(Site is a graveyard - How can boards save itself?) Any update?

Im always reminded of this great quote

"Thinking in terms of left or right, conservative or liberal, is not an accurate way to understand the current cultural moment. A far more accurate lens is cognitive liberty: those who demand you think a certain way are on one side while those who do not are on the other."

We are far past the days of political discourse or debate when a certain outspoken percentage of the userbase consider those they disagree with as evil / nazis / racists / or whatever other power wielding buzz word the thought police come up with.

More "piling on" accusations.

Not everyone finds the same thing offensive.

I offended a poster who openly posted that they made a call to arms for backup in a thread because they were having difficulty. All I asked was how that backup was requested.

Should my posts, or anyone who thanked them, be sanctioned? Again, this is looking for very defined censorship, "opinion police" as Necro put it.

'thought police' isn't a buzzword for people you disagree with? or 'circle jerk' etc?

Who has called for that?

How is that any different?

….

A poster on this thread said transphobia should be banned, despite the definition of transphobia differing wildly from person to person. Another poster said any mention of the term illegal immigration should be banned as it was right wing phrasing to slur genuine asylum seekers. I would see initiating both of those posters views carte blanche (the transphobia comment seemed to imply that any dissenting position was phobic) as censoring debate. Of course boards is free to allow whatever it wants on it's platform so if they do decide to do that they can.

…and I'm sure both posters will say you are misrepresenting what they posted. You clearly didn't get the illegal immigration reference because that is not what she said.

I've seen how that poster reacts to discussion on the refugee thread, and my opinion of how that post is meant is coloured by that. The fact that they have been banned from that thread twice is indicative of their ability to argue in good faith.

Kindly in that case, give me a few good clear examples of where I 'soapbox'. Surely as you accuse me of this now & previously, you must be able to instance examples.

And then we shall see what 'soapboxing' is and judge it in the context of other posters comments.

Please advise further.

You said you would leave this because you admitted you were wrong in what you said ..and now here you are going on about it again.

"All I asked was how that backup was requested."

This is complete rubbish .

Stop trying to rewrite the story . You accused me and another poster at 1.30 am on the thread of pming people for a pile on . And you the one giving out to other posters here for mentioning pile ons ! I had to defend myself against a post that frankly was an attack and would have been reported anywhere else .

I am not going to sit here and let you try to make what I posted the fault . It was not what was said , what was done and you just lost the run of yourself making false accusations .

Are you now going to keep on telling stories ?

Take responsibility for your very incorrect posting and leave it out of the thread now as was agreed ..

I quite agree, some of the most grievous attacks on open debate come not from dictatorships, but in truth are attempted censure from so called liberals who want to shut down the exchange of ideas to suit their own agendas.

The evidence is the amount of threads you soapboxed yourself into a ban after multiple warnings to move on.

But faux indignation is part of your routine.

I know, but i kind of felt it had to be done…sorry.

Lads this is descending into outright bickering (mea culpa included) . Mods have been posting here in good faith to get Feedback on how to improve boards:

Suggestions made so far in thread:

Make abusive PMs towards mods a bannable offense. Sticky it to every thread and announce the change to ensure no one can feign ignorance.

More moderation of current affairs. Maybe some drive by active moderating of threads in action if mod time allows. think of it like random speed cameras in acting as a deterrence to crap posting.

Less moderation of current affairs.

More time given to context of post if post is reported as abusive (e.g. was this a consistent pattern of posting or done in frustration due to trolling).

Thanks moderation: Not a runner as too much mod interaction, too open to subjective interpretation and easy to deny (I clicked thanks by accident). Mods may of course silently note who is thanking abusive posts in contentious threads and may bear it in mind when moderating future reports if they can remember.

A clear pathway for entering user complaints about mods or moderating. Obviously since mods are not paid they probably won't welcome extra work so people should only use this for what they regards as particularly egregious acts.

Not sure if this is done, but are people who abuse the report button sanctioned. A lot of anger in threads can be when posters suspect people are reporting people for opinions they disagree with rather than genuine bad faith posting.

More visible moderation. If a poster is sanctioned for abusing reporting, or people are being warned for trolling state it in a thread. It's a visible sign that issues are being dealt with and also signals what is or isn't acceptable conduct.

Can people add more as they think of it.

Maybe I have lost the plot, but I thought people were asking for MORE moderation in current affairs?

Both more and less moderation of CA were suggested by different sets of posters.

That I believe is called 'expressing an opinion'. It's my opinion of the state of affairs that afflicts some parts of the site. I don't have to prove my opinions anymore than you do. You are free to disagree with my opinion.

And therein lies an important difference. You and I can exchange opinions in a moderate way. That's grand.

Moderators though should not be handing out warnings and thread bans on the basis of their own opinions. They should be based on the overall site & individual thread guidelines.

I always thought feedback threads were a place for posters to, you know, give feedback to moderators and hear from the moderators about whats going on.

The idea of going into a feedback thread and having a discussion with other posters is so **** asinine. Its like two lads standing in a queue for the bar arguing with each other about the price of beer. The lad behind the bar can hear you but thinks you're both idiots and hopes you go away soon.

I know the radio silence creates a vaccum that some people think its their job to fill but seriously, nobody opens a feedback thread to hear from the same boring posters, they want to see questions to and answers from the moderators.

Also, nobody over the age of twelve gives a **** about "Thanks".

Have a look down the list of thread banned posters on this thread: there are something like 80 posters listed and that's just utterly ridiculous. It's dysfunctional. I look down that list and easily pick out 20 names without any difficulty of posters who I think post in good faith. Some I might agree with and others not always. But they all have valid opinions on the subject. And it's the height of nonsense to ban such posters.

I'm just picking this one as I'm more familiar with the posters listed. There are a good many such threads where boards is just shooting itself in the foot everyday. If it were a business, it'd be gone as you don't generally get away too long with insulting your customers.

One US politics thread sounds like a good idea, it would allow for more free wheeling discussion, natural conversation without being accused of going off topic.

On that note Leg End reject suggested allowing threads to go off topic more often, as it mimics how conversations flow. Off topic moderation could be limited to shitposting rather than modding general chat.

Another suggestion was not to zombie or delete threads just because they are old. They can still be fun to read and threads like creepiest things that ever happened to you could go on for ever.

Yes, using the old trope of "that wasn't real communism" etc.