely that I'd then have had another two or three pages to go through once I was finished with those so it was easier to be able to close it and review it.

It's reopened now, with another reference to the warning in the op, a request to keep on topic, stop with the sniping that went on yesterday, and to report posts if you've a problem with them.

If I am the "Ethopian Arms Industry" poster you refer to (http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=102834037&postcount=1508),then you may have noticed my Ethopian interest was sparked by a previous post by Loclach (http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=102829177&postcount=1504).

Admittedly,I could see no direct link between the Joe McHugh TD article referenced by several other posters,but since Loclach's post did reference the costs of "subsidising" Ethopia and particularly it's Coffee Production capability.

I drew some parallells between Ethopia's Coffee Industry,It's State Owned Airlines very obvious success (in Ireland also!) and the country's position as a source of significant numbers of refugee/migrant numbers into Europe.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=102829177&postcount=1504

Those reaching Italy come primarily from Africa (Nigeria 20 per cent, Eritrea 12 per cent, Gambia/ Guinea/Sudan/Ivory Coast 7 per cent each).

In the Mediterranean as a whole, five nationalities — Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria and Eritrea — account for 68 per cent of all arrivals.

With the significant impact of the historic Eritreian/Ethopian conflicts and the resultant increase in non,or poorly documented people from Ethopia claiming to be Eritrean,it is of some relevance to the EU Immigration thread.

How it was introduced via the Deputy McHugh article remains to me,unclear,perhaps Loclach was sidetracked ?

Permabear

This post has been deleted.