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

The whole issue of "ruining a thread" is extremely dubious because it's often the troll who perceived the offense against their trolling. It's certainly way above the pay grade of posters to be calling out anyone else for "ruining a thread". Leave it to the mods.

Nobody is asking for the mods to "fact check" posts and users understand that the mods are up to their eyeballs trying to deal with actionable items across the site.

What people are saying, however, is that there are a number of posters on here, some of them for years, who merely seagull into discussions and attempt to wreck them because that's how they get their jollies. These types of poster have no intention of actually discussing anything at all. They just want to engage in low level trolling and to wind people up and they have no constructive element whatsoever.

And they do it again and again.

Part of the wind up is to post baseless, so called, "opinions", often continuously and across multiple threads (even threads where the topic isn't even appropriate), that are deliberately designed to flame bait and probably aren't even the real opinion of that particular poster in the first place.

That kind of thing is absolutely instrumental in the problems the site is having and why a lot of users, both old and new, are very disgruntled at the moment.

You can tell very quickly when someone has posted something that they are unsure about or an ill-informed opinion that can lead to a genuine discussion and we've all formed opinions on matters that can be half baked. That's fine and part of discussion.

But there are people on here whose only reason to be on here is to wind other people up.

I beg to differ, if a poster is posting, just their opinion, then sure, they can do it, but can expect to be challenged on it. If they have no particular reason to hold the opinion, then the poster should be aware it can be torn apart.

If a poster posts something as fact, then yes they absolutely should be a need for them to back that up with actual evidence/facts, otherwise everyone can just post wherever lies they want. What would be the point of that?

Define "a need for them to back that up" What kind of need: an obligation, a rule?

People say a lot of things about a lot of things in here, in life. Do we all have all the facts and references at our disposal when we make claims here or elsewhere?

Personally, I don't like claiming anything as facts without some evidence, but I think people need to recalibrate the actual stakes and what and where exactly we're all arguing here: this isn't a newspaper of record, a law court or the Roman Senate. It's a relatively obscure Internet Forum, with anonymous contributions. People shouldn't be shocked that standards of debate aren't that high.

And especially so in CA, which was spun off from After Hours: witless drivel was already baked into it from birth.

If you ask for evidence off a poster here for a claimed "fact" and they can't provide it, sure, that's as good as them admitting that it's only an opinion in any case. Most readers of a thread will see that for what it is.

In fairness Suvi, we don't know what post you've been warned for and we couldn't discuss the moderation of it even if we did.

That post was a general comment, not specific to any poster.

No. It has the warning in thread, everyone can see it.

It was always my understanding that moderation couldn't be discussed.

Why would I be posting on someone else's behalf, I don't follow?

Do you mean if something is from IMHO, evidence proof has to be provided too, "opinions" not welcomed?

Honest opinions can be backed up by evidence or, at least, some ideas as to why someone has formed a particular POV.

A genuine opinion isn't just something you pull out out your arse. It's something that you form over time based on evidence that you gather.

Asking a poster to back up what they're saying and to show their basic reasoning isn't something that should be discredited.

I think it depends what evidence people are asking. There are some ridiculous claims made to win arguments or defeat discussion. A recurrent theme on threads to do with trans issues is any mention of men being stronger than women, or male puberty being advantageous in sport relative to female puberty is greeted with denials or asking for proof when the requester knows full well it is true but want people to waste time searching for scientific articles to back up the bleedin' obvious. These people then will turn on some arcane point in whatever proof is provided to act like it is not true or ignore the proof only to bring it up again at a later stage. They are 100% trolling and baiting but you can't call them out on that as that is backseat modding.

Not necessarily- they might feel the poster is not asking for genuine reasons and don’t want to get into a back and forth with them derailing the thread and possibly getting themselves a warning.

That does not mean the other poster can’t defend their position. They might not feel they need to answer a particular poster.

Facts or numbers, yes, they are set in stone, true or not true so they can be credited or discredited.

Why quit modding, your own choice?